Behind The Nihon Review » Visual novels

Looking at Minorigate and the Tokyo Loli Ban through Anime Expo 2010

Kylaran — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:09:57 +0000

I bought a poster of this game at Anime Expo. Suiheisen Made Nan Mairu?

I went down to Anime Expo this past weekend, surviving almost a week of no sleep and irritable fans. Amongst the many stories worth blogging about, perhaps what seemed most surprising to me about Anime Expo 2010 was the powerful presence of visual novels. While other blogs, such as AnimeDiet, have covered extensively some of the prominent Guests of Honor, I had the pleasure of gleaning some very useful comments from actual visual novel makers, as well as those involved in the localization process. It is my hope that through a bit more digging and scavenging, we, as fans and consumers, can come to understand the workings of game makers in Japan.

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Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Kylaran | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Tweet! | AnimeBlips - vote it up!
Post tags: Anime Expo 2010, âge, Circus, Eroge, minori, OverDrive, Visual novels

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Visual novel review: Saya no Uta

Shadowmage — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:58:18 +0000

Title: Saya no Uta
Genre: Drama
Company: Nitroplus
Platform: PC
Release Date: Dec 26 2003

Synopsis: After surviving a serious car accident, medical student Sakisaka Fuminori undergoes brain surgery and comes to perceive the world in a whole new way. To him, what was once everyday objects have become twisted and malformed. Normal people look like their skin has been carved off and their innards ripped outwards. The scenery looks like it has been spray painted with organs and muscle tissue, and the food and smells Fuminori once enjoyed become physically repulsive. With nothing else to live for, Fuminori tries to kill himself… until he meets a mysterious girl named Saya who is the only beautiful thing in his mental hell.

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You Can Keep the Furniture

Sorrow-kun — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:53:59 +0000

Anyone who’s seen Saturday morning cartoons would be familiar with amnesia as a plot device. There’s a certain popular formula: a character suffers a bump on the head and forgets who he is, where he lives and who his friends are. Of course, this is quickly resolved before the end of an episode, and the character either recalls his memories one by one over time, or, in the slightly less believable cases, a subsequent bump on the head jolts things back into place. (This is beautifully lampshaded in The Simpsons in an episode where Homer fights Drederick Tatum. Bart tells Homer, in a surprisingly earnest father-son moment, “make sure he punches you an even number of times so you don’t get amnesia”.) (This post contains moderate spoilers for the tagged titles.)

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Copyright © 2010 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Tweet! | AnimeBlips - vote it up!
Post tags: Angel Beats!, ef -a tale of memories, Ever 17 - The Out of Infinity, Kanon, Silent Hill

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Minorigate, or, How to Piss Off Otaku Without Really Trying

Akira — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:29:27 +0000

The probability of BtNHRV receiving a DMCA injunction from minori just rose twentyfold.

There’s been quite a hubbub in the eroge-playing community this week, sparked by minori (ef, Wind, eden*) inducing an edit war on TLWiki’s eden* page. Now, for those of you who remember, minori was one of the first eroge companies to block website access from foreign IPs last year after the Rapelay controversy exploded, citing a fear of “violating local laws and causing trouble for foreign fans” as motivation. A year has passed since then, and the minori website has remained shut to foreigners. Last week, minori emerged from its isolationist shell to delete the eden* translation project in its entirety. For a more detailed and comprehensive account of the events, please read these articles. The gist of minori‘s argument: We hold the copyright to these games, and we don’t want them to be translated. Therefore, we’re going to delete all of your translations and request that you stop. Reasonable, right?

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A Different Approach to the Translation of Ero-Scenes

Akira — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:40:24 +0000

This is Nishino Aki, my assistant for this article. She is not amused at what I am about to put her through.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how I translate sex scenes (エロシーン, ero-scene) in visual novels. It is one of the least pleasurable aspects of my hobby, and I’m rather glad that I never had to deal with ero-scenes during my time as a fansubber. Ero-scenes are notoriously difficult to translate well; several inherent linguistic barriers prevent accurate and succinct translation. What I am proposing here may not be new, or radical, and by no means is it perfect, but I believe it to be a different take on the translation of the ero-scene. This system will not make the reading of an ero-scene enjoyable. An ero-scene is an inherently cheesy, silly thing to read, and nothing that I, or any other translator, can do would change that. Rather, this is simply a way for translators to cut their losses. I have always facetiously advocated that there is no such thing as an ero-scene translation that is good; there are simply those that do not suck. Leave the sucking to the heroine, I say.

(WARNING! This article is filled with boring linguistic technobabble. In addition, people might think you’re a freak if you read this at work, or at any other time, for that matter. There are no NSFW images in this article, I promise. Also, please note that this does not represent my general translation philosophy. It is an extrapolation thereof, and in no circumstances should be applied to non-ero scenes. It would be a terrible choice.)

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Visual novel review: Ever 17 – The Out of Infinity

Sorrow-kun — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:20:56 +0000

Title: Ever 17: The Out of Infinity
Genre: Drama/Action
Company: KID
Platform: PC
Release Date: Aug 29 2002

Synopsis: It’s 2017 and Kuranari Takeshi is visiting a futuristic underwater theme park called “LeMU”, where he’s to meet up with his friends. However, an accident leads to a breach in the upper levels of LeMU, and in the ensuing chaos, Takeshi is trapped along with five other people with no means of escape and no way to contact the outside world. With its structures compromised, LeMU is set to implode from the external pressure of the sea water within about five days. Takeshi and his fellow stranded must figure out how to get out before this happens, but there are suspicious circumstances surrounding whether the incident was an accident at all, as well as some mysterious secrets that the people around him are hiding.

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School Days

Akira — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:33:12 +0000

School Days. Everyone’s probably heard about it by now. Easily one of the season’s most anticipated (and hated) shows, by both the hardcore and the casual anime-watching community.

To start you off, a few quotes from friends of mine.

“You know, they made Makoto into a bigger douchebag than he was in the game.”
“They combined all his man-slut varieties into the ultimate man-slut >.>;;;”
“Everytime I watch this show my MP goes down…”
“This show is fucking horrible. Literally.”
“Even Kyo-ani couldn’t save these crappy characters.”

And the general consus from everyone on Nico:

“Makoto and the rest of the cast can all go die. lolololololololololol”

So what do I think? (Warning: Major Spoliers follow. Not like anyone really cares… its School Days, for Christ’s sake.)

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Visual novel review: Narcissu

Sorrow-kun — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:25:01 +0000

Title: Narcissu
Genre: Drama
Company: Stage-Nana
Platform: PC
Release Date: 2005

Synopsis: Not long after his 20th birthday, soon after receiving his driver’s license, a young man receives news that he has a terminal illness. He quickly finds himself in Section 7F of his hospital, a special section for patients with no hope. There he meets a girl, Setsumi, who has given up on her life and resigned herself to the fate that comes to all 7F patients: either dying at home or dying in 7F. This is, however, a fate that Setsumi secretly longs to avoid…

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