Important Tools for Visual Novel Translation

I have found a new challenge, and it was JAPANESE!
Why does it have to be Japanese? All of it is because-

WHY U NO ENGLISH VN? (forgive me for my sudden outburst XP)

We are seeing thousands of good VN out there and in JAPANESE. It kinda makes me desperate to tries conquer it. Of course, I don't have any means to try to learn it from a,e,i,o,u. I ain't got enough times T_T. So I decided to take shortcuts and *tadaa~

I've found some awesome software! 

List of the tools that I used currently,

AGTH & ITH 

Anime Games Text Hooker & Interactive Text Hooker, its main function is to extract word from inside the games and present it in editable form. You can't copy words like usual text directly from inside the games, right? AGTH/ITH reads the machine language (i think?) and makes it editable, so we humans can finally conquer Japanese. Muahahaha~ Joking. <- You'll still need wild guessing sometimes~

AGTH and ITH have a similar function, so I lump them together in explaining. But since I've tried using both, it does have advantages and disadvantages that are quite noticeable. 

AGTH (Vers. 2011.5.9)

• Lighter memory usage compares to ITH, so I can still open many other programs beside VN itself, and it won't slow down the PC too much.
• Since it wasn't complicated, I would completely recommend this for a beginner.

ITH (Vers. 2.3)

• Heavy-duty u.u, my PC's got hangs twice because of it. So, never ever use it when you open a lot of other programs. Lesson learned~
• It probably looks more complicated at one glance, but tutorials will cover that part. Learning is part of playing, you know.
• But often, some games can only use ITH to get by, so yeah.. your choices. XP

Textractor

Newly founded gem~ I'm currently using v4.5.1. I've tried it with several VN games that don't work with AGTH/ITH, yet it could produce the right Text Thread. Overall usage is almost similar to ITH, yet it reaches more in the system. So more things to see, more junk to found as well. :D

Capture2Text

Capture2Text v4.6.1 doesn't need to read into machine language like AGTH/ITH, but it uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) in its process. The advantage of it doesn't need any AGTH/ITH code. We just need the character image. Try to read it, and we'll get the editable form. But it still had disadvantages tho. We must be more precise when trying to read one word of it since the entire background is also included in its process. That's very tiresome work before trying to interpret the meaning behind sentence itself. Some VN's tend to use transparent GUI for text, and yeah.. it won't work <- the result is very terrible. Lol, but it is still worth learning~ since I use it a lot to read Chinese manga. Hahaha~

Translation Aggregator

TA is where you can place that editable form and then be translated automatically into many translators like ATLAS, Bing, Google, and others. You can always just copy-paste it to google translate or bing from your browser. But using TA would quicken the process a lot.

ATLAS

ATLAS (V14) is a JPN-ENG/reverse dictionary where you can add your dictionary or use other person dictionaries inside it, or you can try changing its meaning (if it can). Delete also available, but maybe it wouldn't be used so often.

Mecab & JParser

Mecab and JParser(edict2) are supplemental tools used to show the furigana of kanji and the dictionary meaning of most words. <- Like a most dictionary, but this time you look at Japanese to English dictionary, lol~ Both doesn't need internet connection like ATLAS <3~

Don't understand any of it? You won't get a thing by just reading, now go and try it!

Some golden rules that one have to remember before proceeding further~

• Each PC/laptop has its own settings. If something is not working when you follow the tutorial correctly, it doesn't mean the tutorial was at fault (sometimes, maybe). You have to try to find where the difference at. Some tutorials may mention what you need to take notices on and some maybe not. Googling that problem to find similar case is the best way or just ask the admin if she/he know~.)

• Be patient, and don't give up too quickly. I'm saying this because of my experiences. It takes me some months to make all these VN translating things works. Maybe I'm just an idiot. Well, it includes some download, waiting, searching, googling, depressing about why and why it doesn't work. My internet was... sigh, don't make me remember. It sucks to wait for so long just for some games (for some people) but not for ME!

• People makes mistakes all the time. I am a person too, so what I write here and there can sometimes go wrong especially when I am sleepy xD. So, I'd appreciate some comments on its wrong part to make this tutorial more credible~ Or you can help to add new knowledge that I don't know, enriching this tutorial more.

• Remember to check for updates. Just an extra, but pretty important for me. Sometimes, an update can make a big difference between your previous version and the current one. So, just remember to check it if you have free time. ^^ 

Try reading other person tutorials would be a big help as well. 
So, I'll include some useful links for you to surf on your own :)

• AeroGamer
• Sakamichi

Bye then~  ^^)/