How did you start reading VNs?

[AMMSY]

I was wondering, the whole VN genre is not really popular - at least not where I come from. and it's sure not for everyone! how did you guys got started with it? I, for example, realized that VNs even exist only by mistake.

 

So yeah, I'm really interested to hear, how did you guys start reading VNs?

[Nagisa_Fawkes]

I just copied this from my "About me" section:

 

     I'm going to tell my background story and how I came in contact with VNs. 
     I've been into video games since childhood. I'm kind of a social outcast, because I hate speaking my mother language (which is portuguese BTW). Since long ago I just watch movies subbed, so I can get the audio in english, and games as well. One day I randomly came across a indie game called "To the Moon", through PewDiePie youtube videos. It was made using RPG editor.
I absolutely loved the story, even if the characters weren't voiced, it was my first time crying to a game. I did research and learned that genre is called "Visual Novel", I hadn't heard of it until then. I wanted to play more games like that, good ones, and I googled "top visual novels", and came across "Clannad".
     It was a shock for me, I didn't know the voices were going to be in japanese. I didn't like it at first, but 2 hours in the game made me love it even more than english voices, I mean girls voices are so cute when used to speak japanese. One thing about Clannad is that I found my first love there, Nagisa (I had lived for 17 years, and never had fallen in love before, some may call it ridiculous, but it was special for me, it was the first time I had felt that way after all).
     And once again I cried to a game. After that I got curious and watched the anime adaptation. I knew about anime, but was never interested by it, and that's where it started. Then I started this routine of reading VN and watching anime, it was just so fun. Suddently I came across an anime named "School Rumble". The ending for that one was kind of confusing, and in the comments someone suggested reading the manga, where the story for the series continued. And so I became hooked to manga.
     Well, that's my story, being a nerd that liked PewDiePie's videos I suddently became a full-fleged otaku.

[Monmon]

I was an anime otaku not vn, However one day i found Katawa shoujo. My spider sense getting tingly because i saw Lily in there. Played it but sadly, cuz i`m new at vn and i just pick a random choices, i got a bad end. Dropped the gme for days, thinking it was of time. But¬¬¬¬things happen n re-played it again, and got all ending in one go. After that my jouney to vntopia begins...My fav so far is Sharin. 

[zoom909]

I learned about 'em from Air, which we were watching in the anime club when it got fansubbed.

 

When I remarked how much I liked it, a guy mentioned he heard it was based on a Japanese adventure game.

 

Well that got my curiosity up, and I found the game, bought it, despite the R18 warning, and figured out that it although it looked like the old-style adventure games, it wasn't really the same thing.  So whenever I mentioned it to someone, I called it a "choose-your-own adventure" game.  I hadn't yet come across the term visual novel yet.

 

Edit:  Just realized the subject said "how did you start reading" not "how did you discover"

 

Of course I couldn't read Air.

Edited May 3, 2014 by zoom909

[monkeysrumble]

I started watching the Fate/Stay Night anime but I couldn't really get into it, this was around the time when Fate/Zero just finished it's first season and I went and watched the opening and I was like "OH MY GOD THAT LOOKS AMAZING!" and I commented on the youtube video. I got a reply saying to read the visual novel. My views on eroge at the time was negative but I decided to go against my judgement and give it a go. Needless to say I fell in live with it but I wasn't really into visual novels yet. When the Little Busters anime first came out I decided to read the VN on a whim (no regrets) and after that I read Rewrite and then I was hooked.

[BookwormOtaku]

Reading's been a hobby of mine since early childhood, even before I got into gaming. One of the types of books I read quite a bit of were the choose your own adventure type books, mainly D&D Endless Quest and Lone Wolf. The first pure VN I came across was actually the english DVD release of Phantom of Inferno while I was browsing for some new anime at my local Suncoast; the description sounded alot like a game-ified version of that genre I enjoyed so I bought it, played it, and enjoyed it but due to high school graduation and other things didn't have much time to look further into this new genre I'd discovered. Later I'd watch the anime version of Tsukihime, hear it was based on a game, did some browsing and from there learned more about VNs. I then found JAST, ordered a couple games that sounded good like Crescendo and the rest is history

[Mr. Meogii]

I started to read visual novels when I ran out of anime to watch. At first I mistaken them for dating simulators but after a read through I realized that I really liked them.

[AndreTrek]

I just copied this from my "About me" section:

 

     I'm going to tell my background story and how I came in contact with VNs. 

     I've been into video games since childhood. I'm kind of a social outcast, because I hate speaking my mother language (which is portuguese BTW). Since long ago I just watch movies subbed, so I can get the audio in english, and games as well. One day I randomly came across a indie game called "To the Moon", through PewDiePie youtube videos. It was made using RPG editor.

