I made some changes in the proposal template and in the instructions, please let me know if anything is unclear or if I goofed or missed something. xD (It is very early in the template.)
4 Likes
Much appreciated, I will for now add the estimated weekly time to finish to the nominations area of the main post, but if people could add these to their nomination posts, that would be great!
EDIT: I round up, so if 22.5k would be 5.3 weeks, I still count it as 6 even though normally that would be rounded down. That will both take care of potentially starting slower, and it doesn’t hurt to have an estimate that might be 1 week high. xD
5 Likes
Ugh… I don’t know what to do about that tonight, so I’ll have a think on this. Anyone who has a bright idea, please share. xD
I added approx. weeks to all nominations with character counts.
I’m trying to use numbers to make this easier but as expected VN clubs are hard 
I figured if the max characters per week we can do is 25k/week and 5 months is about 22 weeks then the max character count a VN we read can have is 550k. This is the highest estimate possible so ideally VNs would be shorter than that.
I’ve compared VNs around that length whose character counts are available is jpdb.io with their vndb lengths and there is a lot of variability but they seem to be in the range of 16 to 19k/h. Therefore if the max characters we can do is 550k that would come up to between 28 to 35h. It so happens that vndb classifies VNs up to 30h as ‘Medium’ length, so we could use that as the maximum length for nominations or just be flexible up to 35h (fun fact: bustafellows would be right at that limit with 35h). Since this is all estimations it might be a bit harsh to eliminate VNs just because of this, but I guess it at least gives us a realistic image of what we can expect to read with the chosen pace within the limit we have set.
I know a lot of the most interesting VNs tend to be longer but within these margins there are still a lot of VNs that can be chosen, so I think we should be fine for now.
Anyway, it’s just a suggestion, but using this 16 to 19k/h we can roughly ‘translate’ the vndb times to reading weeks. Once we choose a particular VN it might be harder to organize how much to read each week if there is no further info but we can worry about that when it comes 
Disclaimer: very quick and ruff math don’t sue me
9 Likes
I was looking at something similar. Take jpdb’s vn lists and sort by characters. Looking for the median… a close enough, but recognizable name is Steins;Gate 0 at ~535k characters in position #251. So bumping up the target to that medium length benchmark really seems to open up the possibilities.
One of the reasons I’m interested in getting to the mediumish length is because I think that opens up more well known series and things that have gotten adaptations to other mediums like anime and manga (and vice versa). Some of the entries I’ve seen around that point include: Angel Beats, Ace Attorney, Chaos;Head & Steins;Gate, Date A Live, White Album, Phantom, Utawarerumono… and probably many others that I’ve missed. As far as the book club goes I’m pretty open to reading anything, but having popular titles become feasible would help attract dedicated participants to the club.
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Hi! I thought of ya’ll when I saw this thread on Natively: 🎮 Video Game + Visual Novel Natively Levels - Language Learning - Natively Forums
I know there’s some overlap in members between the forums so figured I’d call it out.
Full disclaimer: so far as I know VNs or video games in general aren’t slated to be added to Natively in the near future, although the person who runs it isn’t against the idea, just working on other features at the moment.
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Done c: . Funny that with our new organisation for the club kinetic VNs divided into chapters are suddenly harder to manage 
. If you look at Tsui no Stella’s chapter divisions the numbers end up being a bit weird, but this is an example of a plan we could go for for an 8 week plan:
| Week | Content | Character Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chapters 1, 2 and 3 | 19 514 |
| 2 | Chapters 4 and 5 | 16 958 |
| 3 | Chapter 6 | 21 783 |
| 4 | Chapter 7 | 16 346 |
| 5 | Chapter 8 | 21 197 |
| 6 | Chapters 9 and 10 | 21 663 |
| 7 | Chapters 11 and 12 | 21 188 |
| 8 | Chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16 | 25 880 |
Sadly we’d mostly be reading below our new mark, but I mean it’s probably not a big deal anyway and the voting can sort that out, being only a 2 month period. I’m not sure if we could push for a 7 week plan as neatly. We can do it like we’ve done 9-nine-, purely cut in the middle of a fitting spot and call it a week. However with works that are explicitly divided into chapters I’d expect them to follow a certain logic throughout their entirety so cutting in the middle of one is probably not as convenient. If they were very long chapters then I suppose that’d be a different story though.
Not sure if I want to nominate something else right now, I’ll take a look and see what I find.
I’m sure something like Steins;Gate and the like would attract people to the club 
. That would be fun to read, but it also kinda feels a tiny bit like playing dirty in a sense like it’s a nomination that would most likely get many votes just out of popularity. Not that that’s a bad thing, if many people do want to read something like Steins;Gate together then that’s a good pick and one I’d happily join for sure. Honestly if we could be at a point already where people can nominate the more popular ones or whatever they want freely that’d be awesome. We’re slowly getting there, I’m so happy 
. Brb looking for a >1M character VN.
