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Visual Novel Translation Status (03/19/2016)

This week’s header image is from Tokyo Babel, whose demo was released just a few days ago! Pre-order available here.

Oh, hello there!  “I got called into the clinic, so I’ll plan on VNTS-ing when I get home tomorrow AM.” Nah Tay, don’t worry about it, I’ve got this. Let Tay’s story be a warning to you all, going to medical school will eat all of your free time. Never go to college, never be successful. It works wonders at giving you all the free time in the world! Who knows, maybe you’ll have enough time to learn Japanese and translate eroge for less than minimum wage. I’ve got the free time, but learning a language? Huh, sounds like a lot of work.

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

  • Aokana – This one’s a doozy. So here’s the deal – OriginalRen says all of the script files are irrecoverably lost and that the project is starting over from the beginning, and is recruiting a translator. If you want to know more, see the last few updates of his blog here. I know there are a lot of opinions out there surrounding this, most of them understandable, but please at least be respectable.
  • AstralAir – More good progress, up to 72.13%.
  • Corona Blossom – From Front Wing (the company behind Grisaia) suddenly announced this a couple days ago, and it’s coming out in English first! More info.
  • ChuSinGura 46+1 – Kickstarter… cancelled! Is that a new record for VNs? Apparently they’ve secured some amount of external funding and will make another attempt with a smaller goal, and hopefully a better thought out campaign page.
  • Da Capo 3 – From 80% to 83%!
  • Denwatls’ Secret Project #3 – We still don’t have much of a clue on what this one is, but whatever it is, it’s at 50% now! So uhh, look forward to something, at some point.
  • Fate/Hollow Ataraxia Voice Porting Project – ATTN HACKERS: The fellers over at the Beast’s Lair have made some progress and have ripped the files they need from the Vita version of the game, but now need help in unpacking them. See their post here!
  • HaraKano – Up to over 8000 lines translated on Ren’s route!
  • Hoka no Onna – Good progress, now at 64.03%.
  • The House in Fata Morgana – Translation and editing are now both 100%! Testing has begun.
  • KARAKARA – The IndieGoGo campaign finished at 128% funding, and they’re allowing you to still back if you’re a straggler. (link) June 27th release, 38.21% TL progress.
  • Kuroinu – Lots of progress, from 23% to 35%
  • Magical Eyes – Red is for Anguish – Fruitbat Factory announced the release date that was already announced via MangaGamer, March 30th. Well, I guess it’s a day earlier? Check out their informative introductory post on it here, and if it sounds interesting, pre-order it here!
  • OZMAFIA!! (Otome) – Pre-orders are up and a release date is set! Support more otome games in the west by supporting Ozmafia. Pre-order here.
  • Rewrite Harvest Festa – Not much actual progress here, I just wanted to report that one of the testers seems to have been posting on Kazamatsuri and it looks like the project is further along than the amaterasu status page indicates? Link
  • Root Double – Steam page has gone up. Still no word on a release date other than “March.”
  • Seinarukana – Has gone “Gold Master.” Going gold basically means the game has been finalized and has been sent to the printers for mass production. It’s the final step in the development process.
  • The Shadows of Pygmalion – From 43% to 51%.
  • Sukimazakura to Uso no Machi – From 26.8% to 27.7%, good work!
  • Tokyo Babel – There’s a demo released here, it’s worth checking out. Pre-order it here.
  • Wish Tale of the Sixteenth Night – Up to 64%.
  • WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.03 – From 36% to 39.28%.
  • Zero Time Dilemma – The sequel to popular VN/Room escape hybrids 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, its release date of May 28th was announced, as well as a Steam version at some later point this year. Also… it’s probably not a VN at all anymore? It’s still kind of unknown how it will play, but apparently the story will be told though non-VN-like cinematics instead of the endless walls of text we all love so much. Oh well, I guess, I’ll still mention it here since I’m sure there’s plenty of Zero Escape fans here.

 

All the Game Updates:

Fan Translation Projects

Fan Translation Projects

[wpdatatable id=87]
JAST USA Projects

JAST USA (Updates; Archive)

[wpdatatable id=88]
Other
  • Starless – Script check 10%, added new mosaic to fix list.
  • Shiny Days – Tweaks ongoing
MangaGamer Projects

MangaGamer (Updates)

[wpdatatable id=89]
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.

[wpdatatable id=90]
Other
  • Here’s a handy link to sort Sekai Project’s Steam releases by release date: link
Misc. Projects

Other Projects

[wpdatatable id=91]

 

The Zakabox

— Commentary Section —

Zakabox™ Commentary

「Aight, so I edited this in an hour thirty after the thing posted. I can never keep track of exactly when things will go live when people use eagle-speak like “PDT” or whatever. Pathetic Date and Time? Pls, no. Anyway, visual novels, visual novels.

