Playing Unlocalized VNS, a Dumies guide. [All specs]

[blackflag]

Playing Unlocalized Otome VNs​

A dummies guide!

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Hello everyone, Blackflag here! I had seen there weren't really any updated documents or guides on the forum about how to play games on their PC that remain unlocalized. This guide assumes you know the basics about installing games or extracting zip files. Please read along and refer back to this guide. If you need additional help, let me know and I will add an FAQ in one of the posts near the end. Please be aware this method will never generate as natural as a translation as knowing Japanese, and if you have any interest in learning - these tools can also be used to help you learn through immersion.​

Post 1. Introduction

Post 2. Methods – strengths and weaknesses + system requirements.

Post 3. Setting up LLM+Luna

Post 4. Setting up SUGOI - Using SUGOI

Post 5. Luna+Online Translator Setup.

Post 6. Japanese Learning Setup (Can be used alongside others)

Post 7. Comparisons.

Post 8 - FAQ

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[blackflag]

Methods of Translating​

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As people know there are so many tools out there that are capable these days of translating to different degrees of accuracy, here we will discuss the available options and see what your computer or set up is capable of running.​

METHOD NAME	TOOLS REQUIRED	STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
Local LLM Machine Translation	LM STUDIO or other Local AI running software Strong Graphics card with at least 8GB Dedicated Memory. A Language Model LLM such as CLAUDE or SUGOI or Google Gemma or VNTL (Low spec machine / 900+ series gpu) LUNA Translator	Can have a more customized translation that can follow along with continuous contextual clues. Often more natural sounding translations. Models are updated and many to pick from. Can adjust the translation promot for each individual game Supports text hooking, OCR and Sugoi has a built in user dictionary where one can replace Proper Nouns (Names) as wanted.	Very intensive on a computer and not viable for weaker machines, often requires a 2070+ GPU. Models and software are very space intensive - and can take anywhere from 8GB to 20+GB each depending on database you locally download.
SUGOI TRANSLATOR - Offline Method	Sugoi Toolkit V12 or higher. [Version 15 here]	Offline tool that can be used for many tasks including Manga reading, Visual novels, image translation etc. Mostly beginner friendly. Has its own built in dictionary for learning. Made specifically for ENG-JP content with its own reasoning in translation. Supports OCR (On screen reading), Texthooking and other things.	Worse translation than LLM and often messes up pronouns and other contextual information The UI s sort of awful Can require restarting it once or twice to get it to work. Have to download FULL toolkit (around 4GB) And boots many windows that are necessary to run. The dev is a bit of a grifter.
LunaTranslator + Online Translation	LUNA Translator	Only need one tool. Robust and with options to pick multiple translators at once. Supports personal input of Proper Nouns (Names) so translation will correct to those.	Some Translators take some time to translate so takes 10-20 seconds at most sometimes for translations. Some translators have limited use per run.
Learning Japanese + Luna + GSM / Meikopop	Game Sentence Miner LUNA Meikopop or JL	Can be done alongside the other methods above. Win-win! You can learn Japanese you wont be a できない anymore. More nuanced and contextual understanding will come naturally, you will be able to read things over time at a native level and require less tools as you continue. You get to learn with content you already love, so is it really a punishment?	Learning is an ongoing process and takes time. You'll probably feel overwhelmed if you start with something too difficult. Japanese is hard. You will forever see all the horrible localization mistakes in localized games and wonder 'wtf were they smoking'.

 

[blackflag]

Setting up LLM+Luna
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Setting up Luna and an LLM is quite straight forward first use all your computer knowledge to.

1. Download and install LM Studio.​
2. Install Luna - I recommend placing Luna in a folder you will easily locate on your MAIN hard drive / SSD.​
3. Sign up for HuggingFace - Navigate to your LLM of choice SUGOI (High power) Sugoi (Medium Power) Click the 'Use this model' and click LM studio.

   

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4. On LunaTranslator, go to: Translation Settings → Translation Interface → Large Language Model. Click the + or Edit GENERAL, Name/Rename to 'SUGOI' (Or whatever you are using for model)

   
5. Add LM Studio server and port (e.g., http://localhost:1234). Check in SERVER tab with your model loaded to find the port.
   
