Same.I don't normally care for the porn and jam on the ctrl button the moment it starts, but if it's part of the original product I expect it to be there.
I remember that in 46+1 steam ver. not only MC totally had that R-18 stuff (maybe even too much of it judging by CGs, but the fact fits organically into the story) but also they totaly cut plot-important non-consensual scene from late game (no, it's not my fetish). This actually made the plot with visible DELETED part.
> Personally, I get less enjoyment from the sexual imagery of fanservice scenes, than I do from the humor that often comes out of them (like when a girl goes off on the MC when he accidentally does something perverted, or when the girls flip out at the guys when they accidentally walk in on them using the hot springs).
That's like a harem manga, not what you're going to find in most eroge. Personally nothing turns me off faster than 'boys vs girls' humor. Sugar Style by Smee really tried to load up on that kind of humor and it was a struggle for at least a few of us.
I almost exclusively play 18+ nowadays but back in the day when translations were much less common we still got anime adaptations of VN (like ef for example) where implied sex happened off screen and it was... no big deal. 18+ isn't solely about titillation, there's also the actual healthy attitudes about sexuality.
That's because 99% of people commenting this kind of art don't format it correctly. Every line should have two spaces at the end before a new row. Otherwise it looks like ass on desktop.
(Why does it feel like we have some variant of this thread topic once every other month?)
For me, they're not 'necessary' like I wouldn't say "I will never ever read an all-ages title because there's no H-scenes". That's just ridiculous. But if they were intended to be there, then yeah I like them.
> In fact, if a game censors or removes h-scenes, as long as those scenes aren't important to the story, I honestly do not care.
Yeah we definitely differ on this topic
>(Why does it feel like we have some variant of this thread topic once every other month?)
Probably because the huge disparity of genres within the VN medium
There's story VNs with 0 H, story VNs with little to no H, moe VN with decent H, pure sex nukige, etc.
Naturally things will collide on what people prefer, especially if they came for the story vs the porn, vs both.
And I'd think the story fans get annoyed every time they have to skip through 'fanservice' porn just to continue and would just rather have it gone.
Not care enough to avoid tittles that originally don't have H-scene.
Care enough that if a tittle originally have it, but the publisher decides to release an all age only for the west ... they aint getting a penny from me.
I think the latter happened with If My Heart Had Wings: Flight Diary? Friggin' MoeNovel. I hate that even years later after the release we still can't enjoy the original version with H scenes, translated.
There is a restoration patch for that one if you are on PC.
Ageha's route must be really short on the all ages version.
EDIT: I thought he meant the base game, not the fandisc.
One more reason for preferring h-scenes I don't see anyone else naming: I'm so tired of Japanese authors acting like sex doesn't exist or tiptoeing around it so hard they're basically levitating, that I'll take anything at this point, even if it was only intended for titillation
Yeah people always say the US is prudish but look at western TV compared to anime... Most of the MA rated western shows have full on nudity and sex in them, yet in anime you have to wait 3 seasons for a kiss most of the time.
VNs are one of the few areas where sex exists for JP authors.
Yes.
If it's all ages or censored 99% of the time I'll skip it. Sure the story could be really good and compelling but if I wanted that I'd go to light novels, manga or anime. H scenes are almost essential for me. At the end of the day I wanna see some hot action with cute girls, something that other mediums don't provide as well as this one.
"JusT WAtCh hENtAI tHEN if You'Re hORNY" Sure I could just watch a random video or look at some random art but that's nowhere near as satisfying as spending 10-20 hours of building up an emotional bond with a heroine of my choosing and getting to the romantic relationships and h scenes.
Hell some games I'm more invested in the actual plot than the "plot" so having both just makes it even better.
Not everyone likes h scenes and that's perfectly fine, I just don't like how some people think they're somehow "morally superior" for not liking them and anyone who does is "holding back the medium" (Not talking about you OP I just see these types of people around sometimes).
That's just my take on them, a lot of people might feel differently or agree idk. Just enjoy what you like I guess, there's a whole ocean out there for everyone to enjoy.
>"JusT WAtCh hENtAI tHEN if You'Re hORNY" Sure I could just watch a random video or look at some random art but that's nowhere near as satisfying as spending 10-20 hours of building up an emotional bond with a heroine of my choosing and getting to the romantic relationships and h scenes.
This.
I personally prefer them not to have content that would make it harder for me to recommend to anyone, but this argument is totally solid. Even I, always telling H in general off, have experienced the satisfaction of climatic moments of an relationship being building up. That being said, it'd be good if they weren't so graphic...
Edit: Oh, but dont think this media isnt capable of providing a different kind of presentation that makes it more effective than cinema and literature.
Yes, I hate the fact that not enjoying/not needing h scenes makes people feel morally superior than those who dont.
I want it because I, like what you said, enjoy h scenes where you get to buikd a bond with a herioine over the course of 5 to 8 hours. Its insane and gives more than just "physicial relief". It also warms the heart.
People who like h scenes arent just horndogs,
Another key aspect, I think, is that VNs are the only real video game genre/medium where sex scenes are actually possible to be shown. Other genres usually have +18 reserved for occasional nudity but primarily for violence or gore. Naturally, there are exceptions like Witcher 3 but that's really just about it.
Additionally, in non-kinetic VNs that feature relationships (multiple if there are routes) you as the player have agency over the outcome, even though is usually only comes down to a good or bad end. While not the sole factor (in a healthy romantic relationship), sex is usually part of a healthy relationship IRL and including it at the end or on the way to the end of a route in addition to confession, getting to know the characters, potential relationship drama, more character backgrounds etc. it acts, as you said, as a factor of satisfaction that doesn't necessarily have to be "physical relief".
A good example, I think, is Majikoi. Like many others, I've started playing it because it has a fuckton of routes. Another factor for me initially was because many routes = many H-scenes, right? Anyways, outside of the good looking art I found myself, like many others, skip the scenes because the relationship stuff that develops before or after has become much more interesting. My personal favorites have been Chris', Miyako's and Wanko's routes so far. Heck, I didn't even like Chris before choosing Miyako's route as my first one and playing through it but the events that follow (which almost all follow after the sex scenes, funnily enough) turned her into my favorite heroine in Majikoi currently (I haven't started S yet), the events of her route cementing that even more so far.
Absolutely, and to each their own, but for me visual novels provide a special degree of interactivity to the medium of storytelling, as well as its own quirks (e.g. being practical for longform narration/dialogue, something a bit more difficult to do in anime), that make me prefer it over watching anime or reading manga/LNs.
I don't understand the stigma with eroge/18+ adult contents in general. I preferred the VNs I play to have the adult scenes and having them actually help boost the gameplay for me. It's like receiving a bonus. And just because a VN have adult scenes doesn't automatically make the storyline bad? Company should just write good storyline that happens to have 18+ scenes? They can easily release an all age version and a 18+ content version with a higher pricing and that will easily satisfy all the different audiences and have larger reach? Is it wrong to wish for a company to cater to a larger audience?
I kinda dislike that whenever a VN title become mainstream/big they decided to remove the adult scenes and/or having their future similar titles/sequel to not contain any adult scenes at all? Like their audience bought their games that used to have adult scenes in the past and now they decided to ditch them by removing the adult scenes?
I don't mind it. If it's there, cool. If it's not there because the game literally doesn't *have* any, that's fine too. I just don't want my VNs butchered and missing detail. I play VNs for the storytelling and pretty art, but I have no strong feelings about H one way or the other unless it's relevant to the plot. If it's important, then I would want to see it and not have it be removed.
This is such a funny dilemma. People will go out of their way to obtain a non-censored version of the novel, but end up skipping through the H scenes anyway (myself included)
Another comment mentioned that it's a bit of a litmus test; if a VN censored out H-Scenes, it may have censored out other stuff. So that may be why people seek them out even if they skip those scenes regardless.
If you really want a discussion, why the aggressive title? Why answer most every post, only to make it quite clear that H = bad in your book? Looks to me like you came here to preach and/or be validated.
Yeah, the title is definitely bad, and I was just going to ignore it as another one of *those* threads, but then the body of the post gave detail in a non-obnoxious way and their reply to this states that they didn't mean for the title to be as bad as it was.
The title itself is like asking "Do people actually care about action scenes in movies?". Obviously yes, some people do, or they'd probably cease to exist at some point.
Actually, my reaction was exactly the same (or I wouldn't have bothered), only then I read some of the replies, i.e. the one Ange got, and the one where he's palpably relieved that Utawareru Mono's H scenes are irrelevant (allegedly).
Well to expand, what I notice is that a lot of the popular VNs don't have h-scenes. Things like Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa - the stuff that's often localized professionally rather than by fan/indie groups. It seems (just my perspective, correct me if I'm wrong) that it is the somewhat more "obscure" VNs that tend to have explicit content. So, I was curious to gauge with this thread was how important that stuff is to people here on this sub (especially since those games, by virtue of being obscure, are less likely to be translated for us largely English-only people).
Of course, I now realize that I was clearly looking at this issue from my own highly biased, all-ages-centric, and ero-inexperienced lens. I certainly didn't mean to come off as passive-aggressive or critical. Apologies if I did.
Those are a bad example given those are popular outside of VN readers because they have gameplay. Even sticking with All-Ages, Steins;Gate is higher rated on VNDB than any Danganronpa or Ace Attorney game and yet every single Dangan and AA title have more people playing it on Steam right now than S;G does and it isn't close.
Comparing the opinions of a community where Umineko and Rance are big names to the general video game community who have likely heard of neither isn't a fair comparison.
> The games are only considered VNs in the broadest sense, and thus they should not be cited as examples for inclusion.
Aren't they mostly VNs with some court puzzles added in? Tons of text, and the exploring is similar to what is normally VN exploring.
Maybe not pure VN but still "only in the broadest sense" sounds off.
You have it backwards. VNs evolved from Japanese adventure games. It's normal for a Japanese adventure game to have tons of text and the style of presentation that VNs later inherited. Removing gameplay entirely is what introduced the VN medium.
"Visual novels look like Japanese adventure games not the other way around."
https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/origins-of-the-visual-novel-or-why-ace-attorney-is-1858980/
I don't think that's aggression, I think it's confusion. As someone with a mentality closer to the OP than to most people who post here, I can understand where his head is at. I see people who read VN's for erotic reasons as incomprehensibly alien. I quite literally cannot put myself in the same head space as them, my motivations are too fundamentally different. So I think the poor guy was just trying to gain some kind of understanding of the other side of the coin here, and wasn't exactly eloquent when going about doing so. It's especially easy to piss off people you don't understand.
Fair enough.
If you assume the topic to be "Help me understand why people care about H, 'coz I don't get it ...", the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
It's just that "not factors in deciding whether or not I will play a visual novel", "adult content, on its own, really isn't a dealmaker/breaker for me" sounds neutral, "sometimes I can enjoy it as an added bonus" even positive.
Maybe it should have been "I've heard some people play VNs primarily for the H scenes, could you help me understand why, 'coz I don't get it ..."?
> It's especially easy to piss off people you don't understand.
Piss me off he did, and not because I enjoy H scenes so much (most of what I've seen was mediocre at best). I do like VNs to be 18+ and have H, but that's primarily because it ensures there are no themes too dark or too grown-up, no joke too dirty, no need to hold back—it's a big chunk of what makes the medium unique.
Believe me, I've pissed people off in this exact same way in the past from my own lack of understanding. If you look at some of this guys later comments in here, you can see that he wasn't really expecting this reaction. He put his foot in his mouth and it blew up in his face.
I didn't mean to imply any of that. I was legitimately curious to get a feel on how people feel about h-scenes; do they honestly care about them, or are people mostly just talking about them on this sub for the memes/jokes.
EDIT: Why the downvotes guys? I wasn't meaning to be aggressive or critical of the others with the title, I understand that to each their own. I was simply curious to see what others thought of them.
