Press ESC to close

Visual Novel Translation Status (05/21/2017)

This week’s header image comes Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds, one of our three releases this week.

VNTS (Visual Novel Translation Status Updates Series) is published each Saturday and brings the latest updates from VN translation projects — both licensed and by fans — from around the net. If you find any errors, or you think a project is missing from this list, please let us know in the comments.

From The Team:  Hello everyone! Sorry about the delay on this one, but we wanted to make sure we caught all the big news from this weekend’s convention, Anime Central. And while we didn’t get a ton of new VN announcements, there was still some interesting news nonetheless!

Sekai Project/Denpasoft

  • They have created a separate brand for their Otome/BL games named Maiden Voyage. The first title will be the previously-announced The Bell Chimes for Gold.
  • Re;Lord has been picked up. This will be the first title translated from the popular moe gameplay brand Escu:de. All-ages and 18+ releases planned.
  • More 18+ announcements! Wagamama High Spec and Hoshizora no Memoria confirmed for 18+ releases, G-Senjou no Maou will finally get an 18+ release, and Chrono Clock will receive a free demosaicing patch.
  • Hoshizora no Memoria Kickstarter campaign launch! The physical goods and additional stretch goals are the main focus of the campaign, as the game is already guaranteed to get an English digital release. First stretch goal is the still-untranslated fandisc, Eternal Heart!

MangaGamer

  • Funbag Fantasy Sideboob Story announced! Also known as Kyonyuu Fantasy Gaiden, this is a very highly regarded sequel story to the first Funbag Fantasy (as opposed to Kyonyuu Fantasy 2, which has a new cast).
  • Marina’s Cuckolding Report announced! This is another NTR game from Atelier Sakuya, makers of Please Bang My Wife.

Not the most action-packed con we’ve seen, but hopefully there was still something to excite you here. The next major convention will be Anime Expo, starting July 1st. That’s the biggest con of the year, where all the major players roll out their biggest announcements. Even JAST USA, believe it or not.

The Short Version: Only the New Stuff

New Releases!

All the Game Updates:

Fan Translation Projects

Fan Translation Projects

[wpdatatable id=377]

JAST USA Projects

JAST USA (Updates; Archive)

[wpdatatable id=378]

MangaGamer Projects

MangaGamer (Updates)

[wpdatatable id=379]

Sekai Project Projects

Sekai Project (Update Page)

[wpdatatable id=380]

Other
  • Here’s a handy link to sort Sekai Project’s Steam releases by release date: link

Misc. Projects

Other Projects

[wpdatatable id=381]

VNTS Commentary Section

Zakabox™ 「So Decay asked me to like, write commentary this week. So maybe I will. I-It’s not like I like him or anything, okay? Okay.

The fact that the chuusotsu kickstarter uses endorsements by Moogy, Kastel, and Hadler fills me with mirth. It’s not like I find it unpersuasive myself, but that’s some serious inside baseball unless you’re already a VN community elitist. Maybe nobody else read it? I actually asked two of my lower power level weeb friends, and they didn’t have a clue about anyone but Moogy, and not that much about him either.

Frickin’ casuals, man.

Anyway, at 8 days left it looks like it’s getting funded. I wonder who handled the character descriptions, because they feel a bit… off. I do tend to conflate PR writing with translating fiction a bit too much, and the actual ingame screnshots look better, at least. Having GareJei on as their editor does reassure me somewhat, but not completely… ah well.

We knew kyonyuu fantasy gaiden was coming, but we were not quite aware that “gaiden” was going to be localized as “sideboob story”. I feel unable to object to this title. It’s more or less a fully-fledged sequel to the first from what I’ve heard, so I hope those of you with ballooning aspirations will enjoy.

Hoshimemo’s Kickstarter is, on one hand, more of a physical preorder service with additional marketing bonus; on the other hand, that EH stretch goal goes in quite the other direction for some of us. I like that they’re clear that there will be porn available now. Probably even without dolphins interfering.

