I'm looking for people to talk about the LuckyDog1 series (r18 bl)

[testeeee]

There are two types of futa. Male and female one. Female futa is about dick girls or "girls" with dicks. And the male one is about "boys" but with vagina. I was talking about the male one in BL.
Good for you that you don't know about any of that stuff ahahaha.

according to what youre saying it seems to be a new trend in BL spheres, so since i only started interacting again with BL spheres a few months ago after a 12 years pause then its probably why i didnt know about it ? ty for explaining it to me!
imo its fine to have a some characters which are men with a vagina, unless its indeed an attempt to "heterosexualize" the couples or make it more relatable for straight cis women. But i dont have any strong opinion on anything related to that because as mentioned, well, i didnt even know it was a thing that became popular in BLVNs and ive never encountered such vns myself so i cant pretend i know what im talking about here

You would be surprised but yes. Especially on tiktok or twitter. I would recommend staying away from those places tbh.

From my experience this has always been a thing. But those critics mostly were about BL as a whole from people who didnt read BL. People being aggressive towards BL readers werent BL readers themselves. On the contrary, people who criticized certain routes or certain characters because of various reasons (mostly about consent or bad behavior in general) were respectful to other readers who liked said routes or characters. Maybe it changed with BL becoming more mainstream ? Because i do remember a few occurences of people bad mouthing dmmd players who liked minks route back in 2012, but dmmd reached the "mainstream" sphere so it attracted a public of non BL readers (i was one of them btw, dmmd was my first BL ever as i never read bl mangas)
Unfortunately, BL and GL seem to be labeled as "good" queer representation if theres no s3x scenes/elements in it, and if there is s3x scenes in GL and BL then its fetish for the opposite sex. I do think its more complicated than that, even if the fetichization discourse doesnt come from nothing.
Lmk what you think!

Yes i did, but it was reallyyy long time ago. I remember disliking how soft and uwu the mc was, but i liked how other characters were written and especially their interactions with each other (mostly at the beginning). I don't really remember anything else, but i know people really don't like this vn and say the plot is full of holes. But i don't remember hating it, so there's that lol.

i remember this mc made me feel very sad for him at the beginning because he was just isolated and was happy to have a bunch of people over... i think i do remember that indeed there was some attention given to interactions between the several love interests, especially between the 2 main ones (the blonde guy and the broader guy). I think the butler was quite something too? i dont really remember the plot either but i remember that i was legit SCARED during some scenes so at least the vn was good for that, not all games manage to do that so i gotta give credit to this at least.

The last vn i played from nitro was slow damage, and i thought it was really funny cause of how extra edgy it tried to be. It felt more like reading a bad fanfic than anything. Also the characters were... something. It's really rare i don't find a single one i like, but here it happened. I love the fact that they chose Ono Yuki to voice the main character, but that's it. The translation was also horrendous, filled with zoomer slang and phrases that weren't in the original (same thing happened to Paradise vn btw with the official translation).
I would recommend you to try parade games for sure, since the translation is alright in all of them, and the only untranslated one is their most recent. Hope you'll find the one you like!

thanks! i will for sure give my reviews.
for slow damage im wondering if ill think the same as you or if ill like it. But i do know its edgy, its not suprising seeing the artistic direction and knowing its from n+c

 

[testeeee]

I think trends in BL come and go. The c*ntboy fetish is a new thing, but if you'll recall, a lot of the BL trends from the 80's and the 90's are also no longer with us. No longer do we have tragic disaster bottoms or sickly delicate white moonlights (to our detriment for that one cough cough) or supershoulders businessman sadists sidling up to noodly highschoolers with huge eyes whose bedroom vocabulary consists of various versions of iyada.

this is still the stereotypical image BL has i think. And i think the stereotype traveled from japanese BL to BL of china or South korea, whether this kind of story was a thing or not ? thats what it seems like to me at least

 

[Fishish]

I know i may be hated for that, but I miss the old type fujos so much. Despite having less content, they mostly stayed in their corner, talking about and sharing the niche stuff they like, making arts, translations etc.
When was the last time you saw someone starting a fantl for any bl game/vn? Yeah, there aren't any. Cause a lot of new fujos are insane moralfags that only care about deaming everything they don't like as problematic or any other buzzword. And most of the sane ones are the old-school fujos that still are somewhat active. The recent popularity spike of futa garbage is evidence to that. If you go to the DLsite !BL! section and choose the most popular stuff for the past month - 2 out of three products will be just "guys" with pussy getting fucked (there are even voice dramas with that stuff). Why not just read some average hentai with a man and a woman? Cause they hate seeing women, but still, because they are ones, the just can't help themselves but want to feel involved in the sex scene. And they're going to ruin the bl genre completely sooner or later with that, so, whatever. I just don't want to gaf anymore.
Logging in to aarin and seeing all the threads from 10++ years ago with people actually being chill and civil with each other, and no hidden futa anywhere feels like a fewer dream, and it makes me kinda sad.