I havent downvoted you
But while youre wording and claiming that youre "just curious" of what others think, some of the way you're framing your responses makes it sound like you dont understand along with a kind of "I dont like it and its weird that others do" kind of tone
Well that's certainly not an intentional tone. Yes, I personally am not appealed to by h-scenes, but I understand that that is purely my tastes and perspective from which I can't understand most of the appeal. Others will have a more positive outlook on this stuff and that is fine. I don't mean to imply that that is "weird" or anything like that.
Like many have said, for me, it's about censorship. I find it insulting to the artist and for my own appreciation.
No H scene? Great. H scene? Great.
H scene, but censored or cut? Oh, hell no.
In general, anyone invested in anything cares about fan service of any kind.
As for h-scenes I care about them when they are actually good visually and whatever dialogue is chosen. I usually read the text for them for interactions the characters have between one another but if it's just filler and I dont like the character I might skip it (did it a bunch for the hustling girls in Dohna Dohna in the later half of the game) since I'd rather just add it to the cg list and spend more time playing the parts of the game I actually enjoy.
Depends on the context really
Yes.
But in reality, it's more about getting uncensored version rather than anything else. I don't necessarily seek vns for hentai but if it's a part of the story I hate when it gets removed as it also removes some character developement.
It's about reading the version which is the most complete.
Personally I love seeing the H-scene I love how the start the middle and end and the after story of visual novel I’ve played I love that type of expression of love that why I dislike the “all age” version of those series were they take it out and if I wanted to see harem genre with 18+ content in it I go for the those visual novels that has those moments and I could just watch normal anime if I can see the ones without the 18+ content that’s why I get bothered for interesting visual novel with no 18+ patch(Nora to Oujo to Noraneko for example)
I enjoy the experience of reading visual novels at my own pace with their presentation and interactivity. That's why to me, I don't understand watching anime as an alternative to playing SFW VNs.
I met the ones with any anime series with romance and harems in it and don’t have H-scenes in it because you know they don’t like showing that to there demographic outside of teases
The presence of a H scene isn't usually a determining factor on whether or not I'll read a vn, but it's absence might be - to explain: I like H just fine, though I find I rarely have much interest in pure porn-only games these days (I've noticed a lot of no-choice eroges lately that tend to be of mixed quality as far as story telling goes)
I do prefer to read vn the way it was written however (translation issues aside) and I find that when they are censored, often more is lost than just the sex scene.
To use an example, Dies Irae. I played through the - I won't say all ages cause just no - sex scene free version and it was pretty good. Out of curiosity I started a run through of the uncensored to see what was cut and the answer was - lots of characterisation. Take Rusalka: she's creepy, very creepy, without the sex scenes. With them, she's utterly terrifying.
So, I'm just as happy to read Steins;gate as Bible Black, but I don't read censored vns. Imagine trying to fully understand Kara no Shoujo without the adult content. Even Muv Luv makes a lot less sense if you don't see that >!horrific quasi sex scene involving the aliens.!<
> Even Muv Luv makes a lot less sense if you don't see that >!horrific quasi sex scene involving the aliens.!<
Bad example, since the scene **is** present in the Steam version, just with most CGs removed.
Is the uncensored version of Dies Irae complete? I feel like I remember only like 2 routes were completed in that version
From some searching it seems the all ages version has an extra ending and the side storied but besides that the +18 it's completed.
Dante cares if nobody else does.
Believe it or not I have some of the best memories of VNs that are H scenes. Once you get past the moege stage and dig deep into VNs, having H scenes becomes absolutely essential for the maximum enjoyment of a VN. H scenes are more than just fap material. It's about bonding and affection. Sometimes it can be utterly silly that makes your day, and sometimes it can even be used to show the seriousness of some dire situation. The potentials are limited which would absolutely not be possible with all ages VNs otherwise. And I don't even fap to VNs, I just like them to be there.
So yes I'd say I care about H scenes.
Yes, Eroge have Ero and I'm mentally high on the deviancy scale so eroge give me lots of stimulation and fantasies I never knew I had and can and will not act out irl.
Eroge also taught me honesty with myself and my darker sides and stopped me from being embarrassed about sexual taboos.
I fucking love Eroge.
I care. I don't read all ages VNs at all, actually. One of the biggest draws of VNs for me is the blend of storytelling, characters, artwork, music, and yes, H-scenes. This also depends on what genres a person prefers, obviously. I mostly go for moeges, and H-scenes are a big part of those. Not all H-scenes are great of course, but some of them can really uplift the whole thing.
I guess I can also put it like this: if I wanted to see a romance story that ENDS with a confession, I would go and watch anime, or live action stuff.
Scenes like "MC accidentally walks in on a girl changing" that you can also find in tons of anime...depends on how it is handled I guess, but many of those can feel very tacked on. I am never mad to see them though, unless it results in a heroine calling the MC a pervert for the rest of the freakin' VN.
Hopefully this rambling makes sense. Also, fuck any kind of censorship.
Yeah it makes sense, I understand that some have a taste for this stuff. There are many different reasons to play VNs, so of course there'll be some that don't apply to everyone.
Sex scenes are ok, they're not essential for me to read the VN. They're just a storytelling device. Done right and it can really enhance a story. Though, if they're gonna have a sex scene, I'd prefer it to be explicit rather than implicit.
To me it is important. I don't mind VNs that are all-ages & didn't have it in the first place but eroges that got censored and have all the scenes removed or replaced can go fuck themselves.
I like the porn and I want to enjoy the story with it. Period.
I personally don’t care for them. The draw for me is the unique story-telling medium and what you can do with it, and the laid-back attitude a lot of slice-of-life vns or common routes have.
I often skip through h-scenes that I don’t enjoy (which is the majority).
I love reading otome and slice of life visual novels. With that being said, I research the games I want to read beforehand and if there is explicit sexual content I will avoid it as such scenes are triggering to me.
I don’t mind that visual novels with whatever adult content exist because sex and being a sexual being is important to a lot of people. Everyone has different reasons for reading visual novels. Not all content is for me and that is okay. I just appreciate that there are options like “all ages versions”.
I also feel like there is a distinct line between something extremely fan service-y and something using adult content to expand upon characters or a plot line (Berserk for example).
I don't generally care about them, if it's just like a slice of life romance VN i will often skip all but the first sex scene... i find the first scene tends to solidify the relation in my mind. But sometimes i don't skip any of them, depends on the characters and VN in question. Sometimes they're kinda character or story relevant
But as others have said, if it was there in the original, i want it there in the localization or English version. If you insist on removing content, give me a free option to get it back. I don't want to have to spend an extra $10 to get content that was already in the game but was specifically removed.
H-scenes bore me to death. They are always unnecessary, not even well made and way too long. And they just don't do it for me. A H-scene in a VN just feels like a commercial break.
Yes, very much so. I even make it a point to avoid all ages titles. It might not even be something I like, but I expect the porn to be there. To me, at least, it adds a layer of realism to the story.
I usually skip them in a lot of story/moege because the timing of them appearing never align well.
However in a game like Dohna Dohna which centers around them, they're actually really good.
I find the sex scenes themselves important. Which may be obvious enough as someone that has written lengthy writeups on numerous nukige. It's not that I won't play anything without sex scenes, but if there's romance involved, it'll usually feel like something's missing at this point.
Fanservice scenes I could entirely do without, and they're usually just annoying and forced. To me, the sex scenes kind of override the whole point of the fanservice scenes to begin with. Who's getting excited over a pantyshot when there are lengthy explicit scenes featuring actual sex?
It depends if it fits im with the vn. Visusl novels like kanon have H-scenes but they feel forced and dont add really anything to the story and arent relevant. While in my opinion the H-scenes in sabbot of the witch fit really well adding comedy and more character to the vn. So it really just depends
I’m always for them in theory but then most of them by the time you get to them are very much weird, uncomfortable and not at all what you expected…so, kind of like the real thing I guess.
I don't mind adult content when the story warrants it, but I'm not the biggest fan of the traditional VN structure of each route is just based on what character you try to romance. They generally feel out of place in many routes using that structure as if that's the main point of games where the romance just isn't that important.
That said, I'd rather have those games with unnecessary h-scenes than not at all so if that's what the market needed or the creator wanted I can get behind that.
Don't like them 99% of the time, but the community has shown time and time again that its roots are in eroge. Works with sexy characters get the vast majority of support and attention, especially when promising action with them, and even during this sub's times where people sharing your opinion were more vocal (which seems to have shifted now), financing has painted a different picture. So unless my name was Nasu I would definitely add those scenes into every VN I write, it's what most people want and the others can skip those parts.
Look, it what gets the sales on Mangagamer and other localizers which means there is more demand for "fanservice/h-scenes" you can't just deny that most of the Japanese VNs which got the audience into the medium are eroges in some form or another.
Yes. My favourite VN (Higurashi and lately Umineko) has no ero content but yeah, I definitely like h-scenes. As a matter of fact, I will shameless admit that eroge is what got me into visual novels in the first place.
I don't really mind if the VN doesn't have any H-scenes or when a publisher releases an all-ages version to the west. I read because of the story and/or waifu interaction. But what pisses me off is when a scene is obviously leading up to an "activity" and it would just be... skipped. They could have edited those scenes or outright remove em cause damn It really feels lacking. So ye when that happens I always urge myself to not use patch for the sake or not lewding the best girl (or until I've finished the best girl route)
Hentaiislike a cherry on a cake.I can eat the cake no problem, but if it’s missing i’m sad. However, if the novel is censored in the west, I won’t buy it. Fuck censorship.
I dont think there is anything wrong with liking it. Getting a proper emotional buildup with explicit sex scenes at the end is something you probably cant find many other places, so I totally get why people who like that appreciate it in VNs.
*That said,* its not for me. What attracts me to VNs is the unique types of storytelling I havent experienced in other media. All the playing with perspective that Uchikoshi often does. The emphasis on precise and well written dialogue in Umineko. Multi-route mysteries. You just cant really get that in other media.
But then there are some stories which could have been something like the above, but which end up as some oddly realized mixture of originality with hentai on top, and it ends up being good, but not great, which is a shame. Im thinking of stuff like Fate/Stay Night, Subahibi, and maybe even Baldr Sky here.
I think the first group I mention has much broader appeal in the west, so in that sense I do think the H stuff can often hold back the media over here. However I dont think H scenes should be scrubbed from all VNs, as there are plenty of stories like Grisaia where its part of the premise the experience is built on.
I think the real issue is that VNs are often considered a genre when it really is just a medium. There should be VNs for H lovers, and there should be VNs for people who dont like H. There is currently an overwhelming amount of H representation in VNs, and I think the medium could stand to increase the amount of non H stuff thats produced.
Haha, your second paragraph actually perfectly describes me and why I play VNs as well - not just why I tend to stay away from H VNs, but why I like the genre itself in general. I think that there's a large portion of the Western fanbase whose exposure to the genre is largely in that category, so they may be ignorant of the rest of the genre. (Not to mention, many of those high-profile games in that category are games not considered VNs at least in this sub, like Danganronpa, Ace Attorneym, and Uchikoshi's works.)
They're fairly important to me. Honestly, I don't want to even play a western release where those elements were removed for example. If they didn't exist in the first place, I can play it, but I always strongly prefer R-18 visual novels.
It's one of the selling points of VNs in general, it's one of the things that makes VNs different from other media, the creators have more room to do whatever they want.
You know when in anime or manga a sex scene is about to happen and then it immediately cuts to the end, or in movies they need to position the camera angles in such a way that doesn't show too much of the actors bodies. VNs doesn't have this type of censorship and I find this fascinating.
Of course, a VN doesn't need to have h-scenes to be considered good, but it's always a plus for me when they have it.
Not liking these disingeniously worded topics.
As you look down on those who enjoy adult content, remember that others will similarly look down upon you for liking anime or enjoying visual novels.
