Greetings, everyone!
First of all, in case you missed my previous entry, Happy New Year! This time around I have the moral obligation to deliver good news and bad news: The bad news is that today I can’t offer you much of solid update in what I’m working on, at least not yet. The good news is... expect more characters in the near future! If so far you liked the designs of my characters in my previous entries and you want more, you’ll definitely have them in time!
I can’t say the exact date of the release of the designs yet, because while some of them are ready I still have to do proper drawings for this website, and the other half are in progress, filling me with questions like “Should she wear a miniskirt or very tight shorts?”
Knowing this, I don’t like leaving entries empty in terms of visual content, so here you go: a Fanart I made.
She’s Aoi Kagami, from Aokana (Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm). Best teacher ever. And I’ll soon explain why, although by the title of my entry you must’ve figured it out already.
Today I’d like to talk about Aokana, Four Rhythms Across the Blue. Is it a shooter? Is it a danmaku? Is it a AAA-budget by David Cage? Nope! It’s a visual novel. Except for some friends around until this moment, I didn’t reveal here that I love visual novels. They are normally cheaper to produce (depending of many variables and budgets, of course), but they often offer greater stories and characters than the average AAA plus preorder bonuses around and even a single movie. Plus, they’re more accessible to potato laptops than the average non-flash game you find online.
I’m going to try to do something weird here. First I’ll make a TLDR version and then I’ll do my best to describe Aokana, in case you’re in a hurry or you’re not too interested in visual novels.
TLDR: Sport-Romance visual novel that tells the story of a former player of a scifi sport who becomes the coach of any of the girls in the sport club and starts a relationship with her.
Now to the what it could also be called review. There are no spoilers, so if you want to know any details you’ll have to play the visual novel on your own, or game, call it whatever you want. :P
In the near future, there are the Anti-Graviton shoes, a popular invention that allows anyone to fly, which also gave birth to the new sport Flying Circus. FC is a two-player sport, there are 4 buoys floating in the air over the sea, forming a square; you score by touching your opponent’s back or by touching a buoy, and a game lasts 10 minutes. These are the fundamental rules, and while there’s more details like categorizing foul plays this is all you need to know.
Aokana tells the story of Masaya Hinata, a former player of FC, he was once considered a prodigy years back, but in one moment he quit playing the game for some incident that happened in his childhood.
Years pass, in the present, Masaya is attending the Kunahama Academy, an education center in Kyushu, Japan. In a matter of a few days since the start of the game, he meets various people who are interested in the sport of FC for one reason or another: the clumsy yet honest and promising Asuka Kurashina, the FC-experienced yet seemingly carefree Misaki Tobisawa, the energetic and joyful gamer Mashiro Arisaka, and well-mannered model student Rika Ichinose, this latter from a rival school.
The point is in Kunahama there is a new club, it needs members and is dedicated to FC, a topic that Masaya was afraid and avoiding for years, so he naturally says “No” to any request of him joining to the club. The homeroom teacher Aoi Kagami was half guilty of telling the club members one or two things about Masaya’s experience. However, Masaya finds one final reason to change his mind and join the club not to become a player, but to become a coach.
From this point, the real deal begins. You’ll need to see the rest on your own if you want. And it’s up to you how to finish it.
In my experience, I finished the routes of Asuka, Rika, Mashiro, and made the After Story of Mashiro in Aokana EXTRA 1, in that order. With the intention of finishing the Misaki route, the Bad Ending route and the True Ending route, I can gamble confidently and say that every route is satisfying, I’m even having trouble deciding who is “best girl”, everyone is lovely and each girl has her desires, fears, backstories... And I was skeptical of this plot to a certain point that I was, let’s say, being a try-hard on looking for any mistakes like crazy, but the most I could find was simple yet tiny amount of grammar errors, something that you could experience and say “eh, that grammar error is nothing in comparison of how good this story is” before the era of ebooks came around (because you can’t add a patch to a physical book made of paper). Everything in the story makes sense, and the provided first person narration helps a lot by telling us how Masaya thinks about the circumstances.
Aokana is a story that completely surpassed my expectations. I previously mentioned that the manga and anime industry often do their works with the positive messages and meanings, however I must say within my experience that I haven’t seen many examples of stories of main characters with a very pessimistic mindset or harsh conditions (in deconstructed tropes, at least). This is one of them. Masaya isn’t an optimistic boy to say the least, and that’s difficult to write about. I like success stories about characters who were losers with a disaster story, but I like more a success story of someone voluntarily screwing his life up, one day deciding to not be a loser anymore and gets his act together with a good mindset. These are my favorite stories, and Aokana is one of them.
