There are obviously differences when editing otome or yaoi work. Most fans of these genres tended to stay away from our forums and social media and so forth, making it extremely hard for us to gather information on what would be a good choice of titles. This leads to the second reason it took us so long to actually make the leap of faith-we didn’t know which titles otome and BL fans might consider good choices. It was clear to us through conversations with fans of the genre that there was some general discontent with the choice of titles previously localized by other companies on the BL front, and outside of Animamundi, there wasn’t any real discussion that we could see on the otome front prior to Hakukouki’s release, so we knew it was going to be hard to make our forays into these genres a success if we weren’t very careful about choosing good titles. One was the fact that no company had displayed prior success in releasing titles such as these in any form. Still, there were several reasons we didn’t approach these genres immediately. Seeing it in person and meeting the fans who are into these genres really helped drive home the fact that demand was out there, even if some of our staff members had always believed that was the case all along. As we’ve expanded our coverage of conventions, our various staff members have been noticing that in each and every area we attended, there was usually still a significant portion of women interested in our games. For one thing, it’s the first natural expansion point in terms of broadening our catalogue and our audience outside the regular catalogue of adult games targeted primarily at men. John Pickett, Head Translator: Well, we’ve always had some interest in otome and Boy’s Love games. How did you decide that now was the right time to try and make headway in those genres?
You’ve shown an interest in the otome and Boy’s Love market with Ozmafia and No Thank You. What we learnt was that it came down entirely to fan feedback and interaction. Siliconera caught up with MangaGamer’s Head Translator, John Pickett, to ask him what made the company look into these two sub-categories of visual novels. Otome game localizations are something of a rarity in the West, while official Boy’s Love releases are an even more rare event, but MangaGamer will address both genres with Ozmafia and No Thank You, respectively. MangaGamer have recently expressed an interest in publishing “otome” (targeted toward women) and “Boy’s Love” (focusing on gay relationships) games within the visual novel genre.