#school days vn

[bwuniko]

ೀ ⋆𓂃  Yuno Gasai & Kotonoha Katsura

[annieartist03-2]

Nice boat!

[bestmeangirlcompetition]

Submit more victims here!

[sugar-konpeito]

Man,, was nobody gonna tell me that Cross Days (the same game series as the infamous School Days anime btw) not only has a really fulfilling gay ending, but that it's also the true ending?🥹

On top of it, I think Makoto falls for Yuuki in nearly every route. In endings where Yuuki rejects him (as Yuu), he's completely devastated in a way he won't seem to recover from.

I'm not surprised, because School Days focuses on messy and atypical relationships, but I am happy about it.

I think "School Days' main character is canonically bisexual" is a fun piece of trivia, too.

(He could potentially fall into the promiscuous bisexual trope, but most characters in this series also sleep around and how promiscuous he gets depends on how you play him.)

[local-gay-weeb]

Fighting for my life to keep Makoto alive in school days but idk how it's gonna be possible bc this man is not! being! a good boyfriend!!!

[deerspherestudios]

Short Break and To Dos!

Hello all! 🍄🍄👻 I'm glad to see people enjoying Day 3 so far! I was so nervous about showing another side to Mychael in the update I thought people wouldn't like him as much but plenty have reacted positively! ❤️

I'll add a TLDR; above the read more, but if you don't mind my ramblings and want more details about everything, I'll write everything below! Light spoilers ahead!

I'll be taking a short break from MO development until 28th October to work on a short VN for the Monstrous Desires jam!

Most probably missed it, but there's a tiny small patch to Day 3 explained here.

Queue will return soon! I just gotta handle some housekeeping first with my Patreon.

Regarding the feedback on Day 3, I'm glad people aren't as averse to the new side of Mychael, in that he isn't always soft and sweet. I want people to fall in love with a person after all, not a yandere caricature, and that means that person can get upset, angry and sometimes irrational when we don't know what's going on in their head even towards the subject of their affections. While some (understandably!) were shocked about his reaction to the mushrooms, it'll be clear as to why (hopefully!)

Some of you have given incredibly accurate theories, and I'll take that as something I've done well in building up the mystery!!! I'm excited to share more in the next update, but for now!

1. I'll be taking a short break from MO development to work on a short VN for the Monstrous Desires jam!

What I have planned for Day 4 of MO might be the biggest update so far, since one route will lead to a few official BAD ENDINGS as opposed to 'dead ends' like the current demo has. To those who really want to, you finally get to see Mychael at his worst. As usual, writing the script takes a few months with plenty of changes in between, and I don't wanna bulldoze ahead and rush the story when it's getting to the climax!

But before I jump into all of that I just wanna give myself a creative exercise and try exploring a different theme, style and setting with a fresh new character for the jam! Since I'm a sucker for the trope... yes, the new blorbo will also be a yandere, sorry, I'm predictable.💔 The jam ends on October 28th so development on MO will continue then!

The last time I wrote something remotely sci-fi was in high school, so this will be fun to try!

2. Most probably missed it, but there's a tiny small patch to Day 3 explained here.

What it says on the tin! If you've already played Day 3, rest assured there's no significant story changes. Just an updated credits list, three extra sprites for one route and a small fix in the code.

3. Queue will return soon! I just gotta handle some housekeeping first with my Patreon.

Plenty of people have sent such sweet and encouraging messages to my inbox on what they thought of the update and I cannot thank all of you enough for the support!! I can't wait to post them out to archive them on the blog and answer all your interesting theories and queries in my queue!

But for now I'm due for a short break from my socials and to catch up on my Patreon sketch requests haha. I also plan to release cut content from Day 3 for my Yearling and Deer patrons. Plus, I'll be working on some written prompts for extra lore so that's something to look forward to!

I'll be back soon! Take care, fireflies!! ❤️

[penultimate-step]

Lately, I've been thinking about the effect of real-world time on perception of media. Or, wait, let me start from the beginning.

When I was 11, I read the book Ender's Game for some school assignment or another. I don't remember ever considering Ender a relatable character, but certainly my understanding of the events was shaped by being of an age to see the protagonist not so much as a young child but as someone of my peer group, someone who could have been slotted amongst my classmates without anybody batting an eye.

