Hi! So I just recently discovered the existence of visual novels and all the study potential that comes with it using ITH. I'm really excited!

However, I've been doing some searching and googling but I can't seem to find a good place to download them - any tips? (Interested in Japanese ones obviously, not English).

I'm particularly interested in some sex-themed ones (are eroge the same thing as "adult" visual novels? a bit confused) after stumbled across this site [warning: NSFW] http://lovehentaimanga.com/?cat=5
and tried the first game on the list. To my surprise I quite enjoyed it. *blush*
(I realize that these are only webgames, and must be very simplistic compared to a visual novel).

So, I'd love to find some similar, albeit lengthier, stuff in Japanese. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Hongfire might still work. I haven't been there in a while, and I've never been in the hentai forum, but it's worth a shot. You could also search here until you find something that looks interesting and then try and Google it (you would be surprised how often that works). If you don't mind online visual novels, mazenove.com has an adult site called doujingame.jp. I turned back once I saw the 18+ warning, but if it's like mazenove.com, then the games are all user made, though some can be surprisingly good.

"eroge" is the Japanese term for any 18+ game -- I'm not especially knowledgeable about them, but from what I understand most are visual novel-type games. Not all, though, I think Nitro+'s eroge are fighting games or other styles.

I've heard a lot of good things about Key's games (Clannad, Air, and Kanon especially) although all of those are published in all-ages versions for console systems -- these might actually be better because they often have voice acting for everything. (However, from what I've heard these aren't really "sex themed" games. I suspect that eroge visual novels may sell better than other visual novels on the PC market so sometimes the makers simply insert explicit scenes into the story, which can then be removed for an all-ages version if it's popular.)

http://vndb.org/ is a great site, use the tags to find one specific to your interests (fetishes). A google search of "gameTitle torrent" works pretty well for downloading.

VNs have varying levels of sexy. Some have it as the main focus, others focus on the plot and give you a couple of scenes at the end with the girl you "choose", and some have none.

You might enjoy 車輪の国 if you're looking for a good story.

I know a lot of people into Visual Novels in general. This won't help you acquire said games, but if you want to know what exists, check out vndb.org. There is also a big thread on neogaf that has a lengthy list of recomendations. The NSFW stuff aside, 999 for the DS is very good, but the text speeds are quite slow. And I've heard very good things about Ever 17, Higurashi and narcissu from my friends. All of which are at the top of the neogaf thread. I'll also note that narcissu is freeware, so it's an easy one to grab, and it's supposedly a short read.

Also, ITG can hook onto the text events of one of these games so you can use a dictionary or online translation with ease... Granted, I've never tried it myself.

Oh yeah, Chunsoft is bringing out their sound novels like Kamaitachi no Yoru for mobile pretty soon.

These might have some, but I haven't checked them in recent years so who knows.
http://www.akiba-online.com/
http://tokyotosho.info/
PerfectDark

Daichi Wrote:I know a lot of people into Visual Novels in general. This won't help you acquire said games, but if you want to know what exists, check out vndb.org. There is also a big thread on neogaf that has a lengthy list of recomendations. The NSFW stuff aside, 999 for the DS is very good, but the text speeds are quite slow. And I've heard very good things about Ever 17, Higurashi and narcissu from my friends. All of which are at the top of the neogaf thread. I'll also note that narcissu is freeware, so it's an easy one to grab, and it's supposedly a short read.

Also, ITG can hook onto the text events of one of these games so you can use a dictionary or online translation with ease... Granted, I've never tried it myself.

Oh yeah, Chunsoft is bringing out their sound novels like Kamaitachi no Yoru for mobile pretty soon.

That thread is recommendations based on what's translated (IE not aimed at Japanese learners) though.

Wasn't there a thread here in the past that categorized some popular VNs based on reading difficulty level?

They're all going to be relatively difficult -- for something with as much text as a VN it's probably more important that you're interested in the material than the difficulty of the text, which is somewhat hard to gauge in any case.

yudantaiteki Wrote:They're all going to be relatively difficult -- for something with as much text as a VN it's probably more important that you're interested in the material than the difficulty of the text, which is somewhat hard to gauge in any case.

Relatively difficult to what? I heard はなひら! is very easy and is often recommended for beginner readers.

sukebei.nyaa

ryuudou Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:They're all going to be relatively difficult -- for something with as much text as a VN it's probably more important that you're interested in the material than the difficulty of the text, which is somewhat hard to gauge in any case.

Relatively difficult to what? I heard はなひら! is very easy and is often recommended for beginner readers.

Relatively difficult for a language learner, although it really depends on what stage of learning you're at. Anything with a large amount of text written for a native speaker audience is going to have some minimum threshold of difficulty no matter what. Some are probably easier than others although I still suspect that if you're at the level where it's possible to make your way through a VN, having an interest in the material is more important than a supposed difficulty level. I could be wrong, though.

