This week’s header image is from “Kindred Spirits On The Roof ” (VNDB), which was released yesterday over on MangaGamer. Check it out, here!
Not a bad week. Not bad at all. We’ve got a new otome Kickstarter project (Beastmaster and the Prince; see below), just yesterday MangaGamer released Kindred Spirits On The Roof, and both JAST and Sekai had some interesting updates. Party time! Excellent!
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
Beastmaster and Prince -Flower and Snow (Otome) – Added to the list; Kickstarter Project launched. $31,761 pledged of $150,000 goal with 28 days to go
Dare ka ga Koi Shita Hankagai (MangaGamer)- TL is now 7.74%
Eien no Aselia (JAST) – Greenlit! Coming to Steam Soon*; 18+ version is “possible.” (link)
Immoral Little – TL: 21% (Link). Release date goal is no longer the end of February (no set date, now)
Kindred Spirits On The Roof (MangaGamer) – Released! Get it here!
Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki – QC: 64% > 65% (This may or may not be an actual update. It’s possible we just had the wrong value listed for a long time. You can think whatever you want, but I believe we had it right and a vast KoiSaku conspiracy is pulling a 1984 on us. Newspeak is slavery. Down with Big Brother. There are four lights. – Tay)
Kono Oozora Retranslation Project – Project is still alive; Amane and Ageha routes are still partially completed and being worked on. (Link) The other routes are done.
Lovely x Cation – Overall Progress: 26% > 28%; Many translators have left the project, but nothing is dropped (Link)
Noble Works – The boys over at The Oxford Comma is Superior Subs are still at it! We’re not adding this back to the list or anything, I just wanted to mention that they’ve released a “maintenance patch” yesterday (Link) in order to correct several errors in the translation pointed out to them. This coincides with the release of the Download Edition, making it easy for anyone to legally obtain the game, now! Buy it here! (NSFW)
The Orchard of Stray Sheep (Sekai Project) – TL is now 76.13%
To Heart 2 – Beta8 Patch released (Link); still looking for editors and proofreaders
WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.03 (Sekai Project) – TL is now 18.50%
New Releases
Kindred Spirits On The Roof (MangaGamer) – Released! Get it here!
Noble Works – Maintenance patch released, get it here!
All the Game Updates:
Fan Translation Projects
Fan Translation Projects
wdt_ID
(Hidden) Title
Game
Group & Progress
New Update?
Notes
1
Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino
Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino
AkaAka TL
11/15/15 Update – Work still ongoing, but some of the team are unresponsive. You can see everything completed here.
2
Amagami
Amagami
Ni Shi Shi TL
TL: 65.9% (1522/2308 scripts)
Edit: 19.5% (452/2308 scripts)
3
Anniversary no Kuni no Alice
Anniversary no Kuni no Alice
Märchen TL
TL: 59%;
Edit: 42%;
Proofread: 29%
4
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm (Aokana)
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm (Aokana)
OriginalRen
Common Route – Complete! (TL/Edits)
Asuka’s Route – Complete! (TL/Edits)
Misaki’s Route – Complete! (TL/Edits)
Mashiro’s Route – Complete! (TL/Edits)
Rika’s Route – Complete! (TL/Edits)
Extra Material – Complete! (TL/Edits)
2nd Pass - In Progress
5
AstralAir
AstralAir
AstralAir TL
TL: 68.25% (44,283 / 64,880)
6
Ayakashi Gohan!
Ayakashi Gohan!
Hanataba TL
Overall: ~58%
01/29/16 - Project will significantly slow down in near future and updates will be rare. Project isn't dropped, though. Read more (like route details) here. Looking for TL help!
Trial is translated and patch is available! (link)
7
Black Wolves Saga -Bloody Nightmare-
Black Wolves Saga -Bloody Nightmare-
Golden Spirit
1/8/2016 - Potential legal trouble with their Starry Sky In Summer has put Black Wolves Saga and Ken ga Kimi on semi-hiatus status. (Link)
1/29/2016 - Slator wrote an article about the group's predicament.
8
Brother Conflict PSP
Brother Conflict PSP
Passion And Brilliance
Passion Pink: TL – 100%; Still needs formatting and inserting (link)
Brilliant Blue: TL – : 5%
Note: Despite JP Vita release, the team is continuing the project (link)
9
Bunny Black 2
Bunny Black 2
Seiha TL
1.01 English Patch released! Get it here.
Congrats on the accomplishment, Aroduc!
Will remain on the list until February 20
10
Clover Day’s
Clover Day’s
Yakusoku TL
Common TL: 100%;
Anzu TL: 49%;
Anri TL: 100%;
Hekiru TL: 10.25%;
Tsubame TL: 40%;
Izumi: 12%;
JAST USA Projects
JAST USA (Updates; Archive)
wdt_ID
(Hidden) Title
Game
New Update?
