Compared to the earlier partial release, the group has put together an improved installer and fixed some errors that had been present. For the English patch to work, an existing Japanese instillation needs to first be updated to the 1.10 version using the official patch from Tarte. The English patch also requires the user to have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 libraries installed to run. Finally, after instillation the user needs to select the proper font as the system does not default to the font that was used for word wrapping.

Originally, a user by the handle “I failed jp302″ started the translation back in 2009, however he eventually concluded that he was in over his head. Half a year later, “Yeah321” decided to take over the translation and ended up finishing the game’s translation near the beginning of this year. “I failed jp302″ returned once “Yeah321″ showed interest in the translation to work as the editor, and a partial patch was released in April when editing was through the first two of the three story arcs in the game. Editing finished in July, and the team made it their goal to release the game during the month of August, a goal that they reached with the August 30th release.

Katahane is an adult visual novel with some yuri themes that was released by the now defunct Tarte in 2007. It takes place in a world with the Red, White, and Blue kingdoms, and is split into two stories told over three story arcs. The Shirohane tale takes place during modern times and follows the young playwright Wakaba as she writes a play about the now historical events that occur near the end of Christina’s reign, with a fresh take that contradicts modern beliefs about what actually transpired. As an interlude to this story, the reader is presented with the second tale, Kurohane, which goes back a few hundred years to the actual events that lead to the end of Christina’s reign of the White Kingdom.

With regards to a full release, the raw translation is actually complete at this time, however editing has been running slower than the translation and the progress of the editing right now is not too far past the end of this patch. Editing progress on the remaining last third of the game, which encompasses the second “Shirohane” story arc, is at roughly 9% at this time.

The translator for this game, “Yeah321”, has been actively translating other titles as well. She completed the translation for the third Sono Hanabira game not too long ago, which saw a release last month. Additionally she has completed the translation for the otome game The Second Reproduction. This title is now in a similar position as Katahane, being fully translated and waiting on editing.

Yeah321 is currently working on TLWiki with scripts of the trial version that were uploaded back when “I failed jp302″ began translating originally rather than scripts from the full commercial release of the game.  The tools that are being used at this time are not compatible with the full version of the game, and it remains to be seen whether or not this new translation project will continue onward past where the trial ends.

Shortly before “I failed jp302″ began translating Katahane, this title made the finals in Amaterasu’s last poll in November 2009, finishing twelfth in the preliminary poll, and finishing fifth in the final poll.  The fan translation group Wings of Yuri, who finished their translation of Aoishiro last year, originally made an attempt to get a translation started on Katahane back in 2008, however this never ended up taking off.

Katahane is an adult visual novel with yuri elements that was released in the beginning of 2007 as the last game created by the now defunct Tarte.  One of Tarte’s earlier titles, Hinatabokko, was a launch title for MangaGamer, who released it under the name Which girl should I choose? back in 2008.

Katahane is a tale that is split into two parts.  One tale, Kurohane, takes place a few hundred years in the past in a world with three kingdoms, the Red Kingdom, the White Kingdom, and the Blue Kingdom.  This is a tale that follows the events at the end of Christina’s reign of the White Kingdom.  Another tale, Shirohane, takes place in modern times and follows the young Wakaba as she writes a play that differs from the present day belief of the events that lead to the demise of the White Kingdom, and while writing this play she beings to search for the actual truth behind these events.

Aoishiro is the successor to SUCCESS’s Akaiito, a yuri-themed suspense novel game. Wings of Yuri previously released a translation of the trial version of this game, which we’ve covered previously. However, in order to properly translate the whole game, tools may have to be created, since right now all the insertion had to be done by hand.

For Katahane, the translation team does have access to some tools, but they seem to not work for certain cases. Source code and compiled versions of these tools are available, so people are encouraged to help out.

Katahane was the last game released by the now-defunct Tarte, and features two tales: Shirohane and Kurohane. Kurohane tells the tale of the cute little Coco, the beautiful Efa, the talented princess of the White Kingdom, Kristina Drun, and how their lives were entertwined in an atmosphere of intrigue and the colliding ambitions of the neighboring Red Kingdom and Blue Kingdom. Shirohane takes place several hundred years after the events in Kurohane and is the story of how a band of youngsters attempt to uncover the real truth behind what happened. The romance between the princess and Efa is featured prominently in the Kurohane chapter, and there is another yuri pairing in the Shirohane chapter. Furthermore, this game has the highest “lesbian” rating on ErogameScape, a community game rating site.

Tarte also released HinataBokko, released in English as Which girl should I choose? by MangaGamer. While its current parent company, Deal, is defunct, rights for its various properties seem to have been transferred to other companies. For example, a DVD-PG version of Katahane was released by Dennou Club recently, and they are now offering the PC version for download through DLSite.