Over a decade later, I read the sequel, Speaker for the Dead; it takes place many years later, when Ender is in his thirties, and my feelings about the in-universe time skip were undeniably shaped by the real life time gap between my reading of the novels. Reading the first book back then and then the second book now created a feeling where it's almost like, I'm browsing the facebook page of someone I had known in middle school but lost contact with, checking up on how they're doing today. The real-time factor caused me to perceive it less like a timeskip, and more like a reunion - the feelings were closer to "oh wow, that's my boy! I haven't seen him in years! Wonder what he's up to?" Which in turn gave me a better position to appreciate the parts of the narrative about him struggling to find a place in his adulthood than I would have been had I perceived it more strictly as a quick skip from 11 to 20 to 36.

While musing about this, I considered a VN I played a few years back, which took place over three in-game days - except at the end of one in-game day, the game would lock you out from progressing for 24 hours real time. So that as the in-game investigator protagonist was ruminating on the information that had been discovered that day, the player would be forced to do the same. In this example, by forcing the player to experience the same timeframe as the in-game characters, the sense of it being an in-depth and extensive investigation increases, even though without the forced pauses the game would be short enough to blow through in a handful of hours real-time.

Which brings to mind how time effects things in long-running serial works. It's well known that an audience which watches an episode or reads a chapter week by week has a very different experience than one binging through whole seasons or volumes at a time, but I wonder if the real time relative to the in-universe time makes that effect stand out more? Fight scenes, for instance, have been known to take up several chapters in certain manga or webnovels. What does it do to the reader's perception, if from their point a view a fight takes a whole month, while for the characters they read about it's only been a couple hours? Readers might feel that the situation is more stressful, since the pressure of the fight has been ongoing for a long time for them, while in-universe it was a rough afternoon but no more than that. Contrastingly, when a series skips ahead or otherwise has long periods of time for characters that feel short for readers, it can feel like no time has passed and everything is still the same, unless the author really stresses the differences in world-state that occurred offscreen. Because the reader hasn't changed at all.

No conclusion here exactly, I just think it's interesting how often an audience's response to a work, the emotions felt, are more closely tied to their real-life timescale, something almost completely out of the author's control, as opposed to in-universe time, which can be intentionally shifted or played with for the sake of the narrative.

[shirogane-oushirou]

hi, i'm finally caught up on my dash after being absent for a couple of days lmao ;;; going into a doll-making fugue state and then jumping straight into procedure prep has been. time consuming, to say the least. lol lmao. i'll go through my drafts and post things either tomorrow after i'm back or on wednesdayyy!! (today hasn't been AS bad as i'd assumed bc i prepared for prep day KJANDSKJN, so now i just have to get up and finish at 4 fucking a.m. and then do the actual procedure. sighs wearily. can't wait to eat solid food tomorrow JNKJDNKJSFN.)

MY GIRLS MY GIRLS MY GIRLS MY GIRLS M-- THOSE ARE MY DAUGHTERS AND MY BESTIES AND SOME OF MY EARLIEST PLATONIC SELFSHIPS and one of my earliest """"""girl crushes""""" in hindsight ksjndkjsn and if this is a re-imagining that does the 1st season / 3 manga vols i'll cry so loud and so hard and have a fit!!!!!

[cw spoilers]

......please don't adapt the 2nd season / 2nd half of the manga..... please don't be a continuation either.... the first season was meant to be one-and-done and you can tell (and the 2nd half also has all of the Objectionable Parts of the series so...) :') keep it to a tight fantasy/magical girl/mecha series about guilt and forcing world-continuing-to-exist responsibility onto one-to-three people and expecting them not to crack. that shit rips. the ONLY part of s2 that works is the further exploration of that guilt, but they even made that Quite Weird, as much as i love nova in a vacuum ;;;;;

hello i am unwell. best news i could possibly get on a No Good Very Bad Day.

[wolfnanaki]

Can you sum up the Goodbye Volcano High vs Snoot Game controversy? I don't know shit and you seem like the most knowledgeable person on it.

Okay. Summary time.

