Angepinion: 5 Visual Novel Hot Takes

[NowItsAngeTime]

Who doesn't like talking about some unpopular opinions or hot takes sometimes? In this video I'll highlight just a few of them I have related to visual novels.

 

[GXOALMD]

I can't think of any VN take I've ever heard that I agree with more than Higurashi having pacing issues.  I started Higurashi back in February of 2018 and have been on and off slowly picking away at it since.  Almost four years later and currently I'm just a couple hours into Tatarigoroshi because I just can't subject myself to that much nothing for long periods of time.  I really liked the last couple hours of Onikakushi and I wish there was more of that.

[snakezenn]

1. For localizations, I feel like they should be as close to the original as possible, I feel like even changing the small things will lead to bigger changes so should be kept as close as possible.

2. When I first started I got a bunch of the all ages versions of VNs on steam and then found out that they censored a lot of stuff and even messed up routes such as in If My Heart had Wings. Now, I do not buy from any company that censors for western audiences. Censor=No buy

3. I have not watched too many anime that I have played the VNs for so no real opinion here.

4. I have so far avoided VNs with any gameplay, to me that makes them not VNs. When I play a VN I want a story where I can just scroll and read.

Edit: There have been a few anime that have VNs and generally they go with the route that sucks the most aka canvas 2 would never do the route they went with unless required to.

5. Can't really say I know which ones a highly rated other than a couple you mention which I have not read.

Edited January 30, 2022 by snakezenn

[LAsuka]

No hot takes here. I actually agree with most, if not all of your points.

1. I particularly prefer if localizations are kept as faithful to the original as possible. Most VN fans are able to generally distinguish anime/japanese culture to a certain extent, so jokes that play with Japanese culture isn't too much of a problem. Localizing things that involve honorifics often seems extremely out of place, and should be avoided. On the other hand, when the jokes employ Japanese wordplay or obscure Japanese folklore references that general audience would not understand, localizing them is a plus in this regard. Also enjoy how some localizations are super creative i.e. One of the ones that I can think off the top of my head is in HoshiOri Sora's route, where the Umeboshi --> Hoshi reference was replaced with MuSTARd, which was really creative, if completely missing the point.

2. Love H-scenes, but must be placed in proper sections, not disrupting the plot. Also, don't like it when MC/heroines personality change in H-scenes, especially when the MC becomes S all of the sudden, or when the heroines suddenly become nymphomaniacs. Also agree that H-scenes should be vanilla, apart from the lightest kinks. I absolutely hated the H-scenes in Muramasa. I usually don't mind H-scenes even if its unnecessary. I do mind when it comes to Muramasa, with its completely distasteful and awful H-scenes, which are ALL disturbing to some extent, even the "pure love" ones. 

3. To be fair, most VN adaptations are terrible, because of the nature of VNs. Any VN adaptation not given a sufficient enough timeframe is doomed to failure. Like Muv-Luv Alternative. The best VN of all time in English was heavily butchered and barely completed its first, and shortest arc in 12 episodes. How are they going to cram in 2 extremely long arcs in the next 12 episodes? Its already doomed for failure. And it had 24 episodes. Most VNs get 12, and can barely hit the plot beats. Grisaia completely rewrote its story and CHOSE to neglect all the girls except the two girls that had the best plotlines to try and circumvent this, and still didn't do well. Also, unless your favourite girl is the main girl, she will never 'win'. When there is no main girl, its worse because they will just not go with any girl instead.

4.  Gameplay VNs are another breed of games to me. However the lines blur when gameplay is part of the story, but not a core element of the game, like in Princess Waltz and Shikkoku no Sharnoth.

5. Really hated Dies Irae. For something considered the Holy Grail of Chunni-ge, I got so put-off by the pretentious philosophizing and pesudo-literary bullshit they pull, and I have a high tolerance for that, since I majored in literature. Dropped it after Marie's route and will probably never complete it unless I have a change of heart.

Edited January 30, 2022 by LAsuka

[Zalor]

15 hours ago, LAsuka said:

Really hated Dies Irae. For something considered the Holy Grail of Chunni-ge, I got so put-off by the pretentious philosophizing and pesudo-literary bullshit

>Holy Grail of Chunni-ge

>I got so put-off by the pretentious philosophizing and pesudo-literary bullshit

That's pretty much the definition of what Chuunige are though lol. Not saying you should like Dies Irae or anything since we all have different tastes. But criticizing it for that is like criticizing a Nakige for being too sad. 