Old school ones are still around I think just less so as "condensed" as they used to be all on one platform and all that. Modern social media is not exactly the best place to look for fans for some of the reasons you mentioned but a lot of discord servers created for specific games get a wide range of individuals as well as places like here with the forum format kinda reminding me of the older websites! Like my way to go is to just chat with people and if they seem like they are gonna pull out the "that's problematic!" I just won't talk to them anymore Sometimes it's less exhausting to just talk to those "in the know" so you don't have to explain yourself every 2 seconds for enjoying a story with some weird shit in it. I don't think BL contains anything overly radical tho, when I hear people with those talking points it just makes me think that they've never read a classic in their life! These people would have an aneurism If they read like perfume or clockwork orange . I don't mind media going through new trends but I wouldn't exactly put it under the same heading as BL, like to me a futa is a COMPLETELY different thing and not at all BL. same with fluff titles, I love how BL has all these tropes that have survived well into the modern era but I also understand that it might not be what everyone is looking for. I only have an issue if people who create stuff then shit on what came before, you can make a fluffy BL game WITHOUT shitting on the darker stories others might enjoy engaging with.

Fan translations are definitely less common but I also think BL visual novels are all together a bit less popular than they used to be, like when I got into visual novels around 2014 ish DMMD was BIG and because of that other games kinda hit peoples radar. Then there was a huge lul with hardly any games getting official localisations and the groups doing fan translations were in it for the love of the game and not working on any particularly "popular" titles. I love fan translations and I don't really get the slack that people get regarding "accurate" localizations because it's fucken free labour given to fans by other fans. I think the problem mainly arises with newer fans unused to common tropes of the genre encountering stuff that makes them uncomfortable and instead of disengaging they will create a bias that only their feelings are valid. Like if people have triggers that's completely fine! I understand, but I don't like the idea that some media CANT exist because it makes some people uncomfortable, especially as a horror lover, to me sometimes the discomfort plays into the enjoyment!

I really liked Nie no machi except for some parts. The fan disc was alright, i mainly read it because Izumi Ban'ya was the writer. But only read it with a MTL, cause the official entl is just not it and they also removed the H-scenes completely.
I love pil/slash vns as well for how they write their characters, along with love & destroy ones, or just anything that's written by Kyuuyouzawa and Lychee. I'm really hoping they return soon and make an announcement about CAGE remake or their other TBA project, but i honestly doubt it... I've read every adelta and nitro vn, but i don't like any of them and think they're heavily overrated, but that's just imho. The parade vns are horribly written in terms of exposition and the way they almost always have to explain every little bit of subtext they put in the characters dialogue, but they sure know how to write drama and more realistic characters. I'm even kinda glad they aren't that good at writing, cause their endings still make me cry like a bitch despite me not really caring about the plot or characters, imagine if their writing was great lol.
There are also stuff like hadaka shitsuji, but it's mostly for laughs. Some bara vns are also okay, the Norn's Dine one looks really good. It has Haiki as one of the artists and i love his mangas. But you have to wait for the dlc content to be able to play every character's route, and the eng translation is meh, despite the novel being really well written in jp (imo). So probably just wait for the dlc and MTL it.

You've played some good games! Hopefully you can get back into some in the future especially with a community more up your alley! I personally LOVE adelta games! Some of my favourites in the genre but I can also see how some people might pass on them, especially ultra c, it's a weird disjointed writing style but to me the need to have to read them multiple times to understand is part of the mystery aspect and I love when games have fun little spins on their narrative like that especially since it's not overly common! And omfg hadaka shitsuji , I don't know if you've been keeping up with this thread as a whole but that title was mentioned earlier. Certainly a game for laughs but I could not finish it, I felt like I was having a stroke every other sentence . I've actually never read a Japanese bara title, I've read some western ones that kinda fall under the radar and perhaps something like no thank you has a few characters that might qualify but nothing definitive! I might have a nose at the titles you mentioned, I don't know if it'll be in my ball park but never hurts to try!

If you're looking to get back into BL visual novels tho I would definitely give lucky dog a run! It's so much fun to read and Gian is legitimately a fantastic protagonist.

 

[Fishish]

In every h scene there was always the same description : a forearm, a club, a whale harpoon (kudos to this one for the originality), with the t!p being larger than the rest and being the size of a "baseball" which is like 7cm diameter. Yes, i remember it well. Its hard to picture, especially since it doesnt appear in any cg

Gian getting hot and bothered over Bakshis WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION (I actually think he's fucken scared of it, based on his description the only correct response is fear). I do definitely remember "club" making an appearance when translating, I'm now gonna have to keep an eye out for what other terms appear, the sex scenes are now forever ruined, it's literary analysis time!

Rockwell is the part i like the less, especially the beginning of the rockwell arc because its where all the things that didnt make much sense to me happened. Like, how quickly Gian believed in the betrayal and followed bakshi, etc. But really the thing which made the less sense to me is probably gian telling cr:5 to escape without him and then getting mad they actually did it... especially since they told gian to stay with them.

Yeah Rockwell is also my least favourite part but I don't think it's bad, just like silver surrounded by gold it can't live up to the expectations set up in the prison and the absolutely batshit stuff happening in Daivan, it was always gonna be the worst part. I actually still think my favourite part is the prison to be honest, what a banger introduction to a game, especially since my expectations were for it to just be at the calibre of the original!

Gain definitely had some funky thought processes in the transitions from prison to Rockwell, like some parts I understand more than others but im with you in thinking that he was quite quick to assume that a betrayal had happened. I'll chalk it up to stress of having to hang out with Bakshi in the early stages but you don't shoot your friends over an assumption Gian!

what im referring to is Giulios moments in Daivan in Bad egg! you probably didnt see them yet (or not all) so pls lmk once you do! im not a fan of giulio but i liked all his moments in bad egg daivan! he unleashed the full yandere potential.

