It's now on my wishlist! I've been thinking about buying this title for quite some time, since Scraft161 mentioned it to me. Happy to see it retains the Japanese script.
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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Visual Novels
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Ow hi, didn't expect you to show up.
Happy to see it getting a steam release. I played the game through emulation as i didn't want to hook the switch up to my desk and handheld doesn't force a good pose (and we don't talk about tabletop on first gen).
A native desktop release also makes it a lot easier to tamper with the game files (granted I could try and get the 2012 release but that hasn't been translated).
I was sort of afraid they wouldn't port the HD version to PC, but it's good type moon (and I think aniplex) are going through with it.
I'm always on the lookout for cool new visual novels 😎
A native desktop release also makes it a lot easier to tamper with the game files
Yeah, it probably won't even be DRM'd, with any luck. I don't see myself doing any of that myself, but I'm happy about the Steam release!
I was sort of afraid they wouldn’t port the HD version to PC, but it’s good type moon (and I think aniplex) are going through with it.
Sounds like it's going to be a good release then! It's interesting that Aniplex appears to be the localizer. This is only the second game they've ever published on Steam, and I don't think they've localized VNs before. But hey, it's not Moenovel, and they're retaining the Japanese script, so I can't complain.
Yeah, it probably won’t even be DRM’d Let's hope so; and if it is then it'd be steam's DRM at the worst. That said I don't think the engine (which looked like kirikiri to me) supports much in terms of DRM checks after install.
I don’t see myself doing any of that myself for me it's just a curiosity of how things are put together (doubly so for this one because of it's many animations) and also as a way to have assets for emotes and such.
Sounds like it’s going to be a good release then! It’s interesting that Aniplex appears to be the localizer. I'm not entirely sure about aniplex though as I remember reading they were involved but I can't recall where, the translation is pretty good though and makes use of existing terminology but I do have a couple minor gripes with it (mainly the fact that the english version uses imperial units with no way to switch it to metric, granted I have sort of gotten familiar with them; but it'd be nice to have that option).
Oh, good to hear the KiriKiri2 engine has limited support for DRM. I've got DRACU-RIOT here with plaintext archives, so that might be part of the reason why they're plaintext. I wonder if Ren'Py supports DRM very well...I don't think I know of a Ren'Py game encumbered with DRM.
I don't use emotes enough to go to that effort, but yeah, that's definitely a good way to get them.
Aniplex is the only western company publicly listed for the visual novel in the ANN post and on the Steam page, so I have to believe they're responsible for the localization. Otherwise, why wouldn't the Japanese company just publish their own localization? That's something that's been happening more and more lately; Japanese companies directly publishing their games without going through a middle-man. Good and bad, I think. Western companies are far less likely to ship a game with DRM these days, but Japanese developers tend to have no such compunctions with digital releases.
That said, I'm happy to see more Western localizers who retain the original Japanese text. If Moenovel did that, I would buy their localizations...
It's good to hear you thought the localization was good overall! I tend to hear bad things about localizations lately, though I don't read them myself.
The OG Tsukihime didn't have any DRM (aside from streaming the music from the CD which Mirror Moon patched out due to performance) the Fate/Stay Night VN also doesn't have much in the way of DRM although it does need a patch to run (and even then a VN of this age has issues). The thing with KiriKiri is that it's insanely extensible so you could theoretically patch in any DRM you want; but the time and effort required to do so far outweighs any benefits you'd see as a group making visual novels. Add to that that we now have things like AETools which can extract the archives kirikiri uses in no time at all and people write interpreters for the KAG scripts as hobby project so you can read the Fate/Stay Night VN in the web although it doesn't have saving/loading and is definitely not something I'd recommend for a first read.
Ren'Py is in a very similar boat where it's scripts are trivial to extract (even more so because you don't need specialized tools) and once you have it's assets you can dump those into a new project and be done with it.
Aniplex is the only western company publicly listed for the visual novel in the ANN post and on the Steam page, so I have to believe they’re responsible for the localization.
I see; I don't use ANN myself; they've sorta pissed me off a couple times with certain articles being inaccurate and reporting based on a mistranslated tweet from the Mushoku Tensei author (this one I only heard from and I can't care enough to dig it up RN; but at least double check your sources and especially if they are translated from japanese with MTL as it is known to be bad at the best of times). As for the steam page I hadn't looked myself yet because I already read it.
That said, I’m happy to see more Western localizers who retain the original Japanese text.
I personally don't care much as most of the VNs I've read are community translated using a patch so I always had the original scripts; but it's always good to see that we are getting options for this sorta stuff.
It’s good to hear you thought the localization was good overall!
