Once a former fansubbing group (history here), we are now the official English localization team for minori visual novels, which are distributed by MangaGamer. For additional visual novel news, please check out the MangaGamer blog.
You are currently reading the news archive for June 2011 to July 2011. Latest main page is here.
2011.07.24. Otakon watch
Long time no update! Otakon is a week away, and is the other major anime convention for us to watch this summer! It's located in Baltimore, which is much closer to us than Los Angeles, but sadly we still can't go. Anime Expo was the E3 of visual novel activity, but Otakon still has a good amount of events. So which of these events should a minori fan (or any visual novel fan) attend?
First off, Makoto Shinkai is a featured guest! Most people recognize him for his feature-length presentations, but he also worked with minori for a few years, animating the openings to Wind, its fandisc OVA, Haru no Ashioto, and of course, ef! If you're a minori fanboy like us and own minori paraphernalia, you'll most certainly want your items to be autographed by him!
As for the other event, the Otakon summary describes it best:
Enter the world of Japanese erotic games, a.k.a. eroge! Join cat girls and tentacle monsters for an introduction into playing eroge - where to find it, how to get it, and what to look for - among lewd jokes, teasing discussion, our favorite eroge clips, and perverted contests to see who is the champion of conquest. We'll bring you hentai, yuri, yaoi, and WTF - there are no limits to eroge! Prizes will be awarded to anyone who can make us laugh or bow in awe.
...Right. Remember that most eroge are visual novels and vice versa, but the terms aren't interchangeable. This sounds about twice as interesting as the Anime North visual novel panel, and will probably be ten times more fun and enjoyable.
Saturday 7/30
13:00-14:30 - Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below (Listed as Special Surprise Premiere)
15:00-16:30 - Makoto Shinkai Q&A 17:00-18:00 00:30-01:30 - MangaGamer industry panel [18+ ...moved after Otakon staff found out it was adult in nature!]
Five straight hours of goodness! Watch Makoto Shinkai's latest movie in HD, then stick around for his panel! Then after that, there's the MangaGamer industry panel! Now, we'll be honest: for a keynote panel with at least 350 people in attendance at Anime Expo, we believed the effort and preparation MangaGamer put in was a little disappointing. They used a simple Powerpoint slideshow, not displaying any gameplay or screenshots. The overall presentation wasn't even 10% as good as what you usually see during other game developer presentations. Seeing as how we still don't have ef in our hands, don't expect any miracles or surprise announcements here. But hey, any publicity is good publicity!
(UPDATE 7/28: It seems that MangaGamer and Sentai Filmworks are right next to each other in the dealer room! Is this mere coincidence, or twisted fate? Nevertheless, if we don't see any ef promotion while the two of them are together, we'll be crying all weekend.)
So that's all the Otakon stuff. What about ef, then? We contacted minori recently, and they told us that they have given MangaGamer the alpha build at the beginning of the month. When we pressed kouryuu about this, he told us that MG internal staff likes to test things for compatibility. Well, come on! We can do that part ourselves! It's confusing at to why MG is withholding the alpha build for this long. Right now, ef is in MangaGamer's hands, not minori's. Don't blame minori for the current delays!
Hopefully they'll hand it to us before Otakon. We can only hope!
MangaGamer's panel is over! Being the main presentation event for MangaGamer, it was important to leave a lasting impression. So what happened? Was it a smashing success?
- Go Go Nippon is slated for release at the end of the month
- Da Capo III was licensed
- Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien is still under negotiation
- Unfortunately, minori's present was a mere apology to everyone for all the delays. ef's coverage lasted about four minutes, short of our expected five, but still longer than any other title covered besides Go Go Nippon. No screenshots (other than what you see above) or cinematics were shown, and our music video didn't make an appearance.
- bamboo, the head of Overdrive and MangaGamer, is really desperate for a girlfriend!