He's acting like a little weirdo in his mansion! (I saw what I think you meant, a certain CG where Giulio has some wonderful wall decorations, I see what you mean, the boy has gone full yandere). I would of loved for him to have have this level of freak in the original, like he was already a freak but he was never kinda seperated from Gian and I also kinda think Gian kept him in check Gulios emotional support Gian.

 

[ishibashi]

this is still the stereotypical image BL has i think. And i think the stereotype traveled from japanese BL to BL of china or South korea, whether this kind of story was a thing or not ? thats what it seems like to me at least

I think it depends on where you are in BL fandom and how you interact with it. Internationally? Maybe. International fandom can be....weird about how it wants to look at things, and a lot of 'weird Japan' stuff haven't been updated since the 90's. In Japan I don't think that has been the image for quite sometime, and I actually haven't seen that trope played absolutely straight in...........years, unless you count the neverending volumes of Okane ga Nai. In Korea? Absolutely yes, SK fujos saw the shouldermen CEOs of the 90's and went 'dayum how can I make that man TWO FRIDGES instead of one?' and also added like....a metric ton of K-drama-esque melodrama into the mix, constantly. With danmei.....I think that's less of a thing, but if you recall the specific period in the early 00's where every BL would make a POINT out of talking about how beautiful and hot the top is while the bottom is 'pretty, but more plain'........danmei does that, a lot. The more beautiful person tends to be the top. Over the years, JP BL has gravitated towards the bottom being the prettier one.

(A trend I don't like that's being pushed by international fandom and seeping into JP BL is super muscular men with huge manboobs, but that's just me and my distaste for hypermasculinity, I do not find it aesthetically pleasing nor attractive and am somewhat annoyed that many of its supporters are like, IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS YOU HATE GAY MEN AND HATE SEXUALITY AND ARE HETERONORMATIVE AND SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH YOU.)

 

[Fishish]

I think it depends on where you are in BL fandom and how you interact with it. Internationally? Maybe. International fandom can be....weird about how it wants to look at things, and a lot of 'weird Japan' stuff haven't been updated since the 90's. In Japan I don't think that has been the image for quite sometime, and I actually haven't seen that trope played absolutely straight in...........years, unless you count the neverending volumes of Okane ga Nai. In Korea? Absolutely yes, SK fujos saw the shouldermen CEOs of the 90's and went 'dayum how can I make that man TWO FRIDGES instead of one?' and also added like....a metric ton of K-drama-esque melodrama into the mix, constantly. With danmei.....I think that's less of a thing, but if you recall the specific period in the early 00's where every BL would make a POINT out of talking about how beautiful and hot the top is while the bottom is 'pretty, but more plain'........danmei does that, a lot. The more beautiful person tends to be the top. Over the years, JP BL has gravitated towards the bottom being the prettier one.

(A trend I don't like that's being pushed by international fandom and seeping into JP BL is super muscular men with huge manboobs, but that's just me and my distaste for hypermasculinity, I do not find it aesthetically pleasing nor attractive and am somewhat annoyed that many of its supporters are like, IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS YOU HATE GAY MEN AND HATE SEXUALITY AND ARE HETERONORMATIVE AND SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH YOU.)

I still think the laymans idea of BL still fully consists of the huge man with huge hands and a square jaw x the smol lad with stars in his eyes even though I havent seen that exact depiction in years XD. either that or youll see them knowing a few super popular pairings from fandoms and thats it, without really knowing at all about the mass of original media behind it! (like I have a few friends who have said something akin to "isnt yaoi those two dudes from genshin" (I COULD OF CRIED WHEN I HEARD THAT XD))

Each country having its own tropes is fun even though if im less likely to engage with something ive seen too much of, korean manhwa is like you said either CEOs and ive seen a lot of omegaverse or historical. Chinese danmei is loving its transmigration and cultivation at the moment and japan im not overly sure of its current trends though I always think they are leading in the fucked up department which I love. Western seems to lean more into the "wholesome" tropes, maybe due to a more outspoken audience and a push towards realistic representation which in my opinion can be a bit stifling to creativity and narative story telling (though I have still seen some more "dark" western VN titles like the price of flesh).

And yes muscle men are becoming more popular for sure XD. The two trucks having sex type of lads. I honesty have no clue where that came from, its been gradually apearing more over the last few years XD. Not my exact taste aesthetically, im to much of a pretty boy lover to want them to be BEEFED.

 

[ishibashi]

I still think the laymans idea of BL still fully consists of the huge man with huge hands and a square jaw x the smol lad with stars in his eyes even though I havent seen that exact depiction in years XD. either that or youll see them knowing a few super popular pairings from fandoms and thats it, without really knowing at all about the mass of original media behind it! (like I have a few friends who have said something akin to "isnt yaoi those two dudes from genshin" (I COULD OF CRIED WHEN I HEARD THAT XD))

Each country having its own tropes is fun even though if im less likely to engage with something ive seen too much of, korean manhwa is like you said either CEOs and ive seen a lot of omegaverse or historical. Chinese danmei is loving its transmigration and cultivation at the moment and japan im not overly sure of its current trends though I always think they are leading in the fucked up department which I love. Western seems to lean more into the "wholesome" tropes, maybe due to a more outspoken audience and a push towards realistic representation which in my opinion can be a bit stifling to creativity and narative story telling (though I have still seen some more "dark" western VN titles like the price of flesh).