Developed by Canadian indie worker cooperative studio KO_OP, Goodbye Volcano High is a cinematic narrative/rhythm indie game about a group of dinosaur teenagers dealing with the impending end of the world from an asteroid. It features predominantly queer characters; the main character is an AFAB nonbinary pterodactyl named Fang.

GVH was revealed as part of the PS5 reveal lineup back in June 2020. From there, it experienced a few delays due to COVID, rewriting the story after the original writer was let go, and dealing with anti-LGBT harassment. It finally came out in late August 2023 to positive reception and some awards. It didn't sell a billion copies but it's been gradually growing its fanbase for over a year now.

A few days after GVH was first revealed, a group of 4channers, under the developer name "Cavemanon", decided they'd do their own visual novel using GVH's characters to spite GVH before it even came out. This VN, Snoot Game, came out in June 2021. It's a story where a featureless human male named "Anon" becomes Fang's friend and eventually boyfriend. It has an extremely anti-trans narrative, along with racist humor, promotes eugenics, has a school shooting ending if Fang doesn't detransition, and more.

Snoot ended up becoming very popular and spread around the internet, developing its own fanbase across social media. The worst parts of its fandom downplay Snoot's harmful rhetoric while harassing GVH's fans and developers. When GVH came out, they shared a pirated copy, called it the worst game ever, and encouraged people to support Snoot instead. I spoke out about all this and got doxed.

Snoot's success lead to Cavemanon hijacking a fan project from its original developers and making it into a spiritual sequel sold on Steam, called I Wani Hug That Gator!, released in February 2024. A few weeks after it came out, a former developer released a dossier speaking out about Cavemanon's working conditions, lack of compensation, and extreme right-wing views, to which Cavemanon responded with a hitpiece attacking everyone involved in the doc and linking my dox on Kiwifarms while mocking me for being trans.

To this day, mainstream gaming press outlets have refused to cover this story in any meaningful way, and Cavemanon has not faced any consequences for anything they've done. Wani has sold very well on Steam, and Cavemanon has opened their own web store and patron-supported developer blog, where they give terrible game dev advice and rant about "grooming operations" and the like.

So... that's it, really.

[bwuniko]

ೀ ⋆𓂃  Yuno Gasai & Kotonoha Katsura

[sunny-speaks]

Hacker! Ren Headcanons

Basically just hc’s abt what ren does in his free time watching u, yk, normal stuff

Character(s): Ren/[REDACTED] from @14dayswithyou and mild mention of Harper from @/campwillowpeak

A/N: Definitely check out Camp Willowpeak if you have the time! Great VN in progress!

Trigger warnings: Minor panic attack after ‘And it is the worst feeling in all of Corland Bay.’

Um, mention of NSFW and kinks etc. Minors DNI !

Ren spends every waking hour of the day trying to be as close to you as he can possibly muster.

He just wants to be there with you in some shape or form!

The best days for him are the weekends, you don’t have to work and you can stay home all day if you choose to!

Some of his favorite things to watch you do is watch your anime, read fanfiction and a bunch of other things that help with his research.

When you indulge in your fixations, it helps Ren change himself accordingly to whatever you like at the moment!

You like science-y guys? Luckily for you, he took Biology and Chemistry in high school!

Totally not to figure out how to kill people effectively or clean up bloodstains, what???

You like artsy guys? He makes these amazing collages and collections of photography! Also took painting and art in high school!

Once again, totally not because he wanted the best drawings/paintings of you or the best high quality photos for his shrine, whaaat???

But having you read fanfiction is much more interesting to him.

He can see the types of characters you like to read about, your favorite genre, your favorite pairings, your favorite character dynamics…

Whether you prefer sunshine characters with a dark side, characters who look like they could kill you but are actually cinnamon rolls, two idiots + one brain cell, it’d all help him further his agenda of manipulating you to love him making him perfect for you!

And if you go into the NSFW section? He is frothing at the mouth.

This is his chance!! He can figure out what you prefer in the bedroom and win you over with his seduction skills! (not that he needs any ofc… have u seen him??? His dick is like 10 inches, that's a seduction skill on its own…)

(and maybe sometimes he takes advantage of the cameras around your place to listen in and watch you do some… intimate activities)

Whether you like submissive guys or dominant guys or service tops or brats, Ren is all for it! If you’re into some kinky shit, he might not be too into it, but he’ll give it a try for you!!

