About myself and spreading VN

[Sieg]

Hello everyone, I'll be using the nickname Sieg to share some thoughts of mine with you folks and listen to what you have to say from here on out on in this forum. Firstly, I'd like to say that I have never posted on forums before. I've read many as a fellow internet dweller, but never quite got into writing back and stuff. That is, simply put, due to not caring enough to discuss with other people about minor things that, to me at least, didn't really matter (like online games or manga forums). Of course, that is just my personal opinion and I'm not criticising people who do care about it. Nevertheless, what I do care about are Visual Novels, and I mean it. I might not be the greatest VN otaku that there is out there, nor do I know if by the VN culture standards I have played many or few titles, but what I do know is that I want other people to see what I saw and, if they can, enjoy VNs as much as I do. That said, when I decided to write this, it was heavily influenced on the fact that Fuwanovel is, basically, a site that longs to "make visual novels popular in the west".

I found Fuwanovel by chance while I was searching Little Busters, shortly after the anime got announced on Sankaku Complex. Seeing how popular it was, I decided to give it a shot, and while browsing randomly I stumbled upon something like: "people are generally against playing VNs, but if you give it to them in a plate, they'd be more willing to try". How true is that? A lot, and Fuwanovel really made my life a lot easier in that regard.

Enough about me, what I can do for our fellow otaku who still have friends is introduce you guys to what I like to call the "Trading System". I won't act like it's the greatest finding ever, but it's worth considering. For starters, it is only natural wanting to share your hobbies with your friends, right? Not only hobbies, but a simple movie you watch and find interesting enough is plenty of reason for you to start persuading your friends into watching it and the like. In doing so, you are putting at stake the "reputation" of your tastes, the responsibility of having your word put on stake. There are two possibilities from here:

1. The movie/series/game was acknowledged as fine, good or great by your friend and the "trust" of the trading relationship is maintained.

2. The other party has not enjoyed your suggestion as you thought he/she would. Thus, the "trust" of the trading relationship is somewhat or completely shaken.

Now that's common sense, but I had to point it out for the sake of the following. If you have a relationship reasonable enough to be accounted as a friend that you can trust to some extent, you can bargain with that person in a fair "trade" of sorts. Say, you commit yourself into watching/reading whatever the other party recommends you to, and in return, you recommend something back, like a VN. There are two basic ways of doing so:

1. Start watching/reading whatever your friend suggested and then make your own recommendation. In doing so, said friend will feel in more of a obligation to take your part of the deal, like a verbal contract of sorts. In the event of refusal, you can aways threaten him/her with the abandon of his initial suggestion, thus breaking the deal.

2. By clarifying at the start of the exchange terms like, lenght, genre and the like. Like this, you don't get to "waste" your time in the event of an absolute failure of the first method, but due to the prejudice of anime, VN and the like it is less likely to work on total "riajuus"

Sure, this ain't great news on persuading people and such, but fact is, if you want people to share your point of view, or at least try to do so, you've got to do the same. The trade can have many terms, clausules, rules or whatever, the important thing is getting them started, and maybe you yourself will get into something else as well. Hell, it could even be something completely unrelated like sports, but at the same time something among the lines of "sure, I'll play, but you gotta play something too".

The point I brought on this topic was to spread and expand the VN/otaku culture alike in a closer circle of friends, but the simple blackmailing and contractual-like deals are of course effective in many other approaches. Thing is: even if I am being obvious or redundant, if this post gets even 1 more person to share the joy that are VN with this ever-growing community, then I'd say it was plenty useful. In the end, it's all about trying without fear. That does not mean to be reckless, bit persisten instead. I can say that this works since I got many of my friends into experimenting, and many more will follow.

PS: sorry for any bad english

[Guest]

Hey welcome Sieg

gratz on your first post. it's so easy to forget that so much ppl on the internet do not speak. they just read.

The idea could be good for friends I guess?

I think they just make good guidelines, it really comes down to how u guys relate... and there are no rules for that!

I dont have any friends who are into VNs, I know one who have played them but he's not too comfortable talking about the subject lol (perhaps bcuz i am a girl)

so maybe that's why I've only ever thought about it on a wide scale

[Snowtsuku]

I just skim through it xD tl;dr

But anyway welcome here

[zoom909]

Nice to meet you Sieg.

