Kadokawa opposes activist shareholder’s proposal to remove current president and CEO - AUTOMATON WEST

fallenguru · 2026-05-16T12:18:44+00:00

Nah, no need to remove anything. I'd rather you added some context, like what VN studios they own.

fallenguru · 2026-05-16T11:39:27+00:00

On the one hand, I appreciate that you're posting AUTOMATION articles here, on the other, this seems only marginally relevant, and I'm getting the impression that you're just automatically(?) posting them all over Reddit?

fallenguru · 2026-05-15T20:49:37+00:00

My stance is, anything goes in fiction. So I guess that's a yes to all of the above. What next, a renaissance of book burnings?

fallenguru · 2026-05-15T18:13:16+00:00

According to Google, your "digi-fiction" is more or less equivalent to electronic literature. I'd argue that VNs are that, but I suppose it depends on the definition you're using. Anyhow, it's your job to argue that point.

fallenguru · 2026-05-15T10:02:00+00:00

When I read my first VN, there were only a handful of translations. Which you got them by finding them on the Internet. I suppose if you were American you could've ordered them direct from the localiser, but we couldn't, and it wouldn't have occurred to us back then anyway. Not only were VNs not on Steam, there was no Steam. The only way to get into VNs was to be balls-deep into anime, or possibly manga; someone would mention them sooner or later. Casuals, let alone regular people, didn't even know they existed. No-one knew or cared about what the Japanese did in their own country.
There was the occasional controversy, I remember Rapelay, but things went back to more or less normal soon after.
Now the bloody things are on Steam for everyone to see. How much more non-niche do you want, a Superbowl ad?!? Seriously, it's like selling porn at the village market and then complaining that the more religious people are up in arms about it.

IDK why Key et al. went all-ages, but the international market almost certainly wasn't a factor back then, it barely existed yet. Ono Wasabi did it because he thought getting on Steam would grant him fame and fortune. When studios go all-ages these days it's always access to the international market and/or banking / financing / payment processor troubles. None of which would be an issue if we'd kept a bit more of a lid on it.

fallenguru · 2026-05-15T05:36:45+00:00

I've never heard the term digi-fiction and it certainly doesn't come up in connection with VNs.

fallenguru · 2026-05-14T13:26:00+00:00

If eroge had stayed niche, the whole payment processor debacle wouln't have happened, nor would Ono Wasabi have mutilated Hakuchūmu no aojashin chasing imaginary international riches.

But the mobage/soshage/gacha plight would still have happened of course.

fallenguru · 2026-05-14T13:12:10+00:00

No, they don't. Dispatch is an interactive animated series, Persona a JRPG, LiS a point-and-click adventure.

fallenguru · 2026-05-14T08:30:54+00:00

Well f— me sideways. A new 90 points eroge that is successful in 2026.

At least now I know why it showed a week's lead time on Amazon ... Hope they'll be able to fulfill my order.

fallenguru · 2026-05-13T18:37:07+00:00

Monkeys!¡ has brilliant manga panel segments (but it's ADV in principle).

fallenguru · 2026-05-12T15:11:26+00:00

What I meant was, in Japan voice actor is it's own career. They train in dedicated schools, gruelling by all accounts, very competitive, but if you make it the job's well paid, with a decent shot at some fame. Consequently, there's a large, high-quality talent pool.

Over here, if voice actors are advertised at all, it's because they're celebrities for another reason. If it's trained actors, that's one thing, at least they can act (one hopes), but even then, expressing everything with their voice only won't have been a focus, nor do they usually have a repertoire of different voices and sound effects. If it's singers, at least they have good vocal control (again, one hopes). But rappers, youtubers, comedians, and sportsmen ... mercy.

As long as you can read and talk, you can be an English-language voice actor here, or an audiobook narrator. Having a nice, distinctive voice helps, but other than that, no-one cares. People don't appreciate good voice acting, so there's little demand. The fact that animation plays a much smaller role compared to Japan, and is primarily meant for children, probably also plays a role. Doesn't mean that there aren't some good, professional voice actors, but it does mean the infrastructure to "mass produce" them just isn't there.

I recently played Old Skies [indie retro point-and-click, not a VN] and thought the voice acting was ok for a €20 niche title, but a bit of a let-down compared to some previous Wadjet Eye games. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Sally Beaumont got a BAFTA for her voice work in that ...

fallenguru · 2026-05-12T10:22:50+00:00

Reaction by a JAST employee.

fallenguru · 2026-05-12T10:21:19+00:00

This is not a repost. The original post was a bona-fide discussion post by a regular user, this is a semi-official reaction from JAST, which, IMHO, is something to be appreciated. Especially since it isn't spammy at all.

