quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
Eh? *obviously missing reference somewhere*
An omiai is a meeting for an arranged marraige. The disrupting of one is a popular comedic scenario. Though I will admit, the one in Crescendo was definitely interesting. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
Eh? *obviously missing reference somewhere*
Well, first of all, are you familiar with "omiai"?
You see, it was quite usual in Japan that marriages were arranged by parents or their acquaintances and thus the formal meetings where the couple-to-be meets first under supervision of the ones that arranged it is called "omiai". So, I referred to one of the more comical and also moving scenes of Kaori's storyline here. Actually, I only would have wanted a cameo-appearance of Yuka in the break-up-crew as well... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
By the way--spoilers are okay in this post: that's why it says (Spoilers) in the heading... I expected that I'd be talking about a couple of endings, and that other plot elements would come up. Anyone who doesn't want to be encountering spoilers shouldn't be reading this thread, simply because it says (Spoilers) at the beginning.
Right, but just because a thread is labelled "Spoilers" does not mean all the posts there contain them.
And in order to give people that are interested in the general topic but don't want to take the spoilers a chance, I usually put up the spoiler warnings, regardless what the thread's title is.
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
And, as you say, even Yumi becomes integral--you have to feel sorry for her in many ways.
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
in Crescendo, they gave us a lot of "good" endings with one hidden "bad" ending. In Kana, there are a lot of "bad" endings, with (apparently) one hard-to-get-to "good" ending.
That's still better than Final Fantasy VII that only has bad endings because Aerith dies at the end of CD1 and won't come back... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img]
(You have no clue how frequently I tried to find a way to avoid this until I gave up because it was officially announced that there IS no way to make her survive. So, in a way, FF7 was my first "Kana"-experience and it was a fight against windmills...)
Haha aerith’s death pissed you off too huh. Man I almost quit playing the game after she died.
I haven’t gotten the ending where Kana survives either but that’s because I can’t bring myself to see her die again.
Thanks, Darkling, for linking me to those lyrics–now I can really get torn up over that song
Omiai is a term I hadn’t run across before–now that it has been explained, I understand the reference perfectly…
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
Right, but just because a thread is labelled “Spoilers” does not mean all the posts there contain them.
And in order to give people that are interested in the general topic but don’t want to take the spoilers a chance, I usually put up the spoiler warnings, regardless what the thread’s title is.
Fair enough… although enough spoilers have been dished out in the posts that anyone reading this thread has probably learned a lot anyway
If I’m not mistaken, ending 1 actually has to be “unlocked,” which means I’m going to have to get some or all of the other endings to get to it (they apparently really want you to suffer). I’ve gotten endings 2, 4, and 6. But I’ll get the good ending, whatever it takes, because–as many times as I’ve seen Kana die (and it tears me up every time, for some reason)–I’d like to see her live just once…
quote:
Originaly posted by wanfu2k1:
I haven’t gotten the ending where Kana survives either but that’s because I can’t bring myself to see her die again.
Yeah… I know I’m torturing myself–I’ve practically brought myself to tears several times today already by skimming through Kana trying to hit endings, and having to watch death scenes (I was stupid and actually read through one once today… I’ve been fast-forwarding since to save myself some heartache).
quote:As I recall, I happened to stumble across the good ending first and got the impression it wasn't such a sad story, after all. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] However, be prepared for the fact that [spoiler ahead] you can't both save Kana and stay with her in the end. The conclusion seems to suggest a sequal that never came to be.
Originally posted by Wolfson:
If I'm not mistaken, ending 1 actually has to be "unlocked," which means I'm going to have to get some or all of the other endings to get to it (they apparently really want you to suffer). I've gotten endings 2, 4, and 6. But I'll get the good ending, whatever it takes, because--as many times as I've seen Kana die (and it tears me up every time, for some reason)--I'd like to see her live just once...
[This message has been edited by perigee (edited 07-08-2004).]
