Got any Hirameki International Interview Questions?

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Hi, everyone.

I’ll be doing an interview with Shinichi Shimura Head of the Tokyo office of Hirameki(I believe).

I have 10 questions prepared but if you guys have any questions you’d like to ask of Hirameki you can post them here and I’ll be sure to ask them…provided that the questions are appropriate of course >=)

I’d also like to introduce myself to the boards if it’s ok?

I’m James from Anime Advanced a news site dedicated to anime, manga, and now visual novels! In truth the site just recently opened up the visual novel section in early February.

We’re covering all of Peach Princess’ titles too but the 18+ Games section is not officially open yet because we need to get some kind of warning pop-up up to keep out minors. Although if you search hard enough you can find it. We’ll also have plenty of screens (literally plenty) for the currently released titles!

Also, I have an upcoming interview with Peter Payne too! Although I’m sure there aren’t any questions anyone here may have that he hasn’t already answered.

Deadline to get your questions in is this Wednesday. I’ll be sure to post the interview here when it’s done.

#2

Welcome to the boards, Mockingbird!

It’s good to hear visual novels getting some more exposure. I’ll take a look some time.

I really have only one question for Hirameki:
"For future games that have had the adult content stripped from them, would it be possible to release patches on the website to add them back?"

The platform they now mainly release visual novels for is Windows PCs, so the possibility is now there. It would keep the games rated as “Teen” in retail, and would offer choice to people that want the un-cut version. Mosaics or not.

#3

Interesting. Thanks for the opporutnity, Mockingbird. =) I’ve got a question I’d like to pose…

"Does Hirameki have any plans to release any specialty merchandise based on their current titles in the near or distant future?"

I hope the interview goes well, and good luck as your site begins to grow!

#4

Thanks guys! I’ve included your questions in the interview. This is actually just a text interview for now to acompany our visual novel section debut. I will have a follow-up interview at Anime Expo 2006 (at the beginning of July)

Hirameki’s replies are usually a bit slow though but when it’s completed I’ll have it up asap.

By the by, the new visual section of our site is coming along nicely. I expect that the 18+ game section will be ready for the end of the month (over 500 images!) and well have some cool downloads too. Ever 17 review is complete but I can’t put it up until the new scoring system is implemented. If you guys want to read the text w/o score though I can put it up for a week =) > Thanks a lot guys. I’ll post the questions I asked here either when Hirameki replies or on Wednesday. Whichever comes first.

#5

Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay with the interview questions. I expect the interview to be up sometime next week.

Also…

I finished uploading all the images for the 18+ games a few days ago and I’m working one some other reviews too. We’re officially opening the 18+ game section in May I believe when the site relaunches.

#6

"Hey Mockingbird.I have a question not about the interview but the website that just opened in February. What is the website & when do you think the 18+ section will be finished?"

Hi, and thanks for your interest in the site! The website is - http://anime.advancedmn.com

"when do you think the 18+ section will be finished?"

When 2.0 launches (Scheduled for May). 2.0 is a relaunch of the network that will bring some surprises and new features to the site.

Well…Actually, the 18+ section is already on the site so you can actually see all images we have for the titles here:

http://anime.advancedmn.com/medialist.php?view=&orderby=grelease&sort=DESC&section=&kywrd=%&grelease=&cnslid=8&pg=1

and all information regarding the titles here:

http://anime.advancedmn.com/games.php?view=&orderby=grelease&sort=DESC&section=&kywrd=%&grelease=&cnslid=8&pg=2

although only the 3 upcoming peach princess titles have any news information (gathered from this very BBS).

The reason why the 18+ section isn’t officially up is because we want to add 18+ pop up warnings for the titles to help keep minors out. None of the pics on the site have any nudity though.

Where is this convention going to be held at?

If it’s Anime Expo that you’re talking about then it will be held from July 1-4 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. You can see all Press Releases regarding the convention here:

http://anime.advancedmn.com/game.php?gameid=630

#7

Here are some new images:

Exodus Guilty Vol. 2 -Past- Cover: http://anime.advancedmn.com/media.php?gameid=699

Exodus Guilty Vol. 3 - Future- Cover: http://anime.advancedmn.com/images/media/EXODUS_Vol3coverimage.jpg

Animamundi: Dark Alchemist Cover: http://anime.advancedmn.com/images/media/animamundi.jpg

Will post interview when feature image is done. Just a bit…sorry.

#8

Hi everybody. Sorry for the delay. I’ve posted the interview up. I hope it’ll be a good read for you all. Any comments/feedbacks will be greatly appreciated.

Interview: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=2536

Also, I’ve temporarily posted my review of Ever 17 -The Out of Infinity-: http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=2539&pg=1&comments=

I’ll leave the review up for about 2 weeks and then delete it. The reason why it’s not up permanently is because we don’t have a scoring card for visual novels yet, and they won’t be introduced until the 2.0 relaunch in May (along with the 18+ section) unfortunately.

The review is basically done, but I’ll also be adding a links section in the last page. Page 4 will not make it to the final version of the review because all that info will be present in the score card. Each of the sections will receive a score and a final overall score will also be assigned.

Any feedback regarding the review will also be greatly appreciated! Thanks a lot everyone. I hope the visual novel section on Anime Advanced will one day be able to earn the respect of everyone here.

#9

I dismissed Piece of Wonder before, but the strategy elements and the glimpse of an elf are making me reconsider.

