Hey, everyone who still bothers with this forum. Check this out.
The translation is looking really good, I can't wait until it comes out. Is there any more info on the nurse in the VN? As she seems to know a lot more about the yokai then she lets on.
Hey, everyone who still bothers with this forum. Check this out.
The reason not many people are talking about Higanbana is because there really isn't much to talk about. It's a lot more straight forward then higurashi and Umineko.
The reason not many people are talking about Higanbana is because there really isn't much to talk about. It's a lot more straight forward then higurashi and Umineko.
Then I have no choice but to wait for the translation to understand what's happpening. It'll be better that way, so I won't be complaining.
Could someone please divulge the plot summaries of "鎮守神さまの祠" (The Tutelary God's Shrine), "ハメルンのカスタネット" (Hameln's Castanets), and "とある少女の一日" (One Day for a Certain Girl)?
I'm almost done reading the VN. It takes me a while since my Japanese is pretty weak, but I've read these 3 stories.
I'm mostly going from memory, so I may leave out a few things...
Spoiler for The Tutelary God's Shrine:
This one was really short.
The main character is Michiru Sakurada. She has an eyepatch and claims to see spirits (she can, to a degree), so other other students think she's kind of creepy.
One day a female student gets injured in a strange accident (I think it was a chair, a fire extinguisher or something; some kind of heavy object falling from a window).
Then, when Michiru visits a small shrine on campus, which was recently damaged, one of the injured girl's friends shows up to consult Michiru. It turns out that these two girls and some more of their friends are the ones who damaged the shrine (by accident; it was a sports ball or something). Normally people don't like to talk to Michiru much, but since a bunch of strange and scary things have been happening, this girl is afraid that curses might actually be real, and wants to ask Michiru for help.
Michiru says that yes, they are actually cursed. The Tutelary God was once benevolent, but has been neglected for a long time and his shrine being broken was the last straw. The only thing that might quell his anger is if all the girls responsible for breaking the shrine come and apologize to him together. However, this will be difficult, since one girl is already in the hospital, and another stubbornly refuses to believe in spirits. Michiru says that in the meantime before everyone involved can be convinced and gathered, that the girl should seek protection from other spirits.
Michiru guides the girl to the old schoolhouse where many spirits reside. As they walk through the hallways there, they plead for help spiritual help. Marie hears them and decides to help them (although there is no two-way communication between Marie and the 2 human girls).
Marie goes to the Tutelary God's shrine and finds the school nurse/doctor is repairing it. Higanbana shows up and Marie tells her about the vengeful Tutelary God. Higanbana is skeptical of this story. Then the Tutelary God shows up, and he is clearly harmless (he has a different name, which I don't remember, but he has the same portrait and personality as Sakutarou from Umineko). He's not vengeful; instead he was really scared when his shrine was broken. He's quite happy now that the doctor is repairing his home.
So the girls who damaged the shrine all get together after school and talk about apologizing, except the one stubborn girl gets mad and leaves. But right before she exits the building she has doubts (the exit is the same place the other girl was injured). Meanwhile, a chair (or some other object-I don't remember) is readying itself to fall on her when she exits.
And here's the twist:
Suddenly Marie says to stop, and we get a surprised portrait of Michiru, who was about to drop the chair (?) at the girl. It turns out Michiru was the one responsible for the accidents all along, because she wanted to scare the girls into apologizing (she's not actually trying to kill or seriously hurt anyone). Apparently, her spiritual sense is not that strong, but she was still able to feel Sakutarou's shock when his home was broken and wanted to get the girls to apologize to him.
Marie tells Michiru that the shrine is repaired and convinces her that everything is OK, Sakutarou is happy, and that she should stop. It also turned out that the hospitalized girl didn't end up in the hospital because of the accident, but because of appendicitis.
So, in the end nothing really serious or sad happened.
That's all I'll do for now. I'll do the others later, if I feel like it.
I'm almost done reading the VN. It takes me a while since my Japanese is pretty weak, but I've read these 3 stories.
I'm mostly going from memory, so I may leave out a few things...
Spoiler for The Tutelary God's Shrine:
This one was really short.
The main character is Michiru Sakurada. She has an eyepatch and claims to see spirits (she can, to a degree), so other other students think she's kind of creepy.
One day a female student gets injured in a strange accident (I think it was a chair, a fire extinguisher or something; some kind of heavy object falling from a window).
