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we run into another issue here, which is that eroge translation (and translation of r18 material in general) often ranges from mediocre to unacceptable. sometimes the protagonist is legitimately devoid of charisma, but other times you're picking up on an overly blunt translation

I don't think it's a conscious discrimination, but I imagine there's an element of finding anglo-american developers "safer" when it comes to what content is approved. you see this a lot with chinese games, which are accused of being "crypto miners" or "spyware" for having performance issues that are overlooked in western games

my posts are the kind you can only get from someone who tried to learn as a teenager with ADHD, hit kanji, and then exploded

while I do have the focus for that kind of thing now, it's more of a matter of not being able to justify the time I'd spend towards what would always fundamentally be a hobby. maybe I'll pick it up in earnest again sometime, but for the time being, I generally reach out to friends when I need a translation

there's no direct throughline as far as I know, but FLCL's influence on otaku media that came after reminds me of that Terry Pratchett quote about Lord of the Rings' influence as something that has to be consciously omitted rather than consciously incorporated

so it wouldn't surprise me!

https://wakameparadise.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/nasu-ikuhara/

(interesting points: read a lot of shoujo manga so was the only person among his group of friends who wasn’t turned off by the art style, thinks Utena is good enough to rewatch 100 times, based Shinji off of Saionji Kyouichi)

And then there’s Fate / Extra CCC where (spoilers up to chapter 1 of CCC below the fold):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CceMYi4c2nU

OTAKU Credentials: I learned Japanese to read eroge, can mostly read simple Japanese without assistance (e.g. most manga) and can read college level stuff with some access to a dictionary. Know people who read 2ch pretty regularly and consume a large amount of eroge (think 50+ games and counting).

Also, IMO Key’s work is just really bad* relative to other things commonly mentioned in the same breath, so I have to do more psychologizing than usual to reach a satisfying explanation for why it’s so well-regarded.  That does make my own preferences a hidden premise of the argument, though, which is not ideal.

I didn’t know anything about White Album 2, and wow yeah its popularity does seem like a big strike against my hypothesis.

There are things you need to be careful about in kamige lists, like doujin/amateur games tend to be overrated because the expectation for them tends to be much lower, and, yeah people’s unusual insistence about liking Key. Even ignoring the writing, the art by key is simply horrendous. Like half melting insect women.

The popularity of WA2 is kinda foregone in hindsight: The writer, Fumiaki Maruto was famous for writing one of the best moege (10th), the best divorced salaryman finding himself game (52th) and is currently writing a light novel/anime about a bunch of otaku and a normal girl trying to make a dating sim. (Watch Saekano and skip episode 0)

I guess the popularity of the Rance series is potentially a counter(?) point?? An alpha+++++ male with incredible libido roaming around a LotR level detailed fantasy RPG solving problems with sex and violence. And it tickles me to know that the original company was a trio of women who dropped out of University of Tokyo to make comedy fantasy porn games instead.

OTAKU Credentials: I learned Japanese to read eroge, can mostly read simple Japanese without assistance (e.g. most manga) and can read college level stuff with some access to a dictionary. Know people who read 2ch pretty regularly and consume a large amount of eroge (think 50+ games and counting).

For people who haven’t ventured as far into the deep-weeb abyss as I have, here’s the story: there are these erotic Japanese computer games, right?  Which are like choose-your-own-adventure books with pictures and music, about dating anime girls and eventually having sex with them?  OK, so some of them started having really sad, tearjerking central storylines, often involving the female lead having a terminal illness (and, sometimes, being brought back to life by the magical power of the male protagonist’s love or the like).  These tearjerking elements would be the main focus of the latter parts of the game, to the exclusion of erotic content.

And this was really popular.  Early entries in the niche were heavily hyped and well-received upon release, despite having markedly less focus on sex than was the norm.  Eventually, the company best known for this formula, Key, released a visual novel in the same style with no erotic content at all.  It sold just as well as the others, generated a number of lucrative adaptations in other media, and is one of the most popular and famous games in its medium.

Unfortunately, outside of Key there doesn’t seem to be much traction for releasing new games that are all ages, at least not before they are ported to more consumer friendly platforms like vita, ps3/4. Several titles from fairly well established studios bombed when they decided to release without porn (Type Moon’s Witch on the Holy Night and minori’s Supipara are the examples that come to mind) and the perception within the industry is that no porn = no sales even if the scenes themselves are fairly token (some writers copy paste the same moans over and over again, I would like to think in protest).