Everything else (DEARDROPS, Dengeki Stryker, Harukoi Otome) was already-known information. The panel ended twenty minutes early, probably because they didn't realize they had 90 minutes as opposed to 60. Oh well, what can you do?
So the panel wasn't exactly a home run, but we can't really complain after the Sentai Filmworks bombshell earlier in the day! Only time will tell if something good will happen from that!
2011.07.03. Breaking news at Anime Expo
minori fans rejoice! Both ef - a tale of memories and ef - a tale of melodies have been licensed by Sentai Filmworks!
What does this mean? Cross-promotion for the visual novel and the anime? Simultaneous hardcopy releases of ef - the first tale and volume 1 of ef - a tale of memories? Professional dubbing in the visual novel?! The sky's the limit! (NOTE: All of the previous statements are pure speculation.)
MangaGamer has admitted that Koihime Musou and Shuffle are their two biggest sellers. What do both of those have in common? They both have official western anime releases! Sentai Filmworks has inadvertently given MangaGamer a golden egg to hatch: with any luck, we now expect ef to outsell both of those titles as long as all parties play their cards right. ef has more critical acclaim on its side, after all. (#69 all-time for TV series on myanimelist.net) At the very least, we'll be seeing more ef AMVs in the forseeable future as it reaches out to a wider audience. YAY YAY!
Tonight's MangaGamer panel is still to come! Who knows what that present from minori will be...? Stay tuned!
2011.07.01. Happy Canada Day!
Anime Expo 2011 has begun! Sadly, no one from No Name Losers lives near the venue, so we can't give you a hands-on report like at Anime Boston and Anime North. However! For those who are planning to attend, you're in for a treat! Anime Expo has traditionally been the supercentre of all western visual novel showcasing, and this year is no exception!
Saturday 7/2 23:00-00:00 (2AM SUN EDT) -
JAST USA Bishoujo Games
No Name Losers owns quite a number of JAST USA titles, most of which were purchased at Hen Da Ne. We expect them to cover the two titles released since last AX, which are Demonbane and Yukkuri Panic. In addition, they've recently gone on a licensing spree. They'll probably dedicate a majority of the panel to hyping these upcoming titles. So let's see the list of titles they may cover:
- 2 recently released (Demonbane, Yukkuri Panic)
- 4 JAST Densetsu titles (Aselia the Eternal, My Girlfriend is the President, School Days HQ, Seinarukana)
- 5 Nitroplus titles (whole list is here)
- 2 Other (Starless, Downhill Night Blaze)
That's at least thirteen titles, which means they'll be pressed to promote each title in a thorough manner. One hour just isn't enough time to cover everything. We predict the Nitroplus titles will be mentioned as whole for only a few moments in order to free up room for the rest.
Now, releasing titles at a rate (2) slower than acquisition (at least 11) is cause for concern. Historically, anime companies that acquired more than they could handle soon went bankrupt: ADV Films/Manga, Tokyopop, and of course, Hirameki International, who at the beginning announced SIXTEEN visual novels but was only able to release five of them. A good portion of the JAST USA titles fall under fansubs-gone-legal, but when it comes to real sales, we wonder if this fledgling market can bear that much in a small time frame.
Why do companies insist on repeating history? We'll never know, but we'd like to think that JAST USA has learned from the mistakes of Hirameki International. We wish them all the best, because whatever they release, we'll buy, and whatever we buy, Mr. Photo ID will be there to ID us! And that's one of the highlights of visiting the Hen Da Ne booth each year at Anime North!
Sunday 7/3 21:15-22:15 (12:15AM MON EDT) - Visual Novels and Eroge (FAKKU)
22:30-00:00 (1:30AM MON EDT) - The Now and Future of Bishoujo Games
(MangaGamer)
The first event is FAKKU's very own visual novel panel. We predict they'll cover the exact titles that they did at Anime Boston. You can see the Anime Boston version here if you missed it earlier. We have to wonder: after Jacob admitted during Q&A that he has never purchased a visual novel, how does he get the money to fly across the country? That's something to think about...