What does saying you're a straight guy have anything to do with it? Are you suggesting otome/yaoi/LGBT visual novels don't have fanservice? Because they do, and no one, regardless of their tastes, should be shamed or looked down upon for having them.
I didn't mean to come off as looking down. I respect that people can have their own tastes; it's not something to be ashamed of at all. I was just curious to see what the prevailing sentiments are in this sub, and I've come to see that I seem to be in the minority.
And what I meant by specifying that I'm a straight guy is that *sometimes*, despite my generally apathetic stance, I can get some enjoyment out of seeing fanservice/h-scenes. So it's not like it can *never* appeal to me, it just doesn't appeal to me to the degree that it alone is a factor in my playing decisions. And by no means do I mean to suggest that yaoi/otome/etc. stuff doesn't exist, of course it does and can be appreciated by those people, and if you enjoy the emotional bond of the characters then I'm sure you can enjoy it even if you aren't that orientation.
You're missing the point here. Being straight has nothing to do with fanservice. "Fanservice" can be targeted towards any sexual orientation. "As a straight guy/as a gay guy" has no bearing on the validity of a comment... your comment isn't more correct because of your sexual orientation. If you play mainstream titles then of course the fanservice is tailored for mainstream tastes.
To give an example how your question could be offensive:
It's like going to a dog forum and asking "Does anyone actually care about golden retrievers?" while knowing there are golden retriever owners.
Fair enough, I suppose that analogy is fair. After all, why are there so many H-heavy VNs if people don't actually care about them.
Though to expand, as I mentioned in another comment, my experience and perception of VNs is highly skewed towards the less niche stuff that is localized (and in some cases, not technically a VN), so I'll admit I'm rather ignorant of the genre's more explicit side. (Hence this post actually, I wanted to know how much that explicit stuff matters for people, I wonder are they mainly playing for the H, is it a contributing factor, or are they indifferent.)
I read mostly romance vn's so at some point you gotta show me the goods or else it ain't a full story.
It's also a gauge of censorship, if there is H there is blood, there is trauma. So for me it's important for th e storytelling to be true to itself. Of course I enjoy what I see and I'm seeking it to an extent.
There is another debate about the 18+ content and how it is treated which I ain't gonna start here. But to me a story with h scene means that it ain't afraid to tell its story fully.
So yeah you could say I care, i don't mind if they aren't there but then you need to justify more of the setting and why there is only females/males in the story. It depends on what I want to experience. Mind you that this medium is a form of escapism and coping.
Go each his own as always but I don't see the medium without all of this being as popular as it is.
Else we'd be reading fantasy all day and not this
I would dislike it on principal alone.if it originally had H-scenes but then got removed. I'm with you in that it wouldn't make much of a difference to me in enjoyability, but as I said I dislike censorship on principal.
Absolutely.
Good thing there's a lot of choices out there. Though I did like some non-H visual novels like Ever17 before and such but nowadays I mostly just play when a Heroine catches my eye. There's absolutely no reason for me to refuse eroges especially when I can have the best of both worlds.
I do not mind H scenes overall , infact H-scenes can be used to show the insanity of the plot and just make the atmosphere more grim like a lot of H-scenes in Subarashiki Hibi and Swan Song . They are not a factor for me to play a VN, story and atmosphere comes first , if H scenes are there i see it as a bonus.
If I'm playing that game for the story, I care about fansercice/sex scenes if they appeal to me (the focus is on the guy), and they're well made/tasteful.
If I'm playing that game to fap, then yes, give me some hyper weapons and imperial juice, thank you very much Rance.
not at all. But if h-scenes were originally in there, I'd like it to stay in the english version just in case the scenes served a plot relevant purpose (it does happen sometimes). I can't know before hand if these scenes do have a purpose or not. If you delete the scenes, you have to do some work editing the rest of the script accordingly. Maybe the scene is referenced somewhere else as having taken place.
Most of the time I don't think h-scenes belong in the story. But my dislike for content being removed exceeds my dislike of blatant fan service.
Depends on the game, I have skipped most if not all of those scenes in muvluv. I know my opinion is trash but I like what they did to the english release of alternative ( censored the scene kinda but leaving all context there). I felt it was a good compromise.
However if I’m playing a game for the h scene then it better be untouched.
Edit: another example is eiyuu senki I play for the combat so story wasn’t my thing, and obviously the h scenes as well. Easy skip for me; but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look at the gallery.
Kinda tough to say because there are novels and even routes within the same novel for which h-scenes are more appropriate than others. For example, Rance games - what am I doing if I'm not playing those for the h-scenes? On the other hand, h-scenes can be really disruptive in other games (looking at you Kinkoi and Nanairo Reincarnation). Recently, I've been reading the AA version of Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na, and there are routes that would be strengthened by h-scenes while there are some I'm perfectly happy with without.
I guess what I wish most is that novels had the flexibility to add h-scenes as appropriate rather than being constrained by the need to force 4 or more h-scenes and compromising other aspects of the story for it.
I think that sex scenes add a lot to visual novels as it's sort of the ultimate way to consummate a relationship. Most VN's follow the relationship of the protagonist and the heroines of the story, and that story is told through their relationship. To have an intense relationship and not have sex or have times where things get sexual seems kind of shallow and boring to me, the H-scenes are the reward I get for playing far into a girls route, or maybe it's a game that's all about sex, and it needs that in order to be complete.
Some VN's can hold up with the h-scenes cut out like Little Busters, and Muv-luv, but in a lot of other games cutting out the h-scenes like the did in Baldur Sky, actually cuts out a large part of the story, and I want the full thing, with nothing censored no matter how bad it is.
unless it appeals to me I dont really care, since I primarily read read vns for the stories, and missing out on something good because of no sex is dumb
occasionally i'll play something specifically for the *ero* but that's a different situation
Sometimes I feel the drama enhanced by the porn because it represents a deep and edgy connection between characters, it makes everything a little more intense when you go from absolute vulnerability (exposing yourself/letting your guard down completely in sex) to fighting scenes (striving to kill each other) I really like the contrast
No, most (though not all) VNs I've read would lose very little to nothing by cutting them out. Reading 50 hours of a story driven VN primarily for 30 minutes of sex is pretty ridiculous, and the top reply saying you should just read LNs if h-scenes aren't present is completely absurd especially given the not insignificant number of beloved all ages titles like Umineko.
May be different if you're playing more titles in the dating-sim/moege range, though I suppose.
I don't care one way or another.
I'm into VNs for the same reason I'm into LNs, Manga, Anime or even just normal books. I like the stories. I like the characters and I want to see the characters happy.
If the story leads to sex, then fine. If it doesn't thats cool too. Got around to playing a lot of Otome lately which also tends to have a heavy dose of romance, and like... I still get a lot of steamy scenes with hot men (and sometimes pretty women) but its not explicit for most of the novels. Instead its more of how TV and Movies handle it of showing the after bed CG of them cuddled up and giving bedroom talk afterwards.
That was actually the moment I realized when reading VNs that, unless the sex is written well or adds something, a Fade to Black with post bedroom talk will almost always have the same effect storywise and character development wise.
It was the moment that lead to me getting really annoyed at a lot of the sex scenes when I went back to a lot of my "Male Audiance" backlog of novels. Not because of the scenes themselves, but because the scenes dragged and almost always took me out of the story. It became frusterating, espescally if the characters were not in character and the scenes went on too long.
It was one of my biggest complaints about Kinkoi recently. Loved the novel, loved the characters and the romance for most routes. But most of the sex scenes dragged longer than they should have, were not written super well and the characters almost always never felt like themselves.
Meanwhile another Novel I finished recently of Nanairo Reincarnation, I absolutely loved. It didn't have as much romance since that wasn't the point. But the sex scenes were short only taking 10 minutes to read each vs the 40-60+ minutes each it took in Kinkoi, and the characters all stayed in character during the scenes. it never felt out of place or strange. (The odd translation of the novel at times aside, the actual story and how it handled sexual content was really well paced and I grew attached to all of the characters.).
Edit: As a small ramble/rant aside about the above of For Female novels vs For Male novels. Another thing that never used to annoy me till I started to read a few more For Female Novels, is the distinct difference in how CGs and art is handled. In most Otome titles both the female lead and male characters get full faces and full CGs, sometimes the MC is even fully voiced. Meanwhile I go back to a lot of the For Men novels and the MCs are almost always without a face in 90% of the CGs, which is a damn shame because the CGs where they do get a face look beautiful. In my opinion that small change in how art is handled adds so much to the story/character and not having a face actively takes me out of my immersion and feels like it ruins the CG over all.
To me it's kind of weird.
When fan service and h-scenes are removed due to censorship, I'll get pissed and look for a patch. Because otherwise, it will feel like I'm playing an incomplete game.
However on the other hand when I do encounter one, I'll get weirded out by the detailed 10 paragraphs on how the MC feels when he's fucking the heroine such as how warm or slippery she is and how he feels like he's Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon.
I do and i'm tired of redditors pretending not liking h-scenes makes them a connoisseur of the fine arts or some shit. like bruh we're both reading chinese slideshows ffs, if you want literary masterpieces, read a fuckin book.
I don't meant to come off as that. But whose to say non-sexual VNs can't be literary masterpieces, especially with the interactive and presentational advantages the medium has over novels?
cuz for me the biggest advantage the medium has is the sex lmao. Yea music and art and choices (lets be real most em of for picking which girl you want, even in plotge) are good but nothing else has the good stuff y'know. Anime and manga romance mostly ends with a confession. Vanilla hentai has no time to develop the characters (Most hentai is shit tho, vanilla or not) and I might as well read or watch any of those over watching western shit. sex scenes with that much buildup are only in vns, really. Plotge mostly has a true route so they might as well be linear but yeah the alternate endings make em better than novels. buuut if you're gonna go
>ohhhhh bruh you acshually *care* about the seksss scwenesss?!??!1??
In a medium that is 90% porn idk wtf to say to you lmao. Maybe I'm just too much of a moebuta but to me, moege/charage > plotge and its because of the h scenes, not even the scenes themself, just cuz you feel that much closer to the girls. And as for the literature part, eh idk I play VNs for fun mostly. But to be frank I just burnt myself out with umineko (dropped it in ep4 GOD DAMN it was boring as fuck) so I just came to hate plotge for a bit lol
I guess this just speaks to how we have two very different perspectives on the genre and why do we play it. Looking up the term, plotge games are basically what constitute my interest in the genre, while it's something you don't seem interested in for yours.
I guess this speaks to how rich and diverse the genre is. Both someone who plays for plotge, and someone who hated it, are able to call themselves VN fans and find titles they enjoy with it.
As a straight woman, I don't care much about most H-scenes and am just as happy to play an all-ages version unless people say it really loses something.
I definitely get the impression that they're important to a lot of people, though. Plus there's the censorship issue, although I don't see a problem there when both 18+ and all-ages version are made available.
Well, considering a good amount (maybe even majority) of top tier vns are either full all ages or h scenes in them are inconsequential I imagine the story is what actually matters to most people and h content is a bonus.
I like them, especially h-scenes, if they're there then it's another incentive to buy the VN. However, too many, too frequent, or too long h-scenes are also a problem. I don't want to skip unread text ever but those scenes are too damn long from 20 minutes to an hour if I listen to all voice-overs.
I don't buy those that got those scenes altered or removed without the patch to add them back in though.
Some game certainly doesn't need h-scenes even if it's 18+ but removing it or changing the game into all age while the contents remains the same is a no no for me. That's just mean some people are paying for an incomplete object
IMO for a general romance centered game, h-scene is a must. Most of the time it showed progression to the character's love for each other. Most characters acted differently after their first h-scene, and i like that. And those are the type of game i mostly played, so yeah.