Then, when Michiru visits a small shrine on campus, which was recently damaged, one of the injured girl's friends shows up to consult Michiru. It turns out that these two girls and some more of their friends are the ones who damaged the shrine (by accident; it was a sports ball or something). Normally, people don't like to talk to Michiru much, but since a bunch of strange and scary things have been happening, this girl is afraid that curses might actually be real, and wants to ask Michiru for help.
Michiru says that yes, they are actually cursed. The Tutelary God was once benevolent, but has been neglected for a long time and his shrine being broken was the last straw. The only thing that might quell his anger is if all the girls responsible for breaking the shrine come and apologize to him together. However, this will be difficult, since one girl is already in the hospital, and another stubbornly refuses to believe in spirits. Michiru says that in the meantime before everyone involved can be convinced and gathered, that the girl should seek protection from other spirits.
Michiru guides the girl to the old schoolhouse where many spirits reside. As they walk through the hallways there, they plead for help spiritual help. Marie hears them and decides to help them (although there is no two-way communication between Marie and the 2 human girls).
Marie goes to the Tutelary God's shrine and finds the school nurse/doctor is repairing it. Higanbana shows up and Marie tells her about the vengeful Tutelary God. Higanbana is skeptical of this story. Then we Tutelary God shows up, and he is clearly harmless (he has a different name, which I don't remember, but he has the same portrait and personality as Sakutarou from Umineko). He's not vengeful; instead he was really scared when his shrine was broken. He's quite happy now that the doctor is repairing his home.
So the girls who damaged the shrine all get together after school and talk about apologizing, except the one stubborn girl gets mad and leaves. But right before she exits the building she has doubts (the exit is the same place the other girl was injured). Meanwhile, a chair (or some other object-I don't remember) is readying itself to fall on her when she exits.
And here's the twist:
Suddenly Marie says to stop, and we get a surprised portrait of Michiru, who was about to drop the chair (?) at the girl. It turns out Michiru was the one responsible for the accidents all along, because she wanted to scare the girls into apologizing (she's not actually trying to kill or seriously hurt anyone). Apparently, her spiritual sense is not that strong, but she was still able to feel Sakutarou's shock when his home was broken and wanted to get the girls to apologize to him.
Marie tells Michiru that the shrine is repaired and convinces her that everything is OK, Sakutarou is happy, and that she should stop. It also turned out that the hospitalized girl didn't end up in the hospital because of the accident, but because of appendicitis.
So, in the end nothing really serious or sad happened.
That's all I'll do for now. I'll do the others later, if I feel like it.
Judging from what I personally know, this story is child's play compared to Hameln's Castanets.
It seems the even-numbered stories have some degree of a happy, if not bittersweet, endings, while the odd-numbered stories are where it gets really gritty. Of course, this only seems to apply to this installment, and we have no way of knowing about later games.
Judging from what I personally know, this story is child's play compared to Hameln's Castanets.
Yes, Hameln's Castanets is a really dark one. I didn't particularly like it, though. My favorite so far after reading the first 6 is definitely The Princess's Lie.
Quote:
Originally Posted by immblueversion
It seems the even-numbered stories have some degree of a happy, if not bittersweet, endings, while the odd-numbered stories are where it gets really gritty. Of course, this only seems to apply to this installment, and we have no way of knowing about later games.
Well, so far this has been true, although you could argue that #2 was grittier than #3.
OK, well I reviewed this thread and have a couple little things to clear up on peoples' incomplete understanding of some of the stories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by immblueversion
Of all the stories that I haven't seen prior to the manga, the one that intrigues me the most is the third story, with Midori and the "Tea Gentleman." I'm no expert in Japanese, but this is how I think their story goes, so if anyone has any details or corrections, please tell me.
Spoiler for EP3 Spoilers & Speculation:
Midori is supposedly this popular girl who comes from a wealthy family, and is regularly called a "Princess" by her classmates. She's also a favorite in the drama club, and has nailed the lead (or at least a pretty big) role in this play called "Rokkenjima" (Oh, Ryu... ).
She's waited on by this youkai, the "Tea Gentleman," though I think he's said to NOT be one of the seven (well, eight at this point) youkai that haunt the school. There's supposedly this other student named Nozomi who's just as rich as Midori, but isn't as popular and is, in fact, violently bullied because she flaunts her wealth. Nozomi was also not as fortunate to get a big role in the play, if she even got a role at all.
Lately, however, Midori has been suffering from some pretty bad and abrupt pains in her body. This is because (and don't take my word for it, because I'm not clear on this)...
Spoiler for HUGE spoiler speculation:
Midori is the one who is bullied and beaten. She is NOT popular and she's NOT the star of the school play; Nozomi is. If I'm not mistaken, the "Tea Gentleman" is manipulating her into believing that she and Nozomi have switched places. However, she still feels pain in her body whenever she gets beaten up by her classmates.
