The fan translation group Blue Overture Translations announced on Reddit the translation project for Aonatsu Line, a visual novel from Giga. This Fan Translation will be exclusive to Nintendo Switch.
The demo was released on September 1st and is available on GitHub.
Aonatsu Line was made by Giga. Giga is responsible for both regular visual novels as well as games that feature mecha with action-oriented gameplay elements. One of its sub-brands, Baldrhead, has been behind several of these action-oriented VNs. Aside from their visual novels, they are known for creating the Variable Geo fighting game series for PC9800, which was later ported to TurboGrafx-CD, PC, Super Famicom, Sega Saturn and PlayStation.
Later on November 22nd 2022 the company announced through their official website that they will end development and sale of their products on March 31st 2023. Their most notable works are the Badlr Sky series (some of them are translated by Sekai Project, such as Baldr Sky and its sequel), the Ai Kiss series, and Parfait ~Chocolat Second Brew~ (which has a TBA translation from Sekai Project for the remake version.)
Aonatsu Line released its Trial Version on February 1st 2019. A month later, they released this game as the First Press Limited BLUE Edition and the Special SUMMERTIME BLUE Edition. On April 26th 2019, they released the game as the WHITE Edition.
A year later, on March 2020, Giga released Aonatsu Line as an all-ages version on PS4 and PS Vita, as well as its download edition. On February 24th 2022, Aonatsu Line released on Nintendo Switch as an all-ages edition.
It turns out, after the demo's release, that the translator (aquaticteenager) is not actually proficient in Japanese as he can't read Kanjis and masagrator is not an English native speaker. In fact, they claimed to use DeepL (Machine Translation.)
There were three people involved in the proofreading and editing process: Aquaticteenager would edit the text, Masagrator the audio and another staff would cross reference the text script with the Chinese version as a native. They also need someone to do the QC — you can help them if you want on their Discord server! Even with all of this questionable aspects, Aquaticteenager is open to any criticism. In other words, this is their first project, so things might be better in the future.
Tatsumi and his childhood friends Miki and Chihiro talked every day about what they would do during the upcoming summer vacation. By chance, they befriended the overly-honest ojou-sama Yui, who transferred to their school since she admired the co-education system, as well as kouhai Kotone, who had failed to make lasting friendships after trying too hard to fit in. This new group of five friends (?) began to plan for a memorable bittersweet summer vacation that happens only once in a lifetime.
VNDB
PROTAGONIST
Oikawa Tatsumi
Love is… I don’t think it’s something you can force using the word ‘youth’ as a shield, then.
He is an average second-year student.
He has an innate sense of helpfulness. When he sees someone in trouble, he will do what he can to help, even if he had never met them before.
He used to enjoy reading and listening to music; however, thanks to his new friends, he has gained an appreciation for sports.
MAIN CAST
Kousaka Miki
VA: Kotorii Yuuka
Ta-kun! He is my best friend!
Tatsumi’s upbeat classmate, who is also his childhood friend.
She likes to tease him about his love life, even though she isn’t very experienced in love herself.
Her family owns Mico, a small cafe in town. Miki lends a hand by serving customers and preparing food, so she also has innate abilities in homekeeping.
She and Tatsumi live close to each other, and they were as close as family during their childhood. This changed when they became teenagers.
She’s not the top of the class when it comes to grades, but she is athletic.
Nakategawa Yui
VA: Mihane Yuuki
Please, I beg you… can you please bear with my selfishness?
An isolated girl who was raised in a well-off family. She recently transferred from a school for young women to a co-ed school in search of a normal school life. She tries to act like a regular schoolgirl, but her mannerisms and vocabulary always end up giving away her upbringing. She gives off a friendly radiance, but she takes care to never leave anything ambiguous; she will make her intentions extremely clear. In the best case, this makes her very honest. In the worst case, she can end up being pretty reckless. Her grades are unrivaled, and she has already decided on her career path.
She is not very athletic. Her idea of fun consists of reading books of idioms and proverbs.
If Oikawa-senpai’s always cool, I would be in trouble too.
A first-year student who embodies the definition of ‘popular schoolgirl.’ She was apparently very plain during her time at her last school, so she decided to change that moving forward.
She can be characterized as hardworking, particularly when it comes to following the latest fashion and makeup trends. Having been unaccustomed to the life of a popular girl, her ego grew extremely rapidly and ended up damaging her relationships. As her friendships unraveled, she was accepted by Tatsumi and his friends. At first, she acted crudely and ungrateful towards them, but she gradually opened up to them. Her grades are average, and she is somewhat athletic. She is secretly skilled at karaoke.
MINOR CAST
Sakaki Chihiro
VA: Andon Yoruasa
Well… Yeah, I was worried at first, that we may never have such a lively summer again.
A tall, mature-looking student. His face is well-rounded, and he is a good sport. He is naturally popular with the girls, but he would prefer to hang out with Tatsumi and Miki instead of flirting around. He is very blunt, but his loyalty to Tatsumi and Miki are unmistakable and unwavering.
Due to complications with his family, he lives alone in his own apartment, without his parents. The most important thing to him are his friends, and he will stop at nothing to take care of this bond.
If you enjoy our work, please follow us on Twitter for more visual novel news and join the community in our forums and discord server: we’re pretty active there!
In addition, you can also support us on Patreon or by buying us a Ko-fi.
Awesome article guys, I’m excited to have published this alongside my team. I don’t play VNs and am not part of the scene in a meaningful way, so it was a huge surprise to know machine-learning was so controversial on a topic like this. It doesn’t matter to me though, those who are fans will enjoy this release.
On that note if you think you could lend a hand in proper translation, please reach out, we would love to have you!