Also If I remember correctly Steins;Gate can’t be hooked with Textractor, right? You had to use a different one?
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Same. Just don’t tell them I dropped the anime like a hot potato and have no interest in the series as a whole.
I really don’t know anything about that series or hooking it, just that it’s one of those absurdly popular series that getting anything from it would probably get a couple people interested.
I’ve been playing Melty Blood recently so Tsukihime is on my list now. There’s actually a Japanese only Switch remake that came out not too long ago. I’m also a sicko that wants to read Muv-Luv (+Alternative) which is another ~1M can of worms. Aaand for my possibly cheating response with the best soundtrack Umineko no Naku Koro ni is another famous title with like 2M split over 2 arcs/8 episodes.
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Just to be clear, no one have to figure out a reading schedule ahead of time, just divide the character count with 22.5k for the higher amount of weeks (rounding up), and with 25k for the lower amount of weeks (rounding up). Making either a 14-15 or ca 7 (I added ca for those that came out the same for both).
An actual reading schedule can wait until a nomination have won the vote. ^^
I just wanted to make that clear so no one else feels like they have to figure out the schedule ahead of time too.
But good job! 
5 Likes
The VN is actually one of my favorite VNs ever made while I absolutely hate the anime I read the VN first and then tried to check out the anime later and they changed so much/omitted a ton of stuff, it felt completely different. All of the sci;adv games are really good and interesting, but I never liked a single one of their adaptions so I think its still worth checking out the VNs at some point even if the anime wasn’t your thing.
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Oh yeah yeah for sure!! I just remembered that the one I nominated was divided into chapters and was bored and curious enough to see how it would work for the current state of the club.
I instead have only ever watched the anime and I loved it so now I’m a lot more curious about the VN . I also don’t think I remember the anime at all at this point so it’s a good fresh start .
edit: wowee that’s a 9 on VNDB.
6 Likes
徒花異譚
Developer: Liar-soft
VNDB Play Time: 8h26m
VNDB Link: Adabana Itan | vndb
Character count: Not on jpdb so not sure. Based on what I’ve heard, I’d estimate anywhere from 200-250k.
Number of weeks to finish: 9-12 weeks?
Summary
A girl finds herself in a dark and unfamiliar forest when a monster appears out of nowhere and attacks. A mysterious boy, wielding a brush as if it were a sword, appears just in time to cut down the monster.
He calls himself Kurofude, and he addresses the girl in a familiar tone as Shirohime. Yet she does not recognize him or the name he calls her. She has lost all of her memories.
According to Kurofude, they are in the land of Adabana, a realm of illustrated books. Their tales are like dreams; no matter how deeply one immerses oneself in them, once one wakes up, they are gone. Thus the name Adabana—a name given to flowers that will never bear fruit. Their duty is to travel through story realms and look for signs of distortions in the tales.
Shirohime, a girl with seemingly all the agency of a doll, accepts this explanation and opens a book handed to her. The title: Hanasaka Jiisan. As she opens the dilapidated illustrated book with its pages riddled with worm-eaten holes, the pages glow brightly and whisk the girl and boy away to a fairy tale realm…
Availability
Personal Opinion
The visual novel is relatively short and the genre is a lot different than the stuff we have read so far. It is also available on both steam & Switch so everyone should be able to participate. The art is also very beautiful.
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Beautiful art
- Can texthook
- All the characters are voiced
Cons
- It’s a Liar-soft game so the language is probably harder than anything we’ve read so far
- Three routes (although it seems simple to go through them)
- Steam version seems to be unavailable if you are in Europe so you would have to buy the game on JAST to play it on PC.
Pictures
Difficulty Poll
How much effort would you need to read this VN?
- No effort at all
- Minimal effort
- Moderate effort
- Significant effort
- So much effort my head might explode
- I don’t know
0 voters
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I’m trying to figure out what I could possibly nominate but it seems like all the things I come up with that could be interesting to the club are either too long, have +18 content on their PC version or are only on less convenient platforms…
Okay, let’s make a poll on what platforms everyone has available so I can discard some of those for good, and it might be useful for anyone thinking of nominating something, I’ll put the usual suspects when it comes (or came) to VNs but if you think I missed a relevant one please let me know. I know I’m going kinda pretty far back with some of these but…there are some DS and PSP gems if you ask me, and the VITA was the golden standard for console VNs like…yesterday
Please select all platforms on which you’d be able to play visual novels:
- PC
- Nintendo Switch
- Mobile
- PS VITA
- PSP
- Nintendo DS
- Other (please specify in comments)
0 voters
Of course this is not an official club poll, I’m just curious!