By the way I also have never really been a forum person somehow. Because I don't bother joining one unless I have a good idea of what I'm going to say on there. And because posting makes you stand out, and starting a new topic REALLY makes you stand out. :-)

I dont have any friends who are into VNs, I know one who have played them but he's not too comfortable talking about the subject lol (perhaps bcuz i am a girl)

I had one friend who was into VNs, but he moved away. Most guys seem to be put off by the pastel colors, JPOP tunes, charming people and animals, etc. Basically it's too CUTE for them, at least the kind of VNs I like. As a girl, I guess that stigma doesn't apply to you...

[Tay]

Glad to have you with us! I enjoyed your first post. I found it a very practical way to evangelize VNs : ).

I had one friend who was into VNs, but he moved away. Most guys seem to be put off by the pastel colors, JPOP tunes, charming people and animals, etc. Basically it's too CUTE for them, at least the kind of VNs I like. As a girl, I guess that stigma doesn't apply to you...

I got into VNs without any significant exposure to anime/manga/Japanese culture. Katawa Shoujo just kind of came out of nowhere and blew me away with amazing storytelling (plus the way VNs are so interactive and personal). I was a little insecure about the Japanese animation "thing" for a long time after that, though. Not necessarily because of the colors/quirks of the art style, but because of American otaku stereotypes.

[Sieg]

Gee, I wasn't expecting this amount of replies, thx guys! Btw, sorry for the long post, I guess I just got into it a little bit too much, but thanks for the warm welcome anyway =D. Yeah Katawa Shoujo is pretty good, I'd say it's a good start for begginers because it's... how can I say, "realistic"? Kinda slice of life I guess. But that depends on the personality of each person. I often used Yume Miru for starters (for those who wouldn't mind the H scenes xD).

[Steve]

Finally got to read this so I can welcome you to fuwanovel

Well then, WELCOME! xD

Still my intro is the longest

Anyway, to what you said, I must agree that getting people into the "business" is hard and you can be using some of these methods.

However what I often times find better as I have it from my personal experience is this approach:

I want to spread VNs or even Anime to friends who never watched it, however I know from my own experience that often times you can get more repelled by that specific thing than actually attracted. During my High School, one of my friends was watching Naruto and always was like "man you should really try this" and I who was playing WoW was again always "you should try this, its awesome".

And we both tried it, I watched EP of naruto with him and he tried WoW with me, but because it was almost like "forced", because we didn't like this one specific example, I never even considered trying another anime, thinking "well if he likes it so much it must be the best" and so he was thinking "well if this is what the best MMO is then I might as well not play them". I myself then found that WoW is actually not the best MMO, that it has lot of flaws. And surely he did find that Naruto is shit as well compared to other animes. And we never touched respective things again... until about 4-5 years later I was really bored and randomly tried another Anime... and now, about 1 year and few months later, I am in middle of learning Japanese, browsing in the deepest parts of Japanese otaku culture, as deep as loli eroge which I would never ever imagined I could like.

How would it end up had we not introduced each other to these things, I might have watched Naruto by my own will, not like it but try another one to see if they are the same. But the fact that my friend made this recommendation as for him currently best just like I did the recommendation of a not so great MMO as the best I could find that time made it very complicated. He will now never experience the feel of downing a ultra hard boss with tons of other people on TS, it didn't have to be WoW as I figured, whenever you have a good guild is the best MMO.

With my experience with Anime and VNs both, I figured that it is not just playing or watching, yes if it is really good you can somehow enjoy it all the time but other than that you need to have a mood to fully enjoy something. Watching/reading just for the sake of finishing is not recommended. That's why I don't have low rated anime in my votes, whats why I don't have low rated VN in my votes. I cant comprehend why people finish 250 episode anime and then give it vote 1 or 2, or finish 30 hour VN and rate it 1 or 2. That just doesn't make sense, if you don't enjoy it, don't force yourself, just do something you enjoy now and you can finish that thing when you really have the mood.

And that is why I when introducing someone to anime/vns, I choose a very different approach. I don't trade or force anyone, I just present them the possibilities, I just show them what exists and let them pick it up when they want it. Just like now with one of my friends, I sent him some anime possibilities, he downloaded Chuunibyou and AB, watched few EPs of chuu2 and enjoyed to an extent, he will finish the rest later at his own pace when the mood is right.

