Hello everyone!
Hope June treated you well! 😊

I'm back from my trip to Japan and ready to continue working on the next update! 💪

As you might've expected, I didn't get much done during the trip 😅
So for this dev log, I’ll share a bit about the journey and my plans for next week! ✨

The Japan trip

The trip was pretty amazing! It was my second time in Japan, and this time we explored the Kansai region more — visiting cities like Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, and Nara. We ended with a long stay in Tokyo, especially centered around Akihabara 😉

Some of my personal highlights of the trip were:

• Visiting a gin bar in Kyoto 🍸
  • There were lots of interesting gins in Japan, for example, one with a houjicha (roasted green tea) taste!🍂
• Feeding deer in Nara 🦌
  • The city has tons of free-roaming, tame deer you can feed, which was awesome! While they are tame, they can also be a bit pushy/aggressive sometimes, so I ended up running away from them a lot... but it was still super fun 😄
• Trip to Oarai with Wataru ☀️
  • That's right: I got to meet Wataru — the person working on the Japanese translation of Orange Smash! 😊
    He's an amazing guy with deep knowledge of Japanese media... I had a lot of fun talking with him, and I also learned a lot from him! 😄
    We went on a day trip to Oarai (the city where the anime Girls und Panzer is set), and it was super fun! It felt like the whole city embraced the anime and is proud of it, including the Oarai Isosaki Shrine!
    Later that day, we also checked out some visual novel-related shops in Akihabara, which was very fun as well ✨

Speaking of Akihabara, I've often seen people on social media claiming that it's not worth it anymore — I couldn't disagree more. It's still the place to go for anything anime (or hentai) related, imho, especially in Tokyo. There are tons of shops for visual novels, doujinshi, figurines, and more — both new and second-hand — and you can get some great merch and deals here if you spend some time searching!

That being said, I was positively surprised by Osaka's Den Den Town as well. In a sense, it was similar to Akihabara, with lots of shops having locations in both places, but with some differences. For example, I found the Melonbooks store (manga shop that also has a big adult section) in Osaka to be easier to navigate and larger than the one in Akiba. There was also a shop with anime t-shirts in Osaka that I found pretty impressive. Some of the stuff I found in Den Den Town I actually didn't find again in Tokyo... but of course, the reverse is true as well!
Overall, I'd argue both Akiba and Den Den Town are worth a visit if you're interested in anime-related merch... though if you could only choose one, I'd go with Akiba, simply because, personally, I like Tokyo more as a city than Osaka.

I could go on and on talking about other amazing things in Japan, like the food, some of the less popular convenience stores like Daily Yamazaki, or how amazing some of the restaurant chains and their technology are, but this is enough for now 😅

Let me just say this: Japan isn't nearly as expensive as many often think, and it's totally worth a visit! I'm definitely going to travel there a 3rd and 4th time 😉

Progress this month and next goals

As mentioned earlier, I did not get much progress done on the visual novel during the Japan trip 😅

I was able to make a little progress on the dialogue, mainly during the flights, but of course, it wasn't an ideal working environment.
But now that I'm reunited with my desktop PC, I'll get back to work soon 🔥

I'm still a little busy with unpacking from the trip, but I expect to return to the regular routine next week 👍

My plan for next week is basically to continue where I left off — last time, I was working on the 'main scene' of the next update, so to speak, and my wish is to finish the dialogue, sprites, and backgrounds for this scene by the end of next week 👇
This scene also involves the new 'story element' I mentioned in a previous dev log... well, look forward to it 😉

That's all from me for this time! It's great to be back! 😄
Have a great week and see you all next Sunday! 👋😊