And yes muscle men are becoming more popular for sure XD. The two trucks having sex type of lads. I honesty have no clue where that came from, its been gradually apearing more over the last few years XD. Not my exact taste aesthetically, im to much of a pretty boy lover to want them to be BEEFED.

Which two guys from genshin?

If you ask me, asking for every piece of fiction you consume to be like Your Real Life and needing to see yourself in fiction constantly is the death of creativity. Most people aren't very interesting. I'm not very interesting. There are only so many stories you can write if you restrict yourself to people who are just like you and react to things the way you do, and that.....is what people call 'realistic'. I think it's okay if you like it and get emotional resonance from it, but it being your sole fictional diet is unhealthy. What would I get from reading about someone who's just like me for real, where people they meet and things they encounter are only things I'd like to have happen to me in real life? (I don't think any OELVN MC wanted to get an academic award and do bureaucratic fistfights, so that's already doing a poor job of that too.) I think it's more interesting to have a protagonist and a setting that's larger than life (or just different), and then ask what would a person realistically do when presented with their options, rather than write someone who's carbon copied from a 'typical' real life person.

But that's just me and it's a tangential rant.

The two trucks thing have two phases imo. It's pretty much a born from Western fandom thing (much like ABO). The first phase was in the early 2010's when it was spearheaded by people being like, IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT GAY MEN YOU SHOULD SUPPORT MORE MASCULINITY IT'S MORE REALISTIC, SUPPORT GAY MEN AND WHAT REAL GAY MEN LIKE, MASCULINITY. Like you want to distance yourself from heteronormativity so you angle yourself closer to things that are visibly masculine and away from things that are associated with femininity. This was also the same phase that pushed for the more rugged, bearded look for men in women's fiction. Before that it was all Fabio or pretty boys. The second phase is more our current one, starting from 2019-2020 or so, but it did get some vestiges from the first phase. THIS one seems to be spearheaded by a response to male gooning, by gooning on men in the same way. Men goon on boobs? Cool, we're also gonna goon on boobs! More fleshiness = more porny = more sexual freedom for everyone! It also tended to be led by fanartists who got influenced by shouldermen from KR webtoons (which got popular around that time) and wanting to draw just like that but be more realistic with muscles, and I think this is the primary vector that it's spreading into JP BL (artists know artists who know artists and so on).

At least that's how I remember it.

I don't mind when people enjoy boobmen tbh, but it's annoying when boobmen enjoyers start complaining that pretty boy enjoyers are heteronormative or unrealistic or don't like men enough you can be pretty and muscular too! As with all things on the internet, even if 100 muscle enjoyers are nice decent people who stay in their lane, the 10 you run into who are not can annoy the shit out of you.

.....and now the pendulum is starting to swing another way in a weird way and we're starting to get the rise of c*ntboys as a response to hypermasculinity in yaoi. Mankind is interesting.

 

[Fishish]

Which two guys from genshin?

I DONT EVEN KNOW, It wasnt even childe and zhongli which is like the OG genshin yaoi couple, I think it was probably kaveh and alhaitham XD.

If you ask me, asking for every piece of fiction you consume to be like Your Real Life and needing to see yourself in fiction constantly is the death of creativity. Most people aren't very interesting. I'm not very interesting. There are only so many stories you can write if you restrict yourself to people who are just like you and react to things the way you do, and that.....is what people call 'realistic'. I think it's okay if you like it and get emotional resonance from it, but it being your sole fictional diet is unhealthy. What would I get from reading about someone who's just like me for real, where people they meet and things they encounter are only things I'd like to have happen to me in real life? (I don't think any OELVN MC wanted to get an academic award and do bureaucratic fistfights, so that's already doing a poor job of that too.) I think it's more interesting to have a protagonist and a setting that's larger than life (or just different), and then ask what would a person realistically do when presented with their options, rather than write someone who's carbon copied from a 'typical' real life person.

I agree, I feel like the fun of media is the ability to create a complete seperation from reality. Im much more intrested in depictions of horror, history or fantasy for the entire reason that its not something that can ever be experienced so why not have fun creating or reading about characters who can? Like I cant imagine a more boring story then one that has to be perfectly moral at all times because at that point its not even realistic! A character needs dimention! They need to sometimes be wrong or unlikeable or to make decisions that in the moment are human!

The two trucks thing have two phases imo. It's pretty much a born from Western fandom thing (much like ABO). The first phase was in the early 2010's when it was spearheaded by people being like, IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT GAY MEN YOU SHOULD SUPPORT MORE MASCULINITY IT'S MORE REALISTIC, SUPPORT GAY MEN AND WHAT REAL GAY MEN LIKE, MASCULINITY. Like you want to distance yourself from heteronormativity so you angle yourself closer to things that are visibly masculine and away from things that are associated with femininity. This was also the same phase that pushed for the more rugged, bearded look for men in women's fiction. Before that it was all Fabio or pretty boys. The second phase is more our current one, starting from 2019-2020 or so, but it did get some vestiges from the first phase. THIS one seems to be spearheaded by a response to male gooning, by gooning on men in the same way. Men goon on boobs? Cool, we're also gonna goon on boobs! More fleshiness = more porny = more sexual freedom for everyone! It also tended to be led by fanartists who got influenced by shouldermen from KR webtoons (which got popular around that time) and wanting to draw just like that but be more realistic with muscles, and I think this is the primary vector that it's spreading into JP BL (artists know artists who know artists and so on).