I should probably mention that I might be biased in that view as I read Mahoyo right after the original Tsukihime using mirror moon's translation which doesn't exactly put the bar that high (sometimes it was hard to tell where the translation stopped and Nasu's writing begun; doubly so during H-scenes where things would get laughably bad); but it was one of the first translations of any of the type moon works (I think they got beaten by the Fate translation; but at least that wasn't a complete mess that was passed down to multiple groups before eventually being finished by mirror moon). what matters the most to me in the translations though is that they use the same terminology (which is now pretty much standardized thanks to the type moon wiki) as otherwise you might get that they are talking about something like vampires; but it makes it hard to tell whether they're talking about true ancestors or dead apostles which are two very different things.
Oh right, interesting stuff. Yeah, I'm kinda glad most visual novel developers are so small that DRM is often out of reach, except for digital editions (DMM makes it easy). I thought Mirror Moon required proof of ownership before you could run their patches? I haven't read any TYPE-MOON stuff, but that was my impression.
I don't read ANN regularly but that was the source OP posted. And I corroborated it with several other news sources for the PS4/Switch game, as it's the same localization. That being said...yeah, you'd expect them to have someone who knows Japanese on staff.
While I would love to buy Japanese visual novels directly from Japanese publishers, they're often encumbered by DRM. The digital edition usually is. With physical editions, you just don't know (hopefully the new VNDB DRM tag will change that; it's now in Beta). Western visual novels that retain the Japanese text are often the best way to buy visual novels in Japanese. They are always clearly labelled as containing DRM or not and they rarely do these days.
Oh, well...even if you are biased, hey, at least it's an improvement! One thing I'm glad about after deciding to learn Japanese is that I don't need to worry about translation quality. Nonetheless, I'm grateful to fan translations because they were how I got into Japanese media in the first place. Even if most of them weren't great (and filled with translation notes). I've yet to come across a VN writer who can write a good H-Scene...
I thought Mirror Moon required proof of ownership before you could run their patches?
Not with Tsukihime; if you have the CD (or more realistically mount the ISO) the installer just works, even from within wine. That said that was for an are where you'd still be able to realistically obtain the CD, nowadays the game is considered abandonware so some people took the translation; fixed it up (and by a lot) and provided easy access to western audiences) it's a great way to read the original with all it's rough edges. If you do want to support Type Moon in this endeavor; the best way would be to buy their stuff (whether it is a version of mahoyo, the Tsukihime remake (which is getting an official english release come 2024), or wait on a PC release (which Nasu stated he's interested in if it got translated)). Personally I think I'm going to wait until the full game is out and translated if I'm going to read remake; there's some interesting stuff that changes between the two that got me curious; but reading mahoyo was already challenging enough for me (largely because I did that on a 7 year old laptop)
you’d expect them to have someone who knows Japanese on staff.
you would; but then this is far from their first screw up and it really makes it look bad that it would have been easier to write an article correcting the misinformation caused by the whole incident rather than doing the same as everybody else.
One thing I’m glad about after deciding to learn Japanese is that I don’t need to worry about translation quality.
Good luck learning a language is hard (I know because english isn't my first), know that it's a long road but I can share a few tips:
- listen to japanese as much as you can; whether it's movies, anime, music, ... if it is made by japanese people for native speakers then you're good (you can always get other material besides it; but it usually not as good for building an intuitive understanding of the language)
- try to avoid speaking/writing in japanese unless you feel comfortable forming sentences, premature output leads to you using broken japanese as reference for the language which builds accents, these are extremely hard to get rid of.
- kanji is a beast; but it's not all irrational, most words are built by tying concepts together; what kanji don't do is represent the way they're supposed to sound.
- don't use duolingo (this applies to any language) it's method of learning is slow, it's questions trivially simple, and it does not mesh well with the more flexible sentence structure in japanese leading to it telling you that a sentence normal people might use is wrong, it also forces premature output which goes against point 2.
I’ve yet to come across a VN writer who can write a good H-Scene…
same here; but I've read very few visual novels, I'm not really a reader and the things I have read are because either I knew it would be good (tsukihime, mahoyo) or where I just craved for more after loving it's adaptation (Fate, Mushoku Tensei [Light Novel]).
Ah, so Mirror Moon themselves haven't dropped that requirement, but another fan group intervened. I'm probably just going to wait until the 2024 version is out since I have such a big backlog anyway, but it's cool that fans are preserving this stuff, putting copyright law aside. I could probably argue about this particular aspect of copyright law for hours, but I'm sure nobody is interested in that :P
I'll definitely be reading Witch on the Holy Night first, though. I've been wanting to read it since watching Garden of the Sinners, which was years ago now.
Counter-point, though: is there anyone better at Japanese media reporting than ANN?
Thanks for the advice on learning Japanese! I've actually been at for about a decade now, though not consistently. I only started getting serious about it ~3 years ago (and I've been far too busy this year to give it the attention it deserves). I've got a decent understanding of the language now and can approach most media with a dictionary (and watch a lot of anime without). And yeah, production was never a priority for me. I don't think there's an easier language to immerse in. There are so many great options, and there are so many tools out there by all these different people you won't see for other languages.