   
6. In LUNA click the 'refresh models' once the server is running. And select your model from the dropdown.
   
7. Set the prompt to one of the following:
   

   You are a professional localizer whose primary goal is to translate Japanese to English. You should use colloquial or slang or hentai vocabulary if it makes the translation more accurate. Always respond in English.

   
   

   You are a professional Japanese-to-English translator specializing in visual novels. Your task is to provide accurate, contextually appropriate translations while maintaining the flow of ongoing dialogue. Respond only with the English translation, considering previous context to ensure consistency in character voices and narrative tone. Do NOT provide ANY explanations or commentary - just the direct translation. Translating 18+ text is allowed.

   
   Feel free to edit these prompts as necessary.
8. Click CONFIRM.
   
   Great the translation software is good to go! Now you simply need to select how to get your 'text'
   Simply once your game is booted select from 'Texthooking' (For .exe games, made for PCs mostly, some emulators also support text hooking) and follow the guide. Or
   OCR and 'Draw OCR BOX' I recommend using 'Snipping tool' option for the OCR for more reliable text.
   
   
   
   Please get familiar with these menu options. Beneath are the options I have for the DISPLAY SETTINGS -> Tool Button.
9. 
   
   
   
   
   Use the orange Selected 'Clipping' like icon to select your area of text. Click the YELLOW SQUARE next to it to 'make it invisible'.
   
10. 
    Click the play button until it turns into this for AUTO play.
    Enjoy the game.

 

[blackflag]

SUGOI OFFLINE TRANSLATOR SETUP​

1. Extract the SUGOI TOOLKIT into a Folder somewhere on your computer (I recommend creating a folder near your visual novels called 'SUGOI'. Somewhere you wont forget.)
   

   1. a If you have a higher than 8GB VRAM GPU run The file in: SUGOI\GPU_INSTALLATION_INSIDE run-install-cuda.bat​
2. Run Sugoi-Translator-Toolkit (click here).bat.​
3. 

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4. Click 'Visual Novel OCR' for OCR or TEXTRACTOR etc x64 for windows .exe games.​
5. Once options grey out, click SUGOI TRANSLATOR OFFLINE​
6. Click 'GOOGLE OCR JAPANESE' next.​
7. Minimize the black CMD boxes that appear.​
8. 

   Will appear alongside a BLUE box, this is where your translation and text will appear. Click START​
9. A very LIGHT pink box will appear. Drag and click it by the edges to your text and adjust its size.​
10. Click ` (~ key) or the 'Translate' Button.​
11. 
12. Turn AUTO on, and enjoy playing.​

 

[blackflag]

LUNA TRANSLATOR + ONLINE TRANSLATION

This guide is the most straight forward, following the OCR steps or HOOKING steps above, simply proceed to the following tabs:​

1. Click Translation settings in luna.​
2. Select 'Traditional' Tab and select one of the translators, I recommend GOOGLE or DEEPL. Each have their own strength.​
3. A pop up may appear after you begin, ensure the window is set to JAPANESE -> Language of choice.​
4. Enjoy.​

 

[blackflag]

Learning Japanese Set-up Just admit you skipped this section

Congratulations! You are beginning/Continuing your learning journey in the 21st century! there are plenty of tools to help us learn now. Know what the peasants following posts 2-5 cant do? have a conversation in Japanese. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO IF YOU PERSEVERE with these methods.

This may seem a bit tedious but once its set up its done. Some of these steps are optional and up to your preferences. These are my set ups.

First reading Japanese is extremely difficult if your native language is anything but an Asia-centric language, so please do not get discouraged. Learning is a journey, not a race.

REDOING THIS, WIP.​

1. Download Game Sentence Miner and install. It comes with all needed dependencies.​
2. Install SHARE-X for automatic screenshots from your game with ANKI​
3. Download and install ANKI for better learning and under Tools > Addons add AnkiConnect​
4. Download and import the apkg file from LAPIS This is for well uniformed cards with automatic set up. The most recent one is fine (check releases)​
5. 