Edit: sorry to whoever had voted right after I posted, I realized I didn’t make it public and had to redoit
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I had this same issue too when trying to look up VNs to nominate. There were a lot of VNs that looked really good but were only 18+ or the all-ages version was console exclusive. I wish they’d put the all-ages versions on PC too instead of just console, it’d make finding nominations a lot easier 
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It would be so easy to just put the all-ages on PC… those and the games that are on Steam but without Japanese text will be the death of me 
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Added it to the OP, also wanted to mention that the steam link is showing “error, unable to load information”, like I can’t even click it so the link is that broken for me. Might be better to make it into a normal link. The Nintendo store image link version works for some reason, but might be better to do the same to that one. Just in case it decides to break in the future.
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Checking VNDB, it looks like the steam version is unavailable in most of Europe for some reason. I wonder if that is the issue? Either way, I edited it. The game can be bought on the JAST store if you are in Europe from what VNDB says, so I added that link too for people.
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Oh yeah, I can now click the link and it says unavailable in my region. xD But at least I can click it, and get that info. xD
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The obstacles are pretty obvious with the absurd length, but it’s sorta been my dream in the back of my head to one day do something like reread Higurashi with others here. It leans into anime nonsense a bit much but it’s also such an incredible piece of writing in so many ways, has stuck with me like few other things. Umineko I stalled out on for a bit now in the middle of arc 5 (in English) but it has some wild moments and seems extremely fun to have people discussing and theorizing about – it’s the kind of thing you hear people say is straight up their favorite piece of writing across any medium. But man would doing that truly take ages.
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Considering my history here, now that the guidelines have expanded it seems only right that I do this
極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉 (Zero Escape: 999)
Developer: Chunsoft, Regista, & Spike Chunsoft
VNDB Play Time: 21h45m
VNDB Link: Kyokugen Dasshutsu - 9-Jikan 9-Nin 9 no Tobira | vndb
Character count: unknown, estimated 348k-413k from vndb times
Number of weeks to finish: ~14-17 (estimated from above character count)
Summary
Kidnapped and taken to an unfamiliar location, nine people find themselves forced to participate in a diabolical Nonary Game by an enigmatic mastermind called Zero. Why were they there? Why were they chosen to put their lives on the line? And more importantly, who can be trusted?
more specific summary (not super spoilery but just in case):
Nine people have been kidnapped by a mysterious person called Zero and are forced to participate in a survival game called the “Nonary Game”. Each player has a bracelet numbered 1–9, which they must use to pass through doors numbered 1–9 to reach the exit before 9 hours run out and the ship in which they are in sinks. Various puzzles must be solved in order to advance through the ship and reach the exit, while uncovering the mysteries behind the Nonary Game.
Availability
Steam (includes second game)
PS4 (includes second game)
XBox (includes second game)
DS (original version, not voiced)
PS Vita (includes second game)
mobile version technically exists but is weird apparently
Personal Opinion
999 was the first long-form thing I read in Japanese and I had a wonderful time with it! It’s the sort of thing that drags you along for the ride desperate to know what’s going on, which I think is really good for motivation. If you enjoy other mystery death game puzzley sorts of things I’d definitely recommend it (Spike Chunsoft is also known for such things as Danganronpa, AI: The Somnium Files, and Steins;Gate if that’s any indication); it’s also on the more well-known side as VNs go which could be cool. Schedule-wise I think it’d be pretty easy to figure out as well considering the structure of it, and I certainly have insight to provide there 
Also don’t let the idea of sequel games scare you off, they’re there for you if you enjoy the first one but 999 can absolutely stand on its own.
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Most dialogue voiced
- I believe text-hookable? I used game2text so
- Clear structure
- Well-known good old fun mystery VN! (8.29 on vndb)
- Puzzles if you’re into that sort of thing
- Available a lot of places apparently
- Good balance of dialogue and narrative for reading practice (though there is a dialogue-only option if that appeals to you)
Cons
- Not fully voiced
- Covers a pretty wide breadth of topics, though weird vocabulary asides tend to be short-lived
- Older style reading interface if that bothers you (see screenshots)
- On the more expensive side, but it’s on sale like every other week it seems like
- Definitely dark if you’re not into that
- Puzzles if that’s not your thing
Pictures
Difficulty Poll
How much effort would you need to read this VN?
- No effort at all
- Minimal effort
- Moderate effort
- Significant effort
- So much effort my head might explode
- I don’t know
0 voters
15 Likes