I started seeing way more of it with the rise of very particular fandom pairings (mainly fire emblem and a lot of modern shounen!) since a lot of those characters came from fighting backgrounds thus they seemed to be drawn with more muscles! (or at the very least big boobs XD). I have seen the moral righteousness talking points you mentioned along with many others but I feel like the easy cure people arent getting with shit like that is the simple seperation of fiction from reality XD. Like I dont see my consumption of BL visual novels as any part framing my real life opinion on real individuals BECAUSE I DONT READ ABOUT REAL PEOPLE, they are just stories I enjoy with fake anime men which dont and cant exist! I feel like people need to learn that its okay to not be the intended audience XD.

I don't mind when people enjoy boobmen tbh, but it's annoying when boobmen enjoyers start complaining that pretty boy enjoyers are heteronormative or unrealistic or don't like men enough you can be pretty and muscular too! As with all things on the internet, even if 100 muscle enjoyers are nice decent people who stay in their lane, the 10 you run into who are not can annoy the shit out of you.

.....and now the pendulum is starting to swing another way in a weird way and we're starting to get the rise of c*ntboys as a response to hypermasculinity in yaoi. Mankind is interesting.

The idea of someone looking at a drawing of a dude with the biggest tits ever shitting on someone looking at the small waisted lad is the funniest thing, LIKE ITS THE SAME THING JUST FOR DIFFRENT UNREALISTIC PROPORIONS! Just live and let live, share some pointers or if you really dont like it block and move on! Mankind is certainly intresting! its fun to watch from afar if a little confusing!

 

[NnnNnnnnoan]

fujos nowadays seem to be content with MTL slop, so of course no one is going to bother to start a fantl T.T

It's like the other person said, the modern fujos just love playing elitists and hate on fantranslations, while shilling for official ones that aren't even that great. As someone who got into vns mostly from fantls, it makes me go crazy. Like, if you don't like/trust fantls just wait for the official one and read it. It shouldn't be that hard to not bother other people with your bs, but they sure love to do that.

 

[Fishish]

It's like the other person said, the modern fujos just love playing elitists and hate on fantranslations, while shilling for official ones that aren't even that great. As someone who got into vns mostly from fantls, it makes me go crazy. Like, if you don't like/trust fantls just wait for the official one and read it. It shouldn't be that hard to not bother other people with your bs, but they sure love to do that.

Yeah that is just a bit sad of them I think. Im the type to buy / read visual novels in multiple formats so there are some games that have read as a fan translation, in japanese and also as an official localisation and I think there is merit to all versions!

An offical localisation is of course thinking of localisation first, to bring the story to a format understandable as a foreign consumer, some companies, translators and edditors succeed at this more so than others. Paradise is a good example since I actually think azumas "voice" or how is perspective was writen actually felt pretty on brand in the english verson to the original despite him actually saying diffrent things in japanese. His tone was maintained even if his words were not which is why its more so a localisation than a translation.

Fan translations can face the same issues of trying to convey meaning where language differs which is why a lot of them contain HEAPS of foot notes trying to express the cultural elements that would be missed by a direct translation of the words! Fan translations are also of couse made by fans! passion projects made out of love to give others the chance to enjoy something in a way they can understand it, to me the idea of shitting on something like that is particualy tone deaf and almost greedy? Like thats free labour to bring you something you otherwise couldnt consume and you want to hold it to impossible standards? Make your own then! XD. Lucky dog actually started off as a fan translation! Mangagamer hired the person who was translating it as a side project to do it officialy and its a WONDERFUL translation / localisation!

Of course playing directly in japanese is the way to get the most literal version of the media but a lot of people dont know japanese and of course if they use a machine to translate some elements will be lost. I think the key is to just be transparent of how something was consumed rather than having a belief that one version is inherently more superior than another. It reminds me of the old dub vs sub thing XD.

 

[ishibashi]

Mangagamer is pretty funny because, if I recall correctly (it was either them or JAST and I don't think JAST was doing a lot in the joseimuke sphere back then), back in 2010's-ish? they were the ones who asked fans to stop supporting fan translations and instead make waves for localization companies to officially localize games instead if you want to see it in English lol....

 

[NnnNnnnnoan]

Maybe it changed with BL becoming more mainstream ?

Yes and yes. You'll find a lot of people like that nowadays, that started bl not long ago, but who are ready to tell other people what they should and what they shouldn't read and it's INSANE. Cause who tf are you to tell others what to do???

Unfortunately, BL and GL seem to be labeled as "good" queer representation if theres no s3x scenes/elements in it, and if there is s3x scenes in GL and BL then its fetish for the opposite sex. I do think its more complicated than that, even if the fetichization discourse doesnt come from nothing.
Lmk what you think!

