Yeah, I don’t want to spend the crazy amount of time reading it in japanese, but I love the art so much that i’m 100% going to re-read it when a hand translation comes out. To be honest art is like 85% of the reason why I read VN’s, which is the biggest reason why I haven’t (And probably wont) read any of the Key ones >.>
…not to go off topic, but may I ask, why are you posting on a Key fansite in the first place?
You never specified if they had to be fans of Key VNs or not; just because he doesn’t like the art style of their VNs doesn’t mean he can’t have watched the anime for them.
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Because off-topic threads looked interesting 
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I think I’m little late to reply here, but I’ll do so anyways: I generally tend to really dislike h-scenes. I think they are unncessary 90% of the time and are just there for the “tradition” of erotic dating-sims that were the origins of what we know today as visual novels.
I wouldn’t really be complaining if the market (and I might be wrong, since I’m not a Japanese person and never been in Japan) felt like it was more “fair” on this point. The reality is that the VAST MAJORITY are erotic, and even the ones that are really good have this sort of content crammed in just so that (I’ll be blunt) fans can satisfy their personal urges. I’m not agains pornography or erotic works, I’m just saying that the market should be clearly distinct: there’s VNs for you to please yourself, there’s VNs for you to enjoy the story and that’s it.
Unfortunately, I’m one of the very few on this boat, and I always get a little pissed when fantranslation groups don’t really give me the option to read the all-ages version, or when a group takes off the sex scenes because THEY ARE NOT IMPORTANT, but every VN fan on the internet goes bananas.
I’d love to introduce this genre of storytelling to my friends, to see it become more popular so that more things can get officially localized and, who knows, even produced. But I’ve pretty much lost hope that this will ever happen, simply because the developers and consummers of VNs can’t let go of the sex scenes. The very few small companies that are localizing stuff mostly focus on clear dating-sim material or straight up porn stuff. Umineko, Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua, I/O, Root Double, the Infinity series or any other stuff like that never gets to see the light of day. Oh, but Euphoria? The one that has heavy scenes of rape and scat pornography? Hatoful boyfriend, a game about dating pigeons? Oh yeah, let’s bring that.
Hey hey hey, Hatoful has at least 2 great routes in it! Pigeons can be good characters as much as humans.
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Well, apologies since I’m probably being very unfair to it, as I haven’t read the thing to actually judge. But come on…you can’t blame me for having a hard time seeing how in the world that could be good.
Shakes head and sighs …Im not even gonna ask…
Basically beating a dead horse at this point, same as the general rock-hard skulls of most on the internet, but there are many VN’s out there, and ones that I have read personally that the H-scenes are incredibly important to both the character as a… well, character, and often their entire background as a whole.
And, in case you don’t know this, the reason the big ones never get actual localizations is generally due to legal issues, where fantranslations are illegal and don’t care at all, so we see a wider variety, even if they take longer. It’s a trade off, really.
To that, I raise the question: id it the explicit H-scenes that are important, or just them having sex? If the former, could you add in some examples, as I am genuinely curious. So far all I’ve seen is Saya no Uta
Just to check, was that directed at me? If so, I don’t really get how I should interpret it.
Of course, I might just personally have never read any novel that actually have important h-scenes, probably because I generally avoid Visual Novels that have explicit h-scenes unless I hear they are very good (or if they give me the option to turn it off). The only VN I’ve read so far that actually has trully useful sex scenes is Saya no Uta, and even then I felt they still capitalized too much on the lolicon fetish just for the heck of it.
Legal issues? I don’t know, I’d guess its because most companies that could license them just don’t believe it will sell, since it’s so very niche. Of course, that is changing a bit, like with the efforts of sekai project. I just fear they’ll focus too much on localizing dating-sim stuff (like Key works) instead of also trying to bring over different titles that stand on their own outside this genre (not that Key is bad dating-sim, but it’s clearly more marketable because of having a dating-sim premise).
Now, that might be too puritan on my part, but in my humble opinion: you never, or at least very rarely, need to show the sexual act explicitly for a story reason. We don’t really need to know that, during sex, there was a blowjob, doggy style and ejaculation on someone’s face. Those are not there to prove a point. They are there because they are fetishes, and what I get pissed about is when people somehow defend that Shirou blowing his semen on Saber’s face is actually meaningful to their character development It just isn’t. It’s there for you to do “you know what”, and I just can’t understand how anyone might think otherwise. If you just write a scene where they begin taking their clothes off, lie in bed, and then it fades to black only to come back with them lying on the bed under the sheets and hugging each other, for example, is already enough for us to get they had sex, and that might indeed serve a purpose in the story. But do we really need to read the heroine comment on how huge the protags penis is?
Even in Saya No Uta. It does serve a purpose with the context of the story and its last twist, but come on: was that threesome really necessary? Are you telling me the only way Saya could think to make Fuminori’s friend suffer was via a “rapistic” threesome between them? A hot sexual slave that she doesn’t really mind to be giving Fuminori a boobjob at one point of the story? Really? I’m supposed to think this is not fap-material, and it has a deep meaning?
