Visual Novel Translation Status (11/09/22)

Welcome to the Fuwanovel VNTS, where we shamelessly copy the work of one illustrious 4chan /jp/ member in collating translation progress and add minor dabs of value through corrections and additions. Entries with updates this week in bold. This week’s picture is from ImaImo because while we love Kusarihime, this will probably be the Moege of the month. There are quite a lot of good otaku things that contain Imo, such as ImoSae, OreImo or JagaImo… wait, that just means potato!

Since there is nothing typographical that Zaka could be unleashing his autism over, I felt like starting with a bad joke. Hi, welcome to the third iteration of the Fuwanovel VNTS since the resurgence of our internet presence back into the collective minds of society. Here’s Hata and today you will probably read less of my ramblings because I’ve been relegated to the bench for this episode while we’re blessed with a special guest from the fan translation sphere! Yes, this will now be a thing!

Since we thought that having a dynamic between two battle-hardened autists with a lot of legacy in the scene would become too stale if we kept it up for every episode, we decided to switch up the dynamic a little and make Zaka collaborate with some other individual from the scene (but he’s just as battle-worn as you… just in a different way -Z). He will introduce the supesharu gesuto later, so let’s quickly move on to the (neatly formatted and regex’d) list of translation progressions we love so much!

Fan Translation

Aiyoku No Eustia – 100% Translated and edited and TLC
Akatsuki no Goei ~Principal-tachi no Kyuujitsu~ – Prologue + Kyouka/Reika + Aya + Takanori Extra translated, Moe in translation
Amagami – 2nd public Beta patch released
Aonatsu Line – Translation starting
Baku Ane 2 – Prologue, Ritsuka 8/8 Lessons + 45% of Route, Wakana 2/8 Lessons, Mashiro 3/8 lessions, Miran 1/5 events and Sayaka 1/3 events translated, Ritsuka lessons patch released
Bishoujo Mangekyou -Kami ga Tsukuritamouta Shoujo-tachi- – 30% translated
Caucasus – 100% translated, image editing complete, editing, QC/TLC , and playtesting remain
Chaos;Head Noah – 100% translated, 80.07% TLC and edited, October release
Chicchakunai Mon – 100% translated and 19.53% edited
Chusingura 46+1 – 9418/82770 (11.38%) lines translated
Clearworld – Translation starting
Dragon Knight 4 – Being translated
Fate/Extra CCC – 100% translated
Fuukan no Grasesta – Project starting up
GinIro Haruka – Mizuha route “Translation finished. Second pass finished. Editing underway.”, Yuzuki route fully translated, both routes projected to be finished around November
Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no – “Announced to be in preparation of a patch, two routes still missing”
Hakuchuumu no Aojashin – Restoration patch focused on Case 1 released, work being done on the rest of the untranslated scenes
Haruka na Sora – Sora route 62% translated, Yahiro 64% translated
Hokenshitsu no Sensei to Shabondama Chuudoku no Joshu – 100% translated
Houkago Cinderella – 58.33% translated, 7.02% edited
Hyouryuu Kangoku Chronos – 35% translated, 35% edited
If My Heart Had Wings: Snow Presents – 23% translated
Ima Sugu Onii-chan ni Imouto da tte Iitai – Released
Ikisugi! M Lesson – Common+Mizue+Maki Routes patch released, 30% of Nana’s route translated
Junketsu Megami-Sama – 2nd Alpha patch released, Astarotte route finishing up
Kareshi Inai Reki = Nenrei – Translated 19442 / 58264 text lines (33.37%)
Kud Wafter – 23,835 / 31,579 (73.5%) lines translated
Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~ – 120/256 scripts completed
Lover Able – 100% translated and edited, 2928/34467 lines approved (8.49%)
Maji Koi A-5 – Partial patch with Full Margit + Hound Route released
Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru – 8849/17668 lines, 50.00% translated
Miagete Goran, Yozora no Hoshi o – 1 of 4 routes translation finished for the restoration patch
Nursery Rhyme – 100% translated and edited, text insertion 100% complete, testing ongoing
Planetarian Snow Globe – 25% translated
Pure Pure – 100% translated, needs proofreading, partial patch released, all routes have been inserted
Rui wa Tomo o Yobu – 19.32% translated, 4.20% edited
Sen no Hatou, Tsukisome no Kouki – Both original and fan disc 100% translated, in need of editing
Shin Hayarigami – 48% translated
Shin Koihime Musou – 100% translated, 59% (64235/108888) edited
Shirotsume Yubiwa – 100% translated, 50% beta patch released
Soukoku no Arterial – 90% translated
Tsuki no Kanata de Aimashou – common/touka tl progress: 14.61%
Tsukihime – A piece of blue glass moon – Arcueid route patch released, Ciel route translated through day 9 along with days 11 through 15, days 3 and 4 edited
Watashi wa Kyou Koko de Shinimasu – 100% translated, 99% (2254/2265) lines edited, 36% (826/2265) lines QC
Walkure Romanze – Common + Celia + Lisa routes patch released
Yosuga no Sora – Translation finished, editing and TLC ongoing, Total: TL 100% TLC 82% ED 25%