Notes
1
Bitch na Ichinichi
Bitch na Ichinichi
TL: 100%
Editing in Prog
Now: Mosaic removal, Interface translation
2
Django
Django
Waiting on TL
3
Eien no Aselia
Eien no Aselia
New!
Extra content coding
Greenlit! Coming to Steam Soon*
18+ version is "possible." (link)
4
Flowers
Flowers
Translation finished!
In editing, at 50%.
Coding the engine port.
5
Seinarukana
Seinarukana
Translation and coding finished
Website complete, preparing preorder pages
6
Sonicomi
Sonicomi
Pre-Orders are now live! (Link)
TL is done
Editing in prog
Building launcher
Game site is up
JAST is asking for input on what you’d like to see in LE versions (Link)
7
Sumaga
Sumaga
TL is done
Editing in prog
8
Sweet Home
Sweet Home
TL: 45%
9
Trample on Schatten
Trample on Schatten
TL: 83%
Other
Starless – Script check 10%, added new mosaic to fix list.
MangaGamer Projects
MangaGamer (Updates)
wdt_ID
(Hidden) Title
Game
New Update?
Notes
1
Beat Blades Haruka
Beat Blades Haruka
Now available for pre-order
Out: February 23rd.
2
Bokuten
Bokuten
Translation: 79%
Editing: 50%
3
Da Capo 3
Da Capo 3
Translation: 76.8%
Editing: 74.8%>
4
Free Friends 2
Free Friends 2
Released! Check out the game and buy it here.
Congrats to MangaGamer and the team!
5
Higurashi (Retranslation)
Higurashi (Retranslation)
Chapter 3: Tatarigoroshi – No progress reported
Chapter 1 - Released!
Chapter 2 - Released!
6
Himawari -a pebble in the sky-!
Himawari -a pebble in the sky-!
TL: 100%;
Edit: 100%;
Side Stories: done!
In scripting
7
The House in Fata Morgana
The House in Fata Morgana
Translation: 100%
Editing: 48%
8
Kindred Spirits On The Roof
Kindred Spirits On The Roof
New!
Released! Buy it here.
Demo available. (link)
9
Kuroinu
Kuroinu
TL: 22.5%;
Edit: 18.13%
10
MYTH
MYTH
TL: 94%
Edit: 81%
Other
Rance 5D, Rance VI, and Rance Quest fan translations on hold in anticipation of potential official release by MangaGamer.
Magical Eyes – Red is for Anguish – Pre-Order is up! (Link)
Sekai Project Projects
Sekai Project (Update Page)
Important note: These percentages should be seen as vague indicators of progress, and are not entirely accurate due to a variety of reasons.
wdt_ID
(Hidden) Title
Game
New Update?
Notes
1
Atom Grrrl
Atom Grrrl
TL: 100%
On Steam: Link
February release planned.
2
Chrono Clock
Chrono Clock
TBD
3
Dare ka ga Koi Shita Hankagai
Dare ka ga Koi Shita Hankagai
New!
TL: 7.74%
4
Dizzy Hearts
Dizzy Hearts
TBD
5
Human Reignition Project
Human Reignition Project
TBD
6
Koenchu!
Koenchu!
TBD
7
Kokonoe Kokoro
Kokonoe Kokoro
Engine Integration/QA
8
Labyrinth of Grisaia
Labyrinth of Grisaia
75% Translated
9
Memory’s Dogma
Memory’s Dogma
TBD
10
Moonshot
Moonshot
TBD
Other
Here’s a handy link to sort Sekai Project’s Steam releases by release date: link
Misc. Projects
Other Projects
wdt_ID
(Hidden) Title
Game
Group & Progress
New Update?
Notes
1
Beastmaster and Prince -Flower and Snow-
Beastmaster and Prince -Flower and Snow-
b2g studio, Inc.
New!
Added to the list 2/13/2016; Kickstarter Project launched
$31,761 pledged of $150,000 goal
28 days to go
2
Corpse Party BloodCovered
Corpse Party BloodCovered
XSEED Games
It's a thing.
3
Libra of the Vampire Princess
Libra of the Vampire Princess
MiKandi Japan
Kickstarter finished! (Link)
$183,105 of $125,000 goal raised. First three stretch goals unlocked.