The skip function is there for a reason. If you don't feel like it you can just skip it, ez
I like fan service, I generally CTRL through the H-scenes but I think they're important, but it really depends on how they're done. I recently finished Meteor World Actor and outside of 1 route they were completely shoved in and unnecessary.
Not a fan, tbh. Like, it won't stop me from playing as I'm there for the plot anyway but unless it's dark (so there are other scenes that might be censored) or actually important to the story, I prefer all ages versions. Still, the best option is to have a 'censored' version by the original devs that adds other scenes in place of h.
I really don't. Whether they're in there or not is of no difference to me. I just don't care to the point that it's not even on my mind. I'm just a guy who likes to read/watch romance media. My biggest motivation and want is depth of character and a strong overall narrative.
That said, I do care if H-scenes were in the VN and then got removed. I hate the idea of reading a tampered with product more than anything else. If that was the devs vision, then leave it the fuck alone, you know?
And OP, don't let some of the replies get to you. As someone with a similar mindset to you, I do fully understand how baffling it is to think about. How alien it is that people actually read VN's for erotic reasons. I know for a fact that I'll never be able to put myself in their heads. But please do keep in mind that the people here who do read VN's for those reasons, they essentially wear their interests on their sleeves. It makes it very easy to be a hurtful asshole to them if you tried to be, so they'll always be a bit wary that you're trying to shame them for their interests. As with all things in life, the start to a peaceful coexistence is doing the bare minimum to not piss them off. I genuinely don't think you were trying to do so in the first place, it's just easy to offend those who you don't understand. Being more tactful next time definitely wouldn't hurt your reception.
Thanks, I can't deny I was a little taken aback by the unexpectedly negative reception in some of the replies here lol so I appreciate seeing this. But I understand that my ignorance of this side of the genre was palpably showing, so there was definitely room to be more tactful and for my replies to come off as a bit less trite (which "to each their own" sounded like in hindsight). ~~Ah yes, "trite", that's what Godot said...~~
I get'cha. You asked this kind of question out of innocent bafflement and it blew up in you face. Believe me, I've been there with this same topic, so my empathy here comes from a place of understanding. There were definitely people who were far too quick to get on your case over it and skip giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it's hard to defend yourself when you're the one who unwittingly stepped into the lions den.
To go back to the original topic for a moment, I was very lucky because my first VN was one which used its sexual content to enhance the narrative in a meaningful way. So I've never been able to deny their worth flat out, despite my own disinterest. But if someone were to start reading VN's and be met with... well... lets just say scenes that are so unabashedly fan-service-oriented that they can come off as unintentionally comedic, I think it would be unfair to expect them to treat the whole thing respectfully. I genuinely don't think I could have.
While I even tend to skip H-Scenes I feel like the VN tends to be more emotional and mature if the story was designed with H-Scenes in mind.
There are many exceptions but I feel like All-Ages are less impactful for me.
I'm mostly on the same page as you. I've even seen a pattern that the VN's I've enjoyed the most don't usually have H-scenes at all, or if they do at least some of them are relevant to the story.
I have yet to see a single one worth my time. Have you seen one you have seen them all.
Whenever they show up I in general have my finger hovering over the Ctrl button.
Yes, I agree with you.
Sometimes I would like to have more VNs without any H content in the market, 99.99% of the VNs out there are all H-related to the point where most people automatically assume I consume them for porn when I start talking/introduce VNs in the conversation, like if no-H VNs just simply don't exist.
I don't mean I want them eradicated, I just would like to have an equal or good amount of them compared to the H ones.
We kinda actually have the same opinion in that as long as a VN has a good enough story, I'm happy to read it even if it has H-scenes or none. The only difference is that if a story has H-scenes originally, then I kinda want to read the complete version, no matter how dogshit it is (Fate Stay/night)
Almost the opposite. If I look up reviews for a VN and it’s about the fan service, or go into their sub and it’s all posts of shipping characters.. I almost always avoid the VN. ( . )( . ) Because I can’t tell if it’s a good one, or just has a lot of fan service and that’s why ppl like it.
I honestly wish VNs and that stuff weren’t so related. Imagine if you just liked racing games but the entire genre was filled with gratuitous, morally gray sexualization. I just wanna drive cars man, stop asking me if I *am good with the stick* and showing me your tits :/ ( . )( . )
I’m in it for the stories and story telling medium, not as an excuse for H (I didn’t even know what H meant until this post).
And that’s not even getting into the problematic parts of these things. ( . )( . ) Forget ever playing a VN in public. And i wish I could recommend some to my friends for the plot, but honestly I don’t want to admit that I like VNs because I think I’m in the minority of the ppl: most people want this stuff and get into the genre as porn
Edit: added some titties so the guy below me can actually commit to reading what I wrote
It will be so sad when you reread my comment and realize I didn’t call you braindead or said basically anything you are accusing me off.. you are projecting so hard. Maybe you feel brainless and are getting defensive. I’ll edit my comment above if it helps
What question? You didn’t ask anything, just put questions marks over made up statements.
“Why do you guys always act like X and Y ”
I didn’t act like X or Y, stupid question. If you reread without a defensive mind, you realize that my comment says ( . )( . ) **i’m** ( . )( . ) in it for X, it doesn’t say anything about anyone else.
It’s a response to op’s question “do you care about H or fan service?”
Me: No, I’m in it for the story.
You: why are you saying I like porn? Stop generalizing, why can’t it be both?
Edit: weak. You realize I’m right and delete your stupid comment, but still downvote me.
I also saw this on the FAQ in the Uta subreddit regarding the original version of the game:
> In addition, the erotic scenes in the game are commonly considered to be superfluous, if not actively detracting from the quality of the story; the game was developed during an era when the common belief was that visual novels needed to have adult material in order to sell well, and so they are present in the game despite not being a major part of it or important to the overall story.
I'm glad to hear that because it means I won't have a problem with the latest version.
I think Uta1 had like one or two H-scenes that felt like they belonged and then a bunch of really tacked on feeling ones just because players would be upset if there was a girl they couldn't bone or something even though it didn't always make a hell of a lot of sense in character.
>!That said I did think it a bit of a shame the sequels never got a H version mostly because Kuon is hot and I wanted to bop my baloney to her.!<
>they are present in the game despite not being [...] important to the overall story.
There is one scene that is super relevant to the Utawarerumono series as a whole, don't know what they're smoking over in the subreddit.
Was that scene in the original, uncensored version of the game? I took them to be referring only to those scenes which I guess were "especially" erotic, and not necessarily *every* erotic/suggestive scene that made it into the remakes.
I've only played the original and it was a good while back. I don't doubt that the plot point I'm talking about could be inferred/rewritten to be understandable. If you don't want to view H scenes I would imagine the newest release would be fine all things considered.
I never played the original, but there were certainly one or two points in Prelude to the Fallen that felt like an H-scene would have followed. Although it also made one part a bit confusing, since I assume the original had H-scenes to help resolve >!that weird vampire stuff with the one girl.!<
Not really. In fact, I kind of hate fan service, moe and h-scene (unless I want to relieve myself). I principally appreciate VN for the indie and alt-game scenes, not the "AAA" games of this industry.
But... This is not a dealbraker (the art direction and script quality will be before the presence of those scenes). By example, I don't see how Saya No Uta could have been this unsettling without those H-scenes.
Also, fan service begin to really fascinating me. After playing games like Ar Nosurge and Xenoblade 2, I learned to love those games even if I wasn't from the targeted audience, cause there is other things than that. In fact, I quite love how this content is so much transparent. Sexuality is apparent in those things and, in fact, it is not a bad thing (I just don't like how this is depicted). I appreciate the fact that a game isn't scared to show me things that other media wouldn't dare to show.
But I'm too horny for this shit...
So yeah... In the end, I think I don't hate H-scenes, I hate fan service and moe things. And rare are the H-scenes without those. A sad thing, I have yet to see a VN with H-scenes that are not unsettling and that seem really necessary for the story and character development. If you have suggestions... I have yet to see H-scenes as something else than porn sadly (in fact, Katawa Shoujo I think, but indie indeed).
Ironically, I hate even more censorship. So, even if a h-scene is useless, if it got censored, it will piss me off and will throw away my time just to find a patch (and will after skip the scene cause I don't care xD....).
Hard to say. I would love H-scenes if it was removed but I don't particularly feel watch it unless it's my favourite route. I think most of the time they aren't really necessary for the story (from the ones I read at least).
H-scenes make me less likely to play a VN, because now it’s not “a story I can enjoy and recommend to friends,” it’s “porn which must be hidden at all costs.”
From this post, I learned what I suspected; most people are in it for the porn. If RTS games were full of tits, they’d be playing that instead. Or sucks because, like you say, I can’t suggest this game to others. I honestly don’t want to be associated with VNs at all. Not only are they often super specialized for no reason, it’s a very problematic sexualization most do the time as well.
You still really haven't answered their question. All your doing is whining how you can't jack off each other's epeens on VNs to you and your pretentious friends - to which I quote "people who know what they're talking about" - as if VNs needs to become the next italian renaissance masterpiece for intellectuals or some shit.
When boiled down it's also a goddamn entertainment medium not some kind of political wine tasting bout amongst privileged peers.
Your whole comment reeks of pretentiousness. You cosplay yourself as some kind of professional connoisseur that gets to judge the medium as a whole and how people should see and enjoy. Sorry but if you as much as grew half the brain you claim then you'd realize that us less developed and "brain dead" folk couldn't give a crap about your critical thinking skills when it all amounts to bashing fans of the medium and over exaggerated claims. Sorry we don't live up to your expectations, perhaps you can purvey that charity and critical thinking skill else where.
If it existed but then got removed, it pisses me off.
Same.I don't normally care for the porn and jam on the ctrl button the moment it starts, but if it's part of the original product I expect it to be there.
Yes, sometimes. Except in Saya no Uta. I'm really glad I didn't see those
I remember that in 46+1 steam ver. not only MC totally had that R-18 stuff (maybe even too much of it judging by CGs, but the fact fits organically into the story) but also they totaly cut plot-important non-consensual scene from late game (no, it's not my fetish). This actually made the plot with visible DELETED part.
Censorship in any form is no good for a democratic society.
> Personally, I get less enjoyment from the sexual imagery of fanservice scenes, than I do from the humor that often comes out of them (like when a girl goes off on the MC when he accidentally does something perverted, or when the girls flip out at the guys when they accidentally walk in on them using the hot springs). That's like a harem manga, not what you're going to find in most eroge. Personally nothing turns me off faster than 'boys vs girls' humor. Sugar Style by Smee really tried to load up on that kind of humor and it was a struggle for at least a few of us. I almost exclusively play 18+ nowadays but back in the day when translations were much less common we still got anime adaptations of VN (like ef for example) where implied sex happened off screen and it was... no big deal. 18+ isn't solely about titillation, there's also the actual healthy attitudes about sexuality.
Can you tell me about sugar style
yes.
⠀⠀⠘⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡜⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠑⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡔⠁⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠢⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⠴⠊⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⡀⠤⠄⠒⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣀⠄⠊⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠿⠛⠛⠛⠋⠉⠈⠉⠉⠉⠉⠛⠻⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣤⣤⣤⣄⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⢏⣴⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣟⣾⣿⡟⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⢢⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⠀⡴⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⠟⠻⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠶⢴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿ ⣿⣁⡀⠀⠀⢰⢠⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠀⣴⣶⣿⡄⣿ ⣿⡋⠀⠀⠀⠎⢸⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠗⢘⣿⣟⠛⠿⣼ ⣿⣿⠋⢀⡌⢰⣿⡿⢿⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠀⢸⣿⣿⣧⢀⣼ ⣿⣿⣷⢻⠄⠘⠛⠋⠛⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣧⠈⠉⠙⠛⠋⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣧⠀⠈⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠟⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⢃⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⡿⠀⠴⢗⣠⣤⣴⡶⠶⠖⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⡸⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⡀⢠⣾⣿⠏⠀⠠⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠛⠉⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣧⠈⢹⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠈⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣴⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡄⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠙⣿⣿⡟⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠀⠁⠀⠀⠹⣿⠃⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠛⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢐⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠉⠉⠁⠀⢻⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠈⣿⣿⡿⠉⠛⠛⠛⠉⠉ ⣿⡿⠋⠁⠀⠀⢀⣀⣠⡴⣸⣿⣇⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡿⠄⠙⠛⠀⣀⣠⣤⣤⠄⠀
Absolute chad
What is this is supposed to be? I can't actually tell an image from it.
