Posts Tagged ‘kana little sister’

Despite my best efforts, I am never going to be able to report on everything that happens in the anime world. I do have a job and life away from the laptop (those of you who know me away from the internet can stop laughing now) despite popular opinion. So with that in mind today marks the debut of another new feature; Highs and Lames. Exactly what it says, this is going to be a weekly recap of the best and most annoying things to slip past my radar this week…

HIGHS

New People Opening in San Francisco: While I didn’t get to attend the grand opening both Gia from Anime Vice and Deb Aoki did get to attend and took some awesome pictures! Three stories tall, filled with shops, a movie theater that will show anime and Japanese live action features and food vendors the grand opening looked like a ton of fun. If you’re an anime fan in the San Francisco bay area and you don’t already have plans to visit this place I’d like to know where your priorities are.

I know someone who would be really jealous of your head piece

Comiket Breaks Records: 560,000 people attended the Summer Comic Convention (Comiket) this past weekend shattering previous records. It’s important to note that due to the convention being free to the public it’s impossible to determine how many unique individuals make up that 560,000. Still, that is a very sizeable portion of Tokyo’s population packing into one place. Part of me would love to experience Comiket at some point but part of me is afraid of being trampled.

One Piece Returns: After a disastrous first attempt, Funimation announced this week that One Piece would return to its streaming ways starting with episode 391 today. New episodes will be rolled out one hour after they premiere in Japan starting Saturday, August 29^th. The most important thing about this from my perspective is Funimation convinced (I assume, I don’t actually know how much convincing had to be done) Toei to give it a second chance. A company in Japan was burned on a new venture and yet are coming back to try again, that’s a very cool step forward to see happening.

LAMES

Otaku Names Daughter ‘Kana’: This article got some interesting comments earlier this week worth highlighting. It seems that the popular opinion of those who commented is that the idea of naming your daughter after an eroge character is disgusting. While some were ok with the idea of naming their kid after an anime character, just the idea of a character from this game made some readers reel back. That actually surprised me a little, partially due to just the reaction in general but also the attitude towards the game ‘Kana: Little Sister‘ (which I urge visual novel or eroge fans to play before it goes out of print). I’m not going to launch into a long rant about why this visual novel is so amazingly better than everyone is suspecting it is (because it is) but I could. I won’t though.

Korea pissed off about Poop: So Korea have been made upset about something happening in Japan again. I know, shock and awe. It seems that an anime in Japan features characters that are pieces of shit. I don’t mean badly drawn, the characters are turds. Koreans are upset because one of the characters loves to eat kimchee and is easily angered because this is obviously a dig at Koreans. Seriously… get over it.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works: Canned Dogs reports on a quote from Nasu Kinoko (original concept designer for the series) stating that the new Fate/Stay Night movie will be 90 minutes long. Only 90 minutes? Lame! 

Single of the Week:

One Winged Bird - Akiko Shikata (Umineko no Naku Koro ni OP Single)

Thing You Didn’t Know You Needed Until Now:

2010 Anime Calendars: I already have Higurashi on my shopping list, what anime characters are going to be keeping track of your schedule next year?

So there’s the highs and lames for this week. This article format may change a little as I get used to writing this but this is a regular feature that you can now expect on Fridays. Feedback and comments always welcome! Speaking of, what do you consider the highs and lames for the week?

Don't worry Kana, you can still have your name

Once upon a time there was a man and a woman living happily together as man and wife. Fast forward a little bit and the man got more good news; he was going to be a father. The happy couple happily decided that if the baby was a boy it would be named by the wife while the husband would get to name the daughter. Well, the baby ended up being a girl and that’s about where the happy bit ends.

According to the story, when the man learned that he was to have a daughter he could think of no better name than Kana. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the name Kana. It’s a simple name that can mean powerful or even beautiful. When you decide to pick the name because of an eroge though, one might consider getting the consent of the other people involved before you set yourself on the name.

Yup, the unnamed (but presumably still married) man is in hot water with his family because his inspiration for the name Kana happens to be the eroge “Kana: Little Sister“. Upon hearing that he was to have a daughter “I had no other choice but to call her Kana.” Unfortunately he wasn’t entirely honest about this and told his wife instead that he chose the name Kana from a piece of classic literature in which “Kana” was a “wonderful, good little girl.” And he would’ve gotten away with it too hadn’t been for his dumb ass leaving the box for the game sitting under his keyboard. Seriously, how did he not think he was going to be figured out after making an idiot move like that?

I’m certain that this isn’t the first case of a real life child being named after an anime character. A Google search on “kids named after anime characters” reveals thousands of posts and threads on hundreds of message boards discussing the same topic. While I’m not so sure I’d go so far as to name my kid after a character (I kind of need a kid first… for that matter, I need to do a lot more of what it takes to make a kid) but out of all the characters to choose, I can’t say that Kana is that bad of a choice. She was a “wonderful, good girl” after all and the game was rather excellent.

So, would your name a kid after an anime or visual novel character?

<Via Sankanku Complex>

Intro
 
        How far would you go to protect the sister that you loved more than anyone else?
 
