Visual Novel Translation Status (05/21/2016)

Decay’s Musings

Ahh… convention season. It’s always fun to catch all of the news from the conventions as they happen, even when they aren’t exactly what you expect. MangaGamer teased six announcements, and delivered us four hard copies and one announcement that was already spoiled by them earlier in the week. Funbag Fantasy is interesting, though. Dat title, for real. Known as Kyonyuu Fantasy in Japan (basically, Big Titty Fantasy), it’s actually an extremely popular nukige highly rated by Japanese and western fans alike. I’d say it’s one of the most highly rated nukige ever. I’m not really into the subject matter so I’m definitely giving it a pass, but you can still expect this thing to top the MangaGamer charts just like Boob Wars did. The nukige buyers love their funbags.

I was hoping for a bit more though, to be perfectly honest. MangaGamer has a knack for getting people’s expectations up, then letting them down. I’ve seen a fair amount of negative reaction to the way they hyped up the six announcements and only had one actual new VN announcement and another semi-new VN announcement. There’s something to be said here about fan entitlement and all that, but the fact of the matter is that people are bound to get disappointed when you aren’t giving them what they want, so it’s probably better for everyone involved if you actually set their expectations accordingly. Maybe just say “four hard copies and two new VN announcements!” next time instead of “six new announcements”? Is the hype buildup by keeping everything a super ultra secret really worth it if it only results in disappointment from a large portion of your fan base?

Sekai Project announced the most interesting new VN of the show, I feel. 2236 looks really unique, and although it’s apparently not mind blowing or anything, it seems pretty interesting. It’s not some mindless moe-fest, so I expect it to sell rather poorly, and so does SP boss dovac. But still, color me interested. I’ll definitely be giving it a shot when it comes out.

VisualArts also “announced” Angel Beats. To be clear about this one, they didn’t even announce it during the main panel, but instead their Q&A session after someone asked about it. And they said it was planned. When and how are still mysteries, perhaps even to VA. This feels much more like a “yeah, we’re probably going to do this at some point” than a proper announcement, so take that as you will. That said, I’ve always thought this was inevitable. Some apparently had different feelings about the possible timetable than others, and the current fan translators working on their own patch for it have suddenly been put into a tough spot. My heart goes out to them, but also wasn’t this kind of expected?

To be perfectly frank, I was always skeptical on the usefulness of such a project, and now that’s debate is being brought into the forefront with this news. It’s a tough spot for them, either they abandon the project now and feel that the last few months have been all for naught, or they keep going and risk making their work redundant in very short order, again making it essentially all for naught, just so they can please the especially impatient in the fan community. Or worst case scenario, they risk getting served a Cease and Desist order. I hope those guys can find a solution that everyone on the team is happy with.

In closing, buy The House in Fata Morgana. We at Fuwanovel are going to be hardcore shills for this one for quite a while. It seems everyone on the staff is loving it so far. I’ve only played it for an hour so I can’t make any real judgements, but it ain’t too bad if I say so myself. SolidBatman will be writing a review for it, and according to him it’s basically the best thing ever. You’re about to see the extremely rare sight of a zero-salt SolidBatman in the wild. This kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime, so don’t pass up the chance to witness it when it happens. And buy Fata Morgana, god dangit. It seems to basically be bombing right now, and that’s a crying shame.

That’s all for me, see you again next week!