Scholarship news

I originally got rejected for the JASSO scolarship but thankfully the rejection got reversed and I now have a scholarship to go to Japan. I feel so lucky. I don't have to worry about supporting myself for a whole year. Thank you Chuo Daigaku!!!!!!

~Kanon PC game~

Recently I've got myself the standard edition of Kanon the PC game. I know, I know, it's an "eroge~mu" which most people who aren't Japanese call "H-game" as in "hentai" meaning "pervert" but the other meaning is "abnormal". In actual fact, "ero" can be used for describing something erotic rather than just for porn which most people think of when they think of the word "ero" and immediately think "hon" afterwards. Anyways, back to Kanon the PC game, I actually played on it a few times (maybe that's where all the time went). I've actually played on one other erogame before, but Kanon is not like some of the other out there (well the one I played on before anyways).

It's not designed to be a typical erogame. There's a lot more dialogue and decisions with a lot less "ero".

Kanon is actually designed pretty much like a visual novel and the game follows the anime pretty closely. Most of it is set out so that you can set it on auto-mode and run it so that you can quickly catch the narration and sometimes the audio-dialogue between the characters (although, I was relying on mostly the audio because I don't know very many kanji and Yuuichi betrayed me half-way, for some reason they didn't have his voice recordings for some parts). Anyways, about 70% of the way through the game, you get a chance to sleep with your chosen girl, but if you miss that opportunity, that's it but you can still win your girl's heart. This is the only reason Kanon is classed as an erogame because of one erotic scene. If she likes you then you'll end up with her, if she doesn't you have to repeat the game from the very beginning. There's also apparently fantasies that Yuuichi has about 50% of the way through the game. I've only ever seen them for Mai (I don't know whether the bathroom scene counts for Makoto). But I think I made a few wrong turns because I was trying to aim for Ayu and then I ended up with Mai, not that I was mad or anything, just that I didn't finish the game in time because of it. You have to finish the game before the end of January otherwise you have to start from scratch.

It's actually not as bad as people think when they think of erogames.

It's just like the anime series but in a bit more detail and you have to choose which girl you like from day one because you come across these decisions that you have to pick and you have to get almost all of them right in order for the girl to like you and of course in the time given.

There's probably a tonne of translations and probably an English patch for Kanon but I thought I would have a go at translating it since it's one of my favourite animes and the game is pretty much like a visual novel. Besides, it would probably do my Japanese some good. I've only gotten as far as finishing the dialogue between Yuuichi and Nayuki at the moment. It's slightly different from the anime because there's a lot more information. It's actually really descriptive which makes it hard for someone like me to translate because our Japanese is pretty much textbook so I had to guess for some bits from the way it is used.  Also, Japanese sometimes has expressions which they repeat to emphasise the point but I can't really do that in English so I have to omit the repetition. In Japanese you can string sentences together adding lots of information but it's kind of hard to do that in English without breaking it up or sounding unnatural. So I'll probably keep people posted with my translations and whatever else I'll be working on over the summer.

I'll probably start with Mai first since she was the first girl that I won over (sounds kinda weird saying that).

Emo Drama Queen?!

I haven't seen my friends for quite a while due to exams and various other stuff. Today, I discovered that one of them, Girl H who I always thought of as a little eccentric, tried to commit suicide by over-dosing on paracetamol. Apparently she told one friend, Girl E, that she over-dosed on the way to hospital and had passed all the hospital's psychiatric tests. Another friend, Girl A found all this out from Girl E and thinks that she's doing it all for attention and that she isn't really depressed. If she really was then she wouldn't have done it on the way to hospital and had passed all of the hospital's psychiatric tests. Whilst this is a fair point, I still think that it is a cry for attention. Just because she was rational doesn't mean that she wasn't depressed. I'm not sure, normally she looks so bouncy and happy all the time, it was kind of surprising to say the least because she was one of the last people I would have thought of as being depressed. Girl A, also told me that she kept on pestering Boy T just before exams with long phone calls and that she couldn't handle the pressure of exams (which everyone else is taking as well) so she was coping by cutting herself. Boy T talked to her for hours comforting her everyday. A few days before her attempted suicide, whilst Boy T was severely sleep deprived from having to write an essay, Girl H phoned him up and Boy T just told her that she was selfish and he can't deal with her problems anymore because he has worries of his own. However, before her attempted suicide, she saw Boy T and told him that she realised after being told how selfish she was being.

I'm not sure what to think. I'll let you decide...