If I'm wrong on any points, or if I'm missing information, then by all means, tell me.
Spoiler for The Princess's Lie:
Midori isn't "waited on" by the Tea Gentleman. Months ago she was suffering and bullied. She was only ever allowed to make props in drama club, never to act; basically she was a slave and got nothing for it. And bullied, shunned and ridiculed. That's when the Tea Gentleman showed up and offered to help. He said "all it will cost is a tiny bit of your soul"; He really downplayed how much it would be. Desperate, she agreed, and he said she could have any role she wanted. She worked hard memorizing lines for the play (this is before the "Rokkenjima" play), and lucky for her, the star had to drop out of the play in the last minute. Midori being the only one who knew the main character's lines ended up filling in for the part, and she was a big success. Since then her life has been turned around; she's become idolized, made lots of friends, and gained the nickname "Princess".
However, there's this girl, Nozomi who is similarly rich, but because she's a snob everyone hates and ridicules her. Midori feels sorry for her. Nozomi is part of the drama club and has to do all the stuff Midori used to.
When the roles for "Rokkenjima" are determined, naturally it's Midori who is assigned the lead role. She studies the lines hard and stays late at school.
However, throughout all of this she sometimes has strange pains at school. Midori's worried, but the Tea Gentleman always tells her to pay the pains no mind. He always supports and presses her to accomplish her goals with the drama club.
But, over time the pains get worse and more frequent. Nozomi's stares get more disturbing. And once, while she was eating lunch with her friends at school, a bunch of dead insects suddenly appear in her food without her even knowing how they got there. She flips out. She begins to suspect that the Tea Gentleman is now helping Nozomi to take her place, just as Midori took the place of the lead in the previous place. She thinks that the Tea Gentleman is trying to make her quit her spot as the lead of Rokkenjima. She won't let that happen.
So she runs into the drama room and puts on her costume (I don't remember why exactly, I think she just wanted to affirm her role).
Spoiler:
You were right, more or less.
Nozomi shows up and basically says "Get the fuck out of my dress you creepy stinking bitch." Midori says it's her dress, but Nozomi clearly doesn't think so; and she treats Midori like crap. Then Midori remembers; it's Nozomi who has the leading role; it's Nozomi who has a lot of friends; it's Nozomi who is called "Princess". The pains Midori feels are other people bullying her (hitting her), and the insects in her food was a prank.
I don't remember exactly how, but the Tea Gentleman and Marie both show up. Marie fights the Tea Gentleman to protect Midori from his illusions. I didn't understand what happened in the fight too well, but apparently the Tea Gentleman won. Higanbana shows up and explains that he's not one of the 8 Youkai, but that he'd actually be #2 in strength and he's Headmaster's right-hand man.
Finally, it's shown that Midori is better off with the delusion, and that the Tea Gentleman is not evil, but is actually trying to help her cope. The "role" that Midori chose when the Tea Gentleman offered was none other than Nozomi.
Quote:
Originally Posted by immblueversion
Here's what I could gather on "The Spirit Camera."
Spoiler for Summary of what I know:
The main character is a boy named Takeshi Nonomiya, who is a photographer and may be a member of the school's journalism club. He finds this musty old camera and takes a picture of his class with it. When it develops, he sees a picture of the now-dead Marie in it, but doesn't seem to have much memory of her, if he even remembers her at all. So he sets out to learn more about who she is because he's obsessed with "finding the truth," or something like that.
Now prepare for some more incoherent details. Please don't think of this as bad writing on Ryukishi07's part, because I don't know enough Japanese to know how this all ties together. For this reason, I'll only list the details I know.
Nonomiya meets with Marie's mother, who kind of freaks out over how her daughter hasn't come home.
He runs into this youkai called the Headmaster who's the highest ranked of all the youkai in the school, and he apparently tries to eat him, but Higanbana shows up and stops the Headmaster.
Higanbana brings him home and goes through his album and forces him to remember that he was once a stalker who harassed this girl named Youko, who eventually committed suicide (I think the shock of the event, if not the fact that he saw her body get eaten by the Headmaster, made him forget). Then Higanbana summons Youko's ghost, but I think Youko forgives him.
Higanbana keeps tormenting Nonomiya, but Marie shows up to defend Nonomiya and gets into a fight with Higanbana. Higanbana is driven away, and Marie and Nonomiya have this talk (I assume Nonomiya is satisfied with his lust for the truth about her at this point).