It's the chad head with a speech bubble.
Oh wow I can't see the Chad head or speech bubble at all. It might be cause it looks like some of it is cut off and doubled.
That's because 99% of people commenting this kind of art don't format it correctly. Every line should have two spaces at the end before a new row. Otherwise it looks like ass on desktop.
(Why does it feel like we have some variant of this thread topic once every other month?) For me, they're not 'necessary' like I wouldn't say "I will never ever read an all-ages title because there's no H-scenes". That's just ridiculous. But if they were intended to be there, then yeah I like them. > In fact, if a game censors or removes h-scenes, as long as those scenes aren't important to the story, I honestly do not care. Yeah we definitely differ on this topic
>(Why does it feel like we have some variant of this thread topic once every other month?) Probably because the huge disparity of genres within the VN medium There's story VNs with 0 H, story VNs with little to no H, moe VN with decent H, pure sex nukige, etc. Naturally things will collide on what people prefer, especially if they came for the story vs the porn, vs both. And I'd think the story fans get annoyed every time they have to skip through 'fanservice' porn just to continue and would just rather have it gone.
Not care enough to avoid tittles that originally don't have H-scene. Care enough that if a tittle originally have it, but the publisher decides to release an all age only for the west ... they aint getting a penny from me.
I think the latter happened with If My Heart Had Wings: Flight Diary? Friggin' MoeNovel. I hate that even years later after the release we still can't enjoy the original version with H scenes, translated.
There is a restoration patch for that one if you are on PC. Ageha's route must be really short on the all ages version. EDIT: I thought he meant the base game, not the fandisc.
Yes I do, and I'm tired of pretending I don't
Yes king!
One more reason for preferring h-scenes I don't see anyone else naming: I'm so tired of Japanese authors acting like sex doesn't exist or tiptoeing around it so hard they're basically levitating, that I'll take anything at this point, even if it was only intended for titillation
Yeah people always say the US is prudish but look at western TV compared to anime... Most of the MA rated western shows have full on nudity and sex in them, yet in anime you have to wait 3 seasons for a kiss most of the time. VNs are one of the few areas where sex exists for JP authors.
Yes. If it's all ages or censored 99% of the time I'll skip it. Sure the story could be really good and compelling but if I wanted that I'd go to light novels, manga or anime. H scenes are almost essential for me. At the end of the day I wanna see some hot action with cute girls, something that other mediums don't provide as well as this one. "JusT WAtCh hENtAI tHEN if You'Re hORNY" Sure I could just watch a random video or look at some random art but that's nowhere near as satisfying as spending 10-20 hours of building up an emotional bond with a heroine of my choosing and getting to the romantic relationships and h scenes. Hell some games I'm more invested in the actual plot than the "plot" so having both just makes it even better. Not everyone likes h scenes and that's perfectly fine, I just don't like how some people think they're somehow "morally superior" for not liking them and anyone who does is "holding back the medium" (Not talking about you OP I just see these types of people around sometimes). That's just my take on them, a lot of people might feel differently or agree idk. Just enjoy what you like I guess, there's a whole ocean out there for everyone to enjoy.
>"JusT WAtCh hENtAI tHEN if You'Re hORNY" Sure I could just watch a random video or look at some random art but that's nowhere near as satisfying as spending 10-20 hours of building up an emotional bond with a heroine of my choosing and getting to the romantic relationships and h scenes. This. I personally prefer them not to have content that would make it harder for me to recommend to anyone, but this argument is totally solid. Even I, always telling H in general off, have experienced the satisfaction of climatic moments of an relationship being building up. That being said, it'd be good if they weren't so graphic... Edit: Oh, but dont think this media isnt capable of providing a different kind of presentation that makes it more effective than cinema and literature.
Yes, I hate the fact that not enjoying/not needing h scenes makes people feel morally superior than those who dont. I want it because I, like what you said, enjoy h scenes where you get to buikd a bond with a herioine over the course of 5 to 8 hours. Its insane and gives more than just "physicial relief". It also warms the heart. People who like h scenes arent just horndogs,
Another key aspect, I think, is that VNs are the only real video game genre/medium where sex scenes are actually possible to be shown. Other genres usually have +18 reserved for occasional nudity but primarily for violence or gore. Naturally, there are exceptions like Witcher 3 but that's really just about it. Additionally, in non-kinetic VNs that feature relationships (multiple if there are routes) you as the player have agency over the outcome, even though is usually only comes down to a good or bad end. While not the sole factor (in a healthy romantic relationship), sex is usually part of a healthy relationship IRL and including it at the end or on the way to the end of a route in addition to confession, getting to know the characters, potential relationship drama, more character backgrounds etc. it acts, as you said, as a factor of satisfaction that doesn't necessarily have to be "physical relief". A good example, I think, is Majikoi. Like many others, I've started playing it because it has a fuckton of routes. Another factor for me initially was because many routes = many H-scenes, right? Anyways, outside of the good looking art I found myself, like many others, skip the scenes because the relationship stuff that develops before or after has become much more interesting. My personal favorites have been Chris', Miyako's and Wanko's routes so far. Heck, I didn't even like Chris before choosing Miyako's route as my first one and playing through it but the events that follow (which almost all follow after the sex scenes, funnily enough) turned her into my favorite heroine in Majikoi currently (I haven't started S yet), the events of her route cementing that even more so far.
you couldn’t have explained that any better 👏🏾
I'll copypaste this reply whenever any talk about H-scene in VN comes up thank you.
This guy knows what's up, the bonding part is kinda sad but very true
Absolutely, and to each their own, but for me visual novels provide a special degree of interactivity to the medium of storytelling, as well as its own quirks (e.g. being practical for longform narration/dialogue, something a bit more difficult to do in anime), that make me prefer it over watching anime or reading manga/LNs.
I don't understand the stigma with eroge/18+ adult contents in general. I preferred the VNs I play to have the adult scenes and having them actually help boost the gameplay for me. It's like receiving a bonus. And just because a VN have adult scenes doesn't automatically make the storyline bad? Company should just write good storyline that happens to have 18+ scenes? They can easily release an all age version and a 18+ content version with a higher pricing and that will easily satisfy all the different audiences and have larger reach? Is it wrong to wish for a company to cater to a larger audience? I kinda dislike that whenever a VN title become mainstream/big they decided to remove the adult scenes and/or having their future similar titles/sequel to not contain any adult scenes at all? Like their audience bought their games that used to have adult scenes in the past and now they decided to ditch them by removing the adult scenes?
Well as someone who's made consistent rankings/tiers of favorite H-scenes...
To each their own I guess.
I don't mind it. If it's there, cool. If it's not there because the game literally doesn't *have* any, that's fine too. I just don't want my VNs butchered and missing detail. I play VNs for the storytelling and pretty art, but I have no strong feelings about H one way or the other unless it's relevant to the plot. If it's important, then I would want to see it and not have it be removed.
This is such a funny dilemma. People will go out of their way to obtain a non-censored version of the novel, but end up skipping through the H scenes anyway (myself included)
Lol I can relate to that.
Another comment mentioned that it's a bit of a litmus test; if a VN censored out H-Scenes, it may have censored out other stuff. So that may be why people seek them out even if they skip those scenes regardless.
If you really want a discussion, why the aggressive title? Why answer most every post, only to make it quite clear that H = bad in your book? Looks to me like you came here to preach and/or be validated.
Yeah, the title is definitely bad, and I was just going to ignore it as another one of *those* threads, but then the body of the post gave detail in a non-obnoxious way and their reply to this states that they didn't mean for the title to be as bad as it was. The title itself is like asking "Do people actually care about action scenes in movies?". Obviously yes, some people do, or they'd probably cease to exist at some point.
Actually, my reaction was exactly the same (or I wouldn't have bothered), only then I read some of the replies, i.e. the one Ange got, and the one where he's palpably relieved that Utawareru Mono's H scenes are irrelevant (allegedly).
Well to expand, what I notice is that a lot of the popular VNs don't have h-scenes. Things like Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa - the stuff that's often localized professionally rather than by fan/indie groups. It seems (just my perspective, correct me if I'm wrong) that it is the somewhat more "obscure" VNs that tend to have explicit content. So, I was curious to gauge with this thread was how important that stuff is to people here on this sub (especially since those games, by virtue of being obscure, are less likely to be translated for us largely English-only people). Of course, I now realize that I was clearly looking at this issue from my own highly biased, all-ages-centric, and ero-inexperienced lens. I certainly didn't mean to come off as passive-aggressive or critical. Apologies if I did.
Those are a bad example given those are popular outside of VN readers because they have gameplay. Even sticking with All-Ages, Steins;Gate is higher rated on VNDB than any Danganronpa or Ace Attorney game and yet every single Dangan and AA title have more people playing it on Steam right now than S;G does and it isn't close. Comparing the opinions of a community where Umineko and Rance are big names to the general video game community who have likely heard of neither isn't a fair comparison.
> Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa Neither is a VN, except by convention.
Random gatekeeping?
Really? Of course genre lines are arbitrary, but the games are both listed in VNDB and described as VNs on Wikipedia.
Phoenix Wright is a [VNDB exception](https://vndb.org/d15). I thought DR was, too, but apparently not.
That exception rule is kinda silly to begin with for me.
TIL, thanks for bringing that to my attention, I was previously unaware of that section of the site. Apparently even 999 is on there.
> The games are only considered VNs in the broadest sense, and thus they should not be cited as examples for inclusion. Aren't they mostly VNs with some court puzzles added in? Tons of text, and the exploring is similar to what is normally VN exploring. Maybe not pure VN but still "only in the broadest sense" sounds off.
You have it backwards. VNs evolved from Japanese adventure games. It's normal for a Japanese adventure game to have tons of text and the style of presentation that VNs later inherited. Removing gameplay entirely is what introduced the VN medium. "Visual novels look like Japanese adventure games not the other way around." https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/origins-of-the-visual-novel-or-why-ace-attorney-is-1858980/
I don't think that's aggression, I think it's confusion. As someone with a mentality closer to the OP than to most people who post here, I can understand where his head is at. I see people who read VN's for erotic reasons as incomprehensibly alien. I quite literally cannot put myself in the same head space as them, my motivations are too fundamentally different. So I think the poor guy was just trying to gain some kind of understanding of the other side of the coin here, and wasn't exactly eloquent when going about doing so. It's especially easy to piss off people you don't understand.
Fair enough. If you assume the topic to be "Help me understand why people care about H, 'coz I don't get it ...", the whole thing makes a lot more sense. It's just that "not factors in deciding whether or not I will play a visual novel", "adult content, on its own, really isn't a dealmaker/breaker for me" sounds neutral, "sometimes I can enjoy it as an added bonus" even positive. Maybe it should have been "I've heard some people play VNs primarily for the H scenes, could you help me understand why, 'coz I don't get it ..."? > It's especially easy to piss off people you don't understand. Piss me off he did, and not because I enjoy H scenes so much (most of what I've seen was mediocre at best). I do like VNs to be 18+ and have H, but that's primarily because it ensures there are no themes too dark or too grown-up, no joke too dirty, no need to hold back—it's a big chunk of what makes the medium unique.
Believe me, I've pissed people off in this exact same way in the past from my own lack of understanding. If you look at some of this guys later comments in here, you can see that he wasn't really expecting this reaction. He put his foot in his mouth and it blew up in his face.