Thanks so much for all the tips!! Going to check out these sites.
Also, this might be a dumb question but, are these games typically able to run on macs? Or do I need to use windows?

yudantaiteki Wrote:I've heard a lot of good things about Key's games (Clannad, Air, and Kanon especially) although all of those are published in all-ages versions for console systems -- these might actually be better because they often have voice acting for everything.

Voice acting in addition sounds great! Would you happen to know where Key's games are available?

The voice acted ones would be for PS2, PSP, or PS3 so you could get them new from a site like play-asia, but I've always found for not-new import games, ebay has the best prices.

(The original 18+ PC versions don't have any voice acting.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:The voice acted ones would be for PS2, PSP, or PS3 so you could get them new from a site like play-asia, but I've always found for not-new import games, ebay has the best prices.

(The original 18+ PC versions don't have any voice acting.)

I want to add here that, while for the Key games you may need the console versions for voices, a majority of modern PC VNs actually do have voices. Even stuff from that era.

Be sure to check out Anime Games Text Hooker https://sites.google.com/site/agthook/
As it can help you copy the text out of the games so you can look up words more quickly.

ryuudou Wrote:

Daichi Wrote:There is also a big thread on neogaf that has a lengthy list of recomendations.

That thread is recommendations based on what's translated (IE not aimed at Japanese learners) though.

Wasn't there a thread here in the past that categorized some popular VNs based on reading difficulty level?

Fair point. Well, the list is still games that are known to be good. Probably a decent intro to the genre in general. And something like narcissu is at least short. I haven't seen anywhere if anyone has a list based on actual reading level. Probably could be generated much like book reading level is calculated.

edit: It's a bit crude but someone pointed this list out to me.

Zarxrax Wrote:Be sure to check out Anime Games Text Hooker https://sites.google.com/site/agthook/
As it can help you copy the text out of the games so you can look up words more quickly.

I already noted it in the thread, but I think ITH is preferred since it's still being maintained. AGTH hasn't seen any updates in over a year.

Some of that list seems suspect; one game supposedly has 3100+ unique kanji but only 13,000 characters in the whole script. Unless they accidentally included the font layout in their count I don't see how that's possible.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Some of that list seems suspect; one game supposedly has 3100+ unique kanji but only 13,000 characters in the whole script. Unless they accidentally included the font layout in their count I don't see how that's possible.

That's the line count, which I'm guessing is how many times you click "next"

Daichi Wrote:I already noted it in the thread, but I think ITH is preferred since it's still being maintained. AGTH hasn't seen any updates in over a year.

Ah I didnt see that. Good to know there is an alternative that might be better.

Translation Aggregator is a very useful tool as well - just turn off all the machine translations and only leave the automatic dictionary lookup.

It might be worth a visit to 4chan's /jp/ board. It's a cesspit, but a cesspit that knows its VNs well and, I think, has an FTP server or something for sharing them.

You might find this guide helpful,

How to read Visual Novels in Japanese in 2 years time
https://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/201...-or-anime/

It's based on the Anki/Heisig method

I also found it useful to start with one of the games that have been translated, like little busters. see http://fuwanovel.org/novels
you can do side-by-side comparisons.

Also if you are looking to find the visual novels, try this http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012...al-novels/

If you want physical copies, be prepared to pay through your nose!
because Japan is forbidden from selling their games to overseas customers. So you have to use a middleman. I have a copy of 'Rewrite' sitting on my shelf here that says, 'For sale in Japan ONLY'. And even if I insert my DVD & install it, it doesn't play anyway, because it doesn't play on any non-japanese copy of windows.

Roslyn Wrote:Also if you are looking to find the visual novels, try this http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012...al-novels/

If you want physical copies, be prepared to pay through your nose!
because Japan is forbidden from selling their games to overseas customers. So you have to use a middleman. I have a copy of 'Rewrite' sitting on my shelf here that says, 'For sale in Japan ONLY'. And even if I insert my DVD & install it, it doesn't play anyway, because it doesn't play on any non-japanese copy of windows.

Might want to try using Vistalizator. http://www.froggie.sk/

You can buy digital copies of some VNs nowadays, but you usually need - you guessed it - a Japanese credit card. I tried buying Steins;Gate since it was good, but failed miserably. It exists on the App Store though, which is nice if you have an iPhone and don't need a text hooker. Or, you know, want to pay them for their stuff.

And for anyone who find that their Japanese level is still too poor for most of the real visual novels out there, I honestly can't recommend Little Charo for the Nintendo DS enough. It's a bilingual visual novel for teaching english, and all of the text can be toggled between english and japanese at the touch of a button. I also posted a thread a while back where I had ripped the games script so that it can easily be converted into anki cards.