The panel started a little late as the previous panel was a bit slow to clear the room. Before the panel, various sound tests were going on, including bamboo testing out the sound system by shouting out “moe!” Bamboo opened the panel using his English and then proceeded to name his nephew as translator (first of six interpreters in some weird musical chairs dance who attempted to translate for the panel). The main panelists were then presented — CIRCUS head tororo-dancho, CIRCUS illustrator Yuka Kayura, OVERDRIVE illustrator Shinji Katakura and finally OVERDRIVE president bamboo. MangaGamer translator John Pickett, also known as kouryuu on the web, started the main part of the panel from his script by introducing the panelists in my detail. However, as we heard from him later, the panel had already derailed from the script at that point.

Introducing himself as being from Saitama, near Tokyo, tororo-dancho said that he was producer, songwriter and president of CIRCUS. He also looked over and said that “John is very nervous” to much laughter. Next to be introduced was producer and musician bamboo, who represented OVERDRIVE and has made games such as the old Green Green as well as KIRA KIRA, Edelweiss and Dear Drops. He also sang the ending song for Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu to which someone shouted “Hideyoshi!” Unfortunately, both introductions were not translated into English, although there were English slides on the display.

Next up were the illustrator introductions. Yuka Kayura introduced herself as an illustrator from CIRCUS and said that some people remember that it’s her fourth year being at Anime Expo. She is also working on the currently-serialized Da Capo II manga adaptation and was the character designer for Otome from the original game. Shinji Katakura, no longer in ninja garb like he was last year (or during the first day of this year’s Anime Expo), then introduced himself as an illustrator from OVERDRIVE, having made games together with bamboo by illustrating them. At that point, bamboo said, pointing to Katakura, “we are yaoi!” Immediately afterwards, though, he corrected that “it’s joke!”

With the round of introductions done, the panel moved on to what bishoujo games were. However, after surveying the audience to see that a majority had already played bishoujo games, they decided to sum up the definition as being about “moe”, with bamboo asking the audience to shout “moe!” along with him. He then went on to discuss the situation with bishoujo games in Japan. He stated that there has been a big boom in these games, but they are being blamed for crime. He then stated that it was not the point of his company to cause violence or problems like that but rather for everyone around the world to enjoy their games, which are a little cute and sometimes a little erotic. Katakura interrupted him, though, saying that sometimes it’s cool to be the source of crime, like the Mafia. Tororo-dancho then continued by saying that many people discuss bishoujo games when a crime occurs, but they never discuss bishoujo games when something positive happens, like people getting moved emotionally.

Following a discussion on games in general, the panel then started introducing games released by MangaGamer from the different companies. First up was CIRCUS, with their Da Capo and Suika. The former was described as a romantic tale and the romantic things that you can find in everyday life. It was also the tenth-year anniversary of the company last November and the company focuses on making “pure love” games. The anniversary line took about three interpreters to translate correctly. Next was OVERDRIVE. Since kouryuu worked on these himself, he proceeded to introduce them. Edelweiss was touted as more of a “sexy” comedy than a romantic comedy, referring people to Green Green as being a similar title. KIRA KIRA was next, described as a game about a bunch of friends getting together and making a band and succeeding beyond all odds. He then said that it reminded him of shows like BECK and K-ON! and there were a lot of things in the game that were emotionally moving. Lastly, he stated that this is now the fourth year that OVERDRIVE has been in operation. Afterwards, bamboo wrapped up by mentioning the five games that they have released in Japan and then stated that he has apparently made more music CDs than games. Shinji Katakura backed him up by saying he has drawn more album art than game package art.

BaseSon was next to be introduced, as kouryuu talked about Koihime Musou and how it was based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms and that you are the only male with a face in the game, nudging the audience with that hint. He also said that this is the first game to feature real battles that must be won before the game can progress. After BaseSon, kouryuu started introducing Navel. Of course, he felt that no introduction for SHUFFLE! was needed. It was apparently the most popular game MangaGamer offers. An animated adaptation is available from FUNimation but kouryuu says that MangaGamer has something that FUNimation doesn’t have — the chance to end up with those girls. Next to be introduced was Soul Link, a survival game with lots of bad endings. Finally, a message was delivered from Navel’s president: “if you buy a lot, we’re going to put out a lot more of it.”

