I just learned today that 07th Expansion is releasing a manga adaption of a story from their upcoming game, TRianThology, for free online. It’s part of a collaboration between 07th Expansion and Nico Nico Seiga, the manga side of Japanese website Niconico, which is better known for online videos and tons of bizarre memes.
As we learned at last year’s ACen Panel, TRianThology will be made up of three linked stories:
- School friends from the country drifting apart after moving to new places, and then coming back together.
- A science fiction war story.
- A galge-like setting ala To Heart.
It looks like this manga, titled Country Girl, is based on the first story. Despite Ryukishi07’s other forays into manga, it’s clear that TRianThology will definitely still be a game, since the artist’s comments hope we can “look forward to the game while reading leisurely.”
The 1st and 2nd chapters are posted now on Nico Nico Seiga, and it says that new chapters will be posted on the third Thursday of each month. Unfortunately, it’s only in Japanese so far, though it’s just begging for a fan translation. Skimming through the 72 pages posted so far, it reminds me a bit of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. Sort of an “alas, the care free innocence of our youth has been replaced by such jaded cynicism” sort of plot. This is the story written by Tanaka Romeo, so maybe it’ll get as a dark as A Drug That Makes You Dream did (not the best VN out there, but a nostalgic gateway drug for me!).
Sea of Fragments 
Thanks for the heads up. I just read it. I’ve never seen Anohana, but your observation doesn’t seem far off. Not much else to say about it yet.
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I also don’t think it’s written in major part by Ryukishi07…although they might have done some planning together?
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I must admit, I’m not really liking this extreme focus on mangas leaving the Sound Novels behind.
Nothing against the manga medium but part of the reason I loved 07th Expansion’s universes is because of the soundtracks and the sound effects and the writing style. I really don’t want to see these two aspects gone in the near future.
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I completely agree with you, in part because it was one of Dai’s songs that made me read Higurashi for the first time, and because I agree that Ryukishi’s stories really benefit from the music and sound effects. The art may be a lot more static than in a manga, but it still plays greater role since it removes the need for dialogue tags (“he said”/”they said”) and provides the reader with streamlined scenes. Manga gives us vivid visuals, but they seem flat in comparison to the living, breathing “motion” of sound novels, since all we receive is still images. It might just a result of my own bias, but I enjoyed the sound novel version of Higanbana much more than the original manga.
But there might be a WTC5, so hopefully we’ll have another giant 07th expansion universe to explore some time in the future. I’m guessing that Ryukishi is regarding his newest works as smaller projects, and would rather branch out into other mediums, reserving a sound novel for when he has enough material saved up for another serialized story, like Higurashi and Umineko, which had incredible length and depth. That’s just my thought on the subject though.
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Yeah, I was talking to someone about music in games today and said “The music in any game probably makes up about 20% to 50% of my enjoyment.” Music is pure emotion…it hits the brain on a deeper level than any other art form (and that’s not just mumbo jumbo…see This is Your Brain on Music).
This might just be my own eccentricity, but I actually have MP3 “soundtracks” for all my favorite manga, that I fire up whenever a new chapter or volume comes out :)
I definitely don’t think he’s given up on WTC5. I was reading the Hotarubi prologue which just got translated (woot woot) and I saw that Bern signed off her letter with “Well then, I’ll see you again someday. When they cry,” which made me happy inside.
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Exactly my thoughts. Not only that but the limitless space that the narration has makes me feel like part of the story way more than what can be done in a manga.
I really loved the sound novel version of Higanbana mainly because of the atmosphere given by the soundtrack (and I really hope that Morrigan becomes a main composer for the company alongside with dai) and by the art style so in my opinion the manga is a little bit weaker by comparison. By the way, I only read part of the manga since I couldn’t find a complete translation, do you have any link for the second half of it?
@tim_p I usually choose the “soundtrack” as I read, so I kinda get it. Thanks for the link, I will definitely read it soon and regret my decision afterwards because of the hype.
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Heck yes. This track by Morrigan might be the most epic BGM in any 07th Expansion VN so far.
When you say second half, do you mean Second Night? I think the Higanbana manga’s 6 volumes only cover the First Night. Not even all of that’s been translated into English, but on amazon.co.jp the product description for the 6th volume is describing the story of Utopia.
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Im not a fan of the mangas either, I dont like their style.
Same with the generic anime looking, not for itself but because its a giveaway of how commercially things are going to roll, I hope Im wrong in this case though.
Uminekos descriptive story of the manga would have made a awesome new arc of the game, yet…
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any translation?
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Not yet, although Ryukishi07 stuff has a pretty good track record of getting fan translated. I’ll be checking it’s Baka-Updates site (awesome manga resource) periodically and let you know if anything shows up.
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