Front Wing says Corona Blossom will be an “in-house” translation and that it will be done by native English speakers. Color me skeptical.

It’s been ages since I saw something about the F/HA project. I believe the Vita release happened right around the actual translation patch release, but the Vita isn’t that easy to crack (where’s muh emulator for VLR, anyway?). That said, even if they actually manage to get the audio data, you’ll still need to find out where it fits in the game script. This probably means that either it’s possible to cleverly code up a way to transfer (most) lines based on comparison with the Vita version’s script, or you’ll have to painstakingly pick out each sound file and test it against lines from the game – a nightmarish task, and one that requires knowing Japanese!

While not reading too much into KARAKARA’s success, the campaign succeeding on Indiegogo is encouraging for those who want clearer lines on ero in their geemus. It’ll be a bit of a balancing act though, because IGG definitely isn’t as well known as KS. Sekai Project has enough momentum at this point to funnel people into their crowdfunders just by announcing their presence, but smaller publishers might find it quite a bit more difficult.

A long time ago I told Decay to get an actual source for OZMAFIA!! (gotta remember both exclamation points!!) taking notes from The Wizard of Oz. He never did find the info, and so I made him remove something to that effect. As it turns out he was correct. I have no regrets. With the Beastmaster and Prince Kickstarter failing (at a hefty $75k, despite how terribly it was handled), OZMAFIA!! looks to be the only otome VN of note on the horizon for official release. Aksys might pick something up as they have a history in the field, but otherwise I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

I just italicized all titles in that last paragraph so I could mock the double exclamation points. I think I’ve done that before, but I just can’t stop myself.

Zero Time Dilemma getting a Steam release might be a harbinger of a PC release of VLR, which would make me happy as I have no intention of ever getting a 3DS or Vita.

Root Double and Seinarukana seem to be the two big ones getting released soon. While I can’t say Seinarukana interests that much me as a gameplay VN, Root Double is something I had planned to read in Fapanese at some point in the future before the announcement. Given how rarely I read VNs at all these days, having it in English might be the only way I’ll actually get to it before the heat death of the universe.

I’m actually considering reading the Tokyo Babel demo today. With there being no porn in it, I wouldn’t have to retreat to my room and its faptop. We’ll see though, maybe I’ll just watch some shit taste anime (Henneko) instead :P」

Decay’s Musings

This week we have some bad news, some interesting news, some odd news, and some good news! What a rollercoaster of emotions it has been. The bad news is that the Aokana project has been set back, all the way back. There’s a lot that can be said about expectations and disappointment. Nobody likes to be taken for a ride, which is perfectly understandable. I’m uncannily good at having little to no expectations for anything, ever, which may not exactly be a positive trait overall in life, but it allows me to take a detached look at matters such as these. There are those who get easily pulled in by hype or get emotionally invested in these projects, and they’ll feel the most hurt whenever a project that seems so close either gets the can or receives this treatment.

The one thing I’ll remind you of is that while it’s okay to be disappointed, you are still owed nothing. Entitlement is something that always bothers me when I see it. Of course, this feeling goes both ways, often fan translators get a sense of entitlement themselves. None of us are entitled to anything, and when you remember this fact, maybe you’ll be able to manage your expectations better in the future, and feel less burned the next time this happens. And it will happen again to another project, eventually.

In the interesting news category, Front Wing seems to be making a big commitment to the western market, announcing a new VN that will be releasing in English first. This is a little bit confusing, are they holding the Japanese release back just to play lip service to the west? Because the Japanese release should theoretically be finished a good time sooner, since it’s the lead version, being developed in Japan. Well, whatever. This follows in the heels of Key’s Harmonia announcement, which is also slated to release in English first. We don’t know much about Corona Blossom. Front Wing is assigning one of their less prestigious writers to the title, who has a whole lot of nukige and a few mediocre moege under his belt, and are also assigning their SD artist as the lead artist here. So don’t expect a high-budget banger made by FW’s A-team. Hopefully it will still be worth a read.