After summarizing their current releases, the panel then proceeded to invite a representative from the company âge as a special guest onto the panel. Kouki Yoshimune, scenario writer, mecha designer and director behind âge’s top hits Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and MuvLuv introduced himself using a very good impersonation of a foreigner trying to speak Japanese. He did eventually revert to his typical fluent Japanese. The âge representative was asked on the spot about whether they’d be interested in releasing their games with MangaGamer. His reply was a non-commital “if we have reason to, we will do it.”

Following this, the panel moved on to MangaGamer’s upcoming lineup. First, a July 29 release date was set for the final chapter of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, according to kouryuu and the script, although the slides had a different date. The panel stated that the previous chapter revealed all the mystery as to who was causing the incidents in Hinamizawa, whereas the final chapter delves more into that person’s character (although the panel leaked the gender of said character unintentionally). Next, Da Capo Innocent Finale was announced. Previously, it was said that the voice actor royalties were too high for the game, but it appears that MangaGamer has managed to finish negotiations for it somehow. The game will be an all-ages release, and kouryuu told people to find someone who’s not 18 to buy it. Kotori is the main character in this game, according to tororo-dancho, and the game covers the events before and after her wedding. Next up was Da Capo II. Tororo-dancho commented that he’s sure that a lot of people have probably watched it on YouTube or something, and that it is essentially a sequel to Da Capo but more like a powered up version. The reason he gives is that in Da Capo, you only have a little sister, whereas in Da Capo II you have a big sister (named Otome) in addition to a little sister. Yuka Kayura then commented that she had been doing sketches all day and that Otome was requested a lot. She’s very happy that Otome is loved by a lot of people and is thankful.

Following the Da Capo games, kouryuu talked about recent progress with Koihime Musou. He apologized for the delays involved in the release and stated that it was very difficult to make sure everything was consistent and that everything ended up in a high quality release. Areas of difficulty included terms for the attack names, Chinese places, formation names and nicknames used in previous translations of the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He states it’ll probably be out soon, but that he cannot give a date. Lastly, he announced OVERDRIVE’s Dear Drops as MangaGamer’s latest acquisition. This would be the second band-based main game released by OVERDRIVE in Japan. When asked about how it is different from KIRA KIRA, bamboo stated that the exposition is a lot more powered up, with live recordings used for the sounds in the game, adding that “of course, including the H-scenes!” Using that as a segue, bamboo moved on to talk about their latest project, Dengeki Strikers using as much hyperbole as possible.

In the final stretch before a question and answer section, MangaGamer broached the idea of an original game about studying abroad in Japan, since a lot of people haven’t gone to Japan yet (according to an impromptu poll of the audience). They hoped people would check out the game when it comes out and if it’s successful, more of its kind would be produced.

When asked about the currently empty comics section, it was stated that there will soon be some comics up — “H ones”, as bamboo put it succinctly. MangaGamer has apparently lined up a contract with a publisher for this. The next question asked the artists whether they would insert cameos of themselves or friends into the background art, since no one normally looks at them. The âge representative noted that they do insert cameos of characters from their previous games into their recent games, since their games are kind of related. Katakura said that he has also done the same and bamboo noted that he has heard before that someone has scribbled “Gundam” in the background before. He also notes that it is a very dangerous thing to do, since if Sunrise found out, the company would be in big trouble and could become bankrupt. It was compared to randomly inserting Mickey Mouse somewhere and trying to not get sued. Kayura stated that she couldn’t say out loud, but that she has and it’s a secret. The third question asked kouryuu about why he hinted at TYPE-MOON with his last hint on Twitter, to which kouryuu replied “you mean Azrael?” He then stated that by the time of the second hint, there were already a sizable number of people guessing TYPE-MOON, and that once he saw that a character in Azrael could see “death”, he decided to go with it. The last question asked if there are any plans to release Saishuu Shiken Kujira and why isn’t it as popular as their other games. As readers may remember, the trial version was translated by insani a while back, and this translated trial version was actually shown to CIRCUS back in 2007 during Anime Expo. Apparently, there is one good reason Kujira isn’t as well known, tororo-dancho affirmed — it is because people don’t like girls who don’t wear school uniforms. Thus, he stated that releasing this game would depend on a lot of other factors; they wish to release what’s popular first, and hinted that maybe this game will come up if MangaGamer becomes more successful.