I've never had trouble with Kanji. I just learn words and get a feel for the Kanji as a byproduct. It's not difficult to remember Kanji after you've seen them a few times, especially if you know some radicals. One thing I need to properly learn, though, is pitch accent. I've been very lazy about not learning it, but it's pretty important to do so as early as you can, or you end up needing to correct a lot of misunderstandings about pronunciation, as you say.
And I have actually gone through the Duolingo Japanese course (right around release)! It's pretty bad. I've also tried Wanikani, Jalup, Tae Kim, Imabi, Sakubi, iKnow, FluentU, Lingualift, KKLC, Genki, Tobira, various Memrise and Anki vocabulary decks, japaneseclass.jp, and Maggie-Sensei (this list is not exhaustive). Some of it helped; some of it not, but all of that adds up to still not enough to purchase Rosetta Stone. After all of this, I think the best way is:
- Learn Kana
- Read Tae Kim's Grammar Guide (or Sakubi if you can handle it)
- Do a Core 1-2k deck while immersing
- Mine new words from native material
Everything else is unnecessary or inefficient.
I already know enough grammar to immerse nowadays (I guess I'm around N3?) so I only learn new words from native material. I consider this a general success because I've read lots of great stuff (my favourite is Munou na Nana) in Japanese and felt I had a better experience than I would have reading the localization.
Yeah, I definitely should not be this bad at Japanese after so long, but that's what happens when you leave it for a year or two at a time. Key to learning anything is consistency, and every day, it gets easier. If I wasn't so easily distracted, I'm sure I'd be almost fluent by now. My biggest regret is not committing harder and sooner. I made a lot of good progress when I committed every day from 2019 to the end of 2020, and I want to do that again! Alas, whether it's programming, writing or video production...there's always something!
I haven't read too many visual novels either! I also still have lots of kamige to read, and I'm glad for it. I never used to be much of a reader, but things changed when I started getting into isekai web novels, haha.
it’s cool that fans are preserving this stuff
Video game preservation is always a plus and being able to read a 20 year old VN (on linux natively) is something that Type Moon would probably never concern themselves about. Granted their main source of income today is definitely Fate/Grand Order (it's literally what made the remake possible in terms of funding) so it's hard to imagine they'd go strike down stuff like this where they'd never see money from anyways, Type Moon has also been very lax when it comes to derivative works (I probably don't need to mention that with all the fate spin-offs and doujins floating around).
I’ll definitely be reading Witch on the Holy Night first, though. I’ve been wanting to read it since watching Garden of the Sinners, which was years ago now.
Mahoyo is the indirect prequel to that (get used to not having any direct sequels in the nasuverse) it's a really good introduction to the series' magic system and gives you a good introduction to all the concepts Kara no Kyoukai is built on, it's a lot slower than the Kara no Kyoukai movies and focuses a lot more on the slice of life aspects of being a magus; yet doesn't pull any punches when there's action, the battles are really diverse showcasing quite a bit of magecraft which is nicely accented by all the animations in this VN.
Counter-point, though: is there anyone better at Japanese media reporting than ANN?
not that I know of; although I have a couple youtube channels that cover anime news really well and while they do use sources like MAL; they're often more accurate that what I've seen from ANN.
Otaku Spirit (Invidious: yewtu.be), some of the things he says can be a little confusing at times; but it's pretty solid in general.
Espiritu (Invidious: yewtu.be), also debunks a lot of rumors going around alongside the general anime news.
For me that's more than enough as I don't really need to keep up with everything going on in the anime sphere.
Thanks for the advice on learning Japanese! I’ve actually been at for about a decade now, though not consistently. I only started getting serious about it ~3 years ago (and I’ve been far too busy this year to give it the attention it deserves). I’ve got a decent understanding of the language now and can approach most media with a dictionary (and watch a lot of anime without).
that's already way further than I am, I want to start going about it seriously and actually get things done; but every time I start my free time gets eaten up by something else and I end up having to put it off.
Yeah, I definitely should not be this bad at Japanese after so long, but that’s what happens when you leave it for a year or two at a time.
everybody at their on pace; if I would seriously start immersing myself I bet I could form a pretty decent understanding of Japanese in no time (I went from bare knowing a couple english words to being able to speak in ~4 months; but that was after hours and hours every day watching youtube content in english and having luck in the fact that both english and my native language are germanic languages so they share quite a lot of similarities)
I made a lot of good progress when I committed every day from 2019 to the end of 2020, and I want to do that again!
I'm in the same boat with you, I would kill to be able to spend time like that again; but as it stands now I simply don't and I don't know if I'm going to be able to do a sprint like that ever again.
I never used to be much of a reader, but things changed when I started getting into isekai web novels
Any chance you've read Mushoku Tensei? I remember devouring that like nothing else once season 1 of the anime ended because the story was that good, managed to read everything starting from volume 1 in 6 months; I never expected to be that much of a reader as I could barely finish any book before but with this I just went through them at incredible pace.
being able to read a 20 year old VN (on linux natively) is something that Type Moon would probably never concern themselves about.