But if you share one of his massive kinks (ex. Breeding, marking) dude, you are so fucked.

Ren is straight up praying to his shrine that he can be the only one to fulfill your desires because, whoa, he would be soo good to you if you gave him a chance. He would literally cry if you wanted him to do whatever he liked to you.

Also you both like the same shit??? You were clearly meant to be!!

He sees you scrolling on social media and calling yourself delulu? (just like him ong) Don’t worry, he’ll be there so you can fufill your delusions!!

You’ll never have to be delusional again now that you have him!!

Ren saw you scroll through your Tumblr feed, seemingly spending hours lurking on this one account of… Camp Treepeak, or something. It irked him when he saw you focusing on this one character who had you swooning.

So what if that dumb brunette was 6’9’’??? So what if he was a pyromaniac??? He was just a dumb game character, Ren was real! Besides, Ren was more than sure that those missing 4 inches of height between and that fictional guy went somewhere… else.

You didn’t know what you were missing out on!! Ren was right there, always waiting for you to notice him! If you gave him even the smallest chance, he’d swoop in and make your life a living romance visual novel if you wanted!

He could be anyone you wanted him to be! At all! If that’s what it takes for him to be yours, he’d do it in a heartbeat!

(I have brought this up before lmao) Would absolutely be down to try and cosplay any character you aggressively rave about to Moth.

While he absolutely detests Moth for being the one that you go to with this stuff, he can’t deny that it's useful for him to tap into the call, mute Moth on his own end and listen to you go on and on about whatever you’re rambling about at the moment.

Your voice is so pretty, like a canary… Birds remind him of freedom in some way, some days Ren would like to keep you captive, hide you away from the world.

But then he looks at himself in the mirror and he sees his father stare back.

And it is the worst feeling in all of Corland Bay.

He hums to himself, listening to you talk on and on to Moth but can’t help and think, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if I was the only one they ever sang to?’ and it sends Ren into a spiral of dark thoughts he immediately dry heaves at.

He’s trying so hard to focus on your melodic tone before he pants over the sink, body shaking. No, no, no, no.

No. He is not psychopathic. You are not something he can own. You are not his. That is not his decision. You have your voice. You are your own person.

“Hey, you alright?” Your calming voice shakes him out of his stupor. Of course, it did. It helped him get through nightmares, through hungover evenings where he just wanted to be with you, past his job when he felt demotivated.

Subconsciously, he knew you were just talking to Moth, but he couldn’t help but respond. “Y-yeah. I think so.”

“Mm, I feel that.”

Wow, maybe if he squinted, the two of you could be having a conversation! If it wasn’t for that lingering thought of his bastard dad, he would’ve been giggling on the couch, kicking his feet and twirling his hair.

…He was really getting into his Ren persona, wasn’t he…?

“Look, cheer up, things get better. I mean, my job’s no walk in the park, but it’s about the small wins!” He could hear the grin in your voice, you always managed to bring your emotions through audio, “Like, like! The other day, some guy on the street saw my subtle Attack on Giants jacket and stopped to me and said―”

“ ‘Yoo, is that AOG?’ “ Ren repeated the same words with a small smile on his face. He remembered how you reined in your expression before your face lit up as soon as you were by yourself.

You sighed and chuckled at whatever Moth had replied. “No, I am not a huge nerd. I simply have good taste. Oh yeah, remember how I told you about that one skater boy–” and your voice faded to background noise again.

Ren took a couple deep breaths to calm himself. He wasn’t his sperm donor, he’d be better. For you.

And the rest of his nights would be spent, adoringly adding to your shrine and his collection of your items.

Then he would lay in bed, clutching a pillow, wishing it were you he had to cuddle with but could settle for the plush, soft object until he finally won you over.

(personal headcanon that ren has one of those like, duck filled pillows he hugs instead of his stuffed toys which he leaves on display. Sometimes all the body parts just get in the way and he just wants to hug something soft… :(( like you :(( )

Which he would… one day.