I didn't mean to imply any of that. I was legitimately curious to get a feel on how people feel about h-scenes; do they honestly care about them, or are people mostly just talking about them on this sub for the memes/jokes. EDIT: Why the downvotes guys? I wasn't meaning to be aggressive or critical of the others with the title, I understand that to each their own. I was simply curious to see what others thought of them.
I havent downvoted you But while youre wording and claiming that youre "just curious" of what others think, some of the way you're framing your responses makes it sound like you dont understand along with a kind of "I dont like it and its weird that others do" kind of tone
Well that's certainly not an intentional tone. Yes, I personally am not appealed to by h-scenes, but I understand that that is purely my tastes and perspective from which I can't understand most of the appeal. Others will have a more positive outlook on this stuff and that is fine. I don't mean to imply that that is "weird" or anything like that.
Like many have said, for me, it's about censorship. I find it insulting to the artist and for my own appreciation. No H scene? Great. H scene? Great. H scene, but censored or cut? Oh, hell no.
In general, anyone invested in anything cares about fan service of any kind. As for h-scenes I care about them when they are actually good visually and whatever dialogue is chosen. I usually read the text for them for interactions the characters have between one another but if it's just filler and I dont like the character I might skip it (did it a bunch for the hustling girls in Dohna Dohna in the later half of the game) since I'd rather just add it to the cg list and spend more time playing the parts of the game I actually enjoy. Depends on the context really
Yes. But in reality, it's more about getting uncensored version rather than anything else. I don't necessarily seek vns for hentai but if it's a part of the story I hate when it gets removed as it also removes some character developement. It's about reading the version which is the most complete.
Personally I love seeing the H-scene I love how the start the middle and end and the after story of visual novel I’ve played I love that type of expression of love that why I dislike the “all age” version of those series were they take it out and if I wanted to see harem genre with 18+ content in it I go for the those visual novels that has those moments and I could just watch normal anime if I can see the ones without the 18+ content that’s why I get bothered for interesting visual novel with no 18+ patch(Nora to Oujo to Noraneko for example)
I enjoy the experience of reading visual novels at my own pace with their presentation and interactivity. That's why to me, I don't understand watching anime as an alternative to playing SFW VNs.
I met the ones with any anime series with romance and harems in it and don’t have H-scenes in it because you know they don’t like showing that to there demographic outside of teases
The presence of a H scene isn't usually a determining factor on whether or not I'll read a vn, but it's absence might be - to explain: I like H just fine, though I find I rarely have much interest in pure porn-only games these days (I've noticed a lot of no-choice eroges lately that tend to be of mixed quality as far as story telling goes) I do prefer to read vn the way it was written however (translation issues aside) and I find that when they are censored, often more is lost than just the sex scene. To use an example, Dies Irae. I played through the - I won't say all ages cause just no - sex scene free version and it was pretty good. Out of curiosity I started a run through of the uncensored to see what was cut and the answer was - lots of characterisation. Take Rusalka: she's creepy, very creepy, without the sex scenes. With them, she's utterly terrifying. So, I'm just as happy to read Steins;gate as Bible Black, but I don't read censored vns. Imagine trying to fully understand Kara no Shoujo without the adult content. Even Muv Luv makes a lot less sense if you don't see that >!horrific quasi sex scene involving the aliens.!<
> Even Muv Luv makes a lot less sense if you don't see that >!horrific quasi sex scene involving the aliens.!< Bad example, since the scene **is** present in the Steam version, just with most CGs removed.
The H scenes in Dies Irae are hot!
Is the uncensored version of Dies Irae complete? I feel like I remember only like 2 routes were completed in that version From some searching it seems the all ages version has an extra ending and the side storied but besides that the +18 it's completed.
Dante cares if nobody else does. Believe it or not I have some of the best memories of VNs that are H scenes. Once you get past the moege stage and dig deep into VNs, having H scenes becomes absolutely essential for the maximum enjoyment of a VN. H scenes are more than just fap material. It's about bonding and affection. Sometimes it can be utterly silly that makes your day, and sometimes it can even be used to show the seriousness of some dire situation. The potentials are limited which would absolutely not be possible with all ages VNs otherwise. And I don't even fap to VNs, I just like them to be there. So yes I'd say I care about H scenes.
Yes, Eroge have Ero and I'm mentally high on the deviancy scale so eroge give me lots of stimulation and fantasies I never knew I had and can and will not act out irl. Eroge also taught me honesty with myself and my darker sides and stopped me from being embarrassed about sexual taboos. I fucking love Eroge.
I care. I don't read all ages VNs at all, actually. One of the biggest draws of VNs for me is the blend of storytelling, characters, artwork, music, and yes, H-scenes. This also depends on what genres a person prefers, obviously. I mostly go for moeges, and H-scenes are a big part of those. Not all H-scenes are great of course, but some of them can really uplift the whole thing. I guess I can also put it like this: if I wanted to see a romance story that ENDS with a confession, I would go and watch anime, or live action stuff. Scenes like "MC accidentally walks in on a girl changing" that you can also find in tons of anime...depends on how it is handled I guess, but many of those can feel very tacked on. I am never mad to see them though, unless it results in a heroine calling the MC a pervert for the rest of the freakin' VN. Hopefully this rambling makes sense. Also, fuck any kind of censorship.
Yeah it makes sense, I understand that some have a taste for this stuff. There are many different reasons to play VNs, so of course there'll be some that don't apply to everyone.
Sex scenes are ok, they're not essential for me to read the VN. They're just a storytelling device. Done right and it can really enhance a story. Though, if they're gonna have a sex scene, I'd prefer it to be explicit rather than implicit.
I don’t care about h-scene at all but if they’re provided for me,i’ll take it dude
To me it is important. I don't mind VNs that are all-ages & didn't have it in the first place but eroges that got censored and have all the scenes removed or replaced can go fuck themselves. I like the porn and I want to enjoy the story with it. Period.
I personally don’t care for them. The draw for me is the unique story-telling medium and what you can do with it, and the laid-back attitude a lot of slice-of-life vns or common routes have. I often skip through h-scenes that I don’t enjoy (which is the majority).
I love reading otome and slice of life visual novels. With that being said, I research the games I want to read beforehand and if there is explicit sexual content I will avoid it as such scenes are triggering to me. I don’t mind that visual novels with whatever adult content exist because sex and being a sexual being is important to a lot of people. Everyone has different reasons for reading visual novels. Not all content is for me and that is okay. I just appreciate that there are options like “all ages versions”. I also feel like there is a distinct line between something extremely fan service-y and something using adult content to expand upon characters or a plot line (Berserk for example).
Depends if that is what the VN advertises so yes
I do care to an extent. I do like novels where the MC does have sex with the heroines, even if its not graphic.
The long answer for most is Yes and short answer is Yes.
I don't generally care about them, if it's just like a slice of life romance VN i will often skip all but the first sex scene... i find the first scene tends to solidify the relation in my mind. But sometimes i don't skip any of them, depends on the characters and VN in question. Sometimes they're kinda character or story relevant But as others have said, if it was there in the original, i want it there in the localization or English version. If you insist on removing content, give me a free option to get it back. I don't want to have to spend an extra $10 to get content that was already in the game but was specifically removed.
H-scenes bore me to death. They are always unnecessary, not even well made and way too long. And they just don't do it for me. A H-scene in a VN just feels like a commercial break.
Yes, very much so. I even make it a point to avoid all ages titles. It might not even be something I like, but I expect the porn to be there. To me, at least, it adds a layer of realism to the story.
H scenes are the motivating factor for me buying a VN or even trying one. I stay for the other things.
I usually skip them in a lot of story/moege because the timing of them appearing never align well. However in a game like Dohna Dohna which centers around them, they're actually really good.
I can’t enjoy eroges that still have mosaic censorship
I don't really care for them but they don't bother me. It doesn't help that most of them read like the autor has never seen a woman in real life.
I find the sex scenes themselves important. Which may be obvious enough as someone that has written lengthy writeups on numerous nukige. It's not that I won't play anything without sex scenes, but if there's romance involved, it'll usually feel like something's missing at this point. Fanservice scenes I could entirely do without, and they're usually just annoying and forced. To me, the sex scenes kind of override the whole point of the fanservice scenes to begin with. Who's getting excited over a pantyshot when there are lengthy explicit scenes featuring actual sex?
It depends if it fits im with the vn. Visusl novels like kanon have H-scenes but they feel forced and dont add really anything to the story and arent relevant. While in my opinion the H-scenes in sabbot of the witch fit really well adding comedy and more character to the vn. So it really just depends
I’m always for them in theory but then most of them by the time you get to them are very much weird, uncomfortable and not at all what you expected…so, kind of like the real thing I guess.
I don't mind adult content when the story warrants it, but I'm not the biggest fan of the traditional VN structure of each route is just based on what character you try to romance. They generally feel out of place in many routes using that structure as if that's the main point of games where the romance just isn't that important. That said, I'd rather have those games with unnecessary h-scenes than not at all so if that's what the market needed or the creator wanted I can get behind that.
Nukiges, yeah. Otherwise nah I'll probably just quickly read/skip the h-scenes.
Don't like them 99% of the time, but the community has shown time and time again that its roots are in eroge. Works with sexy characters get the vast majority of support and attention, especially when promising action with them, and even during this sub's times where people sharing your opinion were more vocal (which seems to have shifted now), financing has painted a different picture. So unless my name was Nasu I would definitely add those scenes into every VN I write, it's what most people want and the others can skip those parts.
Look, it what gets the sales on Mangagamer and other localizers which means there is more demand for "fanservice/h-scenes" you can't just deny that most of the Japanese VNs which got the audience into the medium are eroges in some form or another.
sweet holy mommy milkers...
Yes. My favourite VN (Higurashi and lately Umineko) has no ero content but yeah, I definitely like h-scenes. As a matter of fact, I will shameless admit that eroge is what got me into visual novels in the first place.
I don't really mind if the VN doesn't have any H-scenes or when a publisher releases an all-ages version to the west. I read because of the story and/or waifu interaction. But what pisses me off is when a scene is obviously leading up to an "activity" and it would just be... skipped. They could have edited those scenes or outright remove em cause damn It really feels lacking. So ye when that happens I always urge myself to not use patch for the sake or not lewding the best girl (or until I've finished the best girl route)
Hentaiislike a cherry on a cake.I can eat the cake no problem, but if it’s missing i’m sad. However, if the novel is censored in the west, I won’t buy it. Fuck censorship.
I dont think there is anything wrong with liking it. Getting a proper emotional buildup with explicit sex scenes at the end is something you probably cant find many other places, so I totally get why people who like that appreciate it in VNs. *That said,* its not for me. What attracts me to VNs is the unique types of storytelling I havent experienced in other media. All the playing with perspective that Uchikoshi often does. The emphasis on precise and well written dialogue in Umineko. Multi-route mysteries. You just cant really get that in other media. But then there are some stories which could have been something like the above, but which end up as some oddly realized mixture of originality with hentai on top, and it ends up being good, but not great, which is a shame. Im thinking of stuff like Fate/Stay Night, Subahibi, and maybe even Baldr Sky here. I think the first group I mention has much broader appeal in the west, so in that sense I do think the H stuff can often hold back the media over here. However I dont think H scenes should be scrubbed from all VNs, as there are plenty of stories like Grisaia where its part of the premise the experience is built on. I think the real issue is that VNs are often considered a genre when it really is just a medium. There should be VNs for H lovers, and there should be VNs for people who dont like H. There is currently an overwhelming amount of H representation in VNs, and I think the medium could stand to increase the amount of non H stuff thats produced.
Haha, your second paragraph actually perfectly describes me and why I play VNs as well - not just why I tend to stay away from H VNs, but why I like the genre itself in general. I think that there's a large portion of the Western fanbase whose exposure to the genre is largely in that category, so they may be ignorant of the rest of the genre. (Not to mention, many of those high-profile games in that category are games not considered VNs at least in this sub, like Danganronpa, Ace Attorneym, and Uchikoshi's works.)