I absolutely loved the story, even if the characters weren't voiced, it was my first time crying to a game. I did research and learned that genre is called "Visual Novel", I hadn't heard of it until then. I wanted to play more games like that, good ones, and I googled "top visual novels", and came across "Clannad".

     It was a shock for me, I didn't know the voices were going to be in japanese. I didn't like it at first, but 2 hours in the game made me love it even more than english voices, I mean girls voices are so cute when used to speak japanese. One thing about Clannad is that I found my first love there, Nagisa (I had lived for 17 years, and never had fallen in love before, some may call it ridiculous, but it was special for me, it was the first time I had felt that way after all).

     And once again I cried to a game. After that I got curious and watched the anime adaptation. I knew about anime, but was never interested by it, and that's where it started. Then I started this routine of reading VN and watching anime, it was just so fun. Suddently I came across an anime named "School Rumble". The ending for that one was kind of confusing, and in the comments someone suggested reading the manga, where the story for the series continued. And so I became hooked to manga.

     Well, that's my story, being a nerd that liked PewDiePie's videos I suddently became a full-fleged otaku.

Well, that's interesting. My story is actually similar to yours in some ways.

I'm Brazillian though i've never been a big fan of Portuguese. I ended up learning English through video games and the internet, I've also always been a fan of Anime though i didn't start regularly watching until recently. I had known about the Visual Novel genre for quite some time before i actually read one, but I used to dismiss them as "boring text games", until i learned about Fate/Stay Night through the PSP version of the fighting game Fate/Unlimited Codes. Fate/Stay Night was the first Visual Novel i read from beginning to end, and it was a simply fantastic experience, one that couldn't be experienced in any other form of entertainment. It ended up being the hook that brought me into the world of Visual Novels and eroge, it also made me embrace my otaku side more than I ever had before.

[AMMSY]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing everyone!

[Okami]

First time that I heard about VNs was after I finished watching Shuffle! and I discus something about it on MAL and some guy there complained about ending and some other guy said that if he want's to see another ending to just read a VN version, that goten my interest and I download it but it wasn't interesting so I dropped it after faw hours. Than 5-6 moths later after I watched Oreimo and Kaminomi I goten interested in VNs again and I decided to give them another chance and I just googled "Eng VNs" I found some site with titles of dozen VNs and one of them was Ever17 that goten my attention. I downloaded it read it and I enjoy it after that I decided to search for more VNs and I found Fuwa site and you get how it continues. Later after I read shuffle! again and finished it I figured out that the reason why I found it boring first time was simply because it was a bad VN that is far inferior to an anime version.

[Freestyle80]

i feel like i wrote this once before....but anyway

 

i was seeing the Da Capo anime almost 4 years ago i think so i was really unsatisfied with both the ending,by sheer coincidence i saw that that anime had a VN with an official release so i tried it out,didnt dislike it and started with Kotori's route(screw teh sister!). Though after i finsihed that game and the 2nd one i saw it took up most of my time so i didnt pursue VNs further.

 

Then last year suddenly got the urge again i guess,started with G-senjou,loved it and now reading stuff regularly

[Berilium]

Well I was really bored because my GPU died and my entertainment at that time was practically null. I started watching a lot of anime and when I remember about Keima and that he plays Visual Novels I tought: "Maybe I should give it a try."

 

And well I found Katawa Shoujo, played it, really liked it, etc, addiction starts, can't stop playing, etc, present time.

 

Not too interesting? That's my life.

 

>.>

[Kaguya]

...I actually don't remember. I think it was because of a long discussion on youtube about tsukihime, though.

[Life]

I have always enjoyed reading books and playing games so one day I was really bored and shuffling through all the google chrome apps from the app store. I found moonlight walks and thought it was a different take on a story. Everything is in first person for once. so I went and searched what it was and now here I am.

[BookwormOtaku]

Kinda want to share the earliest I remember VNs even appearing on my radar; it was when I watched this episode of Excel Saga:

 

http://youtu.be/oQ4rYV8yMa0?t=2m19s

 

And ironically the real Nabeshin did end up working on an eroge

[Sora]

I actually started playing my first VN on my iPhone LOL it was Kira☆Kira and I enjoyed it very much so i went ahead to check out the other titles XD 

[Clephas]

My first VN was Tsukihime, my first untranslated was Jingai Makyou.  I was introduced to VNs by a fellow fansubber, and I haven't looked back since.

[~K.S~]

After watching clannad i was curious about other Key stuff . Saw  the little busters anime teaser then found out about

the visual novel . I tried it for like 10 minutes then got bored  , a week later got ill . I was too lazy to play games so i tried it again... stopped 10 hours later .

got really into it !