4
Little Busters Perfect Edition
Little Busters Perfect Edition
Fruitbat Factory
Licensed by Fruitbat Factory
Working with Doki Fansubs to finish TL
5
Harmonia
Harmonia
Visual Arts/Key
Release Date: Spring 2016 (Link)
Steam Greenlight: Link
6
Magical Eyes – Red is for Anguish
Magical Eyes – Red is for Anguish
Fruitbat Factory
Release Date: February 29th, 2016
Pre-Order up on Mangagamer! (Link)
7
Subarashiki Hibi
Subarashiki Hibi
TLWiki and KeroQ
No Kickstarter planned
KeroQ to release it directly
More info to come in 2016
8
Tomoyo After
Tomoyo After
Waku Productions
Read Doki’s post about the project here.
9
Wish Tale of the Sixteenth Night
Wish Tale of the Sixteenth Night
Culture Select
Total Progress: 51.53%
10
Zero Time Dilemma
Zero Time Dilemma
Aksys Games
It's a thing.
— Commentary Section —
Zakabox™ Commentary
「This commentary is brought to you by waking up at 7:42 in the morning. There’s a special kind of hellish death inside only possible through this kind of thing. Please attend my mental funeral, to be held on 4/20 (the 4th of Vigintiary). Anyway…
Deccy talks about
屋上の百合霊さん
Yurirei
Yuri Ghosts
Poltergays
Lesbooans
Kindred Spirits On the Roof enough below, so all I’ll say is I’m happy it’s released and may or may not actually pick it up (I’ve fallen into a non-reading state). When the backlog looms ever larger, picking up something new and just finishing that off quickly can be quite therapeutic. Or you stall that one too. It does seem like Kindred Spirits is at least somewhat long, so that’s the more likely option. Damn.
Having previously completed his grandest mission yet, the Journey for Salami (after translating the cute yuri nukige Lilium x Triangle), it looks like Nosebleed’s managed to work a bit on Immoral Little again after a period of inactivity. If you enjoy sadistic loli little sisters, this might be what you’re looking for (onii-chan). If not, he’s also translated about a million yuri doujins (some NSFW pics here) if you’re interested in that. He’s also a global moderator on the fuwa forums, but that’s easy, man.
MoaCube, known (to some of you) for Cinders, have released their second VN: Solstice. It was actually released much earlier for people who pre-ordered it, but its public release was just two days ago. Cinders had some decent reviews in the OELVN sphere and also by our very own Palas, though I honestly have a hard time trusting reviews of OELVNs in general. Solstice has an interesting setting, and the art looks pretty cool, though some will be turned off by non-animaymay-style sprites.
A new Kickstarter, for an otome VN, featuring a localization company you’ve probably not heard about before (they have one failed Kickstarter to their name, which was actually also for a visual novel localization.), has popped up. Will they be able to market it like MiKandi Japan did with
pissing lolis
Libra of the Vampire Princess? Will they sway otome hearts to the tune of $150k? Time will tell if Beastmaster and Prince -Flower and Snow- makes it through.
Part of JAST’s Aselia comment might want quoting: “After we’re finished with releasing Seinarukana, we’ll revisit Aselia and its H content”. I wonder how many sales they’d get from that if they chose to; personally, what turns me off is the apparently tedious gameplay. I’d had enough of that in actual good JRPGs, thank you – can we have another TWEWY already?
The Orchard of Stray Sheep has the Mystery tag on vndb, and I have to admit the numbered haloes magically floating above the characters’ heads in some of the vndb pictures do intrigue me. I wonder if they are actually special in any way. Literally nobody has voted for it on vndb, and there are 3 votes on EGS (bottom 45, top 70) which isn’t terribly promising. We’ll see if this is another of the unimpressive doujins Sekai Project picks up, releases, and gets good reviews from people that have never read VNs before. Or whatever.
Darekoi seems to be a more conventional moege with a few spins on the setting which may or may not actually be used much (Clephas has an interesting view on that and other things.) The sequel in the works is listed as being 18+ on vndb, but as far as I can tell EGS says it’s not (非18禁). It would be somewhat amusing if SP had to censor the sequel after having no problems with the original, lol. It’s rated a bit higher on EGS than Stray Sheep, but the sample size of 4 votes, fairly evenly distributed from 57 to 80, doesn’t really say much.
Oh, and it looks like WEE ep.3 is actually moving again. Weeeeee…
Well, in the process of writing this the clock struck 10:17 and I woke up somewhat. Thankfully. I’ll leave you with a topic on some vndb features you may not know about, plus a bit on their new and improved filtering system letting you properly search for translations.」
Decay’s Musings
Hey all. Kindred Spirits is finally out, and it’s probably the biggest release of the year thus far. The first impressions seem to be positive, if you’re a fan of Yuri at all, then you really owe it to yourself to check it out. It may not be an award-winning work of fine literature, but it looks cute and funny, and a step above most of the yuri we see out of VNs. Maybe I’ll give it a shot, myself.