Pissing Lolis’ release delay threw many a pee fetishist in despair, and I guess some other people might have been minorly miffed as well. They seem to be having trouble getting steam achievements or something to work, and I think I saw some people had gotten their hard copies already, so this might be one of those rare cases when the physical goods arrive first from a Kickstarter. Huh.

Sweet Young Bride… I enjoyed the CG set. I even saved some pics. Maybe I should actually try it. But one man can only finish so many times in a day, and then the nukige becomes useless… and the experience gets all chopped up as a result. So maybe not, huh.

…yeah, I should just continue Hatsusaku before VA decides to make it a kusoge or something :)」

Decay’s MusingsWhew… One last Decay-only VNTS until Tay makes his triumphant return next week (hopefully). Last week wasn’t purely Decay-only. I screwed up by not properly saving my work. And then Tay came in out of the blue like a god bestowing his divine blessing upon my unworthy self, and while at the airport, saved my ass by offering to redo what was lost so I could actually get some sleep. And then he made a boss header image while he was at it. No such luck for me this week, though, so I hope you enjoy the random CG I found.

So Anime Central happened. This was a pretty weak ACEN all-round in my opinion, though it makes sense when you look at where all the major companies are at this year. SP and MG made some huge announcements last year and it seems like they’re still trying to churn through their extensive backlogs. I wouldn’t be surprised if this year ends with fewer announcements overall. In exchange, we’re getting some real huge game releases that have been in the works for a while, such as Dies irae and Baldr Sky (presumably). I still suspect we may still get a few big bombs before the convention season is over, though, such as perhaps another Rance game.

Sekai Project’s announcement of a dedicated Otome/BL brand seems a little weird? Like, you know how a lot of people felt when Sekai Project set up a separate brand for 18+ releases, that it felt like the niche they were most interested in was being relegated to an “other” status that ended up neglected? That’s kind of like how some otome/BL fans feel right now. There’s still potential for this to end up being a positive move overall if Sekai Project play their cards right, and I know for a fact that they have some dedicated people over there who care a lot about the otome/BL scene, so I’m hopeful that this will end well. I will say that the very first thing that popped up in my mind when I saw their new mascot was “Uh, that looks like an eroge heroine,” so that’s not a great start. They need to be more savvy than that.

And for MangaGamer’s announcements, all I have to say is that I’m sad Tay has been offline all day. I really wanted to see how he’d react to this duo of titles, but all my bait messages have gone unanswered :(.

See you all next week!

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.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

21 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
littleshogun
littleshogun
6 years ago

This week VNTS Review, and as for Anime Central this year announcement it was still notquite interesting yet. At least there’s no hardcopy announcement fromMangagamer if I may say something.

https://forums.fuwanovel.net/blogs/entry/1791-sweet-young-shinsengumi-review/

By the way, it was confirmed that Tsurezure will eventually translate Hoshiori.

Lambda
Lambda
6 years ago

Yeah, to me it’s not that impressive to announce a brand and then just stick a title we already knew about on it. A title I’m completely not interested in. I enjoy buying otome/BL titles to support the industry, but there has to be some tiny amount of appeal to me… It’s no real indication of their commitment to it/what games we can expect on it (will it be all indie? At least somewhat bigger releases? Who knows!).

And I agree with Decay, that mascot, man…. Those impressions are spot-on. Why not a guy for an otome/BL brand? Are they afraid of guys as mascot characters?

So yeah, that announcement did nothing for me, and for BL fans, last convention was far better (really looking forward to Hashihime).

Thanks for the info on Phantom Jade! I don’t check aarin that often anymore, so this was good news.

And I’m quite disappointed that the Hakuouki isn’t the full game. Yeah, I know that it was done of the JP side, but the English side certainly didn’t make that point obvious. Only finding it out through other fans is :\. The website also makes absolutely no mention of it. That’s really bad. Really sketchy.

Sarukah
Sarukah
Reply to  Lambda
6 years ago

Yup, took me until only around two weeks before Kyoto Winds release to finally figure out exactly what the game is (being the first of two parts). The entire time beforehand I was just really confused about it. Pretty lame indeed.

