Grisaia Trilogy

Apparently Sekai Project's kickstarter for the Grisaia trilogy has been completed. They raised over $460k.

I am wondering though, how long does it usually take Sekai Project to translate a VN the size of Grisaia? From the looks of their kickstarter page, they have finished over 30% of the common route in a mere week. That is pretty damn fast, unless I misunderstood something.

I just finished Grisaia no Kaijitsu (there was an english patch made by a fansubber) so I am eagerly waiting for Meikyuu and Rakuen.

Anyone else looking forward to this as much as I am?

From what I understand they have for at least first game the script from the fan translation(seeing as koestl is doing the translation). They do still need to translate the new content added by the vita version.

I swear when it comes to Kickstarters I'm ALWAYS the one missing out on contributing for stuff. Regardless I'm definitely excited to grab the set.

I just finished the Grisaia no Kaijitsu Anime, and I thought it was alright.

One of the comments mentioned that the second series (Grisaia no Meikyuu) will be airing in late March. This kind of pisses me off, because that will likely mean we are getting the Anime before the Visual Novel. Normally I like to read the source Material first, so I will basically be forced into watching spoilers for the Visual Novel (sure I could just not watch the anime, but that would be impossible).

It makes me wonder, why is the translation taking to so long? It sounds like the translation is currently being stalled. I don't want to sound like I am bitching, and I know that there is an awful lot of work into making translations for a video game, but is there really no one else working on this? You'd think that there would be several third parties working on this, but then again, what do I know? I am a newby to Visual Novels. It's frustrating though...

If it makes you feel better in the anime... they pretty much rewrote the routes to work for the anime(from what I've heard) :p Also how is it impossible ? :3 Did they end it on a cliff hanger ? :p Really I don't know... I've only read the visual novel....

Koestl (translator of Grisaia no Kajitsu) is currently officially translating Gahkthun for MangaGamer so right now he probably doesn't have much time to devote to other translations. However, it appears that for now he'll work on Kajitsu. On his ask.fm he said he expects to see its official release this spring and also says when he expects Meikyuu and Rakuen to be done. You can find source here.

Note that as already said, there's still content to be translated on Grisaia no Kajitsu because the non-adult version will be a port of the PSP version which has script changes besides the sexual content.



Bad idea. Although the progress would be definitely faster, by using multiple translators and editors at the same time you sacrifice consistency which naturally shouldn't be done when you're dealing with text-heavy stories.

I suppose it's worth noting that as said by Sekai Project CEO, Dovac, in a interview with Niche Gamer, they're using 15 people on Clannad official localization so it remains to be seen how well will this release work out.

I understand. I guess I am just a little ticked off about the fact that they are releasing the Anime before us westeners get access to a translated version of the source material (although this isn't surprising, since the majority of the Anime market is in Japan).

I will be pretty much forced to watch the Anime before the VN gets translated, because I don't think I will be able to hold myself back from the Anime once it is released. It is like offering drugs to a recovering drug addict, he knows it will be harmful, but he is unable to resist...Poor analogy but it's the best my mind can create this late.

I knew I should of started learning Japanese 2 years ago...Had I of actually pursued it, I would of been able to read the Visual Novel without translation by now!

Wanting to buy hyperbolic time chamber.

Edit: Just out of curiosity, why doesn't the makers of the Visual Novel (Front Wing) make an english version themselves? Surely they should know that there is a huge market for Anime in the west(although not as big as Japan), why not capitalize on it? All they would have to do is hire a professional team of translators, pay them fairly well, and then get them to make haste in translating it. Maybe I am once again underestimating how long it takes to translate the game, but if ONE (non professional) person was able to translate the first game (which I am told is 2/3 worth the entire dialogue of all three games), why couldn't the company hire an actual decently sized professional team to get it translated in fractions of that time?

Someone say drugs? :3 - vndb.org/v44 (Yume Miru Kusuri)

Unfortunately, the western market for Visual Novels isn't as big as you think. Sure, there are a lot of fans but for various reasons few put their money where their mouth is. Just to give you an idea, if a officially localized Visual Novel sells 2000 units that's already considered pretty good by western standards. However, you can guess how Japan probably doesn't think this is an impressive number. I remember a MangaGamer staff member tweeting some months ago that the japanese company would need to sell 6000 units to make a profit so they had no deal (the company name wasn't specified).