MangaGamer

Ciconia – Phase 1 Released
Hadaka Shitsuji fandisc – Picked up
Shiei no Sona-Nyl – 100% translated and edited, Refrain content 100% translated, 92% integrated
Rance IX – In Beta
Rance X – 52% translated, 5% edited
Luckydog1 – Picked up
The Pillagers of Raillore – Fully translated, in script insertion
How a Healthy Hentai Administers Public Service – Fully translated, in script insertion
Rance 03 – Picked up
Lkyt – Fully translated, in script insertion
Funbag Fantasy 4 – Picked up
Nightmare x Sisters – Picked up

JAST

Slow Damage – In testing
Gore Screaming Show – 2022 release, 100% translated
Tokyo Necro – Fully translated and edited, 2022 release
Sumaga– Slow progress ongoing
Katahane – Progress being made again
Django – Not actively making progress
Gears of Dragoon: Fragments of a New Era – In Testing
Tokyo Hero Project – Almost finished
Machine Child – Still being developed

Âge titles

Kiminozo – “We will have more information on this title at a later date. Please look forward to it.”
Schwarzesmarken – Through Greenlight

Frontwing

Sharin no Kuni – Delayed for 3-6 months to resolve swapping resolution problem

Sekai/Denpa

Watamari A Match Made in Heaven Part 1 – September 23rd release
Ley-Line: Flowers Falling in the Morning Mist – Fully localized, 50% through QA
Harumade Kururu – Waiting on build
Rewrite+ Harvest Festa – 100% translated, 20% edited
Hoshizora no Memoria (retranslation) – Going through QA
Hoshizora no Memoria Eternal Heart – 100% translated and edited, 33% through QA
Island Diary – 90% through QA
Subete no Koi ni, Hanabata o. – 50% translated
Sumire – Picked up
Sanarara R – 100% translated and edited, waiting on build
Kanojo no Seiiki – Picked up
Glass – Picked up
New Glass – Picked up
Karakara 3 – 100% translated and edited
Yume to Iro de Dekiteiru – 70% translated, 30% edited
Zutto Mae Kara Joshi Deshita – In translation
Gakkou no Seiiki – 100% translated and edited, Waiting on build
Imouto no Seiiki – 100% translated and edited, Waiting on build
Kanojo no Seiiki – 100% translated and edited, Waiting on build
Chiisana Kanojo no Serenade – 15% translated, 5% edited
Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi – Announced
Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi AA – Announced
Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka – 20% translated
QUALIA ~The Path of Promise~ – 100% translated and edited, in QA
Re;Lord 3 – In QA
Amairo Chocolate 2 – 100% translate and edited, waiting on build
Marshmallow Imouto Succubus – Waiting on build
Hamidashi Creative – Announced
Happy Saint Sheol – 60% translated
Inupara – In Development
Nekopara After La Vraie Familie – In Development
Nie no Hakoniwa – 45% translated
Parfait Remake – Announced
Raspberry Cube – Announced