The odd news is about the cancellation of ChuSinGura’s kickstarter. The whole situation was just bizarre. The only VN Kickstarter to be canceled so quickly to my knowledge is Aroduc’s ill-advised unauthorized Romanesque campaign, not great company to keep. They asked for the moon and received a pittance in return. I hope they realize that they need to make major overhauls to their entire campaign strategy if they want to be successful, even with a reduced goal. Here’s my advice to Japan Content/b2g/Gloczus: Actually market the VN based on its merits, and not what you think the public wants. If you wanted to sell some mindless moege, then you should have actually licensed a mindless moege. ChuSinGura is not a mindless moege, moe is just another element of it like it is of almost every other VN ever. My second suggestion: Instead of getting some Japanese intern with a first-year-of-college level of English to write your campaign page, maybe get your native-level translator(s) to do it instead. I assume you have those, right? Because if you don’t, then suggestion number three is to hire competent translators. We’ll see how improved things are the second time around, but I’m not expecting a lot.

And the good news is that Ozmafia finally has a release date and a pre-order! Oh, well, I suppose an unfortunately large percentage of the users here don’t care, but I know there are quite a few of you who actually do, so this one’s for you. I’m pretty happy that there are major companies diversifying their portfolio, going after these other titles that are so often neglected. So far, it’s only MangaGamer. JAST has expressed interest in otome before, but Peter Payne blames the “voice actor yakuza” for charging exorbitant fees for the more famous VAs that come with non-h games. Somehow, MangaGamer is getting it done though. I hope there’s much more of this to come. SP and JAST need to start taking notes.

Anyways, that’s it for my nonsense! Hopefully less week there will be less bad shit going on to inspire my inner preacher. Sometimes it can’t be helped. See you all next week!

TAYsteful™ Thoughts

[Tay’s busy saving lives or learning how to save lives or whatever nonsense pathology students do. He’ll hopefully be back with us next week! – Decay]

Decay

Hello, I'm Decay, an avid fan of visual novels and a regular poster on Fuwanovel. Also, I now review and write about VNs officially for Fuwanovel? Yeah, that started happening at some point. You may also see me on VNDB as dk382.

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wyldstrykr
wyldstrykr
8 years ago

FIRST!

da capo @ 83%? #hype
seinarukana @ gold? #therewillbedelay

question does the english version of the frontwing game will be complete or an all age games?

thanks

XReaper
XReaper
Reply to  wyldstrykr
8 years ago

they plan on releasing it via steam, so an all-ages version is pretty much a given. & regarding “complete”, at this early point there´s been literally no info about it even getting a 18+ version in jp, might also be all-ages, not that those are that rare to begin with.

Katie
Katie
8 years ago

Eww pathology. I have nightmares about those classes and I have yet to take them. Also, hooray about Ozmafia and Zero Escape! I better pre-order those before this surprise cavity sucks me dry.

Freestyle
Freestyle
8 years ago

well there goes any hopes for Aokana anytime in the next 3 years atleast, bummer 😛 shit happens i guess

mochisato
mochisato
8 years ago

finally Ozmafia!!!!!
i hope it does great, Ponipa it’s a tiny company made by 2 only persons and they were the first to really early actually say ‘hey we think if does well we will find a way to get release in english’ while you know Asgard has been trying to process fan-paches of the games that won’t ever be localized due to the cost of the voice actors
Ponipa has two WIP projects that most likely will come out for PC, so if the sales on Ozmafia does well there is a chance the new stuff can also be localized

invalidname
8 years ago

Not really specific to any one VN, but Anime Central did make a nice guest announcement of key (ha ha) staffers from Visual Art’s: CEO Takahiro Baba, character designer Na-Ga (Little Busters!, Angel Beats!, Charlotte), and composer Shinji Orito (“Tori no Uta” from Air, plus BGM in most of Key’s games). http://www.acen.org

Also speaking of Anime Central, my Muv-Luv panel got approved. This year, instead of an info-dump like last year, we’ll have a couple panelists talking about different parts of the franchise: checking in on the Kickstarter and the new translation, looking back at the Schwarzesmarken and Total Eclipse anime, etc.

Zakamutt
Zakamutt
8 years ago

Let it be known that I wrote up a near-finished draft of the commentary like four hours before this thing posted. Anyway, it’s in now…

abc
abc
8 years ago

I think you got the release date of zero time dilemma wrong, according to eurogamer, gametsu and zero escape wiki It will be released 28 June not May.

Shadow
Shadow
8 years ago

Probably something to note. Despite SP’s lack of attention, Starlight Vega’s release was announced to be March 22nd (https://twitter.com/StarlightVega/status/710188652702343169), with a demo out on Steam already. Another SP-published EVN, Rising Angels: Hope was released yesterday on Steam as well.

Hypercrite
Hypercrite
8 years ago

There was also an update about Shin Koihime Musou in their FB page. I can’t remember how much progress they have right now, but I just wanted to tell if anyone is still interested in it.

pepperoni
pepperoni
8 years ago

Don’t see Yosuga no Sora on the list anymore under Fan TL.