Hmmm… well, I’ve got four of the six endings done (all of the intellectual endings… once you get one of those, you can pretty much get the rest, it seems). I’ll just have to keep trying for ending one. Although…
SPOILER ALERT ending six unlocked a side story, or epilogue, or whatever, that wasn’t long, but got me just as choked up as any of the death scenes. END SPOILER
As far as how the “happy” ending goes, I’ll just have to judge for myself when I get there. Of the four death endings that I’ve gotten, so far 6 seems to be the “best” in terms of resolution, with 2 running kind of a distant second. However, I’d just as soon not see Kana die at the end, so sigh I’ll keep trying. Having the lyrics for “The White Season” is gut wrenching, too, since–all of a sudden–there was meaning to the white silhouette of Kana… especially when it crops up in the middle of the song, right as KANA is singing "Please color me as you want."
Am I just torturing myself, or what?
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
I've gotten endings 2, 4, and 6. But I'll get the good ending, whatever it takes, because--as many times as I've seen Kana die (and it tears me up every time, for some reason)--I'd like to see her live just once...
*
* Kana ending spoiler
*
I admit #2 is also quite effective, but the one that had the biggest impact on me (and the one that I got in my first playthrough) was #5. Be prepared with some packages of handkerchiefs if you should ever encounter it on your chase for ending#1...
On the other hand, you apparently really don't know ending #3. That's a shame, but I don't want to spoil it so I can't tell more about it right now.
*
* end spoiler
*
No probs regarding the lyrics, Wolfson. Just wanted to share the wrenching pain with a fellow Kana devotee.
Ending 5 is also the saddest one for me, probably because it’s the first one I got. Also because SPOILER WARNING there wasn’t that uplifting bit with Yumi at the end (as in Ending 6) to mitigate the heart-tearing effect of Kana’s diary entries. END SPOILER
In terms of emotional impact, Ending 5 is closely followed by Ending 2, in my books.
I eventually came to the conclusion that I was never going to find my way through the game to all the endings, so I took the walkthrough route. I didn’t buy Kana for the interactivity. I bought the game for the story.
The story writers ought to be shot, indeed… When I got Ending 1, did I look happy? Nooooooo! I’m still writing fanfics as therapy! sigh
Ending 6 may be the best ending after all, in that light. It gives closure and a sense of moving on.
SOME ENDING SPOILIERS AHEAD
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I tend to agree that ending 6 might be a better ending then ending 1 in some ways even if 1 is the only time she lives that ending is kind of more bittersweet then ending 6.
It’s kind of harsh to see the one ending she lives in having her basically be a girl who does love books so she ends up running a bookstore and does not choose too or is not able from a lack of formal or proper education standpoint to follow him to the same college which she wanted to do for a long time, if I remember it correctly.
If memory serves, in ending 6 she is learning throughout and reading as many books as she can get her hands on to the point she is eventually quoting the philosophies of some of those considered to be the greats like Plato, and Socrates along with their views and concepts of death. she is ironically the most educated and in a way it seems truly the happiest and at peace of all the endings in ending 6, since she has also seemed to accept the idea of death.
I don’t know, it is strange to say the one she lives in might not truly be the best ending, but just reading through these messages I realize it might not be truly the best despite the fact she lives.
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END SPOILIERS
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-09-2004).]
SPOILERSThe first time I played the game (last year), I got ending 5, but I lost it when my computer crashed. I didn’t like that ending as much as ending 6 (they’re actually identical, except that in ending 6, Taka achieves some closure with Yumi, which I liked. That’s the same reason I liked ending 2).END SPOILERS
I’ll have to keep trying for ending 1, and see what I make of her life after death, as it were, and then I’ll decide if the story writers ought to be shot. Unfortunately, I have work to deal with for the next few days, so I don’t have whole days to sit in front of my computer and scroll through the game trying to beat it.