 

My first & still my favourite : Little Busters!

[farispie]

I started watching the Fate/Stay Night anime but I couldn't really get into it, this was around the time when Fate/Zero just finished it's first season and I went and watched the opening and I was like "OH MY GOD THAT LOOKS AMAZING!" and I commented on the youtube video. I got a reply saying to read the visual novel. My views on eroge at the time was negative but I decided to go against my judgement and give it a go. Needless to say I fell in live with it but I wasn't really into visual novels yet. When the Little Busters anime first came out I decided to read the VN on a whim (no regrets) and after that I read Rewrite and then I was hooked.

 

I feel like I may have been the person who made that youtube comment . I did remember posting a comment like that somewhere on youtube. 

 

Anyways, so I was looking for a new anime to watch at the time. I wanted an action anime of sort, and so I googled "top action anime", and fate/stay night caught my eye.

 

Now before I actually decided to watch F/SN, I decided to go to its wikipedia page for a more complete synopsis. This is where I learned it was based on a visual novel, and I decided "hey, that sounds interesting. I guess I'll try the visual novel first". And the rest is history, and now I nag people to play vns all the time .

[Zephryion]

Watched Little Busters, couldn't wait for the next episode during the Komari arc, read the whole VN before her arc ended. Felt satisfied and continued reading VNs as a hobby ever since then.

[Funyarinpa]

Quote from my introduction post:

 

"Everything started when I learned about 999:Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors- a DS visual novel in which 9 people have to escape a sinking ship while playing a twisted game called "Nonary Game"(you learn what it means in the game) where you have to solve puzzles, separate and find each other again, and feign death itself.

 

I had to play using an emulator(the game is unavailable in Europe, let alone Turkey) but it still left a huge impact on me. The characters, setting, story(gameplay, not so much)...

 

That game has a sequel called Virtue's Last Reward. It's out for 3DS and PS Vita, and it is A-MA-ZING: Another Nonary Game takes place a year later in a facility no one knows the purpose of. However, there is a huge twist: To escape, you must get through a number 9 door which opens only ONCE- and to get it to open, you have to trust these strangers with your life-or betray them. It has incredible puzzles, flawless story, great graphics(in the novel sections) and incredible voice acting. Near the end, I realized I was laughing hysterically because the plot twists were so good. My favorite game. Ever.

 

 

Once I finished that, I researched for the author's other works and I stumbled upon the Infinity series. The most popular and interesting one was Ever17-the story of how 6 strangers got stranded in an underwater theme park deemed to implode in 120 hours. I checked out the others too(Never7 and Remember11) but I decided to read Ever17 first."

 

The addition is that Ever17 and Remember11 are now finished, I am now reading Steins; Gate. (THEM FEELS!)

[hussien-11]

I've discovered Visual Novels with the Ace Attorney series. when I thought that I want another experience, I did a search and everyone recommended Ever 17, so I gave it a shot and it was one of the best stories I've ever read : ) so it convinced me that the genre can deliver amazing stories ( of course being an anime fan made it easier for me to read a visual novel ).

[Famichip]

Copy-pasted from one of my posts in another thread:

Tsukihime was the first VN I read though back then I never really knew what visual novels really are. I thought it was just like a digital book (a novel with visuals) and you could probably imagine my confusion when I got one of the bad endings and thought that was the end of it lol..

Though it was OsaDai (My Girlfriend is the President) that actually got me into this whole visual novel/eroge scene.

Discovered Tsukihime after some group or someone ported the VN to the Nintendo DS. It looked interesting so I decided to try it out.

[DimDito]

A segment from my profile...

 

     Short history then; I discovered visual novels when I was 17, when someone suggested me to play the game of Fate/Stay Night since I thought the anime was a let down. Alas, I had myself download the translated version of FSN. At first, the lack of gameplay got me bamboozled. An entire game built on dialogue and choices, stressing on character development and immersive story, was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Needless to say, once I got used to it, I fell in love with it.

 

Then unto Clannad, then Majikoi, etc.

[seventhfonist425]

Watched Little Busters, couldn't wait for the next episode during the Komari arc, read the whole VN before her arc ended. Felt satisfied and continued reading VNs as a hobby ever since then.

Huh. Almost exactly like mine, though mine was further into the anime before I started. A friend sent me a link to "erogedownloads," (the website) and remarked, "See, you can get Blazblue here. Totally a VN." We both laughed, though, I noticed Little Busters! there. I'd heard about Little Busters! before, and it was by Key, so I decided to watch it. So I did, part of Season 1. I think I got to... the part with Haruka's route, then I went, "Okay, I'll just read it then. I read it, went through Refrain, and fell in love with the entire VN. And thus, the chain starts there.