[LAsuka]

1 hour ago, Zalor said:

>Holy Grail of Chunni-ge

>I got so put-off by the pretentious philosophizing and pesudo-literary bullshit

That's pretty much the definition of what Chuunige are though lol. Not saying you should like Dies Irae or anything since we all have different tastes. But criticizing it for that is like criticizing a Nakige for being too sad. 

Really? Because I actually really like Chunni-ge from the likes of Akatsuki Works and Akabei-Soft 2. Works like Fate, Comyu and Ayakashibito rank pretty high on my list, and lack any sort of cumbersome philosophizing on the mundanity of life and the transcendence of killing and death or some sort of nonsense. Of course our tastes are different and there are many people who like Dies Irae and think that the philosophy is profound and awe-inspiring. But as someone who is trained, by virtue of my profession, to critically analyse text, the philosphizing just fell flat, was bloated, and went on for WAAAY TOO LONG. 

[Zalor]

3 hours ago, LAsuka said:

Really? Because I actually really like Chunni-ge from the likes of Akatsuki Works and Akabei-Soft 2. Works like Fate, Comyu and Ayakashibito rank pretty high on my list, and lack any sort of cumbersome philosophizing on the mundanity of life and the transcendence of killing and death or some sort of nonsense. Of course our tastes are different and there are many people who like Dies Irae and think that the philosophy is profound and awe-inspiring. But as someone who is trained, by virtue of my profession, to critically analyse text, the philosphizing just fell flat, was bloated, and went on for WAAAY TOO LONG. 

I was actually being a tongue and cheek, mostly because I do agree with your sentiments. It's something I addressed in an article I submitted for an e-zine recently about Dies Irae. But mostly I was referring to what Conjueror, one of the English translators of Dies Irae, had to say about the work when reflecting on it: "It might help you to know that the word chuuni in Japanese actually denotes pseudo intellectualism — the use of fancy words to appear cool and sophisticated for showing off superficially rather than in pursuit of any sort of actual depth." (full blog post here). Actually, regarding Dies Irae I think he nails it in that post. Since he addresses its many flaws point blank, but also does a good job defending its merits as well.   

[littleshogun]

1. I suppose Bubby in Kamiyaba is indeed quite problematic, although it's not like I can't try to get used to it though. For the first topic in general I'm fine with localization as long as the translation is not like any VN that was translated by SakuraGame or Your Diary translation (Which mean I'm still fine with GHS did translate Carnevale despite most people did criticize it), and besides it's not like everyone can agree which translation choice that would the best for the VNs.

2. Sex scenes, well I'll be frank that I'll read through it quickly because I know that I can see it later if I have the chance in the Extra menu (Based on my experience in Kamidori). That aside I prefer if the translator give us the choice to either skip the sex scenes or just read it, and so of course I can't agree with that Pulltop did for their overseas releases with them cut the sex scenes. That said I only care for both of Konosora and Miagete though when it come to Pulltop's overseas releases, and as for the rest of Pulltop's overseas library let's just say that it's either redundant (Cross Channel), not as big as previous releases (Lovekami spinoff), or all age in the first place (Umikana).

3. Both Clannad and Steins Gate are known to have good anime adaptation, and I'll say that Kanon 2006 is also good adaptation as well. While granted some of anime adaptation are bad to the point that it's infamous like Tsukihime anime (To me School Days adaptation is more problematic, but some may find it charming), at the same time it can increase the exposure of the source material that was the source of the anime. By the way in regard of Grisaia I would say that I agree that Kajitsu anime is interesting despite the fact that it was rushed because Frontwing can't secure another cour for it, and I don't mind the plot change in Kajitsu anime because it's their attempt to make the story linear which is better than the VN in which the VN basically asked us to treat an invisible route as canon (That Frontwing did attempt to show 'canon' route in the anime).

4. As long as it's available in VNDB it should be the VN, although that said those three cases are quite unique in which I didn't manage to add those three in my best rated translated VNs list. There's another can of worm when it come to gameplay VN, such as Rance series and Eushully VNs although those VNs are have much closer to the traditional VN if we just look it based on the art alone. There's also Utawarerumono trilogy, in which it can be argue that it's similar case with Baldr Sky with the VNs section of it can be quite long even if you can grind your party.

5. It's okay if you don't like those VNs as much as people who think that those VNs are good, because after all each people has each of their own taste.

That's all for what I can say in regard of your Hot Takes there.

Edited February 10, 2022 by littleshogun