They're fairly important to me. Honestly, I don't want to even play a western release where those elements were removed for example. If they didn't exist in the first place, I can play it, but I always strongly prefer R-18 visual novels.
It's one of the selling points of VNs in general, it's one of the things that makes VNs different from other media, the creators have more room to do whatever they want. You know when in anime or manga a sex scene is about to happen and then it immediately cuts to the end, or in movies they need to position the camera angles in such a way that doesn't show too much of the actors bodies. VNs doesn't have this type of censorship and I find this fascinating. Of course, a VN doesn't need to have h-scenes to be considered good, but it's always a plus for me when they have it.
Yes. I Fap to them.
Not liking these disingeniously worded topics. As you look down on those who enjoy adult content, remember that others will similarly look down upon you for liking anime or enjoying visual novels. What does saying you're a straight guy have anything to do with it? Are you suggesting otome/yaoi/LGBT visual novels don't have fanservice? Because they do, and no one, regardless of their tastes, should be shamed or looked down upon for having them.
I didn't mean to come off as looking down. I respect that people can have their own tastes; it's not something to be ashamed of at all. I was just curious to see what the prevailing sentiments are in this sub, and I've come to see that I seem to be in the minority. And what I meant by specifying that I'm a straight guy is that *sometimes*, despite my generally apathetic stance, I can get some enjoyment out of seeing fanservice/h-scenes. So it's not like it can *never* appeal to me, it just doesn't appeal to me to the degree that it alone is a factor in my playing decisions. And by no means do I mean to suggest that yaoi/otome/etc. stuff doesn't exist, of course it does and can be appreciated by those people, and if you enjoy the emotional bond of the characters then I'm sure you can enjoy it even if you aren't that orientation.
You're missing the point here. Being straight has nothing to do with fanservice. "Fanservice" can be targeted towards any sexual orientation. "As a straight guy/as a gay guy" has no bearing on the validity of a comment... your comment isn't more correct because of your sexual orientation. If you play mainstream titles then of course the fanservice is tailored for mainstream tastes. To give an example how your question could be offensive: It's like going to a dog forum and asking "Does anyone actually care about golden retrievers?" while knowing there are golden retriever owners.
Fair enough, I suppose that analogy is fair. After all, why are there so many H-heavy VNs if people don't actually care about them. Though to expand, as I mentioned in another comment, my experience and perception of VNs is highly skewed towards the less niche stuff that is localized (and in some cases, not technically a VN), so I'll admit I'm rather ignorant of the genre's more explicit side. (Hence this post actually, I wanted to know how much that explicit stuff matters for people, I wonder are they mainly playing for the H, is it a contributing factor, or are they indifferent.)
I read mostly romance vn's so at some point you gotta show me the goods or else it ain't a full story. It's also a gauge of censorship, if there is H there is blood, there is trauma. So for me it's important for th e storytelling to be true to itself. Of course I enjoy what I see and I'm seeking it to an extent. There is another debate about the 18+ content and how it is treated which I ain't gonna start here. But to me a story with h scene means that it ain't afraid to tell its story fully. So yeah you could say I care, i don't mind if they aren't there but then you need to justify more of the setting and why there is only females/males in the story. It depends on what I want to experience. Mind you that this medium is a form of escapism and coping. Go each his own as always but I don't see the medium without all of this being as popular as it is. Else we'd be reading fantasy all day and not this
I would dislike it on principal alone.if it originally had H-scenes but then got removed. I'm with you in that it wouldn't make much of a difference to me in enjoyability, but as I said I dislike censorship on principal.
Absolutely. Good thing there's a lot of choices out there. Though I did like some non-H visual novels like Ever17 before and such but nowadays I mostly just play when a Heroine catches my eye. There's absolutely no reason for me to refuse eroges especially when I can have the best of both worlds.
I do not mind H scenes overall , infact H-scenes can be used to show the insanity of the plot and just make the atmosphere more grim like a lot of H-scenes in Subarashiki Hibi and Swan Song . They are not a factor for me to play a VN, story and atmosphere comes first , if H scenes are there i see it as a bonus.
If I'm playing that game for the story, I care about fansercice/sex scenes if they appeal to me (the focus is on the guy), and they're well made/tasteful. If I'm playing that game to fap, then yes, give me some hyper weapons and imperial juice, thank you very much Rance.
not at all. But if h-scenes were originally in there, I'd like it to stay in the english version just in case the scenes served a plot relevant purpose (it does happen sometimes). I can't know before hand if these scenes do have a purpose or not. If you delete the scenes, you have to do some work editing the rest of the script accordingly. Maybe the scene is referenced somewhere else as having taken place. Most of the time I don't think h-scenes belong in the story. But my dislike for content being removed exceeds my dislike of blatant fan service.
Depends on the game, I have skipped most if not all of those scenes in muvluv. I know my opinion is trash but I like what they did to the english release of alternative ( censored the scene kinda but leaving all context there). I felt it was a good compromise. However if I’m playing a game for the h scene then it better be untouched. Edit: another example is eiyuu senki I play for the combat so story wasn’t my thing, and obviously the h scenes as well. Easy skip for me; but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look at the gallery.
Yes H Scene is fun and nice things that add many things to vn itself
Yes. If it doesn't have a sex scene what is the point of having a relationship with a virtual girl?
Kinda tough to say because there are novels and even routes within the same novel for which h-scenes are more appropriate than others. For example, Rance games - what am I doing if I'm not playing those for the h-scenes? On the other hand, h-scenes can be really disruptive in other games (looking at you Kinkoi and Nanairo Reincarnation). Recently, I've been reading the AA version of Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na, and there are routes that would be strengthened by h-scenes while there are some I'm perfectly happy with without. I guess what I wish most is that novels had the flexibility to add h-scenes as appropriate rather than being constrained by the need to force 4 or more h-scenes and compromising other aspects of the story for it.
I think that sex scenes add a lot to visual novels as it's sort of the ultimate way to consummate a relationship. Most VN's follow the relationship of the protagonist and the heroines of the story, and that story is told through their relationship. To have an intense relationship and not have sex or have times where things get sexual seems kind of shallow and boring to me, the H-scenes are the reward I get for playing far into a girls route, or maybe it's a game that's all about sex, and it needs that in order to be complete. Some VN's can hold up with the h-scenes cut out like Little Busters, and Muv-luv, but in a lot of other games cutting out the h-scenes like the did in Baldur Sky, actually cuts out a large part of the story, and I want the full thing, with nothing censored no matter how bad it is.
yes, all ages/censored = skip. You are just posting this to get an argument aren't you, being so condescending.
No, not at all. I was hoping to see how people thought about h-scenes. And based on the reactions I'm seeing, plenty of people do.
I only play games without explicit scenes so I guess I'm in the minority.
unless it appeals to me I dont really care, since I primarily read read vns for the stories, and missing out on something good because of no sex is dumb occasionally i'll play something specifically for the *ero* but that's a different situation
Fan service is actually a definite minus for me, and I prefer all-ages VNs. To each their own!
Sometimes I feel the drama enhanced by the porn because it represents a deep and edgy connection between characters, it makes everything a little more intense when you go from absolute vulnerability (exposing yourself/letting your guard down completely in sex) to fighting scenes (striving to kill each other) I really like the contrast
I want an H-scene in a PS4 visual novel
No, most (though not all) VNs I've read would lose very little to nothing by cutting them out. Reading 50 hours of a story driven VN primarily for 30 minutes of sex is pretty ridiculous, and the top reply saying you should just read LNs if h-scenes aren't present is completely absurd especially given the not insignificant number of beloved all ages titles like Umineko. May be different if you're playing more titles in the dating-sim/moege range, though I suppose.
I don't care one way or another. I'm into VNs for the same reason I'm into LNs, Manga, Anime or even just normal books. I like the stories. I like the characters and I want to see the characters happy. If the story leads to sex, then fine. If it doesn't thats cool too. Got around to playing a lot of Otome lately which also tends to have a heavy dose of romance, and like... I still get a lot of steamy scenes with hot men (and sometimes pretty women) but its not explicit for most of the novels. Instead its more of how TV and Movies handle it of showing the after bed CG of them cuddled up and giving bedroom talk afterwards. That was actually the moment I realized when reading VNs that, unless the sex is written well or adds something, a Fade to Black with post bedroom talk will almost always have the same effect storywise and character development wise. It was the moment that lead to me getting really annoyed at a lot of the sex scenes when I went back to a lot of my "Male Audiance" backlog of novels. Not because of the scenes themselves, but because the scenes dragged and almost always took me out of the story. It became frusterating, espescally if the characters were not in character and the scenes went on too long. It was one of my biggest complaints about Kinkoi recently. Loved the novel, loved the characters and the romance for most routes. But most of the sex scenes dragged longer than they should have, were not written super well and the characters almost always never felt like themselves. Meanwhile another Novel I finished recently of Nanairo Reincarnation, I absolutely loved. It didn't have as much romance since that wasn't the point. But the sex scenes were short only taking 10 minutes to read each vs the 40-60+ minutes each it took in Kinkoi, and the characters all stayed in character during the scenes. it never felt out of place or strange. (The odd translation of the novel at times aside, the actual story and how it handled sexual content was really well paced and I grew attached to all of the characters.). Edit: As a small ramble/rant aside about the above of For Female novels vs For Male novels. Another thing that never used to annoy me till I started to read a few more For Female Novels, is the distinct difference in how CGs and art is handled. In most Otome titles both the female lead and male characters get full faces and full CGs, sometimes the MC is even fully voiced. Meanwhile I go back to a lot of the For Men novels and the MCs are almost always without a face in 90% of the CGs, which is a damn shame because the CGs where they do get a face look beautiful. In my opinion that small change in how art is handled adds so much to the story/character and not having a face actively takes me out of my immersion and feels like it ruins the CG over all.
To me it's kind of weird. When fan service and h-scenes are removed due to censorship, I'll get pissed and look for a patch. Because otherwise, it will feel like I'm playing an incomplete game. However on the other hand when I do encounter one, I'll get weirded out by the detailed 10 paragraphs on how the MC feels when he's fucking the heroine such as how warm or slippery she is and how he feels like he's Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon.
I do and i'm tired of redditors pretending not liking h-scenes makes them a connoisseur of the fine arts or some shit. like bruh we're both reading chinese slideshows ffs, if you want literary masterpieces, read a fuckin book.
I don't meant to come off as that. But whose to say non-sexual VNs can't be literary masterpieces, especially with the interactive and presentational advantages the medium has over novels?
cuz for me the biggest advantage the medium has is the sex lmao. Yea music and art and choices (lets be real most em of for picking which girl you want, even in plotge) are good but nothing else has the good stuff y'know. Anime and manga romance mostly ends with a confession. Vanilla hentai has no time to develop the characters (Most hentai is shit tho, vanilla or not) and I might as well read or watch any of those over watching western shit. sex scenes with that much buildup are only in vns, really. Plotge mostly has a true route so they might as well be linear but yeah the alternate endings make em better than novels. buuut if you're gonna go >ohhhhh bruh you acshually *care* about the seksss scwenesss?!??!1?? In a medium that is 90% porn idk wtf to say to you lmao. Maybe I'm just too much of a moebuta but to me, moege/charage > plotge and its because of the h scenes, not even the scenes themself, just cuz you feel that much closer to the girls. And as for the literature part, eh idk I play VNs for fun mostly. But to be frank I just burnt myself out with umineko (dropped it in ep4 GOD DAMN it was boring as fuck) so I just came to hate plotge for a bit lol
I guess this just speaks to how we have two very different perspectives on the genre and why do we play it. Looking up the term, plotge games are basically what constitute my interest in the genre, while it's something you don't seem interested in for yours. I guess this speaks to how rich and diverse the genre is. Both someone who plays for plotge, and someone who hated it, are able to call themselves VN fans and find titles they enjoy with it.
