UPDATE [11/25/08]: Revised script can be found here.

While pondering a means by which I could enjoy Key's latest work, Little Busters, with my limited Japanese language ability, I discovered a lack of resources available to assist low-intermediate readers. Machine translation does naught to improve one's interpretation skill (except perhaps of "Engrish"), and those with literate reading capability don't require aids.

Thus, I have hacked together what is essentially a glorified (if even that) macro for automating the transferal of text from AGTH to Wakan and Firefox (rikaichan). All the software required to implement it is freely available on the internet. It's very simple, essentially shuffling clipboard contents around, but I hadn't really seen any discussion regarding this sort of technique in the usual places.

More details after the jump:

[More:]

Methodology:

Why both Wakan and rikaichan? I wasn't satisified with the implementation of each one on it's own. rikaichan has a superior grammar detection engine, but mouse-overing every single character gets tedious quickly. Wakan, on the other hand, displays furigana and definitions along with the text, but it often omits hiragana and katakana only words, and occasionally parses compounds incorrectly or provides the incorrect pronunciation. Together, the two complement each other nicely. The ideal solution would be some sort of AGTH plugin that piped into a standalone version of rikaichan that had the additional features of Wakan, but that's well beyond my abilities. Anyone up to the task? xD

Pros:
-Japanese literacy can be better trained, especially when used in conjunction with Wakan's learning features.
-Software is freely available.
-Should work with every game that AGTH works with.

Cons:
-solid understanding of Japanese grammar and kana required for effective use.
-it's somewhat inefficient, being a script and requiring several different programs in a specific configuration.

What you'll need (These will open in new window):

AGTH (Anime Games Text Hooker)

agth.html (make an empty html file of that name and put it somewhere convenient. UTF-8 encoding is a good idea.)

AutoIt (the scripting engine)

Mozilla Firefox

notepad.exe (this comes with Windows >.>)

Rikaichan (Firefox extension)

The script

Wakan

Make sure to grab the latest dictionaries for Rikaichan and Wakan, of course. Quite a list eh? This solution is not for everyone, but I definitely found it worthwhile to set up.

Instructions:

Step 1: Install everything.

Step 2: Create an AGTH shortcut as required for the game in question (More documentation on AGTH can be found here). Make sure to use the /C switch in the shortcut (clipboard copy).

Step 3: Modify the script by replacing GAME WINDOW TITLE GOES HERE with the Game's window title. The AutoIt Window Info Tool that comes with AutoIt will facilitate this. Copy it from the box as indicated in this example screenshot.

Step 4: Open agth.html in Notepad. This file acts as a scratchpad of sorts for rikaichan.

Step 5: Open agth.html in Firefox. Turn on rikaichan.

Step 6: Open Wakan. Go to "Editor/Translator" mode.

Step 7: Run the shortcut you made in step 2 to start your game. Once past the main menu, select the appropriate text thread in AGTH (see AGTH documentation for further details).

Step 8: Run the script.

Step 9: Arrange your windows nicely for efficient use of screen space.

And that's pretty much it. Click on the game window to advance the text, and when it's done displaying and registers in Wakan, click on the Wakan window to translate it. Mouse-over the text in Firefox with rikaichan for more detailed info on conjugations, names, and words that Wakan may have skipped. Hope someone finds this useful!