The second event is MangaGamer's panel! The first thing you'll notice is that it's 90 minutes as opposed to 60! That's a good thing, right? Well, this event regularly includes Japanese guests, so the extra time is spent on guest banter and Q&A.
Being the premier event of the year, we kept poking kouryuu about how MangaGamer was going to promote ef (and minori in general) to the audience. We haven't been consulted at all on this panel; all kouryuu told us was that minori gave bamboo some "materials" to show. Our ef music video would be awesome to present, but we have no idea if they'll do so. ef may very well be MangaGamer's next release, so we believe ef deserves at least five minutes of this panel. Anything less would be a disappointment given the importance of Anime Expo. Come on MangaGamer, show our music video, or even in-game shots! Keep minority spirit!
There's more to discuss on the subject of visual novel promotion, but we'll leave that to another day, probably after Anime Expo has concluded.
The 6/22 poll is still open, but it seems most of you want us to open discussion about Supipara with minori. If things turn out well, we'll promise to do that once we get ef out of the way! Thanks for tuning in!
2011.06.22. Supipara?
There's still no word on ef from minori. Speaking of which, minori has been rather quiet lately. minori's alleged next title, Supipara, still hasn't been officially announced on their web site. If you have a Nico Nico Douga account, you can see the movie that was featured at the end of the ef fandisc here. No, we don't know whether we can fansub subtitle it and put it up on YouTube, because our team has agreed to wait and not pester minori. We know they're hard at work! Well, how about some low-res screenshots for you minori fans without Nico Nico Douga access:
The "main" girl in Supipara, Sakura Narumi, has her own in-character twitter! Over 9000 tweets in a span of about half a year; that's 50 tweets per day! She'll attempt to respond to every tweet, even simple ones, so go ahead and practice your Japanese with her if you want! Be nice please!
Since it's still in development, we've got an idea. It's poll time! We haven't had one since October.
Who knows what the future holds? Good things may happen!
2011.06.02. June status report
No Name Losers won't be making an appearance at Anime Expo, since it's simply too far away for all of us. (We can't get $500 in donations, after all!) Otakon is unlikely as well, and Otakuthon (August in Montreal) is just too small for the travel expenses to be worth it.
As for minori and MangaGamer, we still haven't been in much direct communication with either party, since they only told us to trust them. In addition, the team has been a little busy over the past month. Real life beckons!
2011.06.01. Anime North 2011 report, complete!
(We've moved the old news to another page. Anime Boston hasn't been forgotten; after reading, you'll understand why this had to be done first.)
Wai wai! This con was much better than last year's. In terms of ranking, we'd place this con between AB 2011 and AN 2005. So we were at two awesome cons spaced just over a month apart from each other! We'll give you the entire report in one sitting this time. Some of the jokes require you to have read the Anime Boston report, so read that (check the news archive) if you haven't already!
FRIDAY
Registration was quick and easy, as we had pre-registered, thus bypassing the line you see below. Ah, how we missed you, giant Q-tip!
There was a minimal amount of rainfall, low enough to be called misty. Due to some difficulties concerning the meetup location and time, we missed opening ceremonies and the bootleg panel.
At Gokon, we met a former No Name Loser who wanted to rejoin us after hearing about the latest developments. We welcomed him back with open arms. Otherwise, Gokon was mostly empty. The Friday night skit contest was uneventful, so we left early. With a bit of a break until tea tasting, we stopped by the dealer room. And of course, who did we see but the store with the lovely pin-up women, Hen Da Ne!
This time, we won't need a highly accurate impression. Pictures are even more accurate!
As you can see, Hen Da Ne didn't heed our advice of displaying a big store sign. Do you see that Cyber City Comix sign to the right of the picture? That sign wasn't supposed to be in the picture, but they had that sign, plus a HUGE sign hanging from the ceiling. Look!
