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Visual Novel Translation Status (06/04/2016)

This week’s header image comes from one of this week’s releases: Clannad Side Stories (VisualArts/Key) which you can grab on Steam here. The other release this week is a NSFW release by MangaGamer: My Boss’ Wife is My Ex! which you can pick up right here.

When was the last time you ate a pretzel? I’m talking about a hot pretzel you buy in the mall or at a fair or from the frozen food section of the grocery store (and, presumably, bake before eating). I don’t think I’ve had one in years. For some reason I’ve been craving them the entire time I wrote this post. Weird, no?

Have you read these recent reviews by our FuwaReviews team? If not, you should!

Anyway! Welcome to our weekly VNTS (Visual Novel Translation Status) series, in which we track visual novel translation updates in-house (we don’t rely on /jp/ posts on 4ch, for example) and post it for your enlightenment and enjoyment each Saturday. If you find any errors, or you think a project is missing from this list, please let me know in the comments.

The Short Version: Only the New Stuff

New Releases

Removed This Week

All the Game Updates:

Fan Translation Projects

Fan Translation Projects

[wpdatatable id=142]
JAST USA Projects

JAST USA (Updates; Archive)

[wpdatatable id=143]
Other
  • Starless – Script check 10%, added new mosaic to fix list.
MangaGamer Projects

MangaGamer (Updates)

[wpdatatable id=144]
Other
  • Rance 5D, Rance VI, and Rance Quest fan translations on hold in anticipation of potential official release by MangaGamer.
  • Free Friends hardcopy has been put up for pre-order and is releasing May 20th!
Sekai Project Projects

Sekai Project (Update Page)

These percentages should be seen as vague indicators of progress, and are not entirely accurate due to a variety of reasons.

[wpdatatable id=145]
Other
  • Here’s a handy link to sort Sekai Project’s Steam releases by release date: link
Misc. Projects

Other Projects

  • 06/04/2016 Note: We added a project to the list this week which didn’t yet make it into the tables (partly due to a software error, and partly because we aren’t sure if MangaGamer is/isn’t involved in the project). [I’m like 90% sure they’re not – Decay] It’ll be added to the tables next week. Check it out: 
[wpdatatable id=146]

The Zakabox

— Commentary Section —

Zakabox™ Commentary

「Hi! Highlight of my day so far include going out to buy sweets, realizing the shops weren’t going to open for another hour, taking a brisk walk, realizing there were a lot of cans I could pick up and return to the stores for money, picking up eight, having a devil of a time carrying them all back home, and… yeah, nothing else very noteworthy. It is only 14:00 o’clock here though… anyone want to play osu with me or something? I’m just idling my time away playing Hearthstone…

The highlight of the week is probably the release of CLANNAD’s side stories, which means the Kickstarter is actually nearing fulfilment. Except RIP people haven’t gotten their physical stuff yet, so the people who care about that can still be salty I guess. Other than that, we might actually be seeing Culture Select’s work on WISH soon; that one sure took a while. Fully translated with editing in tow… I sure could go for some Type-Moon inspired stuff myself. I’m not sure how their Spanish translation is doing – we haven’t seen much outreach to that market, but there’s potential there; there are actually more people with Spanish as their first language than native English speakers. Also they might not have the anti-Fapanese sentiment that seems to be somewhat of a thing for USians if that helps, not sure though.

I read a review of the Japanese version of Kokonoe Kokoro, which stated in no uncertain terms that it was a kusoge. I’m inclined to believe it. I’m not sure how the otome version is, though. Just… don’t go buying it all willy-nilly until you’ve seen the Fuwareview trashing it. Unless you like shit games, then go ahead.

Regarding Love Sweets… once upon a time, Moonstone actually put up a terrible translation of one of their older vns, Gift, on the app store. It’s no longer available. That confidence breaker aside, we’ll just have to see. My expectation for it would be a level of quality approximating the average fan translation in smoothness but maybe beating it out somewhat in accuracy, assuming they really are hiring a vaguely competent freelancer. Whether or not you think that level of quality is really acceptable in a commercial release is, well, your own decision.