Nekonyan

Ren’ai x Royale – September 30th release
Clover Days – 5% QA, rejected by Steam, “Waiting on fixed animation assets from the developer”
Dracu Riot – 100% translated, TLC, and edited, engine porting ongoing
Melty Moment – 75% translated and TLC
Mirai Radio to Jinkou-bato – 100% translated, TLC, and edited, “Developer and programming team working on porting images”
Aoi Tori – 100% translated and edited, engine porting in progress
Fureraba Complete edition – Vita exclusive content to be added to Fureraba a couple months after the fandisc release
Secret Agent of the Knight Academy – 100% translated and edited, “Programming work ongoing with developer”
Floral Flowlove – 93% translated, 21% edited
Kakenuke Seishun Sparking – 15% translated
Irotoridori no Sekai – 100% translated and edited, in programming
Aokana Extra2 – 100% translated

LoveLab

Sugar Sweet Temptation – 100% translated, aiming for a September release
Maid for Loving You – 85% translated, 2022 release

Aksys

Piofiore no Banshou -Episodio 1926– September 22nd release
Paradigm Paradox – October 27th release
Lover Pretend – December 1st release
Jack Jeanne – 2023 release
Kimi wa Yukima ni Koinegau – 2023 release
Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:salvation- – 2023 release
Norn9 ~Norn + Nonette~ Last Era – 2023 release
Radiant Tale – 2023 release
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II – 2023 release

Shiravune

HimeYoku: A Sacrifice of Lust and Grace – Released
Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten – November 16th release
Dawn of Kagura: Maika’s Story The Dragon’s Wrath – 2022 release

Spike Chunsoft

Chaos;Head Noah – October 7th release, on list of rejected Steam titles
Anonymous;Code – 2023 release

Other

Harem King: Peasant to Princess Gotta Breed ‘Em All – Released
Mahoutsukai no Yoru – December release
Venus Blood -Gaia- – Kickstarted succeeded, June 2023 release listed
Jiangshi x Taoshi – Episodes 1-3 released
Monkeys! – English release planned
Haunted Obachestra Vol.1 Awaking – Upcoming release
NarKarma EngineA – Announced, in development
Taimanin Asagi – Page for the Trial of episode 1 back on Steam
Fault – Silence the Pedant – Demo released
Fault Milestone 2 – Side Below – Upcoming release
Sei Yariman Gakuen – Picked up

The Zakabox

「I’ve mentioned ImaImo before, so let’s go over a fun development that happened a bit before release [after?]. Hata decided to promo the release on twitter, which led to one of my friends to skeptically reply that they weren’t very hopeful due to a (to them) strange decision to cut a pun localization in editing. This actually got noticed by the translator, who explained that they thought nobody would like it… and would instead prefer a furigana (text gloss) explanation instead. I have to admit I was a bit shocked, because while the literalist faction certainly has many adherents, this isn’t exactly the most extreme thing to localize, and the effect of not doing so is pretty unnatural to English writing. Happily, it looks like there will be a variant patch for those with tastes that fetishize the foreignness of Japanese less and instead prefer something closer to the original experience rather than a pale facsimile of the original text. You can see how it looks here.

Okay, there was a lot of opinion in that paragraph, but it’s hard to feel any other way about the more extreme advocates for textual equivalence over meaning equivalence — or as we usually call it, “literal” translations. The less extreme have some real points, and you can see the awkward constructions that sometimes happen in localization as a double failure — neither managing to be natural in English, nor at least giving one’s inner literalist a little microcoom. Personally, I kind of consider localizations on the edge of viability cute, especially in fan translations — like, at least they tried, and I appreciate that. But I’m a translator, have probably had a translator mindset even before learning Japanese (you should see my kuso tl of a verse of the Marseillaise… or maybe not), and really just an outlier on every scale. Still, that’s my fetish. And I guess I can’t really knock any fetish — god knows I have more, one of them being spaced em dashes — but I wish it wouldn’t get in the way of normal people trying to make good translations. Ahem.

