Remembering Yorhel

Last updated 2026- 2-23, 1:57:37 A.M. UTC+00:00

Ad astra

I'm still not sure I've fully absorbed the shock from the news.

I've never talked to yorhel personally, nor have I been particularly active on VNDB. But it's quite difficult to overstate the impact of his work on my life.

As you may or may not know, I've been working on otoDB.net for the past year. And the quintessential influence from VNDB.org wouldn't escape the attentive ones. It will forever be our shame that we weren't able to directly thank him for the inspirations.

I would always recall yorhel saying that he doesn't consider VNDB to be particularly exceptional, and him remaining puzzled for a long time that no competitors existed in the Anglophone part of the internet. (Of course, EGS, Bangumi, etc. have existed for a long time in other parts of the world. But none can quite compare to VNDB in terms of indexing prowess.)

The reality of course, is that it isn't true. VNDB is outstanding among "database websites" with its unique culture and approach. And it's easy for a potential competitor to be discouraged when something so great exists -- free and open source, for a relatively niche community like visual novels. It's not establishing relationships between entities, aggregating release information, a strongly curated tag system with multiple inheritance, or even a simple interface directly for you to run full SQL queries against a database replica inside the browser itself that's unique and novel per se. But it isn't so common to see them so tightly integrated and presented in such an accessible and intuitive way with the vast swaths of nontrivial data contributed by a motivated community fostered, in turn, by the site itself. And it isn't easy to achieve.

There's not much more I can say about the quality of VNDB itself or its impact regarding the visual novel medium that hasn't been said elsewhere. The particular approach and the ideas that it embodies are something quite special in this age. It's one thing to do everything from the ground up in your own web framework. I've always believed that's a sign of love and passion.

In our times, one's approach to the internet alone carries a lot of meaning. There's quite a lot you can understand about a person by inspecting how they engage with the internet.
From someone faraway and detached personally, I still wonder -- and invite you to as well, what would yorhel like to see us do in this situation? It certainly isn't to sob and tread water.

Finishing the series of presentations about the online enthusiast communities and their experiences with participating in the JVMG project Yoran Heling the creator of The Visual Novel Database (VNDB) took to the stage and offered a detailed overview of the many changes and updates that have happened since the first project workshop three and a half years ago. Many new features have been added to VNDB, including a powerful advanced search feature, internationalized visual novel titles, support for user reviews and more exact play through times, and further links to other databases. Yoran Heling also recounted how the last workshop was the final push for him to open up the VNDB data to the public, with almost the entire database now available for download under an ODbL license. Finally, we got to see a roadmap of the plans for the further development of VNDB going forward, warranted in part by the way community activity is only increasing over time on the site.
JVMG Project Phase One Wrap-Up Workshop. February 21, 2023

We are all around for a limited time. What will you dedicate your time to?