Like i said before, i think the main problem is that people genuinely think something like bl (or sometimes gl) would have an actual representation or smth. When it's mostly a fetish/fan service content, or at least it originally was. And yes i say mostly, since there are some instances of bl mangas trying to show "gay struggles", but i'm sorry if i wanted to see a good gay rep i would just read an actual book/novel written by a gay man not a straight woman. Or if i wanted to see actual lesbian relationship i would read something written by a lesbian etc. And yes some of those books also have s/ex scenes, and it doesn't just make them automatically bad rep lol. But once again, it's just my own opinion, you can think however you want!

i remember this mc made me feel very sad for him at the beginning because he was just isolated and was happy to have a bunch of people over... i think i do remember that indeed there was some attention given to interactions between the several love interests, especially between the 2 main ones (the blonde guy and the broader guy). I think the butler was quite something too? i dont really remember the plot either but i remember that i was legit SCARED during some scenes so at least the vn was good for that, not all games manage to do that so i gotta give credit to this at least.

I only remember the butler being in love with the mc or something (?). Also wasn't there some incest elements? Sorry if I'm wrong I don't remember at all ahaha.

for slow damage im wondering if ill think the same as you or if ill like it. But i do know its edgy, its not suprising seeing the artistic direction and knowing its from n+c

I REALLY love the art directon of DMMD, but in slow damage it was just alright. Will be waiting for your reviews!

 

[NnnNnnnnoan]

they were the ones who asked fans to stop supporting fan translations and instead make waves for localization companies to officially localize games instead if you want to see it in English lol....

I've never heard of it but wtf...

 

[Fishish]

Mangagamer is pretty funny because, if I recall correctly (it was either them or JAST and I don't think JAST was doing a lot in the joseimuke sphere back then), back in 2010's-ish? they were the ones who asked fans to stop supporting fan translations and instead make waves for localization companies to officially localize games instead if you want to see it in English lol....

REALLY? WHAT A DOG ACT! Weird that they are hiring full on fan translators now then. I think both can coexist easily. I guess companies will always company...

 

[ishibashi]

REALLY? WHAT A DOG ACT! Weird that they are hiring full on fan translators now then. I think both can coexist easily. I guess companies will always company...

I've never heard of it but wtf...

It wasn't a big push or anything, probably just part of the zeitgeist. One of my translator friends just shrugged it off and went like "well they also hire fan TLers so they're just being hypocritical, who cares," but I did care lol. Come to think of it, I never checked if she finished her project....(what did she even translate again it's been so long haha)

 

[NnnNnnnnoan]

I only have an issue if people who create stuff then shit on what came before, you can make a fluffy BL game WITHOUT shitting on the darker stories others might enjoy engaging with.

If i had a penny for everytime that happened on twitter i would be a freaking millionaire.

but I don't like the idea that some media CANT exist because it makes some people uncomfortable, especially as a horror lover, to me sometimes the discomfort plays into the enjoyment!

I think ppl that say stuff like that are just super sensitive tiktok kids that don't have anything else to do, and were never told to just stfu and mind their own business if they don't like something. Nobody is forcing anyone to read anything, but they act like that's literally the case.

I love fan translations and I don't really get the slack that people get regarding "accurate" localizations because it's fucken free labour given to fans by other fans.

If i read an official tl, then i want it to be accurate. I don't want there to be any typos either. Sadly that's not happening, so whenever i see an official tl announcement of something i usually feel sceptical rather than happy about it. I also know some japanese, so hearing a character say something and a translation being literally some random words doesn't make me happy either lol.

I personally LOVE adelta games! Some of my favourites in the genre but I can also see how some people might pass on them, especially ultra c, it's a weird disjointed writing style

That's the thing. I hated the fact that you can't choose the character whose "route" to play. Idc about this dude and you want me to spend literal HOURS playing his "route" just because you couldn't write it differently/less confusing? Yeah, no, thank you. Also the humor and artstyle wasn't it to me. I just don't like ikemen characters that much (which is why I don't play otome, their charcaters all look like that). But i know a lot of people love adelta vns, they're just not for me.

I've actually never read a Japanese bara title, I've read some western ones that kinda fall under the radar and perhaps something like no thank you has a few characters that might qualify but nothing definitive! I might have a nose at the titles you mentioned, I don't know if it'll be in my ball park but never hurts to try!

Norn's Dine i fell like is more of a yaoi/bara mix, so it's a great place to start. Although it doesn't have any voice acting, just so you know.

If you're looking to get back into BL visual novels tho I would definitely give lucky dog a run! It's so much fun to read and Gian is legitimately a fantastic protagonist.

I've actually read both, the LD1 and bad egg. It's why I'm in this thread in the first place ahaha.

You've played some good games! Hopefully you can get back into some in the future especially with a community more up your alley!

Thank you for the kind words!

 

[NnnNnnnnoan]

It wasn't a big push or anything, probably just part of the zeitgeist. One of my translator friends just shrugged it off and went like "well they also hire fan TLers so they're just being hypocritical, who cares," but I did care lol. Come to think of it, I never checked if she finished her project....(what did she even translate again it's been so long haha)

The only times i don't feel too sceptical about official translation is when i know that someone from the fan translator's team is working on it. I've heard about some mangagamer drama before, so it shouldn't be a surprise they do stuff like that lol.

 

[ishibashi]

If i read an official tl, then i want it to be accurate. I don't want there to be any typos either. Sadly that's not happening, so whenever i see an official tl announcement of something i usually feel sceptical rather than happy about it. I also know some japanese, so hearing a character say something and a translation being literally some random words doesn't make me happy either lol.

The idea is that the Unrelated Random Thing in English is supposed to convey the same meaning/feeling to the reader as it would in Japanese. In the hands of a good and sincere translator, I have no issues with this and honestly think this is the best way to translate, conceptually.

