2015 was a pretty good year for visual novels. There was a little bit of something for everyone, starting the year with a romance story in eden*, and closing out the year with a killer steampunk/fantasy title in Gahkthun, with everything in between. But it was also a year characterized by delays. If there’s one good thing about these delays, it’s that 2016 is going to be kind of insane! After a bit of a lull in January, we’re going to be getting big title after big title. Let’s take a look at the English releases we consider noteworthy in some way, both fan translated and official!

Everything in the following lists we believe has a reasonable chance of coming out this year. If there’s any amount of uncertainty, we’ll say so. In actuality, the large majority of these are almost certain to be released this year. But as we’ve learned from last year, delays can and will happen. Especially for the fan translations, unexpected circumstances can slow down or stall progress entirely, so set your expectations accordingly. Titles that I am personally most excited for are going to be bolded.

Charage:

The general catch-all label for low-concept character-focused games with heavy romance elements. Can include moe comedy, heavy drama, and other similar titles.

Story-heavy VNs:

Features high-concept storylines that are driven by but not dominated by its characters. May feature romance as a side element.

Gameplay VNs:

These are RPGs, strategy games, dating sims, and so on, all containing heavy VN-like elements.

Beat Blades Haruka – A sex-heavy RPG/raising-sim featuring modern-day kunoichi, and Alice Soft’s first official release in the west. Translation and editing are finished and testing is underway, MangaGamer wants to release this ASAP. (official page – NSFW )

) Bunny Black 2 – The second in this dungeon crawling series, the first was fairly popular among fans of dungeon-crawling VNs. Translation is progressing along rapidly, with a beta patch already released. (project thread)

Seinarukana -The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2- – Sequel to Aselia the Eternal, this is another strategy RPG featuring the clashing of the real and fantasy worlds. Translation finished ages ago and apparently JAST is in the final prep stages. They have been for like a year. Any moment now…

Otome and BL:

And now, a little something for the ladies (and certain men). Note: I honestly don’t pay much attention to these so I’m just winging it here.

Black Wolves Saga – Rejet’s popular political fantasy otome game. Translation and editing is already done and there’s just a little bit of TLC left. (project page)

Brothers Conflict – There are a whole lot of brothers. Like, a whole lot. A girl randomly gets thrown into the mix and chaos ensues. The “Passion Pink” version is currently 100% translated. (project page)

Ken ga Kimi – Another popular Rejet otome title, a supernatural tale taking place in Japan’s edo period. Translation and editing are nearly done. (project page)

OZMAFIA!! – MangaGamer’s first otome translation, a girl is thrown into a strange land and ends up under the protection of a mafia family. Translation is nearly finished at 92%.

Sweet Pool – From the makers of Dramatical Murder, another popular Nitro+Chiral BL game. Translation, TLC, proofreading is all finished, so it should hopefully not take long. (project thread – registration required)

OELVN:

Standing for “Original English Language Visual Novel,” for our purposes, this category will contain pretty much any VN that originates in the west. Note: See previous note.

Ryechu’s Nukige Corner

Many of you know may know Ryechu as the Fuwareviews boss. A few of you particularly naughty boys and girls may be familiar with his “Ryechu’s Nukige Corner” series of nukige reviews. As Fuwanovel’s foremost authority on all things anime porn, he’s here to share with us his profound expertise, giving us his thoughts on 2016’s nukige releases. [consider all links NSFW]

2015 was quite the year for nukige releases. On the Japanese front, the latest installment of the Sono Hanabira series released at the end of the year, and it is gorgeous. You also had a “touching simulator” that sparked a LOT of controversy (and decent discussion, on sites that allowed it) that was released by Shiritsu Sakuranbo Shougakkou. On the English front, we saw lots of great titles. From flagship titles like Euphoria and Starless to translations of lesser known titles like Ona-Ken!, Iinazuke wa Imouto-sama! (which still needs editing, but is pretty damn good), Lilium x Triangle (which Fuwanovel members Nosebleed, rainsismyfav (SPELLING?), and I worked on!), and Bacchikoi. There was something to scratch every niche itch out there. 2015 will definitely be hard to top.

2016 does have some promising titles already in production. Beat Blades Haruka, created by Alicesoft (of Rance fame), translated by Arunaru, and assumedly releasing sometime in the near future (the game is in beta testing according to their site), is a fantastic title that has what appears to be over hundred H-Scenes. Also on the Mangagamer front is Kuroinu, which also caters to a LOT of fetishes. Produced by Liquid, a company well-known for their nukige releases (some of which have seen English releases), this title shows a lot of promise, but the translation has been on the slow side, so we may not see this until late 2016, or maybe even 2017, unless progress significantly picks up. Similarly, JAST is still working on Bitch na Ichinichi. This title looks interesting, but with JAST’s hectic release schedule, and often the quality of their releases as well, I’m not going to hold my breath just yet.

Unfortunately the Rance stuff has been halted due the MG-Alicesoft agreement, so Rance fans may have to wait a bit before anything from that camp comes out. Also halted were the SonoHana projects in hopes that they will continued to be picked up. I’m looking forward to Washi TL’s Fan-TL of Hoka no Onna no Ko to H wo Shiteiru Ore wo Mite Koufun Suru Kanojo, since the world always need a bit more NTR. I’m also looking forward to getting to work on Immoral Little with Nosebleed, but I know he’s been busy lately, so I’ll be patient!

Clephas’ Top 10 most anticipated Japanese releases of 2016

Clephas is perhaps Fuwanovels most avid reader of Japanese-language VNs, voraciously consuming almost every genre. When he’s not reading, he’s sharing his thoughts on most everything he plays in his Fuwanovel blog. We asked him which ten Japanese release he’s most looking forward to.

Whew! What I thought would just be a quick one or two hour project turned into something much bigger. I hope you appreciate this preview, and perhaps found something new in the process. Keep in mind that these were the titles that I found noteworthy, there may be some I omitted that you would enjoy. Check out this list to see all currently unreleased but planned english translations, and this list for commercial OELVNs. Couldn’t fit ’em all, though! Shout outs to Ryechu and Clephas for contributing to the article, to Zakamutt for his helpful corrections, and to Tay for making the header image.

NOTE: Just prior to this article’s publication, otome translation group Golden Spirit has unfortunately been issued a cease and desist order for their translation of the Starry Sky series, and have also placed their other two translations, Black Wolves Saga and Ken ga Kimi, on “semi-hiatus.” These latter two titles have made our list, and we will keep them on it as it seems like the group may return to them at some point. We wish Golden Spirit the best in their endeavors.