My boss doesn’t tell me everything going on, does yours?

Welcome to the dark side. Watch your head, because it’ll hurt. Bad.

Just when I was thinking I needed to finish writing an article I had half-finished on the “value” of a fan-translated script, a crazy bomb drops out of seemingly nowhere.

So VN translation group Amaterasu decided yesterday that they had enough of waiting for Mangagamer and various Japanese game companies to come to a negotiation, and decided to just release their patches yesterday.

This isn’t going to be pretty.

In the past year, I started on a hobby I always wanted to pursue, but didn’t really feel like spending the money to go down, photography. Now, armed w/ a Nikon D7000 and a couple of beat up used lenses, I had the chance to go to AX and explore that hobby at the same time. I’ve always visited AX on an exhibitor or press badge, but never really took full advantage of the press badge, this year was going to be different!

Every year, Anime Expo, happens to be one of the biggest industry gatherings of the visual novel industry. The event draws in industry people not just from the West, but also people from Japan. Here’s some of what happened in 2011.

It’s that time of year again, and i KNOW there’s lots of visual novel players going.

2011-05-23, scheduled for 10pm EDT http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mangagamers-from-japan
bamboo, leader of bishoujo game brand Overdrive, the band milktub, and a one of the upper managers of Mangagamer will be hosting a live ustream about Mangagamer tonight.

It’s been 1 year since the release of Narcissu 2 English Edition, and really, more people should know about this wonderfully moving game.

They’re broken, and heading in a direction of continued brokenness. This has been something that has been nagging at me for years, and as the years have gone by I find the industry moving in the direction that most worried me.

What’s broken you ask? In a word, sustainability. The industry is facing pressures from all sides that make it downright unattractive to run a proper business. On top of that, it’s embarking on a strategy that’s at best slippery slope in order to stay afloat.

Just for 2.4 weeks though… comike here I come.