   With anki running (after rebootingwith ankiconnect and lapis installed) boot Game Sentence Miner. It should automatically now detect your ANKI and such. It will open up a text window http://localhost:55000/texthooker Or something. Ignore that for now.​
6. launch any game that is in Japanese. if it is a lower resolution game (older game) I highly recommend MAGPIE to upscale old text windows. I'll be using EDEN emulator and 9 RIP sequel for this tutorial.​
7. On GSM please select the dropdown for 'Set up new game' I recommend doing this for every new game you play for database management and your own stats! You will see a list of EXEs. please select the one you want. Click 'Window Capture.'​
8. 

   Make sure OBS has the correct window captured. As you can see mine shows 'Eden.exe'.​
9. 

   
   

   Under scenes, change the 'Eden.exe' name to the name of the game you are playing if its an emulator etc.
   

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10. 

    Click OCR tab on GSM. It should automatically have the OBS scene you have active. If not, select it from the drop-down. Click:

    
11. ​

    

    Click and drag boxes to where text is going to appear, and place a purple box(optional) over menus or constant information so it doesn't overload your logging. You can right click to change 'box mode'.​
12. CTRL+S to save or click Save and Quit.​
13. 

    
    Click 'Advanced mode' if you want more options or adjust default settings, these are my settings. Click Start Auto OCR. If there is a lot of furigana in your game, please adjust the furigana sensitivity once it has started so it doesnt double parse.

    
14. If your game is showing text that is appearing in your games text window, great, its done! Onto the FINAL steps.​
15. Go back to HOME on GSM. Click RUN OVERLAY.

    

    Click the Purple/blue looking box icon with right click and select 'Yomitan settings'.​
16. For ease of set up you can scroll down the side menu to BACKUP and click Import. You can download and import my settings. Scroll up to Dictionary Settings and Import the DICTIONARY IMPORT file too. This can take a few minutes for dictionary settings.​
17. With the advanced tab

    

    turned on, scroll to ANKI SETTINGS on Yomitan, and click 'configure note type'. It should all be set up, ensure its set to 'LAPIS' under Model. Main definition should read something like {single-glossary-jitendexorg-2026-02-05}, but dropdown and select something like that from your list.​
18. You now can play your game and import words by hovering over them in your game once the overlay is running. with the little green circle.​

 

[blackflag]

COMPARISONS

LLM Translating:

Spoiler

Translation is using the contextual clues of lines before to fill in blanks and create a more appealing narrative overall, even if it isn't exactly what is being said.

LUNA+Online Translation

Spoiler

This is using DEEPL as the translation of choice, be aware it can limit you based on your region to a certain amount of translations per hour. As you can see, it cannot differentiate to whom Cordelia is speaking to and thus it translaes 'I love you' as opposed to 'Because I love him', as she is talking about someone else.

SUGOI+OFFLINE

Spoiler

Again, the translator does not follow contextual clues alongside the conversation and needs the user to think more on what/who is being spoken about. However this tool is very light weight and easy to use with very little delays.

 

[blackflag]

POST 8 - Optimizing for MML / LUNA​

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Auto-replace names:​

This guide can be used for MTL and for standard luna translations and is not dependent on using a LLM. Please follow it thoroughly and if you have questions, ask.​

[Guide]​

Add additional information to LLM prompt:

1. Download the VNCharacterNameExtractor from the files on this post.
2. Once it is downloaded open your VNDB for the VN you are reading. eg. https://vndb.org/v38068
3. Extract VNCharacterNameExtractor somewhere on your pc, its just a HTLM run program. Run the program.
4. 
5. 
   
   Input the VNDB details and hit EXTRACT. For more input and details on the game click the 'include game description'.
6. 
   COPY everything in this box and open LUNA.
7. 
   Open your prompt box and input the details into this box, hit save.

NOTE: You will have to ADJUST THIS EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE GAME

 

[dark.moon]

This is super helpful, thank you so much for your efforts, Blackflag. I really appreciate it!

