TRianThology Site Updated with Opening Video

Trianthology’s website has updated with a PV and tons of other stuff, including character portraits and bios. The VN will be coming out just next month, on August 28th.

Let me try my best to unpack this:

• 0:10 The “reflective shards” visualization is very reminiscent of Higurashi Hou’s OP. I imagine this will tie into the whole “Sea of Kakera/Fragments” world view of the When They Cry games.
• 0:25: Chess pieces? Could this mysterious Alice be engaged in another meta-world game?
• 0:45: OK, so it looks like all these stories are gonna get pretty dark. Even the harem one.
• 0:51: Gorillas making peace with man-kind? What sort of Planet of the Apes scenario is this? From the Gallery section of the site, it looks like this is an actual plot point from the sci-fi story.
• 0:56: And then, random Bernkastel. The character Saijyouji Karen also looks a lot like Beatrice Some other characters not shown previously flash by the screen in a blur after this, as well.

The song is pretty sweet, and it’s good to see we’re still keeping composers from Umineko and Higanbana (xaki).

All the English text is from “Alice in Wonderland”:

All in the golden afternoon …
How doth the little crocodile …
Fury said to a mouse, That …

“You are old, Father William” …
Speak roughly to your little boy…
“Will you walk a littler faster?” …
Twinkle, twinkle little bat…

Tis the voice of the lobster, …
Turtle Soup
The Queen of Hearts

They told me you had been to her…

TRianThology Official Site Updated

07th Expansion’s official site for TRianthology has just updated, with story descriptions, characters, and more.

We now finally know the official name of all three stories:

Vespio 2438: A far-future science fiction war story. Most likely written by Ryukishi07, since its character art is clearly by him.

Country Girl: A story about high school friends who went on a school trip together, eventually dispersed, but then came back together. Written by Romeo Tanaka and currently being serialized as a manga online.

Gakuen Renai: Set in a galge-like world, with a protagonist who’s very popular with the ladies (incoming trope inversion?)

One other piece of excellent news: the staff page includes musicians from previous 07th Expansion games like Dai, Pre-holder, xaki, and M. Zakky (though still no zts). Because really, these games wouldn’t be half as good without their soundtrack.

It’s interesting how the different stories use totally different character artists (unless Vespio’s outlines are just a placeholder?) I’ll probably be the only person disappointed that Ryukishi07 isn’t drawing all of it. It makes me wonder how all the stories will end up coming together, though. I did notice that the protagonist of Country Girl has a shirt with a stopwatch and rabbit design,  clearly related to the whole Alice in Wonderland theme the game hints at.

Voice and Graphics Patch Released for Higurashi’s 2nd Chapter, Watanagashi

Higurashi fans got a little Christmas present yesterday, with the release of a voice and graphics patch for the 2nd chapter of its new release from MangaGamer. Just like with the 1st chapter, the patch adds voice acting and changes the sprites to the PS3 versions by Alchemist. There’s also a voice only patch, for those who’d prefer to play with the original sprites (like me!). You can download the patch here, after getting the game from Steam or MangaGamer’s site.

I want to pause a moment to consider all the wonderful work done by modders and translators, given freely just for their love of the series. Where would we be without people like that?

Art by ８０８ on Pixiv

Enjoy, readers, and Happy Holidays!

MangaGamer Releases New Version of Higurashi’s 2nd Chapter

MangaGamer has just released their new version of Higurashi’s 2nd Chapter, “Watanaganashi-hen” (Cotton Drifting Chapter). On Friday the 13th, too, for bonus points! The new release comes with an updated translation and all new character art (plus an option to switch back to the original art).

You can buy it now at MangaGamer’s site or Steam. The version on MG’s site has less DRM, works on Linux and Mac, and comes with a free Steam Key anyways, for people who care about any of those things.

The question now is “Do I replay each chapter as it comes out, with maybe 6 months of waiting between each, or wait for them all to marathon?” I’m still mulling that over…probably the latter, since my VN backlog would thank me for it.

In other news, Iwaihime‘s release date has been delayed from November 27 to January 29, 2016.

Iwaihime Trailer Released

DMM has posted a trailer for their upcoming game Iwaihime, with writing by Ryukishi07:

It looks like the game will have a big focus on romance, perhaps even more so than horror. Or maybe that’s just a bait-and-switch tactic. We’ll see when the game comes out November 27th in Japan. Either way, that tree (?) thing with the glowing red eyes is wicked cool.

The voice acting that starts at 2:00 in the video has been translated by Garlstadt on reddit:

Go, and curse your powerlessness.

Yours is not a destiny you can alter.

You are ten years late…

A hundred years late…

A thousand years late!

Someone has also posted a full version of the OP song, performed live by Rinne Yoshida:

Not among my favorite OPs* for a Ryukishi07 game, but it works.

* And for an extra bonus list, those would be!:

1. Pithos in the Fog (Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru)
2. Dusk is what Love Crosses Over (Higanbana no Saku Koro ni)
3. To That Day (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou)
4. Love is Omerta (Rose Guns Days)
5. Brand New Way, Broadway (Rose Guns Days Last Season)

Iwaihime Cast and Release Date Announced

The release date of Ryukishi07’s new horror game has finally been set: November 27th. Its cast will include:

Makoto Furukawa as Ryō Susuhara
Chinatsu Akasaki as Toe Kurogami
Mariko Honda as Tsubakiko Harumiya
Yuka Ōtsubo as Kanae Minobe
Sarah Emi Bridcutt as Lilia Nunokawa
Ryouko Tanaka as Mayu Hinakata
Yuuki Tai as Natsuya Netsuda

Nobody super famous, but a good number of people with leading roles in excellent anime. It’s also neat-o that they got a real half-Japanese person to play their half-Japanese character (presumably due to fluent English skills).