Not much else going on this week. I’m waiting on March’s releases, mainly. In the meantime I booted up Koichoco. I’ve already played through the Chisato route partial patch nearly two years ago, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Upon playing through it again, I realize that I like this VN. It’s charming, it’s humorous, the drama is a bit contrived but that’s alright. It’s able to get away with the moronically donkan protagonist and the contrived drama with an interesting main storyline (the school election), a strong cast, and humorous dialogue. I’m really looking forward to the other routes when I can finally cuck Chisato and watch her jealous reactions. … Maybe I’m a bad person.
Aside from this, I’ve been dealing with some drama over the last week. Let me ask you guys, what do you think makes a visual novel a visual novel? What about hybrid games? What about Long Live the Queen, which as of a few days ago, is no longer on VNDB? It’s hard drawing a line somewhere, but a line must be drawn otherwise VNDB would end up with every game ever with any amount of text or story. No matter where we draw that line, there are going to be similar games on both sides of it and these kinds of messes will arise. I’m of the camp who wants to put Long Live the Queen on the other side of the line, while many of its raising sim brethren are still included.
In the end, it all comes down to “feel.” We can draw up arbitrary criteria all day long, but if something doesn’t “feel” like a VN, then it’s hard to find justification for its inclusion at VNDB. And yet, everyone feels differently about each title. In my time playing Long Live the Queen, I never felt like I was actually reading a VN, but I was instead playing a raising sim and witnessing the consequences of my actions. Other people feel staunchy about it being a kind of VN. The discussion is ongoing, and is pretty important for the VN community as a whole.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that in some ways, VNDB is the core of the entire english-speaking VN community, and our policy has far-reaching effects. VNDB has an open-minded administration and all policy and even new site features are driven completely by the community. If you’d like to participate in the discussion, feel free, but if you do, PLEASE be considerate and constructive, we’ve suffered enough trolls already.
TAYsteful™ Thoughts
The KoiSaku Conspiracy: I know that some of you hate when we inject commentary into the “Short Version” section, but this week needed it. Someone has to speak the truth, even if I am the last sane man on the Earth. SO. Here’s what happened: our VNTS posts have listed the KoiSaku QC percentage as 64% for… a long time. Decay and I have both done many VNTS posts for many weeks, and I’ve probably looked at that d@&m table a hundred times. I swear it read 64%. For months. And yet, if you go to their website today, or you check the Wayback Machine, it reads “65%”.
6-5-%.
Sixty five percent.
Sixty and five damnable percent.
VNTS Survey Results: So! I’m still planning on releasing a dedicated post all about the VNTS survey results, but I can give you a sneak preview here. Why? Because I’m a nice guy. A very sane, grounded guy. A smart and th—-SIXTY FIVE PERCENT! IT’S A CONSPIRACY I TELL YO—
*ehm* Sorry about that. Moving on, here are a few little tidbits you may find interesting. Just to be clear: I will be releasing a full report with the actual numbers/percentages and comments for everyone in the world to read, treasure and enjoy. This is just stuff to tide you over:
More than three thousand people responded to the survey! Thank you! My best guess is that this means approximately one out of every four or five readers took the survey. Wow. Blows me away.
Our readership has grown pretty steadily throughout 2015, and a solid chunk of you began reading just last month (Welcome!)
Overall you rated the quality of our posts very highly. It means a lot, so thanks. These posts take a lot of time and effort, and both Decay and I are very glad to hear that you enjoy them.
Many of you wanted VNDB links in the “Short Version” section. We implemented that last week. I have no idea why we weren’t doing that before. It takes, like, 2 minutes, and the orange link color actually helps readability.
I’m working on some ways we might better highlight the otome games in the list (and get more of them that I may be missing). I think of myself as an ally of the Grand Otome Conspiracy, but I think I need more otome playing friends. That could actually be a great option for a guest essay from time to time in the commentary section. Hmmm….
Any opinionated otome bloggers/writers/players out there?: Hi. I’m Tay. Do you want to be friends? I’d like to be friends. Partly because I want your help figuring out ways to give Otome the space and ink it deserves, and partly because friends are fun. And partly because if you’re actually reading this, it means you read my commentary section, and I <3 you forever for that.
Fuwanovel Update (Short version): Stuff broke. I fixed it. Only a few people noticed. There was much rejoicing.
VNTS Stuff I want to do next: At some point in the next few weeks we’ll be adding links or a section (or something) which will help you track all the projects we’ve dropped or which were released in 2016. Whether it will be a table like the others, or just a google doc, or an Excel online spreadsheet — nobody knows. Literally nobody. We’re flying by the seat of our pants, here. But by Grabthar’s hammer, I promise it will happen. Someway, somehow.
Have a nice week, everybody.
The post Visual Novel Translation Status (02/13/2016) appeared first on The Fuwazette.