It tells you who a person replied to at the top of the post~
A lot of VN developers choose not to localize their games, and they are hard to deal with. IIRC, Steam doesn’t allow explicit content in the games on it’s store. Two legal issues there~
Most of the popular VNs have a slight focus on romance (totally not dating-sim stuff by the way~) Infact, in my top 50 on VNDB, only 4 of them have little or no romantic focus.One is from the When They Cry franchise, the other three are games with VN elements, so they hardly count (Corpse Party, Dangan Ronpa, and Fate/Extra.)
Huh, I didn’t know that. And I know steam doesn’t allow that, which I personally find good. Fertile ground for all-ages VNs, which is what I enjoy reading the most anyway.
Okay, but I’m just saying that selling the VN genre as dating-sims mostly seems to be easier and more certified to sell (from the companies’ perspective). Also, I don’t really trust Sekai Project that much because, well…they wrote Sakura Spirit, said they will try to localize the 18+ version of Grisaia no Kajitsu instead of the Vita port on steam and, when asked about what visual novel they would love to localize if they just could, they responded Hadaka Shitsuji. I went to give it a look on VNDB, and well…nothing against its content (we’re all entitled to our preferences), but I think that’s probably a VN not made for you to actually enjoy the story. Might be wrong, though.
Hey guys guess what! THAT’S RIGHT! I brought all of our favorite discussion back up!
In all seriousness, ANN recently interviewed Gen Urobuchi, and guess what they talked about. RIGHT AGAIN! Sex scenes!
ANN: You’ve worked on several visual novels that contain explicit sexual content. A common opinion in the Japanese PC game market is that a game needs sex scenes to sell. Do you find that the ability to include sexual content in these stories gives you more creative freedom, or do you feel pressured to add superfluous erotica to help a game sell?
Urobutchi: My first and foremost thought when creating something is “I want to make something that’s interesting.” That’s what makes me feel happy and creatively satisfied. If sexual elements help in making something interesting, then they’re not pointless.
I’ve played a lot of Nitro+ visual novels; Saya no Uta is probably one of my favorites because it’s just so outright weird. What especially struck me is that though the game features sex scenes, they come off as being horrifying rather than titillating.
Oh, thanks for the compliment! laughs That was part of the intent, since horror can definitely be a component of a sexual experience.
So… I’m just gonna wait to give my thoughts until I hear what you guys have to say. DISCUSS!
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The fact that Urobutcher thought somebody finding his work horrifying as a compliment is what incited a bigger reaction from me 
Good that we got some info from somebody who has worked in the industry. From his statement, can we assume that if it doesn’t help in making something interesting, then they are pointless?
Essentially “I want to make something that raises interest,” or “I want to make something that people will buy.”
H-Scenes aren’t pointless if they raise interest in the game, so it sounds like he agrees with the “game needs sex scenes to sell” bit - at least, with how I interpreted his words~
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Depends on the game, depends on the scene ect ect. I played air and it didn’t bother me at all. I am playing Grisaia no Kajitsu honestly the H-scenes just sort of bores me cause I am not into it, it’s like I see all this stuff that doesn’t really interest me and I am like tldl. But I know others enjoy it so I just deal with it for now, there isn’t really a clean version of that game translated as far as I know, there’s one coming tho. I could even say I enjoyed some of the “stuff” in air, because it just was nice and short, mostly some of the hidden scenes I found entertaining and funny.
Regarding Air’s H scenes:
Kano: Enjoyable
Minagi: Somewhat bad. Doesn’t help the fact it appears in the Bad End
Misuzu: …can’t tell points at avatar
Uraha: While sex has an utility there because inherited mission, was it necessary to describe it with every detail?
When making the All-Ages patch, Minagi and Uraha’s were easily erasable. The whole scene could just be removed. Misuzu’s had character development for Yukito so the scene had to be edited a bit, and Kano’s had actual story and plot development in both the H-scene and the Yukito fantasy scene, so they are more censored than removed.
First, I feel that the interview was very fitting to our conversation, as several people have mention Saya no Uta as an example of where the H-scenes were very much an important part of the story.
Second, Yay, Senpai agrees with me!:
Third
[quote=“Takafumi, post:104, topic:401”]
Essentially “I want to make something that raises interest,” or "I want to make something that people will buy."H-Scenes aren’t pointless if they raise interest in the game, so it sounds like he agrees with the “game needs sex scenes to sell” bit - at least, with how I interpreted his words~
[/quote]I personally think you’ve twisted his words here. He didn’t say “raises interest” he said “is interesting.” Thus the progression becomes “H-scenes aren’t pointless if they make the game interesting” so it sounds like he agrees with “sex scenes should actually develop relationships and plot and shouldn’t just be erotic fap material” bit. Not trying to be oppositional or obnoxious here, I really just interpreted it differently from you.
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