recent comments

Do we all agree that we definitly needed an Illyasviel route though ?

but it makes your statement less trustworthy, that is a common fact

Now my personal opinion, to tell the truth I didn't like your solution of this problem, in the end all translators gave up quickly running away like rabbits trying to cover their behavior in noble words of respecting rights of company. I like people with more backbone, I'm in trade and business domain, maybe thats why. So I'm on NNL side, though I'm afraid that they too gave up already, and patch will never be released. It just means, we will have to wait another 5-10 years before we see eden* in English. And thats simply a shame, because I can tell that even graphics alone makes its worth playing. Thats why as all here I also feel this deep grief. All due to bad circumstances. I'm patient, I'm sure I will live long enough to see it in English, and if chance comes by I'll gladly make life of midori or cowardly translators harder. Just to somehow avenge lost time. You might detest me for that, well we are all humans, there are some thing we can't help, neither you, nor we.
Best wishes, and please suffer a lot from now on.

>minori's real problem is domestic piracy, and presence/absence of English patch won't increase/decrease it.

I question this. The English patch increased the availability of pirated torrents and such, and yes, the Japanese do use pirate sites from the English side of the internet. I've seen many a Japanese MAD whose video source clearly came from fansubs, plus Japanese pages dedicated to "how to download stuff from American torrents."

>Neither ef nor eden* have something worth raging about compared to other developers' games that have English patches, so having minori's games targeted by media seems extremely unlikely.

Aren't the characters in ef under the age of 18, and it has sex scenes?

I'm an American and this letter represents my feelings on this whole matter truly.
I'm also an avid gamer myself. I've never commited any of the acts in these games other than use it to (sumtime?) to masterbate or release accumulated stress. I've played, watched, read, and listen to more *hentai* contents than what would be deem appropriate.(lol) but thats a personal hobby of mine. Don't like it? Sue me.

I thought the first episode was quite inventive, and quite smart ; I'm quite fond of SHAFT in general so I may well be quite biased. However, the way they paved their way back to the original story using the "amnesia" cliché made me twitch in anger (the the last episodes didn't interest me much.)
There are other shows that strayed from their original material ; I for one liked the original Fullmetal Alchimist anime, because they really tried to give consistency to their story - and I found their answer to the whole Lavoisier postulate quite interesting (explored in the OVA if memory serves ?)
But then again it also depends on your level of nostalgia toward the old material.

Regarding the original topic, I'll have to disagree on Mina being able to do without Akira as a Queen, especially the way it is depicted in the anime. Many scenes, most notably the flashback, insist on her emotional dependance to Akira ; can you really say a Queen that would endanger her kingdom in a childish "my boyfriend's the best !" bet is independant ?
It also rings true for Sanzenin Nagi ; both are powerful characters in their own right, like you state, but they lack a core strenght of anime characters : whether you call it emotional trust, friendship, love, many - if not all - anime insist that a hero can not exist alone. In that way, Hayate is much more than contingent male support ; he fulfills Nagi as a character.
Many of those overly powerful princess-like characters have such Achille heels, and to put it in your words that would be a characteristic of their "moe" : their downfall is ultimately the most irrational yet human-like trait, the need for comfort / love / etc. That's also the whole point of the tsundere or the megane or even the osanainajimi : they need the shujinkou and struggle to admit / fulfil that need ; the klutz / airhead I never understood so...
There is an on-going anime that poses further interrogations on this subject : Arakawa Under the Bridge. Nino appears as a very independant, if not "stand alone", character, yet she asks Kou to be her boyfriend, all the while distorting the usual take on the classic "romance with a princess" situation. It is also interesting in a mirror perspective, as Kou, a gifted and promising young man, ends up living under the bridge because he "cannot depend on anyone".

Regarding the "princess embrace", there's a scene that perfectly illustrate your point in Sugar Coat Freaks, where Jill - the tsundere princess character, now with more blond twintails and less breasts - twists her ankle and blushes as the main character carries her.

>I am well aware of copyright management since I work in an editorial department

Apparently, you are not.

Copyright protects the work in part or in whole. Research papers that source other material are allowed to do so because they deal with facts, which are not copyrightable. The story/script of a game is a creative expression, thus its creator is entitled to copyright protection, including all derivative works based on it. Translation is specifically outlined in copyright law as a form of derivative work.

>It also seems paradoxical to me that Japanese try to enforce such a copyright-oriented attitude, because doujinshis are not exactly legal in that regard

Unlike trademarks and bootlegging, as a civil matter, copyright enforcement in such instances is purely at the discretion of the copyright holder. Copyright holders can choose not to sue whomever they want. The Japanese visual culture industry has reached near-universal consensus that doujinshi is not harmful to them. But unauthorized translation and distribution are. It is not difficult to see how the two activities are distinct.

You obviously did not play Edelweiss.