That's definitely true. I don't know of a Japanese company that has released a visual novel with a native GNU/Linux binary.
Type Moon has also been very lax when it comes to derivative works (I probably don’t need to mention that with all the fate spin-offs and doujins floating around).
I'm aware of how uh, interesting, copyright law is in Japan, but I don't think I've seen anyone get raked over the coals for a doujin. Is that something that actually happens? And, aren't the Fate spin-offs authorized by TYPE-MOON?
Mahoyo is the indirect prequel to that (get used to not having any direct sequels in the nasuverse)
Sounds like it's just up my alley, then! I'm excited! I've been wanting to read Fate for a long time, too. I've seen the DEEN anime, UBW series and movie, but I haven't touched Heaven's Feel. I want my first experience to be with the visual novel. I think I mentioned I'm a fan of slice of life and not much of a fan of action, but a blend of the two is a nice cocktail. I like the "dramedy" genre for similar reasons; I can't watch a pure comedy for too long but drama makes it feel grounded. BoJack Horseman comes to mind.
Anyway, it sounds like a good time. Animations are a plus too, because most VNs don't have that kind of budget :)
although I have a couple youtube channels that cover anime news really well
I have a confession to make: I'm not too interested in keeping up with the latest anime. I don't even have a Crunchyroll subscription. The only anime I watch tend to be 10-20 years old, though I was thinking of watching Kimagure Orange Road the other day...
That said, I am interested in VN news. Particularly localizations, because as I said earlier, they're easier to get my hands on when I want the Japanese script. Thanks for providing invidious links though!
but every time I start my free time gets eaten up by something else and I end up having to put it off.
Feels like my life this year. Unfortunately, certain things have had to take a much higher priority, but about half of it was just me getting distracted by something else, lol. You don't need to spend hours learning Japanese every day, though. Half an hour is good enough to form a habit and get acclimated. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that, since this isn't your first rodeo :)
if I would seriously start immersing myself I bet I could form a pretty decent understanding of Japanese in no time
I bet you would! Take this as my encouragement to do so when you have the time! I never had any formal classes on Japanese, don't know any Japanese people, and only really interacted with Japanese media, so I'm self-taught, you could say. I only knew English beforehand. It took a while to wrap my head around some fundamental stuff, but it feels natural now. It'd probably be easier for you, haha.
Mushoku Tensei
I have not. The kind of web novels I was interested in were the villainess kind. You know, Destruction Flag Otome (or Bakarina, whatever), Reika-sama, Evil God Average, Eliza, stuff like that. I prefer female protagonists (and somehow Saga of Tanya the Evil counts as that). I liked Ascendance of a Bookworm and really liked So I'm a Spider, So What? but have only seen the anime adaptations in any great detail at the moment. I've transitioned to reading the light novel adaptations of the web novels, mostly, but because Syosetu novels are free, I've downloaded a fair few. Mushoku Tensei was one of the few stories with a male protagonist I was interested in reading at some point.
I just remembered that the story that got me into reading was actually HakoMari. I think I read all 7 volumes in 3 days... I have no idea how I managed that and I have never read that fast again, haha!
I don’t know of a Japanese company that has released a visual novel with a native GNU/Linux binary.
it surprising to as this was pretty much due to the fact that they made an open source version of NScripter that's 1:1 compatible and then made it work on linux (the Tsukihime.exe is literally the NScripter binary so you could drop another version in it's directory and run it), ONScripter also made it possible for a relatively easy fork to be created supporting non-japanese formats (UTF-8) which also remained open source (and is even packaged in the AUR)
I installed the onscripter (AUR) package and set lutris up to have that run tsukihime by setting it's working dir to the game's directory (this page contains a lot of really good info on setting it up and a great place to get started with it's more intricate details).
What surprised me though is that ONScripter is still being worked on (although there have been a couple dry spells and has changed hands a couple times now), really helps to highlight how resilient OSS can be when put in the hands of weebs.
Anyway, it sounds like a good time. Animations are a plus too, because most VNs don’t have that kind of budget :)
Mahoyo and Tsukihime Remake (from what I've seen) have gone above and beyond in their presentation and it is wild to see how far Type Moon has gone to make this happen, KiriKiri is an insanely powerful VN engine with very little english documentation and they're not even using half of what it could do. compared to what these two do Fate is almost primitive; but that's also because of how much time and effort poured into those two.
I don’t even have a Crunchyroll subscription
me neither, where I live all anime streaming services we have suck; no exception, either I dish out insane amounts of cash every months and fiddle with a VPN provider that I can trust and is fast enough to handle streaming (so far I've only found Mullvad to fit this) to get access to the thing I want to watch; usually in HD (the 720p kind; 1080p is marketed as UHD and often streaming services don't offer that unless you change you user agent to a windows one because DRM is bullshit); or I say fuck it and become a 21st century sailor and use the money I save from that to buy stuff like DVD/Blu-ray releases or figures of which a larger portion of the money would make it to the people making the show possible and not into lining the pockets of the rich so it's a win-win for everybody not wealthy enough to get government funded tax deductions.