So yeah... welcome! xD I am Steve and I often lose myself in writing posts xD I might even have the biggest average length of posts here xD

[Down]

Welcome here! Enjoy your stay.

The way I was introduced to VNs, and the way every VN players I know was actually, is a bit atypic: we all ended up playing Fate/Stay Night and other Type-Moon stuff...

Usually it goes like:

<Type-Moon cultist guy>"Hey you should watch those Kara no Kyoukai movies, they're great"

<Poor Sheep>"Wow that was awesome! Do you have some more?"

<TM>"Well, there's this Fate/stay night anime, it's not as good but..."

<PS>"Arrgh, the concept was so good but the anime fucked it up, i'm frustrated here..."

<TM>*evil grin* "Well, you know, there's this thing called visual novels, well the anime comes from that... it's a bit long but it's much better, it has the whole story..."

<PS>"Oh thank, you i'll try this out

...

<New Type-Moon cultist>"wow VNs are awesome i'll read more of them!"

Pretty smooth way to trick get people to read VNs.

Btw, did you watch Kara no Kyoukai yet? Heard about Tsukihime? *grin*

[Sieg]

Btw, did you watch Kara no Kyoukai yet? Heard about Tsukihime? *grin*

I have, I have xDD. I'm already a TM fanboy, to the point of having played Hollow Ataraxia even partially translated and browsing the TM wiki randomly for hours in order to get some material to narrate an RPG based on the Fate series.. But I see your point, that method is pretty good too =D

[Down]

Ah, I only played what's fully available in english yet, so no F/HA for me Although I do my daily check of the advancement of the TLs of both F/HA and Mahoyo ^^"

in order to get some material to narrate an RPG based on the Fate series

I have a friend that did an RPG campaign in the TMverse last year, with a Holy Grail War and stuff... couldn't participate because of availability issues, but it turned out pretty well.

Although after a full campaign the PCs got really powerful... And at this point another friend took up the GM spot and had to browse through the Wiki to bring stuff like Primate Murder to calm them down (of course that's because the goal was to make some epic stuff, otherwise the powerleveling couldn't have been so strong)

But yeah, creating your own servants is pretty nice!

[Sieg]

And that is why I when introducing someone to anime/vns, I choose a very different approach. I don't trade or force anyone, I just present them the possibilities, I just show them what exists and let them pick it up when they want it.

Yeah I get what you're saying, and I totally agree with you, actually, I know how true this is since I got several of my friends into playing VN and such but I couldn't do the same with my older brother. It was exactly because these forceful methods have the opposite effect on some people who don't like to be pushed around. But I haven't made this clear at the beggining of the thread because it was pretty long already and I was half drunk from lack of sleep (xD), but... I usually use these more forceful methods in ppl I have already hooked into the thing for them to experimentate more and more weirder stuff (MWAHAHAHA). Nah, just kidding, but anyways, I use it as a reasonably fair trading system with my pals, I get to see what they like and the same back at them, but sorry for not making it clearer before, it's not as forceful as it sounds. You can drop it anytime and just warn the other party about it, he'll accept no problem, after all, I would not want them to grind through it and hate it at the end. And, of course I get to choose something I know they'll be more likeable to see based on their personalities, and it was pretty successful so far. Of course, I'm not saying it is flawless, but I just wanted to let you know it isn't as annoying and forceful as I made it sound like, thanks for taking your time to reading it btw ^.^

[Sieg]

I have a friend that did an RPG campaign in the TMverse last year, with a Holy Grail War and stuff... couldn't participate because of availability issues, but it turned out pretty well.

Although after a full campaign the PCs got really powerful... And at this point another friend took up the GM spot and had to browse through the Wiki to bring stuff like Primate Murder to calm them down (of course that's because the goal was to make some epic stuff, otherwise the powerleveling couldn't have been so strong)

But yeah, creating your own servants is pretty nice!

Yeah, I'd say about 50% of the fun was researching the historical and mithical figures and such to fill the servant classes. The players got them randomly and it was pretty amusing to see their reactions while trying to figure it out each other's servant identities.. but anyways, I think I did see some Naruverse PDF book while searching for some material but I only used it as a source of inspiration since the system was different (I used storytelling, D10 and stuff)