Anime 'Visual Novel' Game DVDs Debut In West

Thanks to Insert Credit for pointing to a Namako Team story revealing new Japanese 'visual novel' DVDs coming to the West via publisher Hirameki. Insert Credit explains: "Hirameki has been slowly releasing English-language ports of Japanese dating sims in the US. They play basically the same on a PC, DVD player, PS2 or Xbox [using Dragon's Lair style branching narrative], which is the appeal of the format." The new "Summer 2004"-due DVD releases include the wonderfully named Tea Society Of A Witch, as well as Hourglass Summer, apparently "A summer vacation that crosses the boundaries of space and time."

I wonder...

[KDR_11k]

Is there any dating sim in which you can be eaten by a grue? Or, *shudder* date a grue?

Re:The diehard fans actually dislike Hirameki...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, computers and the internet exist in kind of a moral vaccuum--human beings are seperated from the shame dispensing institutions that normally holds us to aesthetic, moral, or ethical standards by the omnipresent, warm, accepting glow of our CRTs replacing the harsh, judgmental glare of our peers.

This can be a beautiful thing--allowing people to explore things about themselves that our near theocratic society would never tolerate.

But, although normally I'm not such a prude about internet eroticism, I do think there is a danger that that a world without moral bounds and aesthetic judgments becomes a world of pure noise and meaninglessness. Our sense of dignity, shame, and/or innocence have managed to survive centuries of a world determined to make sure we go to our graves with none of these still in tact. I say this as an atheist: the fact that Virtue has survived so long suggests that it imparts significant survival advantages.

So, it is on that basis that I now say the sort of thing I would ordinarily never say. Watching interactive animated DVDs for erotic reasons is totally weird!!! It depresses me deeply that this is ever done! This is the path to loneliness and despair! I think I can actually hear the entropy of the Universe accelerating because you are doing this! Stop it, everyone! Y'all do whatever you like, but you'll have to do so in the face of this anonymous coward shaking his finger accusingly at you!!!!!

Re:The diehard fans actually dislike Hirameki...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just finished Kana - Little Sister, that game was so depressing I couldn't even get off during the sex scenes. I warn against people playing this game for the sex, but if you want to have a good cry then this is for you.