Mochisato
Mochisato
Reply to  Lambda
6 years ago

but wouldnt the Hakuouki issue a problem from your own lack of search tho?
i mean a good portion of people that knew from the japanese release did knew about it and i might be wrong on it but Idea Factory did said they would localize BOTH games
yea they should have worded better but a costumer that don’t look for info on a product they plan to invest on it’s at fault as well

Lambda
Lambda
Reply to  Mochisato
6 years ago

Nah, man, a company should provide info like this on its product, not leave it up to the consumer to puzzle out. Like I said, the official website of the game makes NO MENTION of this, not even in the “What is Kyoto Winds?” Section and, in fact, that section seems to imply that Kyoto Winds is complete. “Take a glimpse into the Hakuouki world as it was originally intended!” With half-length routes. That’s what’s bad. That’s what’s sketchy.

Most people on reddit were frankly shocked, and had to figure it out from each other. Most people aren’t expecting to have to drill down to the JP release to figure out things about something in English when it’s an official release – they haven’t had to before, after all (beyond “this game is good” from other prior players). Yeah, they said that they’d localize both, but I only saw that info after people realized that this game was only half – hell, the second half isn’t even on this list, while the first one is.

I don’t have a Vita, so I didn’t get the game, but it’s just so bad to see something like this….

Mochisato
Mochisato
Reply to  Lambda
6 years ago

why are you complaining about something your not even going to play then let ACTUAL costumers make their decisions wwwww

Lambda
Lambda
Reply to  Mochisato
6 years ago

….Cause I was thinking of buying a Vita soon for the otome games? Cause companies being fundamentally anti-consumer hurts everyone? Cause the literal first comment responding me was someone admitting they didn’t know until two literal days beforehand, and they are a consumer? Not to mention all the people on reddit that didn’t know until they actually had the games in their hands and found it end at Chapter 5! ACTUAL consumers didn’t have the information to make their decisions easily.

I’m not certain why you find this hilarious. And considering your first post was overly accusatory, placing all the blame on me, you might wanna turn it back a bit.

Virperditus
Virperditus
6 years ago

Thanks for VNTS Decay. I am glad that at least someone is (cautiously) optimistic about Baldr Sky. That said, is there something I overlooked or will Hoshimemo be released in May/September 2018 as is written on Kickstarter page?

Virperditus
Virperditus
Reply to  Decay
6 years ago

Thanks for answer, I wonder when SP will change them…

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

“I will say that the very first thing that popped up in my mind when I saw their new mascot was ‘Uh, that looks like an eroge heroine,’ so that’s not a great start. They need to be more savvy than that.”

As someone who plays an equal share of galge, otoge, and BL, this was literally my first thought too.

Lunatic Joker’s style isn’t bad, but it’s better suited for galge. For an otome and BL game brand mascot, I feel Sekai Project should have commissioned someone whose style is much closer to what you see in otoge and BL games or women-oriented manga.

Mitch
Mitch
6 years ago

DONT CALL ME A CASUAL, ZAKA, YOU ROBE WEARING, KATANA WIELDING, PONYTAI STYLE ELITIST! ILL KICK YOU RIGHT IN THE NUTZ! :kenji:

Zakamutt
Admin
Reply to  Mitch
6 years ago

You got the wrong guy mate, Asonn’s the one you want.

Kojichan
Kojichan
6 years ago

Hello there! I’m sorry, I had to change the MEGA link for the Phantom Thief Jade translation. ^^

Full game: [removed]

There’s a 4Shared version for people who can’t use Mega:
[removed]

Also, I am a one-man team! *thumbsup*

Kojichan
Kojichan
Reply to  Decay
6 years ago

Totally understandable! Sorry about that. ^^;;; My bad.

mochisato
mochisato
6 years ago

VNR is back again so here is some updates to: Black Wolves Saga – Last Hope, Shinigami to Shoujo and Clock Zero
https://eirrir.tumblr.com/post/161071315350/

imcoming
imcoming
6 years ago

omg, how can u forget Nekopara? u get nekos, u get everything!!!!!!!!!