Thanks for providing invidious links though!
I've used an app called FreeTube for a good while alongside NewPipe, both are privacy respecting and have been working better for me than the default youtube website/app, they also both use invidious which I consider a requirement for being able to actually watch youtube content nowadays.
Mushoku Tensei was one of the few stories with a male protagonist I was interested in reading at some point.
I loved the story to death and still do; it uses a lot of standard isekai tropes (OP portagonist, magic, medieval european style setting, ...), but these are merely set dressing, it's world is vast and expansive, characters feel like people and not just cardboard cutouts, when characters aren't on screen they're usually doing something else that could even forward the plot, ... Rudeus (the protagonist) also doesn't immediately change when he lays eyes on this other world; he was a shut-in NEET in his previous life and try as he may it's hard to break the habits and trauma that bound him to his room and he takes this second chance at life trying to live life to the fullest and it's one of the best redemption arcs I've seen in fiction so far (although I have yet to read Berserk so that could change). there still is a certain level of wish fullfilment, fanserive, and the like (it is an isekai after all); but I never found it too distracting. I loved it's 7th LN volume, this was added with the LN to bridge the events between the end of volume 6 and the beginning of the school arc (LN volume 8), technically it's filler; but it a really well put together part of the story and gives us a good view into Rudeus' state of mind and has lot lot of context to emphasize the characters, context that the anime promptly cut lessening the impact of this whole arc significantly.
I think I read all 7 volumes in 3 days
I have no other words than "that's insane", even for Mushoku Tensei I didn't get close to that (I averaged a little over one volume a week) and that was with me being addicted to it's story (I even had to jump to a translation on the WN later on because the english light novels weren't caught up and I needed to know more.
EDIT: Added the whole (O)NScripter part at the beginning
ONScripter
Yeah, I'm happy ONScripter exists, although I haven't gotten it to work perfectly for a VN yet. TRianThology doesn't work in Wine, actually displays in ONScripter natively but flashes green twice a second due to some image decoding issue, and works properly when running the game through a Windows ONScripter binary over Wine. Riddle me that one, lmao. I installed the patched AUR version, for what it's worth.
Still need to get around to playing TRianThology properly...
really helps to highlight how resilient OSS can be when put in the hands of weebs.
I remember someone saying something similar about mpv. I thought ONScripter was dead when I visited the page when I was writing pages for the wiki. Good to know it's still alive. Hell, it outlived NScripter!
KiriKiri and TYPE MOON
I get the impression most visual novels are not going to make it mainstream, which is why the presentation is usually budget-constrained. And the length, of course. It makes me wonder if TYPE MOON is going to make their money back on the remakes—I hope they do! It means more pretty animations. I guess if anyone can do it, it's them, lol.
I remember reading Muv-Luv Alternative, and while the animations were pretty primitive, they did a good job of conveying the action. Sometimes you don't need much, but I always love to see visual novels go above and beyond. Age are probably doing pretty well for themselves too...
Anime streaming services
It's not too bad over here. Obviously, if you're not American, you're going to miss out on a lot of series, but aside from the Monogatari Series, I don't run across series I can't access in my region that often. Then again, I watch anime from 1980-2010 mostly. HiDive is nice, though.
I refuse to use services that require me to install a DRM module in my browser like Netflix. Fuck Amazon too, but for different and more personal reasons.
I've bought some anime, but being a GNU/Linux user, that means I either need to check the decrypted AACS keys carefully before purchase, or I need to avoid buying Blu-Ray editions. I wonder if MakeMKV is more reliable. It seems silly to spend any significant amount of money on DVDs that tap out at 480p when there are 720p/1080p editions that treat me like a criminal because I don't have an authorized software Blu-Ray player in addition to an actual Blu-Ray player. From memory, the 1080p editions of some anime are actually scaled up by the studio anyway. And usually poorly.
I remember reading about that when I was learning about encoding...
So, yes, I am kind of bitter about the choices I've been left to make. I spend more money on manga and visual novels these days. At least there are actually a significant number of visual novels not encumbered by DRM...can't say the same for most Blu-Ray editions of anime. Region codes, disk encryption...this is crazy stuff. I'm just glad they haven't figured out a way to encumber physical books with DRM yet.
That being said, I'm happy to purchase older anime because the highest quality you can get a lot of them is on DVD, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything :)
FreeTube
Thanks for recommending it. I installed the Flatpak. It seems more reliable than going to an Invidious instance in my browser. It's not like I watch YouTube much, but I guess it ought to be comfortable when I do.