As a songwriter and musician, I’m half thinking of reworking the English lyrics of “The White Season” into a useable format in English… I’m so haunted by that song that I’d like to be able to play it, but I don’t think I could do the Japanese lyrics justice.
Which ending was the one where you desperately attempt to ignore Kana to get with but the man in the game keeps trying to nail his sister instead? I really didn’t like that ending. I believe I said a bad word out loud in reference to the mothers of the people who made the game when I saw that ending. (I did not like Kana very much.) I don’t think I’m ever going to understand the appeal of the sister (or mother for that matter) character in these games; it’s just very weird to me.
As for Crescendo, I wasn’t vastly impressed by the Miyu story either. It’s okay, I guess, and it beats Ayame’s romantic ending (see above), but if her dying is supposed to be a twist it’s not a very well-hidden one, and she never really resonates as a character so it’s hard to feel that bad for her. Crescendo’s biggest strength is that the characterization is very strong, even for the main character, despite the shortness of the game, and Miyu felt to me like a half-finished scenario they buried as a “bonus” because they were running short on time. It’s not to say I dislike it, but compared to the better stories in the game it’s pretty underwhelming.
As an aside, I really wish more games would put the effort into the main character. Most of the ones I’ve seen are either goofy psychopaths (like the one in Gibo, who was almost comically sinister in his attempts to molest his stepmother; whatever buddy), or a bland pushover (the guy from XChange, who spends most of his free time getting smacked around by his girlfriend), or somewhere in between (like the guy from Tokimeki Check-In, who’s kind of a perverted jackass, but not enough so or with any other personality traits that would make him interesting). Ryo manages to avoid that spectrum entirely: he’s not a real friendly guy and he has some serious anger issues but he’s not deranged, and although Yuka and Kaho push him around a bit it seems to be less because he’s spineless and more because he legitimately doesn’t have anything better to do. He’s an interesting guy, a true rarity in these sorts of games.
SPOILER WARNING
I think the intellectual endings (4,5,6) are supposed to be ‘less satisfactory’ than the normal endings because making Kana smart encourages her to accept the inevitability of her death, rather than railing against it.
However, Ending 2 really tore me apart when Kana left the message on the pendant screaming that she didn’t want to die. In a way, I felt guilty for not preparing her for death. As strange as it sounds.
Yes, Ending 1 is the most bittersweet one to me. Kana wanted to follow Taka to high school, and in one of the other paths she says she wants to study molecular biology (like Taka’s friend Tomoki). However, instead she just takes an accelerated path through high school (finishing in a year or so) and takes the job at the bookstore. I wonder if this precludes her from ever being able to go to college, because she didn’t finish high school properly?
END SPOILERS
Wolfson, if you ever do write a singable English translation of ‘The White Season’, I want a copy of the lyrics! 
Rooker, well… Don’t you think that a game called Kana Little Sister might just possibly have incestuous overtones to it? Still, each to their own. I personally found myself drawn to Kana’s storyline because of the incestuous premise. It pays to read reviews of a game before you play it.
Um, that pretty much describes all the endings, I’m afraid… 
I take objection to your use of the pronoun ‘you’, by the way - I was never desperately trying to ignore Kana, thank you very much.
quote:
Originally posted by Darkling:
Wolfson, if you ever do write a singable English translation of 'The White Season', I want a copy of the lyrics! [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
Consider it done. Once I can actually finish Kana, I'll probably haul my guitar out and tinker with it... hopefully on my next couple of days off. But it will probably take a while to write--I've never tackled a project like this one.
quote:
Originally posted by Darkling:
[b]**SPOILER WARNING**
Rooker, well... Don't you think that a game called Kana Little Sister might just possibly have incestuous overtones to it? Still, each to their own. I personally found myself drawn to Kana's storyline because of the incestuous premise. It pays to read reviews of a game before you play it.Um, that pretty much describes all the endings, I'm afraid... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img] [/b]
I waited until... sometime this winter, January maybe, before I played Kana; on its own the game content wasn't terribly enticing to me. I probably never would have tried it at all except it came so heavily recommended, even after many other, newer releases.
quote:
I take objection to your use of the pronoun 'you', by the way - I was never desperately trying to ignore Kana, thank you very much. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
That makes it seem kind of rude; it's not like I had anything against Kana as a character, I just figured there had to be at least one ending where you don't go after Kana, and decided the best way to get it was to spend as little time as possible with her. After that first ending I found out I was wrong and decided I wasn't really interested in exploring the rest of the game. Oh well.
