Tag Archives: Visual Novel

Not long along, its was rather difficult for Westerners to play a localized visual novel. As former Nippon Ichi Software president (and now CEO of Idea Factory International) Haru Akenaga once explained, Sony Computer Entertainment ...

What is the concept? 2014’s Nekopara Vol. 1 introduced readers to Kashou Minaduki, an aspiring chef born into a long line of confectioners. Hoping to cultivate his own brand of success, he moves out of ...

Ruminations on robotics are hardly new. In 1939, Isaac Asimov began writing about the Positronic Brain, a reoccurring narrative device which endowed machines with human-like sentience. 1968’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was another ...

2015 was the year the visual novel reached a tipping point in the West. Thanks to the efforts of publishers like Aksys Games, Idea Factory International, MangaGamer, and Sekai Project, the medium has finally fostered ...

Like many situation comedies, Strawberry Vinegar’s tranquil suburban setting offers a context for the peculiar. The tale’s opening moments introduces readers to Sakuraba Rie, an articulate school girl with little interest in maintaining a social ...

What is the concept? Famed director and screenwriter Federico Fellini once stated that all art is self-portrayal- the lustrous pearl is the autobiography of the ordinary oyster. Undoubtedly, the splendor of self-reflection was the virtue ...

There’s good reason why Clannad remains relevant nearly eleven years after its original release- the visual novel’s emotionally charged plot has lost none of its impact during the interval. What begins as an unassuming high ...

Thanks to a steady influx of titles on Steam and the PlayStation Network, the visual novel is finally garnering attention outside of Japan. The downside of this development is that consumers are experiencing a wide ...

Years ago, I inadvertently purchased a ‘clean version’ of an album from Wal-Mart. Within minutes of playing the CD, I knew something was intolerably wrong. All of the anger, sorrow, and satire that I had ...

Good horror has the ability to transform the conventional into something quite scary. Whether it’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s ability to make the rural seem menacing, Ringu’s haunting representation of past technologies, or Final Destination’s ...