Corona Blossom’s Indiegogo campaign seems to be going pretty meh, but assuming it’s just a preorder system anyway, it’s not like you really have to care too much. I have to wonder though – do they actually have to follow through on giving your the rewards on flexible funding if the goal isn’t reached? Bit scary. There’s still a month left, so maybe they’ll have pretty pictures of the goodies up eventually and make y’all feel like buying overpriced merch.

Good to see Flowers moving. It being a bit slow isn’t actually too bad, considering how badly the demo translation turned out. I wonder what’ll be out first – Flowers, Sumaga, Django, or the Tsukihime remake? I guess we’ll find out in 2018 (I’m an optimist, okay?). What probably is going to be out this year is the Sonico game. As it turns out, crap tends to build up in your system and eventually you just have to shit it out… though really, maybe it’s pretty okay for its genre 😛

I must admit to some amusement regarding Still, I Missed Her’s truly amazing .22% increase in translation percentage. Like, what happened? Not that I actually care about the novel, but yeah. Amusing.

Clover Day’s actually had a progress report today, but it was a bit too late for us to catch it. Unfortunately software be software and we can’t adjust the tables after we finalize them… or something. Anyway, Izumi’s route is now fully translated. Astro still probably won’t have time to TLC it ever though so this is all meaningless. RIP.

Well, I should get to the grind to rank 5 in Hearthstone. Please pray for me to roll 3 every time I play lightning storm.」

Decay’s Musings

Hoo boy, these last two weeks sure have been busy. Reeaaalll busy. Okay, actually I kind of fell into an Overwatch hole for a bit. That didn’t last terribly long, because I immediately fell into a much deeper Europa Universalis IV hole. Again. That game is my bane, it destroyed hundreds of hours of my life in 2014 and it’s suddenly rearing its ugly head once again, threatening to do the same once more. Pray for me.

As much as I would have liked it to, time hasn’t stopped while I was in my EU4 bubble, and actually a fair amount of stuff happened! And in one notable instance, didn’t happen. You might have seen some buzz around various parts of the VN community about multiple known translators counting down to something. The participants were Reading Steiner, who has done work for JAST including the Steins;Gate translation, the Lemnisca twitter account which could be either Blick Winkel or Gundam Ace (or both), and Conjueror and Garejei, the duo behind Tokyo Babel and Himawari. The countdown was meant to end on Friday, yet there’s a notable lack of announcements or news of any sort. Alas, the countdown was stalled midway through for unknown reasons, and Conjueror mourns.

It is extremely likely that this was meant to finally be the reveal of the oft-rumored secret project Conjueror and Garejei have been working on. I’ve speculated in this space on what that project could be. Likely candidates include the likes of Aiyoku no Eustia and Dies irae. Conjueror himself said it was a widely requested VN, so no matter what this was going to be a huge announcement. And it still will be, whenever they decide to do it. What’s really interesting about this is the reaveal that Reading Steiner and Lemnisca are involved. We will have what appears to be a merger of the Tokyo Babel and Steins;Gate translation teams working on this one.

Considering Conjueror has said that it was an independent release direct from Japan (no SP, MG, or JAST here), I actually have to give them some credit on this one. The trend with in-house translations has typically been to hire poor Japanese college students to do a J to E translation they are ill equipped to handle. That this company has hired some of the best the community has to offer and even gave them the chance to do the reveal themselves (at least, momentarily), it shows an uncanny insight into and appreciation of the western translation scene. Bravo to whoever those guys are.

And that brings us to the Love Sweets announcement, which sure came out of nowhere. Moonstone, who has worked almost exclusively with MangaGamer in the past, suddenly tweeted news about a Love Sweets english translation being in the works, and releasing “soon.” And MG doesn’t seem to be in on it. Indeed, as far as anyone can tell, this is an in-house job, and I’m a good deal more skeptical with this one. I hope it turns out okay. The screenshots they’ve released thus far aren’t particularly bad or anything, but they’re also of very simple lines. And seeing a Japanese company suddenly announce an English release with no one taking credit for the translation is always a little worrying. Let’s hope this isn’t another If My Heart Had Wings. At least they’ve confirmed an 18+ version. As for the game itself, eh, maybe it’s okay? I’m totally okay with meaningless slice of life nonsense. It seems like a completely unremarkable even in that context, but maybe it’s okay to just sit back and relax to?