[n-lol]

Theory time w my beloved vn katb! + spoilers for bad ending

Pics for reference:

Let's start w the obvious "Crane Ichabod" being too similar to Jericho, or Crowe Ichabod, not only are the surnames the same but both names (nn for Crowe) start w "Cr" and end w "e"

To our second point the description can fit Crowe plus he is also an important figure in the school.

Very obvious point: both Crowe and Crane want to court someone and that someone has already an admirer

And after he supposedly proposed to his beloved, he was chased down and went missing. Now if my memory isn't failing me Crowe technically goes missing after we decide to kiss him on day 1 and that's how we achieve the bad ending in day 2

Also pumpkin symbolism further pointing at Sol since that's the nn he gave us and his love for horses makes sense

(This part ↓ I'm not too sure because I can't remember for the life of me if he gets his head cut off in the bad ending)

Note that his name is also "headless horseman" so maybe it's not that far fetched for me to say that he might behead his victims; and while I do also think him having his head cut off can be a clever way to think of French Revolution (associated then with another figure, Marie Antoinette), in this case it fits as well

[arimiadev]

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail

I love visual novels. being a long time fate/stay night fan and only having heard of mahoyo from hushed whispers about its cinematography, I was super invested when it was announced to be coming to the west and I could finally play an official version of it.

however, a lot of people interested in type-moon works had never heard of mahoyo, let alone it getting an official english translation. but how? aniplex is publishing the game and they're one of the largest anime distributors in the world.

with the console release of mahoyo being almost exactly a year ago and the steam release being just 10 days away, I want to look over some of aniplex USA's bizarre and nonexistent marketing for one of my favorite visual novels.

let's clear up a few things, first.

mahoyo is the shortened form of mahoutsukai no yoru (not to be confused with mahoutsukai no yome, i.e. the ancient magus bride), which has been localized as witch on the holy night. mahoyo was a linear non-eroge visual novel released by type-moon in 2012, being one of the first scripts kinoko nasu (co-founder of type-moon) wrote back in 1996 and adapted into a VN many, many years later.

in April of 2022, a console remaster (switch, playstation 4) was announced with HD assets and voice acting, to be published by aniplex. notably, this console release would contain an english translation and was later confirmed in June to be sold in the west via online retailers. this was huge news, as this meant mahoyo would be the first type-moon visual novel (not including gameplay-oriented titles like fate/extella or fate/grand order) to be officially released in the west, as despite numerous fan translations, their more recognizable visual novels tsukihime and fate/stay night still had not received a localization.

type-moon is the developer behind mahoyo and aniplex is the publisher, meaning that type-moon made the game and aniplex is in charge of distributing (and marketing) the game worldwide.

timeline:

April 11 2022: Mahoyo rerelease announced for consoles (Switch & PlayStation 4), including English translation

July 4 2022: Aniplex confirms Mahoyo will be available to the West, localized under the name Witch on the Holy Night

October 14 2022: 2nd trailer released, more voice actor info announced

November 3 2022: physical pre-orders launched, demo version available

November 18 2022: Aniplex attends Anime NYC with Mahoyo

December 7 2022: Mahoyo released digitally on Switch / PlayStation 4 (Dec 8th in Japan, Dec 7th in America)

December 12 2022: Mahoyo reaches 110k units sold worldwide

January 27 2023: Mahoyo physicals release

July 5 2023: Mahoyo reaches 150k units sold worldwide

September 10 2023: Mahoyo announced for Steam via a now unlisted Aniplex livestream

December 13 2023: Mahoyo will be released on Steam (Dec 14th in Japan, Dec 13th in America)

some of the dates might be a little fuzzy, especially the release dates, as some sources go by japanese time and some go by american timezones, so just be aware of that.

now, let's talk a bit about mahoyo itself.

mahoyo is a masterpiece. it's a niche game not meant for everyone. its cinematography is top notch among visual novels. its writing style can be off-putting to people who want faster-paced stories. it's one of my most beloved visual novels I've ever played, and I've been in this field for almost a decade and have played well over 100 VNs.

mahoyo is a completely linear visual novel—meaning it has no choices or gameplay—that follows aoko, a high schooler mage trying to balance her perfect school president facade with her secret life as a mage, something she has to keep secret at the risk of death. this is one of the lesser known type-moon works but it's well beloved because of the care put into it.