The problem arises when 'what is supposed to be conveyed to the reader?' or 'how to make the reader respond the same way?' is pulled out of a rat's ass, or decided based on assumptions that aren't true. Extreme example is when the translator over-localizes the translation to evoke the same thing in an American audience (because let's face it, that's where 90% of EN translations are aimed) using Americanisms and referencing American cultural points that don't work anywhere else that speaks English, and every EN reader has to be saddled with it, because America is the perceived audience. Or in general audience works where the translator assumes the audience is primarily male/female when the original made no such assumption (ex. translation tries very hard to make something sound cool/cute when it's supposed to be reversed, or neutral). Or when it assumes that the work is engaging with certain tropes when it actually isn't (pretty common in live service stuff where the translator can't see the full story beforehand) and when the story gets to the point where it's clear that it isn't using that trope, it becomes awwwwwkwaaaaaaard. This is especially egregious when it reveals the translator's personal biases.

This is how the Thing That Is Supposed to Convey the Same Meaning becomes an Unrelated Random Thing.

All translation is interpretation to a certain extent, but I do think there absolutely are localizers who take it way too far with the act of interpretation, taking liberties to shape the story in the image that they prefer or find more palatable or more familiar, focusing only on the broad reactions you're supposed to get out of it and ignoring the nuances that loops back into the story. You see this often when the tone of the translated sentence makes sense in the moment but doesn't make sense with the full context of the story or characterization. And there are absolutely localizers who are bad at their jobs, because there ALWAYS are people who are bad at their jobs, but with modern socmed and everyone being online and having a presence and an audience and friends, it's a lot harder to complain about people doing bad jobs when they're nice people who work hard.

There's a really toxic thing around localization discussion right now where either you can only glaze all localizations as works of geniuses that can do no wrong, or damn them all with straw men, poorly done AI 'direct translation' and bad understanding of language. There are good ones and bad ones and ones that can't be helped because JP is a frustrating language to translate, but the water is so poisoned that we can't even point out which one is which. This isn't even getting into the fact that most translators are being paid peanuts.

Me, I'm just sitting here and reading things in their original languages wherever I can and ignoring the hell out of localization announcements, and mostly only engage with fans in the original language when I can.

 

[NnnNnnnnoan]

Me, I'm just sitting here and reading things in their original languages wherever I can and ignoring the hell out of localization announcements, and mostly only engage with fans in the original language when I can.

Kinda same. I even started learning japanese because of that, but stopped at kanji (i only know hiragana and katakana), cause it was way too hard for me and i don't have that much time either, but i was thinking maybe i should try again some time...

 

[Fishish]

If i had a penny for everytime that happened on twitter i would be a freaking millionaire.

Unfortunate but true! Thats why I would never look for someone to talk to on twitter. Twitter is one of those places you look at when your after a ruined mood, just a cesspool of bad opinions XD.

If i read an official tl, then i want it to be accurate. I don't want there to be any typos either. Sadly that's not happening, so whenever i see an official tl announcement of something i usually feel sceptical rather than happy about it. I also know some japanese, so hearing a character say something and a translation being literally some random words doesn't make me happy either lol.

I fully agree for typos and the like, for the price half these games are I want a FINISHED product not something half baked, especally since in the BL comunity I dont think these companies would strugle to find beta testers just because people who follow the production of releases are passionate. When they release something with errors it really feels like they are just smashing together whatever because they know people will buy it (which I unfortunately think is correct, people who want to play these games will buy something dodgy to just be able to read it where a fan translation or even machine translation would of beter conveyed the point). I can be a bit more forgiving with added / changed words if it beter conveys the tone, once again I think its a localisation vs translation thing and its a topic thats always gonna have people that prefer one over the other (even though im weirdly middle ground about it XD). I dont want it done willy nilly I might add, for me it has to be purposeful to better convey the point of the narative / characters voice in a diffrent language or makes the sentance flow better and not just "because". I feel like ishibashi has rounded up some of my issues well tho, when a localisation is done well it can be super great in bringing a story to a wider audience, when its done crap with a money motive the story itself is kinda the thing that suffers for it. Then of course the western perpective of the game becomes "its shit" when really its just a bad translation and because it wasnt well reieved companies wont bother with the translation process again. A cycle of crap.

That's the thing. I hated the fact that you can't choose the character whose "route" to play. Idc about this dude and you want me to spend literal HOURS playing his "route" just because you couldn't write it differently/less confusing? Yeah, no, thank you. Also the humor and artstyle wasn't it to me. I just don't like ikemen characters that much (which is why I don't play otome, their charcaters all look like that). But i know a lot of people love adelta vns, they're just not for me.

Its intresting that the reason you didnt like it is one of the reasons why I do! Like I think for hashihme in paricular the first route was super impactful percisely because there was no choices to be made and then of couse on subsequent routes the choice had to be made to "deviate" off that initual set narative. I think adelda games are some of the only stories within BL that ive cared enough about where I would of been completely content playing it even if it wasnt BL! Diffrent strokes for diffrent folks though and I can fully understand why Adeltas storytelling methods wouldnt be some peoples can of worms, especally if it also didnt even contain your taste in characters! (im actually surpised you picked it up at all in that regard but I also think your probably more pushed for content if your first pick in style isnt "pretty boys" since thats like 9 out of every 10 BL games XD) Are you the type who will play only the routes your intrested in for a VN or will you play every route? (I play them all even if i have to spam through who I hate XD)

Norn's Dine i fell like is more of a yaoi/bara mix, so it's a great place to start. Although it doesn't have any voice acting, just so you know.