(if they were going to release an older DO game, I would have rather seen this one, which apparently has the same writer and the added bonus of Shiwasu no Okina, who I think is a swell artist. But that's just me, and I don't know Japanese so for all I know all the girls in this game are related to the main character too.)
AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! I finally got ending one… all I had to do was pretty much the complete opposite of everything that I was doing
SPOILERS Well, I could actually read this a couple of ways… depending on whether I wanted to shoot the story wtiters. I can see where it looks like Kana and Taka are parting for good. I can also see where she is simply giving them space so that she can grow up, and perhaps they can come to have a relationship that isn’t forbidden–something that will never happen while she is staying under the Todo’s roof and remaining a part of the family. After all, the last thing they do is affirm their love for each other, and the name of the ending is “the First Farewell,” not “the Last Farewell.” So, there could always be hope. I wanna be an optimist
A NOTE TO rooker20: Technically, there are endings where you end up with Yumi and not with Kana–after all, Kana’s dead… it’s kinda hard to be with her, and Yumi is the other option, so there are bound to be endings where she shows up–after all, she stuck with Taka all those years… END SPOILERS
Hey, Wolfson, congratulations! Now that you’ve gotten Ending 1, which is your favourite so far?
Sorry, Rooker, if it sounded like I was snapping at you. It was more that it sounded like you were suggesting that everyone who played the game should try to ignore Kana, not that you were suggesting that Kana wasn’t appealing.
Recommendations should always be taken as ‘opinion’, not fact, I think. The only one who can say how you’re going to react to a certain game/movie/novel/whatever is you. Other people’s recommendations should only serve as a guide.
SPOILER WARNING
Wolfson, I think I took Ending 1 the first way you mentioned - ie that Kana was leaving for good, that she didn’t think her relationship with Taka was something either of them could pursue, and that she would still love him… but she couldn’t be with him. And that made me feel pretty rotten, let me tell you!
However, I’m a staunch romantic. So, despite what I believed the ending was saying, I went off and wrote fanfics where they got back together anyway. In the process, I came to your second theory - that Kana was just leaving in order to grow up and make their relationship possible. If I’d just realised that in the first place, maybe I wouldn’t have had to go through all that writing in the first place!
And yes, Endings 2, 3 and 6 definitely (well, to my mind) point towards a Yumi/Taka relationship, in varying degrees. That’s half the endings! Guess I should reconsider my opinion of young Yumi…
END SPOILERS
quote:
Originally posted by rooker20:
Which ending was the one where you desperately attempt to ignore Kana to get with but the man in the game keeps trying to nail his sister instead? I really didn't like that ending. I believe I said a bad word out loud in reference to the mothers of the people who made the game when I saw that ending. (I did not like Kana very much.) I don't think I'm ever going to understand the appeal of the sister (or mother for that matter) character in these games; it's just very weird to me.
SPOILER WARNING
Of course you know it is not his real sister right but his step-sister? That does change it slightly besides even with that part is it not possible to ignroe one aspect of something and still have an enjoyable time playing it? Kind of like ignoring the people munching popcorn sitting next to you at the movies and still enjoy the movie? Since it is not his blood relation sister?