if you've ever heard someone talk about it, it's almost impossible for them to not mention the visuals. mahoyo is one of the most visually impressive visual novels I've ever seen, with its inspired use of artwork and in-game animations. I cannot recommend this VN enough if you like modern fantasy and don't mind linear VNs.

before we dive into aniplex USA's marketing, I want to clarify a few marketing terms for people who don't market visual novels as a job. marketing is not just advertising—it's everything related to how a product communicates with potential users, including its branding, its packaging, its everything. when marketing a game, you have several different avenues: social media, press & influencers, trailers, store pages, and more.

today I want to show you how, based off what I have researched after a long, manic day, aniplex USA has failed mahoyo on all of these accounts.

so let's go back to its western release.

mahoyo has a few official english channels:

website

twitter

facebook

aniplex also has an official english twitter with almost 500k followers where they shared mahoyo very rarely—only 9 tweets about the game ever.

well, surely their other pages are more maintained right—

both accounts stopped posting July 10th/11th, with their last post being about mahoyo going on sale on consoles. let's look at their posts prior to this, though, starting with the twitter.

we can see that the twitter account was made in december of 2022. if we scroll down far enough (it's not hard, given they only have 33 tweets), we can see that their first tweet was on december 6th 2022:

let's go back to our timeline. can you tell me when mahoyo's remaster released digitally?

yes they made both of the english mahoyo social media accounts the day before the game launched

we can very easily add up the entire social media posts for the game thus far:

mahoyo english twitter - 30 tweets and 3 retweets

mahoyo english facebook - 27 posts

aniplex english twitter - 9 tweets

aniplex english facebook - 2 posts

no other english social media accounts were tied to the website, so these are the only ones I looked at. this means in total, there were only 68 social media posts for the console release of mahoyo by the publisher for english audiences.

but what about the steam release? after the game sold over 150k+ units on consoles, surely aniplex was ready to market it a bit more for pc users—

neither account has made a post about the upcoming steam release.

if we look at the twitter, they have 3 tweets since July that do talk about the upcoming steam release- however, these are retweets from the japanese mahoyo account.

we know that this twitter and this facebook account are the official social media for mahoyo as they're linked on the website, so they're definitely meant to be followed for game updates in the west. well, maybe the english aniplex twitter has posted about it—

none of the english aniplex or mahoyo accounts have made a single post about the steam release

that's right, the social media posts I counted above are the only posts for mahoyo on their english accounts, all dating back before the steam release was announced. since then, they have not made a single original post even mentioning the steam release.

meanwhile, the japanese mahoyo twitter has been hustling hard to promote the upcoming steam release—reposting trailers, character bios, and more almost every day with pretty good numbers.

in fact, the japanese mahoyo twitter did such a good job at marketing it that the aniplex USA twitter never mentioned the english mahoyo twiter, instead only @ ing the japanese one in tweets (despite the english one being linked on the website).

why they even bothered making social media accounts and then not running them despite being one of the largest anime distributors in the world I have no clue.

well, maybe they didn't need to rely on social media presence. maybe they were going for the in-person approach and marketing it at conventions.

mahoyo had basically no anime convention presence

the only reference I can find to aniplex notably promoting mahoyo at any western convention is this tweet of them at anime NYC. from someone who was at anime NYC, I've been told that they pushed the game heavily at their booth with TV screens promoting the game.

however, anime NYC is only one anime convention. you cannot hope to sell a game by just attending one anime convention. mahoyo might have had a presence at other american conventions, but I'm unable to find any images or news about this.

maybe they don't understand type-moon

aniplex is the publisher for fate/grand order, one of the most successful mobile games ever created. they're also the distributor for a majority of type-moon related anime, ranging from fate to garden of sinners to side series. aniplex's marketing team should have lots of experience with type-moon properties.

maybe it was promoted in other aniplex titles

I was also unable to find a news post in fate/grand order related to mahoyo's release, despite news posts for other type-moon series (namely fate but also things like melty blood) getting news posts in fate/grand order. I might've missed the news posts when looking back through FGO but I don't believe there was one.