Mushoku Tensei
Well, you've done a good job selling it to me! I don't know too much about it, but that's enough to pique my interest. A lot of isekai with male protagonists are very transparent wish fulfillment fantasies or grindfests. And that's fine, but I find it so boring! Isekai series with female protagonists tend to be more fun. Mushoku Tensei sounds like it has a lot of the stuff I enjoy in those isekai stories, and I can put up with fanservice for the sake of that. I've got a loooong plan-to-read list, but I will eventually read it!
I have no other words than “that’s insane”, even for Mushoku Tensei I didn’t get close to that (I averaged a little over one volume a week) and that was with me being addicted to it’s story (I even had to jump to a translation on the WN later on because the english light novels weren’t caught up and I needed to know more.
I think I spent about 14 hours a day reading it and lost a fair bit of sleep in the process. Combine the novelty of reading with a great story, and I just couldn't get enough. There is no way in hell I could spend anywhere near that amount of time reading a story today, even if I lost sleep for it. That being said, HakoMari volumes are only about 200 pages long.
Meanwhile, Worm took me three weeks and I was not the same afterward.
I refuse to use services that require me to install a DRM module in my browser like Netflix.
DRM was a mistake enabled by corporate greed and our current copyright laws; the best we can do is show that we're not biting anything that smells of these practices which is hard when exclusive licensing only provides one legal option with the alternative being piracy. That said; while it is definitely against the law (in most countries) the way I'm doing it now provides more money to the anime industry by spending less so the people in charge of making the thing I like get a larger share while the rich tax evading middle man CEO of [insert streaming service here] isn't gaining anything from just adding DRM. It's sad to see that this can only be done by resorting to these methods; but I think we both know who copyright law really benefits.
I’ve bought some anime, but being a GNU/Linux user, that means I either need to check the decrypted AACS keys carefully before purchase, or I need to avoid buying Blu-Ray editions.
I haven't gotten into the whole Blu-Ray shenanigans yet (part because getting anything anime here is a fucking nightmare in the first place and DVD/Blu-Ray are far down on the list of anime things I'd buy) I also don't have anything that could read Blu-Ray ATM (my laptop does read CD/DVD perfectly fine though) so it'll be a good bit before I even dare bother.
From memory, the 1080p editions of some anime are actually scaled up by the studio anyway. And usually poorly.
Depends from studio to studio, nowadays 1080p generally looks "fine" for most anime; but for older projects where SD DVD or VHS (/Betamax) was the best quality option or a lot of stuff early in the HD era it's always a gamble to see if it turned out ok-ish.
I’m just glad they haven’t figured out a way to encumber physical books with DRM yet.
If books were invented in the last 30 years they probably would have; a big part of the reason they haven't bothered is because they'd have to do it extremely slowly as to not let the frog jump out of the boiling pot. New technology usually comes with less consumer control compared to it's predecessor, e-books can have DRM (although if you know where to buy you can get them without DRM or a DRM scheme calibre can easily remove), it's sad to see things moving in this direction; but where there's money you'll find corporations digging it up no matter how dirty it may be.
Thanks for recommending it. I installed the Flatpak.
Make sure to set it to use an invidious instance that works well for you, freetube also has SponsorBlock built-in which you can enable in the settings, there's also much more there for you to tweak.
A lot of isekai with male protagonists are very transparent wish fulfillment fantasies or grindfests. And that’s fine, but I find it so boring! Isekai series with female protagonists tend to be more fun.
There are no flat characters in Mushoku Tensei (aside from chest size obviously) even the mandatory overly sexualized girl of the group has an actual reason for being that way. On the surface it definitely sounds like the usual isekai; but it doesn't just copy the formula for the sake of copying the formula, it takes care of every detail in order to build something that stands on it's own.
DRM was a mistake enabled by corporate greed and our current copyright laws
Section 1201 of the DMCA is an incredibly shameful piece of legislation to have made it to law. Ridiculous copyright terms apparently weren't enough for Disney and co.
the best we can do is show that we’re not biting anything that smells of these practices which is hard when exclusive licensing only provides one legal option with the alternative being piracy.
Yes, unfortunately, that's all we can do. I doubt it will convince any of these companies to abandon these practices, but I refuse to support them monetarily. I'm reminded of the Veronica Mars Movie kickstarter campaign, where fans happily pledged over $5 Million dollars to see it come to fruition. Warner Bros. rewarded their fans for their generosity and support by encumbering the film with DRM so GNU/Linux fans who funded the film couldn't watch the film: https://www.techdirt.com/2014/03/17/warner-bros-turns-kickstarter-success-story-into-flaming-mess-with-proprietary-platforms-drm/
This is greed, plain and simple. They already brought in $5.7 Million in revenue before the film was made. Sure, that money was spent on making the film, but at the very least, they knew they would break even; anything on top is pure profit. Not many studios have that kind of guarantee. They brought in another $3.5 Million from the Box Office, making a solid profit. It's very possible that without fans funding the film, Warner Bros would have lost money.
DRM did nothing to increase their profits, but it did tarnish their reputation in the eyes of fans.