I suppose the main sadness here is that it takes quite a bit of effort to produce a lit-fetish translation. At least if you think coriander (cilantro for you USians) tastes like soap, it’s no sweat off anyone’s back to just not include it when making a dish. But in translation… for each line, you’d have to contemplate if you should split versions, then find good solutions for each. All to appease people whose viewpoint you find it hard to sympathize with. Even ‘simple’ swaps usually aren’t, because a different word means a different melody means a different optimal phrasing… which is admittedly getting into Advanced Prose or whatever, but applies as much to moege #351 as it does Dies Irae. You could of course just provide the autoswap version and not care how it sounds, but then I’m already not caring for these dudes, so why should I even help them coom at all? Idk, man. I’ve never worked on moege so this shit hasn’t been very important. I wish everyone a very good have exactly my opinion and nothing else, I’m sure the world would be great for a few minutes before we offed ourselves.

Okay Zaka, you say, but what about the other stuff this week? Fine.

Planetarian Snow Globe wasn’t on my radar (almost nothing is since I stopped doing VNTS, oops), but seems to be a Snowy Ryujin project. Confusingly, two different projects are listed on vndb, and I have no idea how the other one is doing (“releasing sometime in 2022”) or if they’re both the same (After writing this I went to the Key discord server mentioned as the origin, and it looks to be dead according to one of the members… oh, update just after publication: “I’ve stalled and now that Ryuujin is doing it I’m not touching it”. So I guess it’s officially dead!). Anyway, this is a bonus scenario taking place before the events of the original, and seems to be received somewhat more modestly positively than the original as well… but it is written by the original writer, so I guess it’s legit in that sense. It’s pretty new, having been published in 2021. It’s also not the other planetarian side story, Hoshi no Hito. Looking at the writer (VN nerd thing, don’t mind me), I find it interesting that the planetarian writer apparently did Kotomi’s route in CLANNAD. I liked her and her route, though considering the filter of the old fan translation I played way back when, it’s hard to know anything about his writing style. Not to mention she hits like at least 75% of my emotional fetishes, so my judgement is clouded, but anyway.

Kusarihime ~euthanasia~ is being done by a certain “KKHimawari” . This is in fact a different name for esteemed forum member VirginSmasher , don’t worry I got his permission to reveal this truly momentous datum (I suspected it was him straight away, but anyway). I’ve known the man for a while, TLC’d an ero doujinshi he tried translating way back (never published, was picked up by fakku before we got an image editor lmao), and otherwise he’s worked as an intensive QC for some projects. He’s pretty okay, if not spectacular (I have high standards for that), so I’m generally not too worried about the quality of the Kusarihime translation. With that said, I’m biased because KKHimawari linked me a translation sheet to show off a fun H-scene and I happened to TLC a bit for the like 50 lines because, well, I have severe autism, please understand. It definitely still wanted editing, but it was pre-edit so that checks out. In general, I think the attitude displayed was good, and he’s got both Bee’s help (and mine if he ever wants it) if he ever needs to ask, which should help a bit. As always, of course, the final proof lies in the final product.

Haruuru is releasing with two untranslated routes. Quoth the project leader, “The two missing routes are a pale shadow of the writing in the remaining routes that have been translated.”, but it does sting a bit that it ended up never getting completed. From what I remember it’s been a cycle of Ittaku trying to find more translators, them dropping out, and him then finishing more and more routes himself; he’s finally said enough is enough. I too have heard that the “branch school” routes — written by a different writer — are not very high quality from JOP opinions, so there’s certainly some logic to the decision. With that said, this does mean it’s going to be hard to access the few scenes available after all routes have been cleared. I’m not sure how significant these are, and I guess if worst comes to worst they will be translated (as the translator mentions) and you could use a savefile to get to them.