Nonomiya moves on with his life, and Marie and Higanbana are shown to be friends again (or whatever their relationship is; I'm kind of thinking that they were only pretending to fight for Nonomiya's sake, but really, that's entirely speculative on my part).
So there you have it. If you want to know what REALLY goes on, well, someone had better translate it.
Spoiler for The Spirit Camera:
Several months/years ago Takeshi was framed for an accident at school that resulted in an anatomic model being destroyed and got the blame. He decided that if he had pictures he could have proved his innocence and thus became interested in photography. This is also the reason for his obsession with "the truth".
After he finds the camera, Higanbana appears and cryptically warns him to take pictures with it responsibly. Takeshi doesn't realize she's a Youkai yet.
Marie's mom flipped out because her memory of Marie was triggered when Takeshi showed her the photograph that had Marie in it. Without seeing that photo, no one can remember her at all. This is because Headmaster's power is the ability to consume memories. For a Youkai, the Headmaster is actually pretty weak. However, his power is so useful for Youkai that he has managed to get the #1 position among the 8 Youkai. Higanbana resents this.
Headmaster approached Takeshi because he wanted the camera (it's quite the liability for his power after all). He was polite about it, but when he asked for the camera and Takeshi refused he got angry and attacked him. Then Higanbana showed up and saved Takeshi; and it was clear that she was a lot stronger than Headmaster.
Higanbana does force Takeshi to remember stalking Youko. However, Takeshi stalked her because she was the girl who framed him for the accident those months/years ago. He tormented her by taking pictures of her secretly and releasing them anonymously. She became an object of ridicule in the classroom, and eventually became isolated and depressed... and committed suicide.
Higanbana summons Youko from Hell to take revenge. Iirc she offers her a spot in the human world if she kills Takeshi and sends him to Hell in her place. She just wants to watch them fight. There's a lot of eerie tension and inner monologue, but eventually, instead of fighting they start talking. They both feel awful about what they did and forgive each other. Higanbana doesn't accept this and decides to attack Takeshi, which is when Marie shows up.
Yes. In the end Marie hinted that Higanbana had actually planned everything from the beginning so that Takeshi and Youko could reconcile. And Headmaster erases Marie's mom's memories again, the moral being that some things are best forgotten.
Just began reading the first story in Higanbana. I really like the dark atmosphere it shows from the beginning, but... the various descriptions and narrator's thoughts just go on and on and on without any kind of dialogue for a long time. Ugh. I felt overwhelmed - I'm not yet very well versed in Japanese, sure (I'd rank myself a mid-N4 if we're talking JLPT), but I'm still under the impression that the first chapters of Higurashi and Umineko were much more straightforward and easy to follow. I don't think I have the willpower to sit straight and grind through this amount of psychological speech.
That aside, the soundtrack is beautiful (albeit I still have to hear it in-context) and the sound effects quite eerie, in a good sense. I guess I'll try reading bit by bit, slowly and carefully, because, at a first glance, Higanbana has got what it takes to make me enjoy the read.
Does anyone know where an english patch for this is available? I can't start reading it yet mainly due to having zero experience with Japanese.
We're currently working on an English patch which is coming along quite well. Translation for the first of seven chapters is complete (see the video I posted above) and I've done a basic proofread of it, so most of the major typos are gone.
Translation of the second chapter has started, although there are a few bugs we're trying to sort out, including at least one that was present in the original Japanese version.
Either way, the patch will be released when the translation is done and we feel it is of a high enough quality. You can keep track of progress at http://ronove.blogspot.com/.
We're currently working on an English patch which is coming along quite well. Translation for the first of seven chapters is complete (see the video I posted above) and I've done a basic proofread of it, so most of the major typos are gone.
Translation of the second chapter has started, although there are a few bugs we're trying to sort out, including at least one that was present in the original Japanese version.
Either way, the patch will be released when the translation is done and we feel it is of a high enough quality. You can keep track of progress at http://ronove.blogspot.com/.
Wow very nice, can't wait. And as for the VN does it contain all chapters that will be released or is it like Umineko, with 2 separate arcs?
Wow very nice, can't wait. And as for the VN does it contain all chapters that will be released or is it like Umineko, with 2 separate arcs?
The visual novel that was released last month is Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni: The First Night. Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni: The Second Night is currently in development and will probably be released at FuyuComi (end of December). The Second Night will not include The First Night. No word has been given on whether there will be any more releases after The Second Night.
I had no clue this was already getting translated. I had a bit of a fanboy moment, and now that I have calmed down, I thank those of you who are working on this =3