[...] The minori controversy: are VN translators no better than narutards? | tsurupeta.info www.tsurupeta.info/content/minori-controversy-are-vn-translators-no-bett... – view page – cached While unauthorized fan translations of copyrighted material are not a legal grey area (it's pitch black almost everywhere in the world, except in very limited special cases), I've usually agreed that some are worse than others. Tweets about this link Topsy.Data.Twitter.User['minagi'] = {"location":"この星で最後の楽園","photo":"http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/607004970/karin3_normal.png","name":"minagi","url":"http://twitter.com/minagi","nick":"minagi","description":"呟きからお察し下さい。基本的に適当です。","influence":""}; minagi: “翻訳厨 vs 実が白熱してる… わけではなく、取り上げている海外blogのコメント欄が良い感じに燃えているってところかなあ。「外国人嫌い」という批判だけならまだしも、レイシストという批判に文化の違いを感じる。 http://bit.ly/cr44Ta ” 14 minutes ago view tweet retweet Topsy.Data.Twitter.User['bikasuishin'] = {"location":"Paris, France","photo":"http://a3.twimg.com/profile_images/65187307/maturi_normal.jpg","name":"mt-i","url":"http://twitter.com/bikasuishin","nick":"bikasuishin","description":"Follower of Dr. Barasui's teachings on cuteness and justice.","influence":""}; bikasuishin: “New post: The minori controversy: are VN translators no better than narutards? http://tinyurl.com/33mqllw ” 2 days ago view tweet retweet Filter tweets [...]

AND IF YOU'RE STILL HERE, POST THIS PICTURE TO THAT 2CH THREAD
http://img12.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=48128_netaren78183_122_56lo.jpg

DOES THIS PICTURE GIVE YOU SOME IDEAS OF THE PIRATES?

BY THE WAY, WTO DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO RESTRICT YOUR PRODUCT TO ONE COUNTRY.
MINORI USED WTO AS AN EXCUSE, BUT IS VIOLATING THE WTO ITSELF.

Ah, for the halcyon days of al|together, when translators and VN creators worked hand in hand...

There's always narci2, I guess.

Also, maybe it's just me misunderstanding the wiki community's lingo, but it really seems that's how they call the sudden and unilateral removal of all materials on a wiki page : "vandalizing". And whatever the reasons behind that action.
Furthermore, I don't quite see what the internet tabloids' role is in there.

I get it, you're defending minori's intervention - but even though I perfectly understand where they're coming from, blanking wiki pages is just something you don't do in this day and age. But you could say you don't translate VNs either, so, fight fire with fire ! I'm not sure that's how I want my internet though. And yes, I'd like more flowers.

I don't see why I would own every mangamer title. I'm all for encouraging, I'm not doing charity though. I love my wife, but she's certainly not getting my whole salary worth of jewelry. Might need to invest a little more though if I want to keep playing...

You want examples, fine. I bought Edelweiss and KiraKira from MangaGamer ; Edelweiss, I felt a bit cheated by the quality, but like it has been said, they were young so may we forgive. Both games are quite expensive, especially for a digital product, so that might even disprove my "not doing charity" earlier. I bought several from JAST too, I think the latest was Princess Waltz (hated it, if only because of the androgynous shota). I'm eagerly awaiting Demonbane's translation, and depending on the reviews I'll probably buy it.

I can read some japanese, so I had already played Shuffle when they published it in english ; yes, I imported it for quite a lot of money a few years ago. And if I may say, I never understood the hype and disliked the game...
I also bought the japanese Soul Link, which I found atrocious, mostly because it didn't really interest me and because they were so many bad ends. So there were no way I'd buy it again in english.

Of course I've played VNs in english without owning the original game too ; Tsukihime for instance, that was my first VN. I'm no saint, sure, but I'm definitly contributing to the eroge industry ; I own several dozens of game (and I mean both the several and the dozen), many of which I bought in the last two years, since my japanese improved (I own most of the games Accany reviewed for instance).
Some of you people really need to come down your law-abiding high horses ; sometimes it's not "fan entitlement", it's just lack of money and proper export channels that make people pirate ; and most of the time, they don't pirate - they just want to understand because Japanese isn't their mothertongue. Do you have any idea of how much it costs me to import games in Europe ? Some games you can't even find without looking on e-bay, and I've had _copies_ sold to me instead of originals that way. AND YET I DO IT. Do you ?
I also support digital distribution, though just because I find it more practical - I love Steam and have bought many games on it (and they do mad price cuts sometimes ; though they often bleed you dry though, especially with the euro / dollar rate).

But game piracy is NOT the problem at hand - I pay for my games, and I'd love for them to be translated. If the maker won't do it, they shouldn't prevent others from doing it, especially when they do so free of charge and with great quality. I don't understand how you can argue against that. Instead of snark one-liners, I'd really love to see your rational there. They certainly don't lose money because of translations (do you think there is a single person in the world that read a script without playing the game ? And enjoyed it ?). Do you think translation = game piracy ? I don't. Are those releasing subtitles for movies, without hard encoding them, pirates ? I thought it was quite helpful when I found out one of my DVDs didn't have a subtitle track other than Chinese and Korean and some other I couldn't even identify (that was rich believe me).

All you mourning the VN translation scene are puzzling me ; I'd rather it was clear what can be translated and what cannot, than see people invest days of work just to be shut down because some publisher feels like it. I do think most japanese eroge makers aren't so obtuse as to hate on what you can call the "VN translation fanbase" ; Minori is kind of an exception, and one I also don't understand. Are they scared of foreign countries lobbying the Japanese governement to prevent them from making this kind of games ?
We all play eroge here, so we know we hate the lame undecisive protagonist. I don't think there could be anything wrong with an open discussion. And contrary to what you might think, both those blindly defending NNL and those blindly defending minori are in the wrong here ; mostly for the blindly part.
I've tried to express sincere thoughts in what is my third language, and all I got was flak. Is this the internet anonymity power ? If that's the case, we're doomed, but certainly not because of NNL or Minori. Look at yourself before pointing fingers like the righteous prophet you are not.
Drivel ? Excuses ? Is that how you communicate ? And you have the guts to marvel at how governements are trying to control the internet ? Please. I usually get paid for writing lenghty and useless soliloquies (great job), so you're really hurting me there.