END SPOILER WARNING
quote:
Originally posted by Darkling:
**SPOILER WARNING**
I think the intellectual endings (4,5,6) are supposed to be 'less satisfactory' than the normal endings because making Kana smart encourages her to accept the inevitability of her death, rather than railing against it.Yes, Ending 1 is the most bittersweet one to me. Kana wanted to follow Taka to high school, and in one of the other paths she says she wants to study molecular biology (like Taka's friend Tomoki). However, instead she just takes an accelerated path through high school (finishing in a year or so) and takes the job at the bookstore. I wonder if this precludes her from ever being able to go to college, because she didn't finish high school properly?
**END SPOILERS**
[This message has been edited by Darkling (edited 07-10-2004).]
**SPOILER WARNING**
Yes but too me the last three were more acceptable for the very reason that she did accept the inevitability of her death, and no longer feared it.
It is illogical to fear something you cannot change and bull to the nobility of fighting to the painful end since it was obvious no matter how strong her desire or will to live she would have died. If you cannot stop it and remember the only way it was prevented was a transplant, then is not a more peaceful way to die, to do so through accepting the fact you will die?
That is why, once again, I think for the very reason that she did accept the inevitability of her death, those were perhaps the better endings, she did not fear death and was not crying at the end, she showed a strength that was about the only one left for her to be able to show and she showed it quite well in those endings.
**END OF SPOILER WARNING**
As to the song someone else in maybe another thread posted this link as a link to that song.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-11-2004).]
SPOILER WARNING
I still like the ending where she lives the best. After growing to care so much for the character throughout the story, I was happy to see her finally triumph over pain and suffering - although I had been thinking kidney transplant from the moment they first mentioned renal failure and wondered why no one brought up the subject sooner. That kind of treatment has been almost routine for a long time.
Somehow I found it less believable that Kana decided to leave Taka after their year of living together. The bond between the two was too strong. Their whole lives had been spent loving one another and a voluntary separation seemed like an unnecessary solution to the problem of her gaining independence. I don’t see why Kana couldn’t have grown as an person while continuing to enjoy the support of her beloved partner. That’s the way marriage is supposed to work. It also puzzled me that her career prospects would be cut short due to her lack of schooling. Surely there are ways to make up for such deficiencies and pass the required entrance exams?
But I do think there was a strong indication that she and Taka would eventually reunite after she succeeded at establishing her own life. That’s why I thought the story lent itself to a sequal that could have introduced new tragic elements, if that’s where the writers wanted to take it. We’re left to our own imagination to see how it might have played out. Maybe that’s a good thing in the end.
[This message has been edited by perigee (edited 07-11-2004).]
SPOILER WARNING AHEAD
Everything previously said by me seems to discount the fact the one where Kana lived was a favorite, and it was one from the aspect of a character that had I come to care about lives.
Yet from the whole aspect of, she has to leave to grow, she seemingly cannot make up her grades and follow him to college, she will be living away from him for a while in the city, they might grow apart because if they really loved each other that much how could they, or anyone that saw them together (and I assume the parents knew what relationship these two had) simply let them “drift” apart in that fashion, it was one of those endings that is loved because she lives but not a favorite because of all the other just mentioned aspects.
I agree with perigee too, isn’t marriage suppose to be a place where each person can grown as an individual while having the support and love of their cherished partner and thus also growing as a couple? Isn’t time away going to kind of hurt that growth as a couple?
At first when they mentioned renal failure they also mentioned things like failing eye-sight and other “things” that were no longer working so I assumed it was a cascading systems failure, for lack of a better way to say it, and no one transplant would work, then the story progressed and my thoughts did begin to change that one might have worked, so I thought maybe she was on that long list waiting for one, etc.
The only two questions I would have about a sequel is, how could they make it have an equal but perhaps different emotional impact so they don’t have people saying how it falls short, even if as a stand alone game it might be up there with the original and Crescendo, and second what tragic element could they add this time, Kana still in love with Taka, but his slowly growing apart from her as a result of her decision to leave him in order for her to grow? That would be a punch below the belt to have that as a sequel. What do you think they could do as a sequel that would not seem to fall flat when compared to the original?
END SPOILERS
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-11-2004).]