I recently bought KANA little sister because of a reccomendation here, and I have to admit that this game really is the poopin’ wonder that everyone says it is. A really enjoyable game, altho I always end up crying at the end. You know, without the sex, this story would be right at home on Japanese TV. Like one of those evening soap operas sponsored by Kanebo. Much as I love Kana, tho, I’m beginning to suspect that the genki girl, Yumi, is the real tragic heroine of this game. In all of the scenerios I’ve played so far, she ends up far worse off than Kana, with her little heart usually mashed into pate . At the risk of sounding pedantic, I have one minor quibble: In a diary entry, Kana is musing on death. She says that the reason for death is evolution and DNA. As proof she cites an sf story she read where the hero is frozen and wakes up 500 years in the future. She says that wouldn’t work, because no one from the present would be able to survive the microorganisms that people 500 years from now would be immune to. She says she can’t remember the name of the story, but that it had a cat in it named Pete. Well, Pete the Cat appears in Robert Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer. But the hero in that 1956 story woke up only a little after the year 2000. She actually may have been thinking of H.G. Well’s When the Sleeper Awakes, of maybe Buck Rogers in the Twenty-first Century. I’d like to know if that Pete the Cat reference is in the Japanese version of Kana, or something the translator threw in.
That bothered me too. I read The Door into Summer after finding out that it had a cat named Pete in it, but it didn’t have anything to say about microorganisms and immunity. I guess it kind of bothered me that Kana (even though she’s a fictional character) could make an error like that.
And actually they might be able to survive. After all, Native American populations had no immunity to smallpox, but atleast 10% of those affected managed to survive.
Uh… that was the whole point. That it ignored that aspect.
[ 08-07-2006, 08:30 AM: Message edited by: Velsper ]
Ah. I always thought she was basing her microorganism theory on what she’d read in the book. Sorry, my mistake. (And a good excuse to play the game again, I guess.)
And I enjoyed The Door into Summer, anyway, so it’s no great loss. =)
I also enjoyed Kana. Although I admit, I liked Crescendo a bit better. It might be though, because I played Crescendo, and then I played Kana. Also, I found it really irritating that in only 1 of the endings could you trouble yourself to find out of you were a potential kidney doner. I mean, I would think that would be one of the first things you would do. Even if your parents tell you Kana is adopted, I would still check. I mean hell, this is your little sister who you love… Anyway, minor quibble.
Taka actually volunteers to donate a kidney to Kana in three of the six endings (Endings 1, 2 and 3).
Ok I admit I liked Kana alot, but still…
The “Happy” ending was just so… freaking obtuse. You can’t really decide what’s going on. Is Kana breaking up with him, is she just moving out of the house so they can have a normal (non-sibling) relationship? Basically I just pretend the ending doesn’t exist 
Also as someone else pointed out… yes Yumi does get totally screwed throughout the entire story. She’s such a good girl and totally in love but gets crapped on so much.
I think the only other recent game I’ve been this frustrated at recently was Hitomi: My Stepsister - now that is one fucked up game, if you think about it there is really only one happy end in that game out of like 7 possible endings. Normally this doesn’t bother me too much but I think it’s because out of the games that dont have happy endings (think Sensi 2 or Virgin Roster), atleast you know what you are getting into ahead of time.
Kana kind of reminded me of that, there is like one way to save Kana’s life and along the way you crap all over poor Yumi and end up with a wierd ending.
I agree with Molenir, I liked Crescendo a lot better. I’m not saying Kana was bad, because it was written really well and that’s always a huge plus, but Crescendo had both good writing and satisfying endings.
Just my opinions!
Hmmm. I played “Kana ~Little Sister” a long time ago. And I almost forget about the game story and its details. Yes, unfortunately, Yumi doesn’t get any happy endings…