Let’s talk about the duration. There are some visual novels that I finished and while I’m not an expert on the VN multiverse I will be a bit conservative and say that a visual novel by average lasts 10 hours in one route, lasting naturally more if you want for the rest of the routes. This one lasted me 35 hours in one single route, and I enabled the auto-play feature on top of that to fully enjoy the voice acting of each character without hitting “Enter” over and over. The Extra 1 After Story with Mashiro lasted me 15 hours. If you are looking for something long this is a perfect choice, even if you are a beginner in visual novels.
Oh, and the FC matches? Simply spectacular. The average outsider tends to think that visual novels are nothing but static images and words. In Aokana the FC matches go one step beyond that, because while the static images are shown there are certain tricks to make it look like you are watching some piece of animation with sounds and the tremendous music. Yes, the music helps, making the matches so spectacular that they’re even included in the Extras section, unlocked when you finish your game at least once.
The soundtrack? Outstanding. It perfectly portrays a slice of life morning, or an occasion of tension, or a dramatic conflict, or a determined resolution, or comedic shenanigans, or a series of sexy lovin’ rounds yet filled with love... The first minutes the music will sound and may appear like the average VN, but the further you play the more you’ll discover that this is nothing like anything else.
By the way, Aoi Kagami is what every 19 year old future teacher aspire to become. She’s very skillful in all kinds of sports, her looks and clothing seem very rebellious but in a cool and beautiful approach, she’s willing to help by giving advice and hints indirectly to let her students find the solutions by themselves, and she’s responsible but in a rogue way without being harsh. And on top of that, the voice of the character sounds very gorgeous but also frank and direct as if she was your teacher in real life giving tips to you, Aoi’s seiyuu Megumi Ogata voiced this character perfectly well. Good job!
If you are a newcomer in visual novels you probably are thinking something on the lines of “oh, it’s just another dating simulator”. A few words about this term. There are visual novels with mechanic and systematic elements like friendship points, money, skill points... things like that, these are requirements for a dating simulator, and of course there are romantic VNs with a proto-mix between story and dating simulator mechanics. Making Lovers has a bit of dating simulator because you can freely select where to take your couple in your dates. Fureraba has a bit of dating simulator because you need to build affection points by picking conversation topics with your girl of choice and hope she likes these topics. But Aokana is not a “dating simulator” per se, it has choices that lead to one route or another for narrative purposes, and that’s it, there is nothing mechanic or systematic about it. It simply tells a story of a boy named Masaya falling in love with a girl of your choice while he confronts his inner demons to keep moving forward in FC.
Besides, there are interesting themes presented in Aokana, such as:
How would you polish your abilities within your limited capabilities?
How would you motivate someone to work harder with discipline?
How would you convince someone to not quit when they feel blocked and struggling?
How would you deal with your past and traumas without opening your scars too much?
How would you say to someone to not get discouraged in the decisive moments of their journey?
How would you do all of this without being forceful on yourself and others?
In the end of the day, Masaya is human. He’s like you, me, and everyone else in this Earth. He has his skills but also his flaws. And like us he needs time for introspection and reflection on his actions not to just “be better”, but to allow himself to rely on his friends and loved ones without giving up. He shares his vulnerable side with his love because that is a sign of trust, as his girl shows hers as well. All that while happiness invade their minds. A romance isn’t about redefining societal norms or making cheap misunderstandings or responding with unhealthy passive-aggressive comments, or having a superficial sexual relationship or creating drama. It’s about how a character genuinely connecting with their significant one despite the sets of problems both face while they achieve their personal goals with a satisfying happy ending.
I’m just writing words out and it’s becoming more into a fanboy open letter than a proper review, because for some reason it’s more difficult to express how much you love something than expressing how much you dislike something. It’s a very good game with many layers of detail and depth in the story and in the visuals, backgrounds included. You can tell this work was crafted with love.
Buyers beware. If you are looking forward this experience, take note. While one of the newest ports came for the Nintendo Switch I don’t have any guarantee that you will find it censored or uncensored. For the PC users that’s easier and you have a few ways: buying it in Steam (and if you do that, downloading the R18 patch) or buying it in the shop of NekoNyan Soft directly. If you want my personal recommendation, get it for PC for the full uncensored experience, and if you get it in Steam remember to get the patch and follow the installation instructions.
Aokana is a story that teaches you to live your life to the fullest. It’s a story about finding your enthusiasms in the most unexpected ways. It’s a story about how to deal with fear when it’s a danger sign to your progress. It’s a story about breaking your limits when you’re faced with adversity. But most importantly, it’s a hopeful and uplifting message where you can learn how to love your passion again after abandoning it, no matter how much time has been passed.
Until next time!
48Tentacles