And finally, I doubt I need to voice my condemnation of that really bitter and disturbing guy Tay quotes below. Go ahead and read that. Or not, it’s really depressing. How do you end up like that? Sorry, fellow, but we aren’t going to change these policies. Ever. Maybe you should just save the headache and stick with 4chan, we’re clearly no longer the place for you. It’s okay, don’t worry about us, we’re not gonna miss you.

TAYsteful™ Thoughts

 

RE: Koiken Otome mistake last week – Short version: Apologies for the confusion, the figure up above is the currently-reported status of the project.

RE: Creature Romances games – Yay for an Otome version!

RE: Header image – Lately we’ve tried to include images of every release in our VNTS post headers (the images up at the top of every post), and I know some readers have used it as a short-hand indication of the games which were released each week. Well, this week I’ve thrown the entire world into chaos (rioting in the street is ongoing), and I didn’t include MangaGamer’s My Boss’ Wife is My Ex! (get it here (nsfw)) in the header image. This is partly because practically all the art is 18+ and this blog is a classy joint (*cough*), and partly because the all-ages-appropriate images aren’t particularly nice or easy to use. Consequently I didn’t use the image. If anyone from MangaGamer is reading this, please feel free to prey upon my admittedly-sensitive sense of guilt and message me endlessly about this.

RE: Fuwa Forums maintenance – It came, it went, and nothing broke. A tragic, tragic squandered opportunity.

RE: Fata Morgana – Good lord. Just look at that. Please support this game.

House in Fata Morgana is Out!
I will continue to post beautiful game art until you click this link. You have been warned.

RE: Fata Morgana, again – Yes, I know that I’m getting annoying with my weekly advertisements. But. It really is that good. It’s different from your typical VN fare. And if we ever want to see more work on this level, we need to put our Benjamin Franklins where our mouths are.

^ Not necessarily an endorsement of cannibalism. 

RE: Fuwanovel Logo – I spent a lot of time working on the site this week. One of the more fun things to report on is that Batman and I started talking about pursuing a site logo. Here’s hoping we have more success together than I’ve had, alone.

New FuwaReview: The Men of Yoshiwara: Ohgiya Posted by kumayu
Have you read kumayu’s official FuwaReview of “The Men of Yoshiwara: Ohgiya”? Well, you should. And not just because I freaking love this CG. It’s also a great review.

RE: Latest FuwaReviews  Have you read these recent reviews by our FuwaReviews team? If not, you should!

RE: My participation in the Grand Otome Conspiracy – I think the following tweets speak for themselves. Trigger warnings: abject rage, death threats.

Clearly we as a fandom have a problem. And a lot of room for improvement.

Have a good week, everybody.

Tay

I'm the Fuwanovel community admin and a big fan of Visual Novels. The easiest way to get a hold of me is via a PM on the Fuwanovel Forums, by twitter (@ArchmageTay), or by email.

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megumeme
megumeme
8 years ago

Izumi route in clover day’s is 100% translated

https://cloverdays.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/izumis-route-100-translated/

Decay
Reply to  megumeme
8 years ago

I forgot to edit in the clover day’s update while adding the majo koi nikki one.

rip

Zakamutt
Zakamutt
Reply to  Decay
8 years ago

what a noob (´・ω・`)

threepwood007
threepwood007
8 years ago

What is the “Grand Otome” conspiracy and why are the jimmies so rustled over it? I presume it is another collection of 1s and 0s arranged in a deliberate manner in order to present graphical and audio entertainment?

Zakamutt
Zakamutt
Reply to  threepwood007
8 years ago

The grand otome conspiracy is run by a vast, far-reaching organization: the committee of 300. They aim to stop all development of bishoujo games, leaving only otome and BL (they probably hate yuri too, because they’re evil). The best way to stop it to harrass people running VN fan sites.