Both Monochrome Mobius and Nie no Hakoniwa are titles in development, out neither in Japan nor here. Monochrome Mobius seems to be set in the utawarerumono ‘verse, while Nie no Hakoniwa is an original from a NEKO WORKs sister brand. Both these projects will likely face the perils of games being translated while in development — Mobius for sure, as it’s set for a simulrelease — and I hope they come out relatively unscathed. The Utawarerumono-related ge is using the same writer as for the original, so utaware fans can relax. Hopefully. Maybe.

But enough from me. I think it’s time for the entire bee movie, but every time you go to Fuwanovel it turns into a commentary by the Akagoei translator. Wait, what?」

The entire bee movie, but every time you go to Fuwanovel it turns into a commentary by the Akagoei translator

「Another day, another dollar. Hi by the way, name’s Bee and I translate things from discount Chinese (Japanese) to English. I have been temporarily released from fuwa prison [Say thanks, brother] to provide some extra content for this post, whenever it comes out.

Since Zaka allowed me to have some attention for once, I’ll use it for self-promotion (sorry, not sorry) and then talk about VNTS stuff so I don’t feel guilty later.

So yeah, hi again, I work with Daybreak Translations, a group that has existed for quite a while now in theory (since 2017), but we didn’t really take any sort of “spotlight” until 2020, when I started getting paid for my translation work and felt confident to fan translate on the side. Because nothing screams “you’re good at translating things” more than getting paid for it, right guys…? RIGHT?! Ahem, so yeah, we’re primarily focused on the Akatsuki no Goei trilogy, made by Akabeisoft—back in the day, an eroge powerhouse, now a meme company that releases shovelware nukige with above average art (more milkers, please). We also do some stuff in between the installments of the trilogy. In fact, most people probably know me because I’m the dude that finished the remaining routes for Gin’Iro, Haruka (definitely didn’t do it because I wanted clout. Source: trust me, bro). Being “tsurezure’s successor” brings a lot of pressure on my shoulders, but honestly everyone trashes everyone else’s translations, and I ain’t innocent in this either, so yeah.

Update: Apparently my translator buddy KKHimawari has finally announced that he’s working on Kusarihime with some team members, so yay! Denpa ain’t my thing, but if you too were ostracized as a kid, I recommend giving this one your attention (queue laughing sounds).

By the way, did you notice how most fan translations nowadays are just people using some machine work and editing it to make it read like an actual human did it? Things sure changed a lot since I started dabbling in fan translation “business” around 2016, but back then it wasn’t as severe as it is now. I don’t get why so many people think its a good thing too? The VN community in general has always been radical about it in one way or another, but it does seem to me that nowadays there’s a wider acceptance for machine-based works, which saddens me. At the very least people widely prefer human-made translations over machine ones (last beacon of hope, I suppose). 

Speaking of, the release of Re:Lief some time ago was definitely a head turner for many—though it looked iffy, at first glance it didn’t seem like it was actually based off of a machine, which shook me a little. At the very least there’s other things recently released made by actual people (Imasugu onii-chan comes to mind). The return of Arcadeotic and Euphemic Translations with the Biman series is a good sign as well (he’s a good buddy of mine, check his work out) and other stuff like Chusingura, Majikoi A-5, Noah, Tsukihime, Houkago Cinderella… all of these are making consistent progress out there, so it’s not like the scene is doomed or anything. Times just change, and we gotta adapt with them as we go. Though it is true that the era of well-known groups or personalities is long gone, the last one managing such a thing being Triplicate with Tsurezure Scans. Also, totally check Zakamutt’s project too (I wasn’t paid to promote this one in particular).」

I’d ramble for longer, but I don’t wanna write a bible, so I’ll leave it here.

See you next week (or not idfk) with more epic content.