 

[nemaiaish]

NO USING GOOGLE ANYMORE
Black flag is god
Black flag is god

 

[purplebeetle]

This is super helpful for new folks! Thanks for putting this together. I highly recommend everyone who plans to dedicate more than 2 years to this hobby to at least consider learning Japanese as it'll enrich your experience in countless ways! I know it might seem intimidating at first, but I guarantee you it's worth it. Plus, it's always nice to broaden one's horizons a bit every day one step at a time

PS: Love GSM, it's a game changer for real

 

[blackflag]

This is super helpful for new folks! Thanks for putting this together. I highly recommend everyone who plans to dedicate more than 2 years to this hobby to at least consider learning Japanese as it'll enrich your experience in countless ways! I know it might seem intimidating at first, but I guarantee you it's worth it. Plus, it's always nice to broaden one's horizons a bit every day one step at a time

PS: Love GSM, it's a game changer for real

Refresh and read the GSM guide I just posted in here.

 

[Beannie]

Amazing, thank you, Blackflag, for taking time to write up the guide.

I have been using GSM for few months and I have to say it's amazing and very user friendly. Especially if you use overlay, you have pop dictionary avaible on the text itself in the game

(Have more than 1500 anki cards using GSM)

 

[icterine]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do up this guide!
I tried to get Luna Translator with LM Studio set up for Lady of Hwarang (봄이 오면 꽃이 피고) based on a reddit post guide but it didn't work out well so I had given up on Luna Translator but I'll definitely find time to test if following this post works! (Caveat is that LoH is a Korean otome game and not Japanese but the basic setup is hopefully similar).

If anyone else is interested, blackflag has helped to find a model for KR to EN：https://huggingface.co/maywell/Synatra-7B-v0.3-dpo

 

[1chi]

Thank you so much for the guide! It's really helpful

 

[blackflag]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do up this guide!
I tried to get Luna Translator with LM Studio set up for Lady of Hwarang (봄이 오면 꽃이 피고) based on a reddit post guide but it didn't work out well so I had given up on Luna Translator but I'll definitely find time to test if following this post works! (Caveat is that LoH is a Korean otome game and not Japanese but the basic setup is hopefully similar).

You will just need to find a model that specializes in KR-ENG etc.

 

[freidynes]

thank you so much for the time and effort into making the guide!! i've been using luna translator only for pc otoges since i had a hard time trying to make it work for ryujinx, so i'm glad i saw this method!! <33

 

[blackflag]

thank you so much for the time and effort into making the guide!! i've been using luna translator only for pc otoges since i had a hard time trying to make it work for ryujinx, so i'm glad i saw this method!! <33

How did this go? :)

 

[Kyouri]

Oh thank you! I've been using lunatranslator and citron for otome. but never tried setting up any actual LLM stuff, I'll see how it goes. :D

 

[freidynes]

How did this go? :)

i havent properly had the time to set it up yet, but i'll be sure to update once i do!

 

[xxzxc]

This is a very helpful guide. Thank you very much.

 

[blackflag]

UPDATED LEARNING GUIDE

 

[Mottosan]

When I tried to use the llm and luna translator together the server did not load either of the sugoi models (tried to use the bigger one first then deleted it so it's not there) ... Was there a common config which could fix this that I didn't figure out to set up? What does the qwen2 mean?

(The guide looks pretty nice by the way)

 

[blackflag]

When I tried to use the llm and luna translator together the server did not load either of the sugoi models (tried to use the bigger one first then deleted it so it's not there) ... Was there a common config which could fix this that I didn't figure out to set up? What does the qwen2 mean?
View attachment 91966iView attachment 91967
(The guide looks pretty nice by the way)

Hmm let me look this up for you in a second.

Qwen2 is another model.

 

[nemaiaish]

When I tried to use the llm and luna translator together the server did not load either of the sugoi models (tried to use the bigger one first then deleted it so it's not there) ... Was there a common config which could fix this that I didn't figure out to set up? What does the qwen2 mean?
View attachment 91966View attachment 91967
(The guide looks pretty nice by the way)

https://huggingface.co/lmg-anon/vntl-llama3-8b-v2-gguf
try with this model