Yeah i saw that on DL site and was somewhat intrested but I used all my leftover points to instead buy all the hell Bride series since the idea of playing an RPG with my Yaoi was funny XD. Ill add it to the list tho, lack of voice acting is no issue to me, ive played many a western VN with no voices (ive fucken played modern pokemon with no voices, GIVE ME VOICES GAMEFREAK)

I've actually read both, the LD1 and bad egg. It's why I'm in this thread in the first place ahaha.

Thank you for the kind words!

HA well thats fair! Im still finishing bad egg but im having a good little time so far XD.

And no issues! Its fun chatting, ive never really used chat rooms and forums as a poster before and im having a fun time so far, a lot more designated BL fans than ive seen elsewhere in a longggg time!

 

[Fishish]

Kinda same. I even started learning japanese because of that, but stopped at kanji (i only know hiragana and katakana), cause it was way too hard for me and i don't have that much time either, but i was thinking maybe i should try again some time...

Im also hoping to get back into it! I started studying and work so life got in the way of Japanese but I enjoyed learning it so im hoping I can try and fit in like 30 minutes to an hour a day once my schedule normalises! Its amazing how quicky it disapears once your not actively using it tho, I had a few kanji under my belt years ago and now I think I would be lucky to be able to count to three XD.

 

[Deleted member 258555]

back in the early 2010s vns werent accessible unless they had a fan translation from what i remember. There was no official translations, and MTL was very bad. I remember that there was only Visual Novel Reader and that thing was craaaazy hard to understand and still managed to not work 90% of the time. I took hours to try to config VNR back then because i wanted to be able to access VNs other than the very well known ones with fan translations, but seeing how annoying it was i decided it wasnt worth it. I played pigeon blood with 2013 VNR and it was very bad google translate english stuff that didnt make sense half the time. At least i managed to config VNR to read me the japanese sentences that werent voiced in the vn so combined with MTL it kinda worked for me, but still wasnt worth it.
Now theres way better MTL so its great. Easy to config, and works well. If theres a fan translation then its obviously way better but since now people dont need to relay on a full translation made by someone to discover great games, then fans felt less the need to make their own translations of games to share it with others for them to discover the game. + a lot of well known titles are localized now. These 3 factors play a biiig role as to why fantranslations became less rewarding compared to the hours of investment you have to give for free most of the time

MTL is "better" but barely good unless you think a tl who constantly messes up subjects is "good".

 

[Deleted member 258555]

It's like the other person said, the modern fujos just love playing elitists and hate on fantranslations, while shilling for official ones that aren't even that great. As someone who got into vns mostly from fantls, it makes me go crazy. Like, if you don't like/trust fantls just wait for the official one and read it. It shouldn't be that hard to not bother other people with your bs, but they sure love to do that.

Idk what you mean. "modern fujos" are a diverse group, there is no single opinion....

Fan tl are dead because also fujoshi don't even read that many visual novel nowadays. Even in Japan there are so little... look how little fanfare arcadia generated...

Someone fantl kintouka but no one cared....

 

[testeeee]

MTL is "better" but barely good unless you think a tl who constantly messes up subjects is "good".

When you decide you want to play VNs with MTL, youre someone who can understand some japanese 95% of the time. So you understand who the actual subject is, so it doesnt block the overall comprehension. It indeeds happen a lot that the subjects are messed up (probably the most common MTL mistake id say?) but almost every time it happened i knew what was the actual subject of that sentence (except a few times ofc), and i think its the case for most people playing VNs with MTL. MTL indeed leads to a lot of misunderstanding if you dont know japanese at all, so its 100% less good than an actual translation or localization, but its good enough for the public playing unlocalized VNs
btw i would love to make a fan translation of LD1 bad egg myself, but... i dont read kanji, i have no official diploma in japanese AND english isnt my first language (i dont see myself translating it into my own language because if as a fan i want more people to play this game then the language has to be english)
i would totally love to translate LD1 og game into my own language tho haha (since the translation has already been made in english) even if maybe 3 people in the world would use it

 

[Deleted member 258555]

When you decide you want to play VNs with MTL, youre someone who can understand some japanese 95% of the time. So you understand who the actual subject is, so it doesnt block the overall comprehension. It indeeds happen a lot that the subjects are messed up (probably the most common MTL mistake id say?) but almost every time it happened i knew what was the actual subject of that sentence (except a few times ofc), and i think its the case for most people playing VNs with MTL. MTL indeed leads to a lot of misunderstanding if you dont know japanese at all, so its 100% less good than an actual translation or localization, but its good enough for the public playing unlocalized VNs
btw i would love to make a fan translation of LD1 bad egg myself, but... i dont read kanji, i have no official diploma in japanese AND english isnt my first language (i dont see myself translating it into my own language because if as a fan i want more people to play this game then the language has to be english)
i would totally love to translate LD1 og game into my own language tho haha (since the translation has already been made in english) even if maybe 3 people in the world would use it

What are you basing this one? I see a lot of people on reddit etc who don't speak a lick of Japanese playing things like ooe which have very complex writing.
If you don't even read kanji how do you even know...?