Yes, I'm a Veronica Mars fan, but this kickstarter was before my time, so I didn't get burned by it. ZDNet has a good summary too: https://www.zdnet.com/article/we-used-to-be-friends-the-veronica-mars-kickstarter-backlash/
I haven’t gotten into the whole Blu-Ray shenanigans yet (part because getting anything anime here is a fucking nightmare in the first place and DVD/Blu-Ray are far down on the list of anime things I’d buy) I also don’t have anything that could read Blu-Ray ATM (my laptop does read CD/DVD perfectly fine though) so it’ll be a good bit before I even dare bother.
Thanks to the discussion we had, I spent yesterday going through my Blu-Ray collection. MakeMKV is fantastic and I highly recommend it if you ever buy a show on Blu-Ray. Hell, even DVD. I don't know how well it keeps up with constantly changing Blu-Ray encryption schemes, but it seems to be much better than any of the standard methods. Plus, it has a nice GUI. I'm still using it with a trial license but if I find myself using it more, I think I'll pay for a license.
Depends from studio to studio, nowadays 1080p generally looks “fine” for most anime; but for older projects where SD DVD or VHS (/Betamax) was the best quality option or a lot of stuff early in the HD era it’s always a gamble to see if it turned out ok-ish.
Ah, that makes sense. I don't have a VHS or Betamax player, haha. Or a Laserdisc player. I'll have to settle for the DVD conversion when I buy one of those older shows.
New technology usually comes with less consumer control compared to it’s predecessor, e-books can have DRM
That's an interesting thought. I can't say I disagree with it at all. I own Harmony on Blu-Ray and started watching it again for the first time since 2015 (fantastic film btw), and it really does feel that way. The more advanced technology gets, the less the general public can do with it. It's just...strange, when you think about it. The one exception has been the web, which was kind of an accident. Had Microsoft created it instead of some wide-eyed engineer at CERN, it definitely wouldn't have ended up being the open platform it is today. And even though it is very open compared to a lot of other areas, there's a trend toward certain companies trying to lock it down.
On the subject of locking down physical books, TorrentFreak has a super interesting article on the history of libraries and how publishers really didn't like them: https://torrentfreak.com/you-cant-defend-public-libraries-and-oppose-file-sharing-150510/
Make sure to set it to use an invidious instance that works well for you, freetube also has SponsorBlock built-in which you can enable in the settings, there’s also much more there for you to tweak.
I'll have to tweak it sometime, thank you! For the moment, the default invidious instance has been working great. A lot better than the invidious instance I use in my browser.
On the surface it definitely sounds like the usual isekai; but it doesn’t just copy the formula for the sake of copying the formula, it takes care of every detail in order to build something that stands on it’s own.
That's my favorite kind of story, actually. It's the same reason I really like the Monogatari Series (even though I despised it when I watched it originally; the novels grew on me).
Ridiculous copyright terms apparently weren’t enough for Disney and co.
Give them a finger and they won't stop at an arm, all these people are interested in is money; which sadly enough does not guarantee a good product
Yes, unfortunately, that’s all we can do. I doubt it will convince any of these companies to abandon these practices, but I refuse to support them monetarily. I’m reminded of the Veronica Mars Movie kickstarter campaign, where fans happily pledged over $5 Million dollars to see it come to fruition. Warner Bros. rewarded their fans for their generosity and support by encumbering the film with DRM so GNU/Linux fans who funded the film couldn’t watch the film
Holy, I didn't know of Veronica Mars before this but it doesn't really surprise me. I bet they figured the movie would never break even normally so they just extorted fans; this doesn't even remotely look like incompetence.
MakeMKV is fantastic and I highly recommend it if you ever buy a show on Blu-Ray. Hell, even DVD. I don’t know how well it keeps up with constantly changing Blu-Ray encryption schemes, but it seems to be much better than any of the standard methods. Plus, it has a nice GUI. I’m still using it with a trial license but if I find myself using it more, I think I’ll pay for a license.
I'll keep that in mind; it is sad to see it's not FOSS (or at least not from what I can see). I haven't needed to rip anything in a good while but when I inevitably will this will be in my toolbelt.
MKV video is fantastic though, almost everything anime I download is MKV (batch releases often having both english and japanese audio alongside softsubs and proper video and audio codecs is a blessing), whenever I need to hold video in an intermediary format I use MKV as it can hold pretty much all codecs I use.
That’s an interesting thought. I can’t say I disagree with it at all. I own Harmony on Blu-Ray and started watching it again for the first time since 2015 (fantastic film btw), and it really does feel that way. The more advanced technology gets, the less the general public can do with it.
Most of it isn't even because of technology, all the shit they're pulling with electric cars they could have with ICE cars and the board computer. Heck electric cars should be easier to repair as there are less moving parts and the design is much simpler; the only reason we can't is because they put systems in the way that require proprietary tools.
