Sharin no Kuni Brings Another Japanese Visual Novel to the West

When it comes to visual novels, while I do enjoy a good Western story my passion lies more towards the original Japanese tales. Unfortunately, I know pretty much zero Japanese which means I’m forced to wait for translation projects like Sharin no Kuni. And crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter seem to be ripe with localizations recently. Which makes me happy. That said, is this one worth putting down $30 just for the translation of a game that came out over a decade ago in Japan? I’m honestly not sure.

Now, I won’t pretend to know what all goes into turning a foreign language project into one that I can actually enjoy but I do know that you’ll need to have people who are bi-lingual and can translate the original story into something Western audiences can understand and appreciate. That said, with the rare exception I don’t remember many being more than $20. Still, Sharin no Kuni has a plot that I can get behind so maybe it’s worth at least keeping an eye on. I mean, I’m a sucker for dystopian tales after all. Especially one that delves a bit deeper than “raging against the machine” stories.

I’m glad to see localization projects like Sharin no Kuni become a reality, whether as a video game or roleplaying system, and I do hope that they make the $140k goal. It does seem like a lot of money but they’re already gaining a pretty good following after only a day or two since launch. I’m not sure if I’ll back this one but I’ve given to other worthy translation Kickstarters before so only time will tell if I take the plunge myself.