maybe it sold well in other regions but not western ones

(I'm going to be referring only to the console release for these stats, keep in mind)

mahoyo released December 7th/8th 2022 with an english, japanese, simplified chinese, and traditional chinese translations. at the end of the release week, mahoyo's japanese twitter announced the game had sold 110k copies worldwide and famitsu reported that 66,344 of these units were sold in japan. this means we have around 43k units unaccounted for.

we know the game was available in english, japanese, and chinese languages but we don't know what regions. mainland china has a very large visual novel playerbase (I say this as someone who sells visual novels), which means if it were sold there then it's easy to say that a big chunk of that 43k units could be attributed to them—this also means it would be easy to believe that aniplex saw mahoyo selling worse in western countries and took this as a sign to not promote the game any more there.

but was it ever sold in mainland china? from what I could tell—no.

looking at pricing charts for the nintendo eshop and the playstation store, china is not listed on either. furthermore, searching the game's chinese title on the chinese playstation store does not bring back any results. it looks like the only predominantly chinese-speaking regions that were able to buy it are hong kong, taiwan and possibly singapore (the playstation store page for it doesn't look like it's available for purchase anymore).

so what does this tell us?

without any other numbers it's hard to tell how many of the 43k launch week sales came from english-speaking players, but even if we conservatively say that only around 20k of the 110k launch week units were from western countries, that's still almost a million in revenue (and remember, the physical limited edition of the game was available in english for $60, which is $20 more than the digital base version).

maybe the store page is so good they don't need to market it

here's a little secret: store pages matter a lot more than you'd think. there are entire job positions dedicated to tailoring store pages (like a steam game page) to make it perfect for the game's target audience. there's a science to it that includes the artwork, descriptions, tags, screenshots, and more.

let's see what aniplex did for the steam page of mahoyo.

A tale told with vivid colors and rich sound in a classic TYPE-MOON visual novel.

I don't know how to describe this short description charitably other than to say it sounds like a person who's never heard of a visual novel has been tasked with describing a visual novel.

this tells me nothing about the game other than it's a visual novel. I hope you know what type-moon is, because if you don't then you've learned nothing else from this. alright, well, let's look at the screenshots—

there's only 1.

currently as of writing this, there's 10 images uploaded as screenshots (no trailers, they keep adding and removing the trailers for some reason). 9 of these images are just the full artworks from the game while 1 is an actual screenshot.

I really hate this, as you're not actually shown what the game looks like unless you look at the very last screenshot. this will absolutely lead to some people not understanding what they're getting into. what's worse is that some of these CGs are spoilers, especially one in particular featuring my wife touko.

why are we spoiling people instead of showing them screenshots? why not show people what mahoyo actually looks like??

there's also absolutely no use of the announcements section on steam. each game on steam can post announcements related to the game, including upcoming releases, new updates, and more. it's customary to post a steam announcement when a game has a release date announcement. mahoyo's steam page has none.

well they probably released the trailers in english for hype

I wish I had that much hope.

on mahoyo's english website, all of the videos listed are from the official type-moon youtube, which is their japanese channel. type-moon went through the effort to translate these videos. aniplex didn't upload these to their own youtube, where they already upload everything related to the fateverse and nasuverse.

searching up witch on the holy night brings up no results for the trailer—aniplex never uploaded the trailer to their channel.

maybe they got influencers to play it

according to steamdb, the max amount of viewers mahoyo streams have had on twitch was 71 viewers.

furthermore, if we check twitch and look for vods attached to mahoyo, we only find 4 videos total, all of which were posted in the past week. it looks like they didn't even reach out to streamers to play the console release, much less pay them.

over on the press side, it does look like they reached out to at least a few reviewers. for example, on the review by noisy pixel, they clarify that a review copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes. we can add that to the bare minimum of marketing—reaching out to press.

however, they did get for some other influencers to share the game! ...twitter game sale influencers, that is.

there's actually a lot more of these types of tweets for mahoyo than I was expecting when I searched it on twitter. as a friend pointed out, just because it says "#ad" doesn't necessarily mean these were paid for by aniplex—a lot of these links look to be referrals, which means they're getting a cut of any purchases.

let's recap

mahoyo released over 110k copies in the launch week for it's worldwide console release despite very, very limited marketing efforts from its publisher aniplex. now that the game has proven it can sell very well despite being a lesser known linear visual novel, aniplex has done no marketing for the steam release- no tweets, no influencer outreach, no localization of trailers, no announcements via steam, nothing.

so why?