See, this is how you freakin' advertise. This was taken from the other side of the dealer room. Now everyone in the building knew about Cyber City Comix! Stores don't even need their signs to be massive: the Conspiracy sign to the right is viewable, despite it being an order of magnitude smaller!
So this year Hen Da Ne's staff was a mix of the A-team and the B-team. Will they blend and display visual novel harmony? Let's find out!
Oh, look! It's MangaGamer's Da Capo... unceremoniously shoved between two hentai doujinshi boxes. The other visual novels were further back, thus discouraging anyone from picking them up and inspecting them. See, bamboo? This is how Hen Da Ne promotes your games! And what was up with that half-eaten french fry? Poor, poor, Nemu...
As for the pin-up women, let's take a better look at them, shall we?
HOLD IT! Is that what we think it is?
Wow! A Yuuko Amamiya bed sheet! Hen Da Ne just loves putting up ef stuff at Anime North to taunt us because we have always purchased something from them each year. The yellow price tag read $85. Would we get it? Hrm... maybe on Saturday.
Tea tasting was next! We met the same group of people who sat with us during the skit contest and waited in line. Right when we were all about to get some tea, the tea people ran out of paper cups. So we ran out and grabbed some plastic cups from the water stations. When we returned, the tea people whined about how they couldn't serve tea in plastic cups due to hotel regulations. Party poopers!
Sadly, this was all that greeted us in the end. They eventually ran out of tea from refills. With nothing else on our intinerary, we decided to go home early.
FRIDAY'S SCORE: 3/10
YAY: Yuuko Amamiya sighting, easy con passes
NAY: Poor skit contest, no tea, no good late-night events
-
SATURDAY
Anime Jeopardy was the first main event, and it was a success. We filmed the whole thing, so you'll see the full video of that in a few weeks, since it needs to be edited.
We went back to Hen Da Ne and the Yuuko bed sheet was still there. YAY! So we purchased it! We also purchased a copy of Da Capo because it'd look rather silly if we didn't support one of the companies in our deal. The Hen Da Ne staff member who sold those was...
Surprise! None other than the sexy Anime Boston B-team guy! As you can see, our highly accurate impression was indeed stunning. Just one look at him makes you want to buy that pin-up women sheet behind him! We'll call him Mr. Sexy!
The A-team guy was someone who always asks us for photo ID even though we've been buying from Hen Da Ne since 2005. So he's Mr. Photo ID. True to his name, he asked for photo ID once more, even though we'd have been in grade school in 2005 if we weren't 18 by now. We should have a poll next year to see if he'll ID us yet again! Maybe he'll let us off when we get enough wrinkles on our SHINY and PRETTY faces...
Mr. Photo ID then asked if we were No Name Losers. After exchanging a few words, he told us he disagreed with how we handled some things. We told him that while we might seem playful on our website, we're SUPAH serious and BEASTLY in private e-mail mode! Mr. Photo ID doubted our claim, bragging about how he had a direct line to MangaGamer and kept constant communication with bamboo. Well, Mr. Photo ID! You may have a direct line to bamboo, but we have a direct line to minori and nbkz! It only took us a few e-mails to make it all happen!
We talked for a few more minutes. Then, since the minori/MangaGamer/No Name Losers deal was all about mending past relationships, we shook hands in mutual respect and wished each other good luck. See you again next year, Mr. Photo ID! You too, Mr. Sexy!
After a few other personal events and mingling with the crowd, it was time for the music video contest! The challenge entries were shown first, then the novice division, then the open division. Here's our entry, Nothing's Missing:
(DISCLAIMER: As per Anime North MVC rules, only one of the No Name Losers was involved in the production of this AMV. The rest of the team merely provided feedback and suggestions.)
It received the least applause from the crowd. Well, at least it was a good try. Unyu.