Story
 
        The story of this game seems very simple on the surface. You are playing the role of Takamichi Todo. A fairly average guy that has a younger sister named Kana with a chronic illness called Chronic Renal Insufficiency. For her entire life she’s been in and out of the hospital and while you hated her as a child, as a teenager and an adult you love her more than anyone else in life.
 
        Over the course of this game you learn just how closely you and your sister have become over the years and what lengths you would go to in order to make her happy and protect her even if means ignoring the advances of your attractive classmate Yumi or doing all you can to make Kana’s classmate stop trying to get her to go on a date with him.
 
Artwork
 
        The artwork in this game is where the game is a real winner. While the H factor is very low (You’ll get maybe 3 sex scenes in the entire game), the artwork is incredibly well done. The artwork in the sex scenes is very nice and has a very soft feel to it though I did find the censorship was very annoying to see. I really expected to see the mosaic censorship removed from the game before it was marketed in this country but sadly that didn’t happen.
 
        What really impressed me here though was the incredible character design. Almost every character that appears on your screen during this game looks wonderful at one point or another. While Kana’s nurse Miki and Yumi don’t always look fabulous, there are plenty of moments when they are just as beautiful as anyone else in this game. The character design of Kana though was absolutely top notch. Every time she appears on your screen you just want to reach out and hug this terribly unfortunate, beautiful and fragile girl. Nowhere in this game is that more apparent than during the opening song sequence when you first load up the game. Do yourself a favor and watch this absolutely beautiful slideshow sequence of CG images while the opening theme plays.
 
Translation
 
        For the most part, the translation of this game was very well done with very little worth noting. There were a few instances of words being misspelled and a few grammar errors but nothing that is out of the ordinary. I was a little annoyed at the poor spacing errors though which would lead to numerous instances of a sentence being cut off at the very end and then having the next contain only a ” to mark the end of the sentence.
 
Writing and Story
 
        This is a brand new section for my review of H-games. Normally I don’t focus on this section too closely and just try to mention it in another section of the review but this game absolutely deserves its own section just so that I can absolutely rave about the writing and story in it.
 
        The story in this game is absolutely beautiful. This is a game that strives to be more than just a simple H game with some sex thrown in. This is gorgeous work of art that tells a wonderful story all about love and sacrifice. The writing in this game is almost flawless in the way that it absolutely pulls at your heart. If you can get through all of ending number 6 without crying once than you are a very heartless individual.
 
        With this game having such a small cast of characters, it’s very easy for the writers to bring you that much further into the game and really help you get to know every character on an intimate basis. Naturally the huge advantage to this is that you care very deeply about what happens to these characters and you want to believe in a happy ending. You won’t always find one but you are always going to look for it.
 
Bad Points
 
        This game is not lacking on its flaws though and I think the one that is going to bother the most people are the themes within it including incest and death. When you pop a hentai game into your computer, the last thing you really want to be thinking about is death but when the main female character of the game is dying of a chronic illness, you can’t really avoid it.
 
        Incest is also another theme that will take a lot of people aback when they begin to play this game as this isn’t exactly the most welcome of topics around any table. I sincerely believe though that in this case, you absolutely must look past this.
 
        The biggest flaw that I can find with this game though is that it’s very annoying that each image from the game is placed in the background and the text appears over the background. I really would have much rather have seen the text appear in it’s own box below each image as you played so that I could enjoy the artwork much more clearly but again, as I was paying attention to the story much more than any of the artwork in the game this is something that can be overlooked.
 
        While the music in the game is very well done as well, you’re going to find that a lot of times it doesn’t really fit well with the scene that you are in. This is easily fixed however by simple turning off the music though. I also found that it was quite frustrating that you couldn’t click to continue text when a sound effect was playing until the sound effect was completed.
 
        I also found that the lack of voice acting was a huge disappointment to me. I really thought that at least a couple of voice actors being thrown in could have created a whole new dynamic to the game that it is currently lacking. I can’t imagine how much more painful and heart wrenching some of the scenes in the hospital could be if a voice had been provided to Kana or another character that you’ll come across during your time in front of this game.
       
Replay Value
       
        Even though this game only has six endings, it is absolutely worth it to play through it repeatedly until you’ve seen the most important endings. The first ending that you’ll want to see is ending number 1 which is the true ending. While this ending didn’t strike me as wonderful, I did think that it was a realistic conclusion and worth viewing. Then I got to ending number 6 which is one of the most heart breaking things I have seen in months if not years.
 
        One thing that I particularly enjoyed and felt was a great touch was the side story that you are able to open after you complete ending 6.
 
Overall
 
        This was simply a beautiful game. I have absolutely zero qualms about saying that this is a must own title even if you are not a fan of H-games. The game is beautiful on so many levels and will touch you deeply. How you can play through this game and not feel a very deep attachment to Kana by the time it’s done is absolutely beyond me. The characters are touching, the story is beautiful and I can’t wait to play it again to get the last couple of endings that I haven’t gotten to yet. If you are looking for a wonderful story that will capture you from start to finish, then you need not look any further than this one. Absolutely recommended!
 
Final Grade: 90%