Japanese Reading Report: 07 December 2025

Veil

This week was somewhat productive, though I probably still could have used my free time better. Next week (and for the next three weeks) I'll have time off work but I'll also be busy with other things, so we'll see what input looks like when we get there.

ファタモルガーナの館

I managed to make some more progress with this thanks to some time freed up by finishing the book below. I was able to get a few days of near 60-minute sessions. It feels like so little but it was a surprising windfall with my new schedule.

Anyway, I'm trucking along in the second key bearer's path. I'm now reading through his backstory. I liked the relationship you develop with Pauline and Maria during this part, and I also enjoyed the little aside moment where we fell unconscious and entered into a dialogue with an alternative (perhaps) Morgana.

I'm curious what curve balls the game will throw at me during the last key bearer's story.

「選択肢」の選択史

And we're done. It was a short book and I had a generous schedule to read it, but I think reading it in such short bursts was actually counterproductive. Maybe I should have set a more strict deadline for this one.

I finished the section about みにくいモジカの子 and started the final chapter before the conclusion, which briefly covers two mobile/social games related to previous games mentioned in the book. To be honest, that chapter was pretty lacking, except for the note about how that model of game (live service) can adapt to fan feedback in a more agile way than a traditional game, which lead to a few surprising writing opportunities for Vio, like writing side stories for characters that developed fan followings. Both of the games mentioned in that chapter had already ended their service by the time the book was published, and Vio writes about how it's a shame they're not active any more but at least there's an online archive of the story content and I just... I can't help but feel like you should see that and think there's got to be a better way to model your games than that. And there is. It's called, "just release your game and have it exist offline," but that's not always profitable.

Then I read the conclusion, which really had nothing more to add. And that's the book. It was definitely interesting to read about some of the design decisions that went into several of Vio's games, but overall I felt like there was something missing in the book. Maybe it's because each chapter was quite short, but I feel like I really didn't get to understand the depths of the games in the way I wanted to. I also felt like the book doesn't place the games in any context, apart from some throwaway mentions to other visual novels. Compared to some similar books I've read it wasn't too special, though it was nice to discover a few interesting sounding visual novels.

Veil

Maybe it's just the pattern of how I read these volumes, but I feel like the contents of Veil always wash over me. I tend to read half of the volume in one sitting at the start of the week and then it gets to Saturday and I realise I haven't finished it so I read the rest all in one go. Because of that I tend to only remember the second half...

These series plays with power and vulnerability, though I can't help but notice that the ways the man is disempowered feel a bit contrived or surface level, and the ways the woman is empowered sort of just highlight her dependency on those around her.

Une Femme

Very slow progress and certainly not full comprehension, but I at least opened the book again. Not too much to comment on. I think it would be helpful to find some kind of grammar guide to make more sense of things.