Yesterday, Circle entertainment tweeted that they had found a potential translator for the Harvest December series of VNs. While it seems unclear whether the translator was actually hired, it does show that Circle is interested in localizing the series. Looking back, we can see that Circle asked for competent translators in a tweet dated March 29th. Siliconera contacted Circle CEO Chris Chau, who said that “there is a long road ahead”. This clashes somewhat with the “soon” seen in the earlier tweet; not much to do except wait and see at this point.
Some information about the vn below the break.
Plot Summary:
Tagami, a town of heavy snowfall. In this village is the commonplace idea of the existence of God. Due to his parent’s situation, Konno Masaki moves into this village. But on that same day, he is ordered by Shiro, the God of Tagami, to become her husband. Overwhelmed, Masaki accepts, and on the following day transfers to his new school. Yuki, the daughter of a family that wields the utmost power in Tagami, falls in love with Masaki on first sight and confesses. Once again, Masaki accepts. And so starts a strange relationship between a god and a human, two girls and one guy. Surrounded by new friends, he experiences days filled with bliss. However, just as he was becoming accustomed to his new life, Yuki makes a suggestion. “I want to make a child with you.” With this one line, their lives change drastically.
The Japanese version was originally released as five episodes for the PC, and eventually sold in a bundle containing all of them. They were later ported to the iOS and Android platforms. In a time-honored tradition of mobile VN releases, the ports were split into 13 parts, instead of the original five. The original novels aren’t that long, being listed as “short” (2-10 hours) or “very short” (<2 hours) on vndb. Given that the mobile versions were split into even more chapters, they will presumably be even shorter. They will be cheap, though: in Japan, the 3DS version of the first chapter is being sold for 100 yen (roughly 1 USD), with the price increasing to 200 yen for the later chapters. So far, only four of the 13 chapters have been released for the 3DS: Harvest December, Boundaries in January, Gift(s) in February and Lovely March.
The novels are unvoiced, and originally had a resolution of 800×600; not quite the aspect ratio used in the 3DS, which uses a wider screen with a 5:3 ratio. Looking at pictures of the VN running from nintendo’s e-shop, I can’t see much of a stretching effect, and no black bars to the sides of the screen. This suggests a potential for the pictures to have been cropped, which we’ve seen in a few other mobile VN releases.
The 3DS integration looks pretty good. The PC releases used NVL mode to display text, obscuring much of the image. Not so here, as the text can be shown on one screen and its picture on the other.
There is a fan translation project for the PC version of the first novel in the series, which spans the first four chapters of the mobile version: Harvest December ~Winter~. That said, the last time the translation group’s blog reported their progress on the project was on May 16th last year. Since they were at 80% translation progress and 42% editing progress back then, the project might well be dead given the lack of a full release by now. They have released a patch transating the novel’s trial edition, but the share link I found was dead. We tried to contact the translators (alright, I joined two IRC channels and asked…), but couldn’t reach them for a comment.
UPDATE: The fan translator is dropping the project. I confirmed this by visiting the group’s IRC channel, so it turns out it wasn’t fruitless after all!
Finaly, a female protagonist vn without Otome tag ! 😀 Still lack eroge content. 🙁
Hmm, from what I remember Shikkoku no Sharnoth also has a female protagonist. Could be interesting, though It’s part of a setting, perhaps a series, usually called the steampunk series. Whether there’s any recommended entry point, I don’t know.
Harvest December ~Winter~ does seem to have multiple protagonists, with the female protagonist tag listed as 2.0/3.0 on vndb. Probably going to be a male in there too though, given the summary 😛
tbh… this series never had any real popularity in the first place. It surprises me that they would even consider localizing this… the games are pretty much straight student romance, from what I’ve heard.
fwiw, I talked to the fan project’s translator (seems to be dropping it now). They say they had “really liked it” (oh god singular they).
Being on the 3DS probably helps tap into a new market as well…
[…] look at the news stream for it) shame on you, Tay; this thing is obviously a VN. I even wrote a post on the series a few years ago; we also have one confirming the localization. Also, it’s on […]