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail?

even after all of this, I still do not know why. to me, it's clear that the marketing team at aniplex were (most likely) given no budget for this game and just couldn't do anything with it, deciding to spend what little money they had on press outreach and an anime NYC booth.

but why? why didn't aniplex give them a budget, even a small one? why was their budget so tiny they couldn't even afford to tweet? to RT more posts from the japanese twitter? to share the already translated trailers to their own accounts?

I've heard a few excuses like "type-moon hates western fans and probably caused it" but this doesn't make any sense either. why would you authorize a translation of your game and allow your publisher to sell the game overseas but specifically make them not market the game (and what publisher would agree to that)? I've even heard excuses like "they just forgot it was coming out", to which I ask "how does an entire marketing team (a company the size of aniplex absolutely has a team(s) for marketing and not a singular person) forget a release for a game that's already sold over 150k copies?". the only excuse I've seen that I somewhat buy is that they did not have much faith in the game and relied almost entirely on fans doing word of mouth marketing for the game.

I don't think we'll ever get an answer. while I do believe the marketing team at aniplex was most likely given no budget for mahoyo, it still begs the question of why. why did someone at aniplex not want to give mahoyo a marketing budget? why are the japanese accounts for mahoyo and type-moon the only ones doing the marketing?

I hope the information I've provided here is accurate—if it's not, I'll try to update with corrections. I don't want this piece to cast hate towards the staff at aniplex or anyone involved with this projects, I'm just trying to assemble the pieces on what feels like a game being left to word of mouth. I've tried to include as many links to my sources as I could so you could come to your own judgements about what has happened regarding mahoyo's worldwide release.

mahoyo is a visual novel that's dear to me and will absolutely sell well on steam—with an estimated 50-80k wishlists, it's going to have a solid launch despite the zero marketing for its steam release. if you love other type-moon works or want to see an absolutely visually stunning visual novel, please check it out.

— arimia

[bloodsuckerproxy]

Some info about my STNAF OC Lenny! Not a perfect list, just some ideas I had and kinda their dynamic :D

(I do plan on making a proper character sheet one day but I'm v busy)

Lenny considers himself masc aligned or maybe a demiboy? Like, he feels like a dude, but also something else. He really doesnt push the idea, just kinda dresses and does whatever he pleases :3

Lenny is a pretty chill dude overall. He's down to go blow something up or just cuddle on the couch. Regardless, he's probably with Friend because they're joined at the hip. The dude literally has a massive crush on Friend but is so chill he just kinda ignores it/doesnt realize lol

A punk (obviously) and loves to thrift or make stuff. He miiiiight go dumpster diving once in awhile and Friend will be there to pull his ass out

Smokes because him and Friend used to smoke in high school and he never stopped unlike Friend. Does wanna quit but kinda likes the "cigarette after sex" idea too much. Oh, and shotgun kisses <3

Usually likes mascs or men but would date anyone tbh. He's not picky

Likes to wear just his boxers around. Hates wearing clothes tbh

He does however like making clothes and upcycling so Friend and him always bounce ideas off each other

Doesnt get jealous easily and very naive. He sees flirting as a compliment or that it means nothing. Makes it hard on Friend since this dude is stupid af but he means well

Can come off as a little flirty, but he just likes being nice to people and is very genuine (plus his deep ass voice can be a lil sexy :P )

Friend and STNAF belong to @stnaf-vn

[ozzgin]

I hope one day u make an otome w ur yokai ❤️

The cast is definitely made for an otome setup, huh? I agree entirely! I've considered it, actually. I'm still missing Yuugiri's design and a more structured plot, but I would love to work on it in the near future.

Back in high school I really liked making small games in Ren'Py, but I never had anyone to share the results with. Now that I have an unexpected platform, I'm tempted to try again.

Currently - I was planning to keep it a secret until I have concrete mock screenshots - I'm brainstorming ideas for a Monster Hotel VN/Dating sim. More on that towards the weekend. 👀