...Wait a minute. The contest wasn't being judged by the audience! We still had a chance! And Nothing's Missing turned out to be a winner! Our award ceremony video was too low-quality due to the lighting, but here's what the co-ordinator said:
"The first runner-up is Nothing's Missing. This video bears the distinction of incorporating two previous challenges: still images and country music. It uses various pan-and-zoom techniques to bring the story of Hiro and Miyako to life. The judges appreciated the quiet power of this video."
We narrowly missed out on a trophy award reserved for the big winners, but we got the gold medal, edging out a great Clannad AMV, which you can see here! This gold medal is not just ours; it's for all the minori fanboys in the world who love and cherish all things minori! We're all winners, so celebrate with us!
(We got the chibi Miyako in the artist alley. So SHINY and PRETTY!)
As you can see, we also got a mug and a t-shirt! As for "incorporating two previous challenges," we were unaware of them. It was only until after the con that we checked out the winner of the "still images" challenge, which you can see here!
Well, those weren't the only prizes. The real prize was the contestant after-party, which had all-you-can-eat pizza!
Yum yum! We were only thinking of entering just this once, but if there's free food next year too, we might just have to come back!
The after-party went on for nearly three hours, which was a good thing, because once again there was nothing to do after 10 PM. The adult programming was rather small and unimpressive this year. Oh, Anime North! Saturday was almost perfect! Why must you troll us so?
Well, more sleep for us!
SATURDAY'S SCORE: 9/10
YAY: Jeopardy, music video contest, free pizza, the sexy Hen Da Ne guy
NAY: No good late-night events (again)
-
SUNDAY
One of the No Name Losers couldn't come on this day. However, since the former No Name Loser we met on Friday was now part of our team again, there were technically still two No Name Losers at Anime North! However, that person was busy volunteering, so this day was mostly a solo run.
A personal event at 9 AM was a no-show, but we overheard one person talking about Hen Da Ne. Actually, he didn't know it was Hen Da Ne...
GUY: "I don't even buy English manga anymore. There's this one store in the dealer room with nothing but Japanese doujinshi and video games. I don't know what it's called, but they have this table with all these boxes with doujinshi in them--"
NNL: "Hey, wait. Are you talking about the store with the pin-up women?"
GUY: "Yes! That's it! What's it called?"
NNL: "Hen Da Ne. We've been wanting them to put up a sign, but they never do. Now you're evidence that we've been right all along!"
Turns out this guy was a visual novel fan! We promptly set up our laptop on a table and did an impromptu presentation of visual novels right in the hallway! We showcased ef and eden*, plus we presented a number of visual novels in their packaging such as Family Project and Yume Miru Kusuri so that they would know exactly what to look for. This presentation slowly but surely gathered a few more people, about five or so. We then presented Da Capo (which we bought earlier) and told them about our partnership with minori, MangaGamer, and Hen Da Ne. Some of the people promised to visit Hen Da Ne after we told them how Da Capo needed to be successful in order for ef and eden* to be green-lit for a hardcopy. See, Hen Da Ne? We advertise your store for free!
Afterwards, we went to the Press Your Luck and Superstar Family Feud game shows. They were entirely recorded as well, so you'll see them in a few weeks, too! Both were fantastic events. Then we went to the AMV contest replay, where they showed our music video once again. This time, Nothing's Missing got a much louder round of applause, which was very nice.
We had to bail out of the replay halfway for the visual novel panel. Before we get to that, let us share two e-mails with you:
We replied with a lengthy e-mail with many suggestions. They were free to take any of them and incorporate them into their panel. Things we suggested were: balanced 50/50 commercial and fan-translation coverage, being newbie friendly, the history of Hirameki International and its two appearances at Anime North, some adult title coverage despite it being an all-age panel, showing some visual novels via projector, showing physical copies of the games, and telling the audience where to purchase them in the dealer room.
