Koichoco, Daitouryou, To Heart 2:

Good news.  There are more English translated visual novels worth reading available.  Koichoco came out a few days ago.  There are a variety of digital rights management issues with the game, but if you follow the instructions provided here:

https://sukebei.nyaa.eu/?page=view&tid=1879264

You can not only get the english translated game, but also the workarounds to defeat all the drm issues.

While we're on the topic of english translated visual novels, there's also Osananajimi Daitouryou's Fandisk, which I foolishly haven't played yet even though I loved the original game.

There's also apparently a To Heart 2 translation that's already complete, even though I could've sworn the project was nowhere near completion, it's apparently been out for quite a while already.  I don't know how good the To Heart 2 visual novel is, but I do know the anime was good and the VN is famous for being the inspiration of future key works.  How bad can it be with positives like that?

I'm still stuck in the middle of Majikoi, but that doesn't mean I can't switch over and play these games for a while instead.  Maybe a break from Majikoi is just the thing I need to get the energy to return to it.

A lot of this year was rewatching (for the first time in blu-ray) great anime and reading up on my favorite manga series.  There simply isn't enough anime and manga for that plan to work next year, so it's going to have to be all about these visual novels, plus the light novels of Index, Spice and Wolf, Amagi Brilliant Park, No Game No Life, etc.  I'm graduating to a higher degree of difficulty entertainment, but it had to happen sooner or later.  Luckily, there's still plenty of material in these fields I've never seen yet, so my to do list will always have plenty of items left to check off.  There's never a dull day when you're trying to race all the best art producers in the world.

Haganai volume 10 is so close to done.  Only one chapter untranslated left to go.  It's been a great ride so far.  There's also a fan translation of the first Naruto light novel.  It's only a summary though, and we still don't know if it's even necessary to read these.  If they're going to be animated anyway, reading the books would just be less efficient than sitting back and enjoying the show.  This is why it's so frustrating not knowing what the anime franchise is planning to do after it reaches the ending of the manga -- will it ever reach the ending or do they just intend to keep releasing filler forever?

Bleach's latest chapter had Kira emerging from the rubble and kicking ass again.  I was so happy, not just to see Kira again, but because I had predicted all along that he wasn't really dead, just 'missing,' and even that he would rejoin the fight eventually.  I am the master of all things Bleach.  Also, Bleach has been amazing recently, a far cry from One Piece which only releases every other week, and then spends all its time about strangers no one cares about even when it does come out.  When I look at One Piece's future prospects, the fact that it won't finish in even another ten years fills me with a great weariness.  How can a story without an ending, or even a chance at an ending, be considered good?  Just look at NANA or Bastard! or Hunter x Hunter for other examples of good beginnings gone hopelessly bad.  Isn't One Piece on that exact same trajectory?

Compared to Bleach and Fairy Tail which are wrapping things up and delivering on long promised foreshadowing, One Piece is just wandering around doing nothing.  One Piece is the next Hunter x Hunter.  It's the next Berserk.  Just wait, they'll get stuck on a ship for years on end -- oh wait that's the premise of the story this time, hmm. . .