Toranona has also announced they’ll be selling a limited edition physical package for the game, besides the digital-only edition on DMM’s site. The physical edition will come with a bonus booklet and tapestry. It’s pre-order page is here. Apparently you can order stuff from Toranoana through Tenso. I’ve never done it before, but I’m sorely tempted, since this game has some beautiful artwork.

Higurashi Rei Gets Full Translation and Graphics Patch

Finally, one more thing rescued from the towering pile of untranslated Higurashi stuff. Pearse Hillock has just released a translation/graphical update patch for the collection of side arcs, Higurashi Rei.

The first arc of Rei, the Dice Killing Chapter. has been translated for a while, but the other two are both new. Like I mentioned when Sentai licensed the anime OVAs, expect lots of fan service and wacky hijinks. Also, the Dice Killing Chapter’s translation has been touched up a bit. If you have a copy of Higurashi Hou, the patch will work on it’s bundled version of Higurashi Rei as well.

One of the cool things about this patch is that there are multiple versions, depending on how you want honorifics translated, or whether you want to use the original graphics. Get either version of the patch here.

New Version of Umineko Coming From MangaGamer

I should have seen this coming. MangaGamer has just announced that they’ll be officially releasing Umineko in English! The format will be similar to their new release of Higurashi.

The facts:

• They’ll be using Witch Hunt’s translation, but working with them to improve it.
• It’ll have all the original music.
• Just like with Higurashi, they’ll be using new character artwork not used in the Japanese console version. The sprites in the teaser image are from the Umineko pachinko game, though there’s the possibility those are just placeholders. Either way, we’ll have the option to switch between the original and new sprites.
• Just like with Higurashi, they’ll be releasing it episode by episode.
• It’ll be released on Steam and their own site (I recommend buying from their own site since it has less DRM).

I’d bet 20 to the dollar some die-hard fans will complain about them messing with the translation. To be honest, though, some lines in Witch Hunt’s patch were rather stilted. I’m excited to replay Umineko through this version (even if it takes years to come out). The thing I’m really looking forward to, though, is the many new fans the increased exposure will bring to Umineko.

Some interesting stuff was also brought up in the Q&A of MangaGamer’s panel, which has a transcript from bayoab:

• They might release the Umineko fighting game, Ougon Musou Kyoku, if lots of people buy Umineko.
• “It would be great” if Higanbana or Rose Guns Days were also released in English. That’s a tight-lipped response, but the Japanese versions of those games are still absent from their site’s store, so an official release might be in the pipes for them.

First Images of New Ryukishi07 Game [祝姫] (Iwaihime)

Thanks to a tweet from the illustrator, us foreigners unable to attend the Toranoana’s “Tora Festival” can learn about Ryukishi07’s upcoming game, which he teased at ACen earlier this year.

Nope, it looks like we’re not getting any JRPG from Ryukishi (though that would’ve been totally awesome). There’s still no announcement about this game on 07th Expansion’s official site or twitter, but what I gather so far is:

• The game’s name is “Iwaihime.”
• The game’s genre is “horror.”
• The plot involves a (cursed?) doll.
• The character designs are by Kazuharu kina.
• The backgrounds are by the artist mocha.
• It will be released this Fall.
• It’ll be ADV style, not NVL like Higurashi and Umineko.
• It will be released by DMM, perhaps best known in the West as “the company that does Kancolle,” which had a booth at the event. It will be a commercial release, not a doujin one like his works from Comiket.
• The cast includes lots of high school girls, as we can see from all the character designs shown off so far.

• DMM had a booth at the event to promote the game, along with a character cosplayer.

One more thing to look forward to! From the cast and release, I feel it’ll be a more typical story than his When They Cry works, but it’ll definitely be visually stunning. You can get high res images of all this stuff, along with more pictures from the booth, on Kazuhara Kina’s twitter. Thanks to anonymous Goat-kun for pointing this out to me!

UPDATE: The game’s teaser blurb has been translated by the Reddit users temporalreality and Garlstadt:

Hajakenshou…Crush evil, spread the truth.

For generations, the men of the Susuharai family have left home at a fixed age to become independent. By tempering themselves without aid, they would have their adulthood recognized. In preparation for that day, I learned an array of things.

Susuda Prefectural High School—my new halls of leaning. To tell the truth, I had planned to transfer my first year, not second. But my everyday life here wasn’t just carefree; it was pleasant. I passed the days happily with any of my peers from Second Year Class A.

But there was a girl—Kurokami Toe. To call her strange would be a lacking description. Never for a moment would she let go of the traditional Japanese doll she held in her arms. There were those who whispered it was a cursed doll, whose hair would grow when you weren’t looking. Indeed, it was an eerie doll.

However, meeting Kurokami might have been fate. No, it must have been.

UPDATE 2: Sorry, I read a kanji in the title wrong! It’s actually pronounced “Iwaihime,” not “Shukuhime.”

Rose Guns Days Finally 100% Translated

Witch Hunt has finally released the much-awaited full translation patch for Rose Guns Days Final Season! You can download it on their site here.

Art by ぽょ汰/ひなみかん

The game could previously be legally downloaded from MangaGamer’s site. Right now, though, their contract to offer the game has expired, and they’re re-negotiating it. Hopefully it’ll be back up soon for people who don’t already own the game.