Interview with ANN

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Zac for ANN Cast. You can listen to the interview here, but feel free to leave your comments here.

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27 Comments

  1. Kouryuu in my ANN?

  2. Watched it,then stopped watching when he called us all ‘nerds’. ;-;

  3. Most of the interview is stuff that I all ready know, but it was quite interesting still.

    Though if kouryuu answered the porn question with: “It’s there for fanservice. To satisfy the lust of us “nerds(otaku).” Since we are guys after all, who wouldn’t want to see the girl(though 2D) they like nude?” XD

    But anyways, I would like to see more all ages visual novels be released. Maybe something from defunct KID’s(now CyberFront) lineup since the infinity series and memories off series were all ages in the first place, there won’t be any complaints about content being edited out.

    • Another all ages series that MG should consider picking up is the EVE series from C’s Ware, it’s a very good mystery game series with an all star cast of seiyuu and the switching perspectives part of the game is pretty good. There do exist two adult versions though, one for EVE burst error and the other for New Generation X. Technically you could also count Adam The Double Factor since it had ero content but that was retconned by the far longer and superior (and non ero) EVE The Fatal Attraction.

  4. Having heard the interview, one thing kouryu mentions about the system part for Hinatabokku has me curious, just how big a barrier would the system for an eroge be for licensing. A while ago JAST approached Cyc to try and make a deal, but it fell through because the system that company uses was incompatible with the one JAST uses for english localization. If MG were to encounter a similar situation, how would it typically be handled or would that actually be the “impossible to localize” kind of game?

    • ^

      Jast doesn’t have their own system. Cyc’s system (System-NNN) was the problem. Jast gets the original game company to port the system to English local (that’s what held up Demonbane for so long). But Black Cyc wasn’t able to port the system over.

      System-NNN has some serious issues, the most obvious being punctuation. The system will not display periods and other things. Fans in an attempt to help reopen negotiations have attempted to port the system for Jast, most noticeable being the Gore Screaming Show group on TLwiki who was able to make most punctuation display by altering about 3 files.

      Since MangaGamer ports their games over to Overdrives system (Buriko General Interpreter) they wont have this issue.

  5. The interview seemed rather awkward at times. It didn’t help that the interviewer was just as clueless if not moreso than his audience. Kouryuu didn’t do a bad job, but didn’t come across nearly as strongly as he usually does during his written addresses. There were missed opportunities to promote the genre, as well as a lot of nothing being said. I suppose expecting the quality of an impromptu audio interview to match that of a well thought out written address was a bit much to ask.

  6. I like how Mangagamer has evolved.

    They started out quite chaotic, but they did a major thing right: they listened to their customers feedback and tried to improve on it.
    Not many companies do that, a lot of companies are very ignorant at what their customers think *cough* EA *cough*.

    Kouryuu’s efforts sure helped the communication between Mangagamer and its customers; lets hope the future will bring more of that. 🙂

    • Yes, this. Mangagamer started out like one of those random Engrishy “tlansration” companies that never go anywhere. But then they LISTENED to their customers, and TOOK ACTION based on it, and now they’re one of the big forces in the Western visual novels market. Which is awesome. And Kouryuu deserves a significant chunk of the credit for that, so thumbs up!

      (The Western VN market is sadly still tiny, of course; I don’t know what can be done about that.)

  7. Nintendo Maniac 64

    Kind of disappointed that more discussion wasn’t put into the iOS/Android area. I still think that would be the perfect market for getting VNs more mainstream due to ebook and extremely casual gameplay proliferation, but everyone keeps wanting to follow the tried & true method of approching it from the hardcore gamer side of the spectrum – this is why you keep running into the “it’s not a game” thing.

    • The issue with the iPhone/Android ports is they’re not done by us, and we have no part in determining them. That’s why we can’t really comment on them as MangaGamer.

      What gets ported to the iPhone is entirely the decision of our Japanese partners, though we do get a cut of the sales on the English versions since they use our translations. That said, we usually don’t tell them no, so if a specific game gets an iPhone port, and has an English translation, it’s likely to see the English version get ported as well. An example of this would be Edelweiss which Overdrive recently ported to the iPhone.

  8. I know nothing about this medium, and the anncast lead me here to try out some of the demos. Good job with the anncast.

    • Hmm,

      I just noticed there are no demos on the all ages page.
      Kouryuu after you have vexed so eloquently at Anncast that its not all about the porn, I really think you should put up some demos in the all ages section.

      While I agree, that there are some good story driven games
      in the adult section; still I would assume that for a first time visitor you should have something up on the all ages pages as a teaser. That seems especially true if you continue to market to the mainstream anime crowd.

  9. Awesome job Kouryuu!

    If you guys manage to license Type Moon or Nitroplus or even Key, I’ll be sure to start a donation fund to get you a Garden of Sinners box 😀

    • Jast has Nitro+
      Most of Type moons games have been translated..
      Most of Keys games have been translated…

      ……

      • Most of Key’s games have been translated, yes, which does indeed make it seem like a slim chance that they will get picked up by MangaGamer.
        However, one can always hope, which is what I do. Besides, moonspeaker said “IF you guys can manage”…

      • You said an unhappy mistake,ef and Osanajimi have been translated too BUT even as these VNs had gonna to have an official release -.-
        Ih short Typemoon and Key VNs(visual novels don’t be = as games) also has gonna have an official release too XD

  10. I have to say I was impressed. I’m not a huge fan of the ANN cast but that’s mainly because they different opinions than I do (mainly upset about their comment on the Shuffle Anime which I thought was good dubbed). Everyone has their bias I guess. Still nice of them to get you on there.

    I for one would LOVE to see a Comic Party release. I’d buy it in a heart beat. Comic Party had a fun anime adaptation and is relatively well known (and 34 out of 41 people in our Anime Club enjoyed it and were intrigued when I mentioned it was based off a visual novel…we did a poll). Getting Comic Party would be quite good because it could further promote you with the anime adaptation. Da Capo had a horrible anime adaptation (second season part 2 was slightly better) and Shuffle is mixed (I loved the anime of Shuffle…a little bit more than the actual game…then again my favorite was picked as the main). Comic Party could help you people out. Okay So I am extremely bias for Comic Party…read the manga, watched the anime, attempted reading through the VN (not too great a translating…failed japanese and have been learning at a slower pace on my own). So end result would love to see a Comic Party license in the future. It would be a good one to get people interested in visual novels. Or even something else (based off an anime) could be good.

  11. I would also like to add after advertising the demos on the all ages page I would recommend putting all the All Ages demos on the front page…some people won’t go further do to the age limit. it’s a good chance for publicity don’t miss it up by failing to put some demos for people.

  12. I hope those negotiations work out. Don’t really get why they’d be afraid of reverse importation.

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