So we had high hopes for this visual panel and entered the room with much anticipation. There was only one of us, so that No Name Loser was forced to film and not participate. We also didn't have the authorization to represent ourselves or MangaGamer officially. Therefore, it was decided that No Name Losers wouldn't interfere with the panel in any way, shape or form. That meant staying silent even if negative things were said about us or our affiliated companies.
We'll go through the list:
Was the panel balanced? NO. (over 90% fan-translation coverage)
Were they newbie friendly? YES, but it wasn't required since everyone in the room was familiar with the medium.
Was Hirameki International mentioned? NO.
Did they cover adult titles? YES, but no sex romps, and only fan-translated titles!
Did they show any visual novels via projector? NO.
Did
they show any physical copies of visual novels? NO.
Was Hen Da Ne mentioned as a legal route to obtain visual novels? NO.
Was ef mentioned? NO.
Was Wind mentioned? NO.
Was JAST USA mentioned? NO, but Demonbane was mentioned by one of the female panelists.
Was any specific JAST USA title mentioned? Other than Demonbane, NO.
Was MangaGamer mentioned? Only by an audience member.
Was any specific MangaGamer title mentioned? NO.
Was minori mentioned? By an audience member, and negatively, so we'll protect our fans from hearing it.
And finally, was No Name Losers mentioned, as promised? NO!
There were some issues with Anime Boston's visual novel panel, but the Anime North panel made the AB panel look like a professional production. And so, we will not post up the question period at AB where we grilled the FAKKU panelists on legality, which means part 4 of the AB report won't be needed. The AB panel was at least ten times better than the AN one, and our 15-minute YouTube edit puts that panel in an enough of a positive light. However, no amount of editing wizardry could save the AN panel.
The most ridiculous panelist snippets were Chris admitting that he hasn't purchased a single visual novel ever, and David claiming you could support the English visual novel industry by purchasing Japanese games. Because really, by purchasing Japanese games, MangaGamer and Hen Da Ne would see some of that money, right? ...Not.
Therefore, there was nothing redeeming in the panel, and it would give the panelists too much respect and recognition if we were to actually show you the video. So we won't. The second-ever Anime North visual novel panel was a colossal disappointment. Sorry.
After the panel, we approached one of the people in the audience, the president of Sakura River, Alfe Clemencio. It was interesting to hear his side of things. He cited the positive RPGFan review as evidence that his titles were responding well, and that people prefer a little bit of gameplay to pure visual novels. We asked him how well Fading Hearts was doing at Anime North, because Hen Da Ne was selling it for $15. Much to our surprise, he gave us the exact number of sales: six. That's $90 from a major anime convention. ...Wow. We have to give him credit for remaining optimistic even in the face of such numbers.
We stopped by Hen Da Ne once more...
Hold on! Almost everything in the picture was Touhou merchandise. There's Fading Hearts right in the center, but where were the other visual novels? What happened?! Was Hen Da Ne not selling any other visual novels on the final day due to packing up, or did they sell out of everything? If it was the latter case, then wow. Visual novels could sell themselves even with the worst positioning on the table. But if it was the former case, then shame on Hen Da Ne for not offering visual novels at the last moments of the con.
(UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that Hen Da Ne did indeed sell out of EVERY single English visual novel besides Fading Hearts. Yes, even the sex romps. Wow! But that means they need to bring MORE next year!)
Then 5 PM arrived, and Anime North was over! At home, there was one last surprise waiting for us...
Hey! Hen Da Ne wasn't supposed to sell the Yuuko bed sheet to us! We were meant to have it given to us! Well, we suppose the $85 was for shipping, distribution, and paying for Mr. Sexy's wardrobe, so we'll accept that. Ho ho ho!
SUNDAY'S SCORE: 7/10
YAY: Game shows, music video replay, our visual novel presentation
NAY: The official visual novel panel
All in all, while this year's Anime North couldn't beat the 2008 awesomeness of Halko Momoi, it was still very successful for us. Thank you for reading, and we'll see you on the next update!