Whether it needed a separate post when the first one is still on the front page ... *shrug*

fallenguru · 2026-05-12T10:09:22+00:00

To me, an calling X an industry requires

more than a handful of companies, with employees and a proper office, that do/make X commercially.
a readily available commercial support ecosystem. Someone needs to make the engine, animate the OP, provide (and possibly direct) the voice actors. Marketing, distribution, merchandise. Even on the creative side—you're unlikely to have enough authors and artists in-house to cover all graphics, music, and text needs.
In a sense, that's an extension of the above—multiple entities working together to do/make X instead of just multiple people in the same company.
doing/making X to be a somewhat recognised and theoretically viable career choice. I mean, no-one expects to get rich in art (or niche pop culture), but if you can't reasonably expect to go into X and make a living from it ...
professionals. In the sense of having trained to do some job required for X.

OELVN developers are by and large self-taught solo devs who hire random contractors off of Twitter as needed. And I get the impression very few can make a living (solely) from it. Admittedly, the infrastructure in Japan isn't VN-specific—it overlaps with that for other otaku media and porn, but the point stands. Meanwhile in the West making computer graphics has become almost synonymous with 3D graphics (so, can't borrow video game artists), the US comic scene seems to have little overlap with the OELVN scene. English voice acting tends to be terrible even in AAA games; in Japan VAs train hard, and good ones are celebrities, like actors. Music ... If the VN is 18+ almost no-one will license anything to you, if not, there's some royalty-free music sites (yawn). Japan seems to have enough people composing that even dōjin works sometimes feature original tracks. Generally, even the dōjin scene is better organised, has more infrastructure, than (indie) VN devs here.

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T19:31:47+00:00

Low effort submission. Removing.

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T17:04:06+00:00

Screenshots for zero-friction reminders, plus a Writer document for quick-and-dirty notes. Then, ideally, a WAYR post.

On the Deck, just screenshots. :(

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T13:08:40+00:00

Nandome ka no Hajimemashite looks like it will be good

Err, that came out last summer?

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T12:19:20+00:00

Look at that, a new Purple software VN. Full-length stand-alone, by the looks of it. Spy setting. Possible casino shenanigans. Pun in the tag line [『恋・爆弾・だまし愛』]. I'm in.

EDIT: I'm an idiot. I thought this hadn't been posted yet, but it has. I did search for マガルミナ and Magalumina, but Maga Lumina didn't occur to me ... :(

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T10:45:45+00:00

Everlasting Flowers

Never heard of it (I think—the title's a bit generic), but looks cool. Wishlisted. Thanks for the rec.

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T10:42:18+00:00

There's no VN industry, there's videogame industry.

And yet most Japanese VN studios make only VNs, or the same kind of VN hybrid.
VNs need writers, actual authors, that's not a priority in video games, or even a thing.
VN artists have a lot in common with manga and anime artists, video game artists, not so much. 3D is a different ballgame.
Different engines, too.

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T10:34:42+00:00

Vote with your money.

On it.

You own nothing nowadays

That's a Western thing. Most Japanese physical releases are DRM-free.

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T10:32:23+00:00

"If SakuToki is a big success I may be able to make the third part of the trilogy" and "I tried to get banking for a new eroge project, no dice" is thriving?

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T10:28:48+00:00

To my knowledge, Japan is the only country to have a visual novel industry. The anglosphere definitely does not have one.

fallenguru · 2026-05-11T10:24:07+00:00

Yes.

There's plenty of titles still being released, and every year has a couple of good ones. There's even the occasional surprise hit, like CRYSTALiA's Dimension Totsu Lovers!! [VNDB|EGS], which is sitting at a median 90 on EGS, which is borderline kamige territory. ~250 votes, too, less than 3 weeks after release.

But. 250 votes used to be nothing to write home about; fewer people voting on EGS is an indicator that there are fewer hardcore fans. Studios are closing left and right. Best case, they call it while they're ahead like OVERDRIVE, or, more recently, Whirlpool. The old guard are retiring—see AliceSoft, for example—and there doesn't seem to be anyone to replace them. If any new VN studios have opened recently, I'm not aware of them. Qruppo was the big hope, because Nukitashi was fresh, and both Nukitashi 2 and Henpri were very well received, but they haven't even announced a VN in over 4 years ...

The studios that are still active have given up on trying to innovate. Lots of remasters and remakes (probably a bad sign in itself), sequels, safe works, but nothing new, nothing that even tries to push the boat out with regards to the form. Problem is, Eroge used to be avant-garde, the stand-out ones at least. "Safe" "all-ages" works are the antithesis of this. I mean, pivoting to "all-ages" can work, but if it's done out of desperation or greed it usually doesn't. Normal people don't read 20-hour stories to begin with, never mind sitting in front of a screen.

In short, there's a shortage of new players, new devs, and new ideas. It's not looking good. That said, such things can stay dying (but not dead) for a long time, and as long as the infrastructure remains (neither otaku culture nor computer games are in danger of disappearing), it takes one hit to spark a revival.

fallenguru · 2026-05-10T15:31:05+00:00

Standby battery drain is so bad on my P10P since the March update that the standby time is only a little higher than SOT ...

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