On an unrelated note, Watashi no Real wa Juujitsu Shisugiteiru is a pretty good otomege. I recommend it if you can read Japanese.

threepwood007
threepwood007
Reply to  Zakamutt
8 years ago

Most illuminating. Shame; those games can have some serious production value. Almost anything that creates a VN fan is a win in my book.

Cetais
Cetais
Reply to  threepwood007
8 years ago

Those people don’t like it when they aren’t the aimed public of a VN. It must absolutely cater to their taste or else it’s considered shit.

Too bad they have a limited view on everything and refuse to acknowledge that an otome VN can be enjoyed without being female.
(Or maybe they consider Otome as worthless because there’s usually no sex scenes?)

Mochisato
Reply to  Cetais
8 years ago

but there is a good number of r18 otome games and some are really popular, well not among a male public but that’s nothing new really

Anonymousposter
Anonymousposter
8 years ago

Geez, why must we torture Tay?
All of these Otome haters should just go uphold their own site with their
“No Otome allowed zone” if it’s going to be a problem.

Really now, I don’t play Otome games and I’m glad Tay is helping to promote the Otome genre a whole.
I respect that.

But hate mail? That’s over the top.

Sure, there are games we don’t like and would like to see them burned at the stake or Microwaved to death, but there is no reason to worry, because Otome games are just like anchovies. Some people like them and others don’t. It’s not that big of a deal if someone has a pepperoni pizza and another person has an anchovy pizza. Different toppings (genres) are there and people don’t have a problem with it.

It’s not like their hurting the Visual novel genre, it’s helping it grow.
It helps reach out to more diverse people and that leads to more of a fanbase within the community.

That also helps promote these types of games making them more widely known to female fans fans making people more inclined to checking it out.

Before you judge, play an Otome game for youself, then you can hate it or not, that’s up to you.
But please, GIVE IT A CHANCE!

A chance is all they really need.

mh
mh
8 years ago

Where can I see progress for Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to, in particular? was there any website?

mh
mh
Reply to  Tay
8 years ago

thank you.

Decay
Reply to  mh
8 years ago

edit: WOW, I responded to the wrong comment in the wrong news post. Good job, me! Actually, I’m gonna blame wordpress on this one. It’s totally their fault and not mine, uh-huh.

Anyway, please disregard this comment.

littleshogun
littleshogun
Reply to  Decay
8 years ago

What do you mean by death? I just remember that mitch had progress last week for Kanojo to Ore to Koibito (Also it’s been one month from the establishment of the team), although you probably want to reply to Walkure Romanze which had translation before. Just ask for confirmation here.

Decay
Reply to  littleshogun
8 years ago

My bad, I responded to the wrong comment. Please disregard everything I said.

Katie
Katie
8 years ago

Honestly they’re just angry that their no girls allowed environment no longer applies.

Katie
Katie
Reply to  Tay
8 years ago

I really don’t get it; from my experience, guys are happy when they find girls who like the same video games. What makes VNs so different? I really enjoy Princess Waltz, Kara No Shoujo, Yojinbo, and Hatoful Boyfriend. They’re great in different ways. I’d happily recommend any of them to anyone guy or girl.

You-kun
You-kun
Reply to  Katie
8 years ago

Otomege’s target audience are females (because protagonist is female and you try to get one of boy’s routes) and since most of vn readers are male it’s understandable for them to don’t be interested with otomege’s. Though some people like Tay showed us tend to go “a bit” overboard.

But I do have some worries (though it may be groundless). From what can I see otomege’s percentage over all vn is increasing steadily (Is this means just quantity otomege increases or this also means quantity of eroge decreases? I hope its just first one). This means chance of one of otomege picked up for translation also increases. And this means change of an eroge picked up for translation is decreases.

