12 Days of Visual Novels: No, Thank You!!!

Welcome to day two of the Twelve Days of Visual Novels! Today’s subject, our very first BL game: No, Thank You!!!

It’s been almost a year since the English version was released and close to two-and-a-half since the original Japanese release. I’m really grateful to everyone who supported the release and especially to those who took a chance on the game even though they weren’t sure it’d be to their taste. If I’m remembering the numbers correctly, NTY!!! would have been our top non-Steam seller if it’d been released last year (not sure exactly where it would land in the ranking this year––I’m pretty sure a couple of this year’s other titles have out-done it already––but that just tells you how far we’ve come this year), and it wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for your support, so thank you all!

The reaction to the English release was pretty interesting on a couple of levels. For one, it caught the attention of some of the Japanese fans––I saw a lot of them on Twitter saying they’d wished they’d studied English harder so they could talk to the new English-speaking NTY!!! fans. It was really cool to see them reaching out to new fans despite the language barrier.

The other sort of surprising thing was how divisive the reactions were to Haru among English-speakers. I’d been following discussions of the game since it came out in Japan and while there were pretty varied opinions about which route was the best and whatnot, Haru was pretty universally liked among Japanese fans. So it kind of caught me off guard when some of the English-speaking players reacted very negatively to him. I guess some of it is probably just a difference of expectations (maybe he doesn’t seem so special if you haven’t read a lot of Japanese BL) or maybe the idea of an amoral protagonist just doesn’t sit well with people on this side of the pacific. Nothing wrong with not liking him, of course, but I guess I would like to caution that Haru is definitely not meant to be presented as some kind of role model or romantic ideal––I don’t even know if I’d call him a “good” person, but I think characterizing him as “evil” is pretty off-base too.

Anyway, I hope you’ll consider giving the game (and Haru) a chance if you haven’t already. Hopefully the crew at parade will find the time to make another game some day.

If you missed it when we first ran them, be sure to check out some of the features we ran on NTY!!! on our blog:

• Creator Q&A (contains some spoilers) –– A selection of questions from the Setting Sourcebook with the game’s director, Amemiya, and artist, Hamashima (under the name Sanpei Shima here).
• Bonus Short Story –– We couldn’t fit it into the hardcopy’s mini-artbook, so here it is!
• Women’s History Month Interview with Hamashima Shigeo –– Not 100% about NTY!!!, but the game’s artist, Hamashima, is a pretty interesting person.

Also! If you’re looking for merchandise or artbooks, most of it is sold out but parade’s online shop will ship overseas (check the tab on the side “For Overseas Customers”).

What did you think about No, Thank You!!!? Let us know in the comments or using the hashtag #12daysofVNs! Check back tomorrow for our next installment of the 12 Days of Visual Novels! (And don’t forget about our winter sale either!)

12 Days of Visual Novels Campaign

Pick up No, Thank You!!! (in digital or hardcopy) or any of our other major 2015 releases and earn triple MangaGamer points! 1 MG point = $0.01 that you can use to apply to future purchases (you can even pay for entire games in points!).