As time was running out, Q&A was stopped short for the mini concert, held on the left side of the panel. First up was Aina Kase, and after introducing her self, she asked if everyone knew what “zettai ryouiki” was. She then commented that she loved zettai ryouiki and over-knee socks and got the audience to say “zettai ryouki” with her. Commenting on her success on getting the audience to say that phrase, she started singing. Her set consisted of “Kimi ni Tsuzuku Kiseki” and “Growing”. As soon as the first song started, a bunch of ardent fans with glowsticks ran up to the right side of the panel room and started wotagei-ing along. (Everytime a song stopped, they quickly ran back to their seats, and there seemed to be a slightly different set of people each time.) After the first song, she asked the audience if they knew what those guys where doing, stating that it was “wotagei” and that in Akihabara, it’s really common for otaku to clap and jump around with glowsticks. She concluded by saying that if people get a chance to visit Japan or if an artist from Japan comes to give a concert, that people should cheer them on using wotagei.

After Aina was UR@N. She ran out on stage in classical Japanese attire and introduced herself, stating that she came all the way from Japan to meet everyone and that it was her first time in the USA. UR@N then opened with the song “traveler”. After the song, she said that she did the vocals for the rock band in the game KIRA KIRA and that since it’s a rock band, she wanted everyone to stand up for the next song, which was the opening song of the game. At that point, the wotagei crowd ran up to the stage to cheer her on during the song.

With UR@N’s performance finished, rino (CooRie) was introduced next. She noted that it’s been four years since she has come to Anime Expo (she was a guest of honor back in 2006). She then introduced herself as a vocalist, composer and lyricist for the Da Capo series. She apparently also sang a song for Kimi ga Nozomu Eien under the MEGUMI name. She states that her career was built by and changed by bishoujo games and that she’s very thankful and want to sing with a lot of thanks to all the companies who supported her. Finally, she would like to take home to Japan everyone’s smiles. Her set consisted of the opening theme to the just-announced Da Capo Innocent Finale titled “IF: Kono Sekai de” and the ending theme to Da Capo Second Season titled “Akatsuki ni Saku Uta”. By the time the first song started, the glowstickers had already returned to their normal wotagei positions on the right side of the room.

Last up to sing was Minami Kuribayashi, who introduced herself as a singer and songwriter for anime songs in Japan. She also noted that she does voice acting as well. For Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, she sang the opening song and voice acted a role in the game. She also wore the school uniform from that game for the performance. Her set consisted of the opening song entitled “Rumbling Hearts” and the opening song to Chrono Crusade called “Tsubasa wa Pleasure Line”. The last song drew a lot of people from the audience to wotagei along.

After the performances were finished, the panel concluded with a prize raffle. When the prizes ran out, the audience demanded to have the cardboard box holding the prizes to be signed and raffled, followed by the box holding the raffle tickets. The panel finally wrapped up and asked the audience to buy more goods at their booth the next day and that they are talking to other game makers to localize their games in order to please everyone. At the very end, there was another “moe” chant.

UPDATE: Slightly more detail added to Yoshimune’s introduction and we’ve been informed that the final arc of Higurashi comes out on July 15 instead of July 29, and that the main MangaGamer webpage has the correct release date.

Soul Link is Project Navel’s second game release; it contains substantially much more text than its predecessor, SHUFFLE!, and is divided into three chapters, one for each main character. The game takes place on a space station in the near future and follows the protagonists as they deal with an attack made upon the station. There are many choices to be made in the game, and many end badly with the main character dying.

MangaGamer had once considered removing images of Nanami, one of the characters in the game, because she appeared under-aged and was nude in several scenes. However, they decided in the end to release the game with the images intact.