[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 04-08-2006).]

#10

Looks like sales of the PC line aren’t going too well. Doesn’t give much hope for the future.

quote:
Anime Advanced: For future games that have had the adult content stripped from them, would it be possible to release patches on the website to add them back?

Shinichi Shimura: Although that is a very interesting idea, Hirameki has no plans to handle any adult games, so I’m afraid we won’t be making any such patches.


Hmm… Even though they have mentioned KimiNozo before.
quote:
In addition, if we were to make patches like that, we would essentially have to make two versions of the game – an adult version and a non-adult version – which would frankly be very problematic in terms of cost.

I don’t think it’d be that big of an undertaking.
quote:
Special Thanks to Benoit and Elias of the Peach Princess BBS and also cxt217 of the Anime on DVD.com boards for some of the questions.

I’m mentioned!

Thanks for the interview, Mockingbird!

[This message has been edited by Benoit (edited 04-04-2006).]

#11
quote:
Hmm... Even though they have mentioned KimiNozo before.

They mean they don't intend to sell games in English that contain adult material. They are however, willing to sell them with the adult material stripped out (Day of Love for ex).

quote:
I don't think it'd be that big of an undertaking.

Well, I think more goes into creating a censored version than you'd think. You usually can't just delete the scenes. You have to change dialogue before and after the scene, and maybe even make alterations to the plot itself to delete any references to there being a sexual relationship. So to include an "uncensor patch" would require retranslation and scenario editing apart from the H-scenes alone. Also you create an additional problem--how can a game that includes adult material, even "locked", be given a teen rating? Even if you restrict access to the patch on the official site, it'd be easy enough to obtain the patch from unofficial sources, bypassing the rating system entirely. I don't think the ESRB people, and their proponents, would be pleased with that. To get around that you'd have the release the game in two separate versions, which Hirameki clearly has no intention of doing.

I think what Hirameki really wants to say, but doesn't care to admit, is that they don't want to be associated with adult material. Which actually doesn't seem so unreasonable, if they want to market their games as family friendly and open up the market.

[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 04-04-2006).]

#12

Cool. Interesting info, though I hate to hear that their sales aren’t hitting as high as they’d hoped (particularly for EVER 17, what with it being as good as it is). Still, one can only hope things improve! Thanks for the interview, Mockingbird. =)

#13
quote:
Originally posted by Elias:
(particularly for EVER 17, what with it being as good as it is).

That's actually not _THAT_ surprising for two reasons:

  • The news about the game (or rather its soundtrack) being defective came out rather quickly after the game was released and now, plenty of potential customers _may_ be waiting for a corrected re-print - I definitekly know I am among them.
    It is nice that they made a patch about the size of a CD, but if I would consider that acceptable, then I should first buy the 5 V-Mate-games and download the V-Mate-patches who are all together quite smaller than this one instead of waiting for the official announcement that all 5 games are reprinted with V-Mate being removed!
  • It may be only a vocal minority who asks for plot instead of sex. I think when G-Collections switched to more kichiku-ish games, I am sure they did it based on their surveys and sales-figures of the previously released games. In the beginning, they offered a little bit of everything and later, I saw a certain direction where their line-up was headed...

[This message has been edited by Unicorn (edited 04-05-2006).]

#14

They’ve been selling working discs for months - I got mine in January and it was fine. But I agree, the news of “It’s FINE now!” hasn’t traveled as widely as “There’s a huge problem” did. Even though I’m pretty sure there was an official announcement on the hirameki site somewhere to try and reassure people that all the bad discs were pulled and everything on sale is OK…

As for “plot instead of sex” - what with ALL their titles being non-adult, surely any effect caused by lack of sex would already have been compensated for?

[This message has been edited by papillon (edited 04-05-2006).]

#15

I check the site from time to time, and I didn’t see any announcement that amounted to “ZOMG folks! All the bad discs are back in HQ! No worries!”.

#16

http://community.hirameki-int.com/modules/weblog1/details.php?blog_id=30

It was mentioned when they made the Amazon announcement.

But, as I said, they still didn’t do the best job of making it loud and clear that the discs were OK.

(I’ve also suggested they post the demo versions of the games at typical demo spots like download.com - but do they listen to me? Sigh. )

#17

Yeah, I don’t think they even put an official announcement up on their main page that the discs had been corrected. I think it was just a forum post. Regardless, they did confirm that their shipments have all been updated with the corrected disc. I was among those who got the faulty disc 4, but I quickly recieved the corrected CD, so it wasn’t too bad for me, anyway. =)

Regardless, I can understand people holding off on EVER 17 if they didn’t know that the discs had been corrected, but for anyone who already knows enjoys these sorts of games, I think they’re doing themselves a disservice. Frankly, I can understand Ai Yori Aoshi not selling that well – it wasn’t exactly a captivating game, solely relying upon it’s popular liscence. But EVER 17 is one of those rare gems. It’s just disappointing to hear that it isn’t getting the attention I feel it deserves on this side of the lake.

#18
quote:
but for anyone who already knows enjoys these sorts of games, I think they're doing themselves a disservice

I haven't bought the game yet, and that's because have a backlog that I will try to get through soon enough.
#19

Pretty much the same here. I do intend to get Ever 17 eventually though.

#20

At least you both plan to play it. Besides, being backlogged is certainly a legit reason to wait.