I'm hopeful to see this market grow bigger specially because of Steam since it has been giving a few thousand sales to Visual Novel localization companies. This way more japanese companies will be willing to allow the release of their games on the west. On this note, did you know that Supipara from minori is being funded for release in the west along with the production of the remaining chapters through the sales of Eden* (was released on Steam) and ef - a fairy tale of the two hard-copy limited edition? You can find the project page here. In case you don't know, this is the most ambitious project ever announced by a Visual Novel localization company.

Hiring professional translators (read competent translators) for Visual Novels unfortunately isn't easy. There are some fan-translation projects but it appears that in some cases the translators from these groups don't have a solid grasp of the language. This is actually something that MangaGamer said

Having said this, Sekai Project intends to use the fan-translator of Grisaia no Kajitsu, Koestl, to translate the remaining chapters. He's currently reviewing the already existing translation of the first game of the trilogy and will eventually continue to translate the remaining games. In fact, the team that worked on the fan-translation of Grisaia no Kajitsu will also work on the other two games. Since the team is already assembled now you just need to wait for the project completion. As said by Koestl in the ask.fm link I sent you on my previous post, he only expects Grisaia no Rakuen to be released in early 2016.

Translation for this is already planned by an overwhelming number of fansubbing groups so personally I think their job is made for them, which makes paying for this an unattractive prospect. However I still think it's nice to see official, funded interest in translating VN and if this leads to some sort of organized effort on more VN translations then this is great. I mean, Steam already has a decent handful of VNs and the interest in games from the eastern market is steadily increasing so good things could come from more of these(maybe with a little bit more discretion and self-awareness).

Personal opinion from a person who played the Grisaia Trilogy, Grisaia anime is an atrocity. Mostly because there's simply not enough space to flesh out the heroines and our amazing protagonist properly. Also you can't have sex which in the latter games(In the form of Dave's Ero-show and some true endings)is a large focus and is actually story relevant, so I'm already sold on the SFW versions being meh. Wait for the Eroge translation if your patient, if not use machine translations.

Yeah, I've already accepted that I have to be patient for the translations. However, I decided to start learning to read Japanese. I know full well it will take a few years to be at a point that I will be able to read Visual Novels, I figure that I have to start somewhere, right?

If there is a silver lining to slow translations, it's that it motivates you to learn Japanese yourself so you don't have to rely on them...

I hope you succeed. Learning a new language is very difficult but extremely rewarding. And if you do succeed, an entire world of new eroge awaits you!

I'll get back to you in 2-3 years XD

I got a new question: Will Project Sekai be charging for the english version? I would assume so, but they managed to make $460k from their kickstarter. I was able to get Grisaia no Kaijitsu for free, so I was kind of hoping for the same thing for Meikyuu regardless from the fact that Project Sekai are officially translating it (rather than a fansub).

So will it be the same as Kaijitsu and just be downloadable from the internet, or will I have to pay to get access? Surely there will be torrented pirated versions regardless, but I would feel better downloading something for free if it was designed to be free.

Officially you will be able to buy the game on steam(all three((not sure about the bonus game)) ) and you can buy the digital version of the 18+ version from denpasoft(and how ever they handle digital releases). So to answer your question they won't be free you'll have to pay for them. They may also do physical releases past the kickstarter. But as you've said... they will be up for pirates just as soon as they are released(most likely).

Do musicians offer their music for free once they break a million sales? I don't think they will offer their product for free. This is not to say that they should be resented for handling business that way. Think about it, the Sekai Project is still a very new business. Paying for their products enables them to pay their staff better (afaik they don't get paid very well, even if the kickstarter is making big bucks). But even more importantly it supports the industry and allows Sekai Project to grow (and perhaps even inspire competing businesses).

And yes it's going to be expensive. But actually the reality is that this hobby costs quite a lot more in Japan. I think perhaps publishers have realized that their English side of the business isn't going to be very profitable unless they make reasonable offerings to us. For reference it costs $105 to import it via J-List and Amazon sells the PC game at about $80 retail. Sekai Project's offering was about $40 for all-ages via Kickstarter.