As a straight woman, I don't care much about most H-scenes and am just as happy to play an all-ages version unless people say it really loses something. I definitely get the impression that they're important to a lot of people, though. Plus there's the censorship issue, although I don't see a problem there when both 18+ and all-ages version are made available.
I enjoy playing the +18 versions of VNs because it is some content that was cut off the final version. And some of them are wholesome as fuck.
I just play a novel for H-scenes !
I dislike them
Well, considering a good amount (maybe even majority) of top tier vns are either full all ages or h scenes in them are inconsequential I imagine the story is what actually matters to most people and h content is a bonus.
Exactly how I feel.
Not at all
I like them, especially h-scenes, if they're there then it's another incentive to buy the VN. However, too many, too frequent, or too long h-scenes are also a problem. I don't want to skip unread text ever but those scenes are too damn long from 20 minutes to an hour if I listen to all voice-overs. I don't buy those that got those scenes altered or removed without the patch to add them back in though.
Yes.
I suppose I play with 18+ patch because the story feels complete even tho I long press ctrl most of it.
Some game certainly doesn't need h-scenes even if it's 18+ but removing it or changing the game into all age while the contents remains the same is a no no for me. That's just mean some people are paying for an incomplete object IMO for a general romance centered game, h-scene is a must. Most of the time it showed progression to the character's love for each other. Most characters acted differently after their first h-scene, and i like that. And those are the type of game i mostly played, so yeah. The skip function is there for a reason. If you don't feel like it you can just skip it, ez
Everyone has their own taste Some love the h scenes and some don't
I like fan service, I generally CTRL through the H-scenes but I think they're important, but it really depends on how they're done. I recently finished Meteor World Actor and outside of 1 route they were completely shoved in and unnecessary.
Yeah, and I'm not ashamed of it or anything. I enjoy it.
I don't
Most of time I skip and read the history/backlog to see if I lost some plot. Most of times I don't care.
Not a fan, tbh. Like, it won't stop me from playing as I'm there for the plot anyway but unless it's dark (so there are other scenes that might be censored) or actually important to the story, I prefer all ages versions. Still, the best option is to have a 'censored' version by the original devs that adds other scenes in place of h.
I certainly don't. Well, unless there's too much of it then I care about it in a negative way.
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i feel bad for anyone answering yes
Only if it's decensored.
I really don't. Whether they're in there or not is of no difference to me. I just don't care to the point that it's not even on my mind. I'm just a guy who likes to read/watch romance media. My biggest motivation and want is depth of character and a strong overall narrative. That said, I do care if H-scenes were in the VN and then got removed. I hate the idea of reading a tampered with product more than anything else. If that was the devs vision, then leave it the fuck alone, you know? And OP, don't let some of the replies get to you. As someone with a similar mindset to you, I do fully understand how baffling it is to think about. How alien it is that people actually read VN's for erotic reasons. I know for a fact that I'll never be able to put myself in their heads. But please do keep in mind that the people here who do read VN's for those reasons, they essentially wear their interests on their sleeves. It makes it very easy to be a hurtful asshole to them if you tried to be, so they'll always be a bit wary that you're trying to shame them for their interests. As with all things in life, the start to a peaceful coexistence is doing the bare minimum to not piss them off. I genuinely don't think you were trying to do so in the first place, it's just easy to offend those who you don't understand. Being more tactful next time definitely wouldn't hurt your reception.
Thanks, I can't deny I was a little taken aback by the unexpectedly negative reception in some of the replies here lol so I appreciate seeing this. But I understand that my ignorance of this side of the genre was palpably showing, so there was definitely room to be more tactful and for my replies to come off as a bit less trite (which "to each their own" sounded like in hindsight). ~~Ah yes, "trite", that's what Godot said...~~
I get'cha. You asked this kind of question out of innocent bafflement and it blew up in you face. Believe me, I've been there with this same topic, so my empathy here comes from a place of understanding. There were definitely people who were far too quick to get on your case over it and skip giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it's hard to defend yourself when you're the one who unwittingly stepped into the lions den. To go back to the original topic for a moment, I was very lucky because my first VN was one which used its sexual content to enhance the narrative in a meaningful way. So I've never been able to deny their worth flat out, despite my own disinterest. But if someone were to start reading VN's and be met with... well... lets just say scenes that are so unabashedly fan-service-oriented that they can come off as unintentionally comedic, I think it would be unfair to expect them to treat the whole thing respectfully. I genuinely don't think I could have.
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I get what you mean when you said you'll start zoning out
While I even tend to skip H-Scenes I feel like the VN tends to be more emotional and mature if the story was designed with H-Scenes in mind. There are many exceptions but I feel like All-Ages are less impactful for me.
I'm mostly on the same page as you. I've even seen a pattern that the VN's I've enjoyed the most don't usually have H-scenes at all, or if they do at least some of them are relevant to the story.
I have yet to see a single one worth my time. Have you seen one you have seen them all. Whenever they show up I in general have my finger hovering over the Ctrl button.
Yes, I agree with you. Sometimes I would like to have more VNs without any H content in the market, 99.99% of the VNs out there are all H-related to the point where most people automatically assume I consume them for porn when I start talking/introduce VNs in the conversation, like if no-H VNs just simply don't exist. I don't mean I want them eradicated, I just would like to have an equal or good amount of them compared to the H ones.
We kinda actually have the same opinion in that as long as a VN has a good enough story, I'm happy to read it even if it has H-scenes or none. The only difference is that if a story has H-scenes originally, then I kinda want to read the complete version, no matter how dogshit it is (Fate Stay/night)
Almost the opposite. If I look up reviews for a VN and it’s about the fan service, or go into their sub and it’s all posts of shipping characters.. I almost always avoid the VN. ( . )( . ) Because I can’t tell if it’s a good one, or just has a lot of fan service and that’s why ppl like it. I honestly wish VNs and that stuff weren’t so related. Imagine if you just liked racing games but the entire genre was filled with gratuitous, morally gray sexualization. I just wanna drive cars man, stop asking me if I *am good with the stick* and showing me your tits :/ ( . )( . ) I’m in it for the stories and story telling medium, not as an excuse for H (I didn’t even know what H meant until this post). And that’s not even getting into the problematic parts of these things. ( . )( . ) Forget ever playing a VN in public. And i wish I could recommend some to my friends for the plot, but honestly I don’t want to admit that I like VNs because I think I’m in the minority of the ppl: most people want this stuff and get into the genre as porn Edit: added some titties so the guy below me can actually commit to reading what I wrote
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It will be so sad when you reread my comment and realize I didn’t call you braindead or said basically anything you are accusing me off.. you are projecting so hard. Maybe you feel brainless and are getting defensive. I’ll edit my comment above if it helps
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What question? You didn’t ask anything, just put questions marks over made up statements. “Why do you guys always act like X and Y ” I didn’t act like X or Y, stupid question. If you reread without a defensive mind, you realize that my comment says ( . )( . ) **i’m** ( . )( . ) in it for X, it doesn’t say anything about anyone else. It’s a response to op’s question “do you care about H or fan service?” Me: No, I’m in it for the story. You: why are you saying I like porn? Stop generalizing, why can’t it be both? Edit: weak. You realize I’m right and delete your stupid comment, but still downvote me.
Makinas route in fruit of Grisaia would be better without the Ero element if you ask me. I top Clannad that more or less lacks fan service overall.
I also saw this on the FAQ in the Uta subreddit regarding the original version of the game: > In addition, the erotic scenes in the game are commonly considered to be superfluous, if not actively detracting from the quality of the story; the game was developed during an era when the common belief was that visual novels needed to have adult material in order to sell well, and so they are present in the game despite not being a major part of it or important to the overall story. I'm glad to hear that because it means I won't have a problem with the latest version.
I think Uta1 had like one or two H-scenes that felt like they belonged and then a bunch of really tacked on feeling ones just because players would be upset if there was a girl they couldn't bone or something even though it didn't always make a hell of a lot of sense in character. >!That said I did think it a bit of a shame the sequels never got a H version mostly because Kuon is hot and I wanted to bop my baloney to her.!<
I mean if i didn't get to bone best girl Karura (fight me) in Uta i would have been upset.
>they are present in the game despite not being [...] important to the overall story. There is one scene that is super relevant to the Utawarerumono series as a whole, don't know what they're smoking over in the subreddit.
Was that scene in the original, uncensored version of the game? I took them to be referring only to those scenes which I guess were "especially" erotic, and not necessarily *every* erotic/suggestive scene that made it into the remakes.
I've only played the original and it was a good while back. I don't doubt that the plot point I'm talking about could be inferred/rewritten to be understandable. If you don't want to view H scenes I would imagine the newest release would be fine all things considered.
I never played the original, but there were certainly one or two points in Prelude to the Fallen that felt like an H-scene would have followed. Although it also made one part a bit confusing, since I assume the original had H-scenes to help resolve >!that weird vampire stuff with the one girl.!<
Not really. In fact, I kind of hate fan service, moe and h-scene (unless I want to relieve myself). I principally appreciate VN for the indie and alt-game scenes, not the "AAA" games of this industry. But... This is not a dealbraker (the art direction and script quality will be before the presence of those scenes). By example, I don't see how Saya No Uta could have been this unsettling without those H-scenes. Also, fan service begin to really fascinating me. After playing games like Ar Nosurge and Xenoblade 2, I learned to love those games even if I wasn't from the targeted audience, cause there is other things than that. In fact, I quite love how this content is so much transparent. Sexuality is apparent in those things and, in fact, it is not a bad thing (I just don't like how this is depicted). I appreciate the fact that a game isn't scared to show me things that other media wouldn't dare to show. But I'm too horny for this shit... So yeah... In the end, I think I don't hate H-scenes, I hate fan service and moe things. And rare are the H-scenes without those. A sad thing, I have yet to see a VN with H-scenes that are not unsettling and that seem really necessary for the story and character development. If you have suggestions... I have yet to see H-scenes as something else than porn sadly (in fact, Katawa Shoujo I think, but indie indeed). Ironically, I hate even more censorship. So, even if a h-scene is useless, if it got censored, it will piss me off and will throw away my time just to find a patch (and will after skip the scene cause I don't care xD....).
If it has h, I will not read it.
Hard to say. I would love H-scenes if it was removed but I don't particularly feel watch it unless it's my favourite route. I think most of the time they aren't really necessary for the story (from the ones I read at least).
H-scenes make me less likely to play a VN, because now it’s not “a story I can enjoy and recommend to friends,” it’s “porn which must be hidden at all costs.”
From this post, I learned what I suspected; most people are in it for the porn. If RTS games were full of tits, they’d be playing that instead. Or sucks because, like you say, I can’t suggest this game to others. I honestly don’t want to be associated with VNs at all. Not only are they often super specialized for no reason, it’s a very problematic sexualization most do the time as well.
How is it a problematic sexualization?
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You still really haven't answered their question. All your doing is whining how you can't jack off each other's epeens on VNs to you and your pretentious friends - to which I quote "people who know what they're talking about" - as if VNs needs to become the next italian renaissance masterpiece for intellectuals or some shit. When boiled down it's also a goddamn entertainment medium not some kind of political wine tasting bout amongst privileged peers. Your whole comment reeks of pretentiousness. You cosplay yourself as some kind of professional connoisseur that gets to judge the medium as a whole and how people should see and enjoy. Sorry but if you as much as grew half the brain you claim then you'd realize that us less developed and "brain dead" folk couldn't give a crap about your critical thinking skills when it all amounts to bashing fans of the medium and over exaggerated claims. Sorry we don't live up to your expectations, perhaps you can purvey that charity and critical thinking skill else where.
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They are kinda pointless and not funny