Animenewsnetwork posted an interview of Norihisa Kochiwa (Producer) and Tsunekiyo Fujisawa (handles the Hakuoki series). I’ve quoted the choice parts:
ANN: It’s rare to see a visual-novel "otome" game like Hakuōki released in North America. How do you think the game has done in the U.S.?
Kochiwa: Up until now, visual novel games in the U.S. were not accepted as “games.” The reason why we were able to release Hakuōki in the U.S. is because we had Aksys Games who understood Hakuōki and fans outside of Japan who supported it. As a result, our beautiful illustrations and story got into the users’ hands correctly, and we’ve received great reviews. I would like to express my thanks to those involved, along with the fans.
ANN: how do you think the market in North America is changing for Japanese visual novels? Will you consider releasing similar games in North America, such as Norn 9?
Kochiwa: Hakuōki was the first time we released an otome title in the U.S. However, the market is still very small, and I do not think it will be an easy path. For Norn 9, I believe the quality of the art and the story will satisfy U.S. consumers. If there are enough voices that request it, we would like to make your wishes come true. Please continue to support us!
Norn9 is a brand new otome game just released in Japan on May 30th. The license would be a bit steep seeing as it’s so new. Probably not doable. I may be wrong though.
The license may be a bit pricey (especially because of that voice cast), but the costs might not be as high since they have already shown interest in bringing it overseas and, maybe, would be willing to negotiate. I still think it’s a good title to localize but maybe something a little older would be better.
Not to be rude but I don’t want an otome game considering I’m a male vn enthusiast and majority who plays vns are males. But there are fangirls anyway who’ll enjoy this. 🙂
Even though the bad reviews are coming from Japanese audience (from Amazon.co.jp reviews), but as far as I see around the otome gamers community, Norn9 has been an interesting and pleasant ride (I’m playing too, and I like it even though some routes are somekind of meh).
And there are already a lot of otome fans has requested this a lot in a lot of english localization companies.
I wanna play Norn9! 😀 I’d buy it if it was brought overseas 🙂
Yes please. Norn9 is the otome game I want the most. The art is the most beautiful I’ve seen, and the characters… 😮
Oh, and that we can choose which heroine to be, which makes it a lot less boring to play multiple routes, especially since I do not really like the typical heroine every game has. I like that there are other personalities for the girls in this game, instead of the generic heroine type. Particularly Nanami interests me.
We really need more English otome games. Hakuouki is great, but we can only keep replaying one game for so long…
I would buy any otome games that are released in english! I bought all of the Hakouki games and looking forward to any new releases of otome games under different titles. Give me a title that I don’t have and I’ll go buy the english version asap! 🙂
I Would LOVE this game to come out in the US infact any otome game! ^_^