The translation in this release has an occasional spelling/grammar error here and there; for the most part, the quality of the translation is pretty decent and reads naturally. The font, however, is the usual Courier New font, which makes it sometimes a bit hard to read. As with MangaGamer’s previous releases, the game has been ported to BGI/Ethornell. However, this time, the opening movie has also been re-encoded for use with a DivX 5.0 video decoder and ADPCM audio encoder, reducing its size to around 40% of the MPEG-1 file from the Japanese release. It does not seem that Windows XP comes with DX50 support out of the box, so perhaps some users may have to download a DivX codec in order to play the opening movie. As usual, the opening movie has no subtitles.

UPDATE: A new version is available for download that addresses issues with activation. (2009/12/29)

UPDATE: We received an email from MangaGamer stating that six CGs “having an arguably underaged looking character naked” will be removed from the game release. The reasoning behind this was that “[they] don’t want to risk getting the law in the way of [their] future releases” and that “it was a difficult decision made under the current circumstances.” Furthermore, should this happen with future releases, “[they] will be sure to let you know before the release.” The email also states that no text was removed from the game. EvoSpace, a volunteer for MangaGamer, has posted clarifications on the CG removal, stating that they are all of Nanami, who is an unnaturally “underaged” character in the game. All future releases run the risk of having CGs removed for underaged characters, although previous releases will not be touched due to difficulty. He goes on to point out that:

There will be an actual person who will be imprisoned if this goes in the wrong way, and surely affect their future releases, and worst case this whole project will be gone. It is a risk they couldn’t take and it was a difficult decision for them as well.

SHUFFLE!, the first game released by Project Navel in Japan, is a romance visual novel with five heroines to choose from. The story takes place in a setting where gates opened between the human world and the “Devil” and “God” worlds. The main character goes to a school attended by people from all three worlds, and his life is turned upside down one day by the appearance of the princesses of the “Devil” and “God” worlds, all vying for his hand in marriage, while his long-time female childhood friend struggles to hold onto him.

This game features artwork from Aoi Nishimata and Hiro Suzuhira, and members of the team who worked on the production of this game originally worked on several hit titles from BasiL. This game spawned an all-ages adaptation for the PlayStation2, as well as drama and music CDs. Novelizations and manga adaptations were also made. However, one of the reasons this game is well-known outside of Japan may be the animated adaptations, the first of which has been officially licensed by FUNimation for North America. The game also has two sequels — one intended to take place after Nerine’s ending, featuring time travel, and one intended to take place after Kaede’s ending, featuring a game system very similar to Gyakuten Saiban, or Phoenix Wright as it is called in the states.

Plans to release the game in English were originally announced by MangaGamer at Anime Expo 2009. By that time, the first pass translation was mostly finished, and a translation check was finished shortly afterwards. The game has been ported from Project Navel’s original game engine to Buriko General Interpreter. As with other previous MangaGamer releases, the game uses Courier New, which is a very thin font and may be hard to read over the background. There is an option to make the background more opaque, but that cannot make the background fully opaque. The title menu is animated and the text engine seems to have some new features, such as the ability to change font sizes to fit longer sentences and the ability to apply italics to the font. There are some instances where the text is animated to add more effect to an exclamation. The game download comes with a PDF of translation notes, but translation notes also appear inline in the game, shown below the text in italics.

The translation appears to be quite up there in quality amongst MangaGamer’s other works and reads naturally for the most part, although there are cases where the diction is somewhat odd. For example, shuzoku (種族) was translated as “strain” and shiriai (知り合い) was translated as “associate”. There is also the occasional typo and mistranslation, such as when something along the lines of “I get this strange sensation that the melody that envelopes me is dissolving itself into the cells within my body, making me one with it” was translated to “My body is surrounded by her melody, and I feel strange feeling as if it is melting inside my cell.” In terms of style, honorifics and various nicknames were kept romanized, with inline translation notes to explain them the first time they appear. “Humans”, “Devils” and “Gods” are used as the names of the “strains” and capitalized. The romanization is somewhat odd at times, with お父様 becoming “Otoh-sama”. The translation isn’t as literal as some of the previous translations, and one good example is when あまりいちゃいちゃのんびりしてると予鈴鳴っちゃうわよ was translated into “Don’t take too much time, you lovebirds. The bell will be ringing soon.” Overall, the quality of the script isn’t too bad and is comparable to commercial subtitles for anime.