Mochisato
Reply to  You-kun
8 years ago

it’s funny considering how many eroge translations actually exists and how little otome translated game there is officially or fanpatch is still a very small number compared to eroge
also why not try different things? its good sometimes, if girls can play vns with male protagonist what stops a guy to play otome, not being the target audience don’t really means much if you can enjoy the story

Palas
Palas
Reply to  You-kun
8 years ago

Well thank God

mochii
8 years ago

Dayumm, that hits deep. Haters gonna hate, but I hope it doesn’t get to you too much, Tay! Keep doing what yall are doing, you guys are great people. Also, good job this week everyone, especially you Tay. <3

(Otome covers like, what, 25% or just 30% of this post, and maybe not even 50% on this blog. What's wrong with being an information hub for everyone who plays ANY type of games anyway? Most of the otoge fans don't say shit when we see the eroges and other genres all around (the fans even play some of those genres and there's no wrong in that). But welp, that hater has much yet to learn about the world.)

JJ
JJ
8 years ago

I love Moonstone games and I’m happy to be getting another one. But I haven’t seen a game localized by a Japanese company internally that has turned out to be good. I think Zakamutt’s expectation for it is actually pretty optimistic. I wish MangaGamer had been involved.

Blake
Blake
Reply to  JJ
8 years ago

At least then we know we’d be getting an 18+ version completely free from mosaics. I’m getting really sick of seeing 18+ VN’s released officially in the west with the bloody mosaics. We don’t have to abide by Japan’s archaic censorship laws.

Fiddle
Fiddle
8 years ago

On second thought, let’s not go to Tay’s inbox. ‘Tis a silly place.

Takashi
Takashi
8 years ago

Why didn’t you include Steins;Gate 0 again? It was announced last week. And Taishou x Alice was also announced this week.

mochizuki
mochizuki
Reply to  Takashi
8 years ago

They despise console VNs.

Decay
Reply to  mochizuki
8 years ago

Can we just go with “apathetic of” instead? I have no reason to hate them, that would be pretty stupid. None of us play VNs on consoles though so we’re forgetful of them. I’m really sorry about all this. We will add these next week.

Mochisato
8 years ago

you can barely notice some butthurt because otome is getting a little bit of attention
butthurts aside erm is Taisho x Alice going to be added to the list next week?
the entire thing about E2 is kinda odd and messy but it’s a legit… sadly, because when things start that way it gets hard to trust this game will get a good translation (well it’s impossible to beat the Alice in the Heart bad translation but this ain’t a competition of crappy translation)
if it’s going to be a crowd-funding campaign it will not make it since this entire thing is already more messy than the Beastmaster and Prince one was

littleshogun
littleshogun
8 years ago

Sorry for late post here, but here’s my VNTS Review for this week.

http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blogs/entry/1252-compilation-of-clannad-review/

Ittaku
8 years ago

When I said I didn’t know if Astro would make another Clover Day’s patch or not, I meant another partial patch. He does plan to continue working on the project once his workload dies down.

Johan2111
Johan2111
8 years ago

Someone please translate Princess lovers and Walkure Romanze, it’s two of Ricotta’s famous works.
Hoping for a response in next updates.

Katie
Katie
Reply to  Johan2111
8 years ago

Just what are you expecting? Fuwanovel doesn’t translate anything.

Decay
Reply to  Johan2111
8 years ago

We aren’t translators, we only report on what the translators are doing. That said, fan translators don’t take requests anyway, because these projects are extremely time consuming. You have to want to do them for yourself, really. If there’s a translator out there that’s passionate about Ricotta’s VNs they’ll translate them, or maybe one of the official companies will strike a licensing deal, otherwise it will never happen.

I suggest anyone who has a translation request direct them at the Sekai Project and JAST forums, they each have threads for requests, and they do generally pay attention to what the people want and try to make it happen.

Johan2111
Johan2111
Reply to  Decay
8 years ago

Thanks, I’m new to VN’s but the ones I’ve already played were good so I got hooked now. So I have to direct my requests to Sekai Projects and JAST right? I’ve always thought this site was for translators so it was an honest mistake. But thanks anyway Decay

Katie
Katie
8 years ago

Since your address is now out there, Tay, maybe you should call your local police and tell them what’s up. I wouldn’t put it past some of these losers to try and swat you.

trackback
8 years ago

[…] about a fascinating back-and-forth I had with my troll (remember him? See my commentary section in this post). Really interesting stuff. Hope you like it! Have a good week, […]