Same happened with the switch to smartphones where these devices lost things like user replaceable batteries even though there is no technological reason for it, and it's taking the might of the european union to undo this age old trend.
On the subject of locking down physical books, TorrentFreak has a super interesting article on the history of libraries and how publishers really didn’t like them
Definitely going to give that a read; I do know that we have proper technologies for decentralized file hosting and indexing (not just bittorrent, but also IPFS which bases itself on the same technologies), these will definitely become a requirement if we want to fight over the ability to share information freely.
So on the subject of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, January 1st, 2024 is actually the day the very first incarnation of Mickey Mouse will make it to the public domain. Finally.
Except...not quite. See Mickey's Headed to the Public Domain! But Will He Go Quietly? (HTTP-only):
The answer lies in the realm of trademark law. [...] So, on January 1, 2024, the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie will pass into the public domain, along with The Barn Dance. [...] Many people also believe that this means that Mickey himself (Minnie and Pete as well) will also pass into the public domain, and anyone will be able to make new Mickey Mouse cartoons. This is by no means certain, as the application of trademark principles may prevent this.
Leaving nothing to chance, Disney has also obtained 19 different trademark registrations for the words “Mickey Mouse,” including live action and animated television shows, 9 cartoon strips, 10 comic books, 11 theme parks, 12 and computer games. 13 Disney also has trademark registrations for Mickey’s visual appearance for animated and live action motion picture films.
Somehow, trademark law is being abused to eternally extend copyright! Trademarking characters prevents commercial distribution of work that is not copyright-infringing. We'll see if Disney is actually able to employ this in practice starting next year. Way to go Disney, plundering our public domain and ladder-pulling it for the rest of us.
And I'm sorry if this is not interesting to you at all, lol.
Holy, I didn’t know of Veronica Mars before this but it doesn’t really surprise me. I bet they figured the movie would never break even normally so they just extorted fans; this doesn’t even remotely look like incompetence.
Veronica Mars is a great show! At least, the first three seasons are. The movie is alright, and the fourth season is...fine. It's just a shame Warner Brothers are, well, a corporation. And after doing some more reading, it's possible the reported budget of the film only includes the production budget and not the marketing budget. $3.5M seems like a pretty bad performance so I wonder if they did actually make a profit in the end.
It's worth noting that backers who could actually watch the film on Flixster (WB's part-owned streaming service that has since died a violent death) had a worse experience than people who bought the film on iTunes or wherever else. They didn't get a HD version. So backers ended up mailing in receipts after buying the film elsewhere, which Warner Brothers refunded. Sounds like a total mess.
I’ll keep that in mind; it is sad to see it’s not FOSS (or at least not from what I can see).
Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned that. MakeMKV is proprietary and under standard copyright, but the sources for every release are provided for compiling yourself on GNU/Linux (and wherever else you can get it to work). It's C++ and you can try poking around in there. I don't know C++ yet, so I couldn't tell you what the program does :) Some of the components GulpinSoft has developed seem to be free software, just from checking the headers of some files?
Sources here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=224 (Edit: Fixed URL)
The linux release includes full source code for MakeMKV GUI, libmakemkv multiplexer library and libdriveio MMC drive interrogation library.
I'm not quite sure how it works. I think they have a keyserver which provides keys for particular Blurays. My understanding is MakeMKV does extract the key itself, so it's not like you need to rely on keys from the developer's site...but I could be wrong. Regardless, I've found the interface a lot more usable than Handbrake and it has been very reliable.
You can use MakeMKV indefinitely with the Beta key. The program has been in beta for over ten years now, so there's probably not much risk of a full release... even then, it's only a one-time purchase for a license you can use on as many computers as you like, on any operating system you like, forever, even with the full release.
I should note that mpv seems to be handling subtitles very poorly in the resulting mkv files. Like, sometimes not being able to switch to them or the timing being out. VLC handles them completely fine though. I don't really care, since I don't use subtitles, but it seemed important to note if you use mpv (which you probably do).
MKV video is fantastic though
It's a fantastic format for playback! It's It's not so great for editing in an NLE because of, well, how much stuff it supports.
Same happened with the switch to smartphones where these devices lost things like user replaceable batteries even though there is no technological reason for it, and it’s taking the might of the european union to undo this age old trend.
Yeah, that's true. I hope it actually does get better over time...I feel like a luddite sometimes eschewing new technology because I don't like the way they treat me.
Definitely going to give that a read; I do know that we have proper technologies for decentralized file hosting and indexing (not just bittorrent, but also IPFS which bases itself on the same technologies), these will definitely become a requirement if we want to fight over the ability to share information freely.
The article touches on the history of libraries but is more focused on comparing it to file sharing, which nonetheless, I found super interesting. Is there a particular advantage IPFS has over BitTorrent? BitTorrent has a lot of advantages over HTTPS for transferring files, so I'm curious. BitTorrent is technically superior to HTTPS in several ways, so for practical reasons alone it's worthwhile using. The decentralized aspect is a bonus.