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Has anyone around here read, or attempted to read, a VN in Japanese? As in, one that has yet to be translated?

Many times!

Of course I use such things as;
Translation Aggregator or ITH.

But I've read and enjoyed a lot of untranslated VN's.

Oh, I've worked through a little bit of NOeSIS on my phone. (I can cheat a little because I can read Chinese >:3) It takes longer, though, and is thus harder to keep up.

...Ah, but it does seem quite excellent so far.

Yup! Like Amy, I could read Chinese, but it didn't really help me understand any of the japanese words ._. Most of the time I had to use AGTH then google translate to get the full meaning. (And sometimes even when I translate the English was so bad that I have no idea what it was saying. I was planning to get ATLAS... but I didn't know how to use it And the ATLAS used in tutorials... are like different from the ATLAS I have.)

Have there heard about Visual Novel Reader is a software so let you read untranslated VN
Here is link for it whis you want to try it: http://www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=466832

I can manage better when there are voices. However, when the game has long narratives (like Gore Screaming Show), it tends to hurt my head. I can read Japanese, but I can't read it as fast as when I read English text, so having to process a lot of kanji and sentence structures hurts my brain.

I've read em before, but it takes me a lot longer to read the text. If there's voices, it's easier too. (Though when there's a lot of katakana, I cry because even though some people call katakana the foreigner one.... I can read hiragana more easily.) Usually, I get lazy and just use context clues so I don't have to understand everything.

I read a few once. Some with help from AGTH and some without. Off the top of my head:

Princess Nightmare (flash engine, so no AGTH)
Heart no Kuni no Alice
Princess Hibi (on psp so no AGTH)
Comic Party (only partly)

It's a shame I haven't done it in a long while really. It's not easy at my level of Japanese, but it was great practice. I should really do it again some time.

If I remembered correctly, Princess Nightmare already received an English patch?
I haven't been reading any Japanese one but I did remember playing Re: Birthday by Honeybee, it's better than I thought, I suppose, I don't really like Honeybee's game but this one is pretty decent.

What, seriously?

*Looks it up*

Oh wow... they finally finished it!? \o/
Maybe I should read it again.

A Japanese VN about guys turning into magical girls? Best decision of my life.

Currently trying to get through Steins;Gate 比翼恋理のだーりん

I tried reading untranslated visual novels before (specifically short length), then attempt to translate them myself and asked the developer for consent if I can make a web version out of it with both languages.

How do I understand the content of the story is from reading Japanese reviews, I know three right off the bat.

おすすめフリーアドベンチャー・ノベルゲームの感想 [Reviews of recommended free adventure novel games]
http://www.geocities.jp/buriburi66ryle/ ... eview.html

NaGISAのフリーノベルレビュー [NaGISA Free Novel Reviews]
Review order
Alphabetical order
Length order

Kuzumi's Visual Novel Reviews
http://kuzumi.exblog.jp/

Kuzumi have done English visual novel reviews as well. (The reviewer uses Ren'Py Games List or Ren'Ai Archive as a source)

フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『Real Life』 - 2010-05-19 20:13
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『Moonlight Walks』 - 2010-05-20 01:01
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　番外編　『GamingBuddy-R』 - 2010-05-28 00:14
フリーサウンドノベル関係の雑記　箸休めvol.40 『Ren'Py』 - 2010-05-18 23:37
フリーサウンドノベル関係の雑記　箸休めvol.41 『Ride the Ren'Py wave!』 - 2010-07-20 21:43
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　番外編　『One Afternoon』 - 2010-07-17 21:20
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『The Cute, Light, and Fluffy Project』 - 2010-07-23 22:51
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『Notions ～first movement～』 - 2010-08-13 23:44
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『Terrey & The Vampire』 [+18] - 2010-11-16 19:30
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『Colorless Day』 - 2011-02-21 20:16
フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『Ribbon of Green』 - 2012-06-30 15:11

They are two unique reviews that a Japanese developer used Ren'Py to make their games.

フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『春椿』 [Harutsubaki (a spring camellia)] - 2011-01-09 16:26
Unfortunately, the author's website and download links are inaccessible.
Game page [what remains]
Release: Jan. 1, 2011

フリーサウンドノベルレビュー　『フォルトゥナに口づけを -un bacio per Fortuna-』 - 2010-07-15 18:48
Kuzumi once mentioned in one of Ren'Py articles, that there's a "Not Found" error when uploading to Vector which is a Japanese distribution site. For some reason it doesn't accept foreign software to their site. Instead the developer securely uploading it to alternative website.
Game page [still active] (Windows only)
Release: Sept. 11, 2010

I would make an attempt on making an unofficial translation patch for -un bacio per Fortuna- someday. Something about the overall presentation amazes me, it didn't use the typewriter effect. The disclaimer says it contains immoral behavior and cruel depiction. The Engrish credits seems unsettling...

Shinoki wrote:I've read em before, but it takes me a lot longer to read the text. If there's voices, it's easier too. (Though when there's a lot of katakana, I cry because even though some people call katakana the foreigner one.... I can read hiragana more easily.) Usually, I get lazy and just use context clues so I don't have to understand everything.

Man katakana trip me up hard. I'll just sit there staring and sounding it out, trying to decipher what it's meant to be saying...

I'm playing through Hakuouki SSL on my Vita at the moment, I'm solely using Google Translate, and it's doing a really good job, it doesn't translate things perfectly but you get the gist of everything Doing it this way takes a while though, if I didn't love the Hakuouki characters so much I wouldn't have bothered. I played the Tokimeki GS series without the english patches, but that's more stat based sim and memorising some question answers so it's entirely possible to get through it without knowing japanese.