Before I do on, note that this is not going to be about Haruhi.
This is instead going to be about the When They Cry franchise.
Okay, fans of Ask Rachel Alucard, know that you will not get away with making references to Umineko without my knowing any longer. (However, it's easier for me to print the title as "When Seagulls Cry," so I'm going with that instead.)
First, a link.
Witch hunt Translation
Yes, the first 1/8th of Seagulls is available for free, and with the translation and enough money, you can read just about all of the saga. I started the demo yesterday. Here are my thoughts.
Seagulls is a visual novel branded as a "sound novel." Sound novels rely more on sound and music than visuals to set an atmosphere. As such, the sound effects, ambiance, and music are very fitting. I love the music that plays. More on that in a moment.
The best thing about Seagulls so far is characterization. It establishes the characters very quickly, and everyone is distinct from each other. I haven't gotten that far yet, but watch; I can already summarize some characters. Battler is a hot-head, George is straight-laced, Maria notices things before anyone else, Rudolf loves to give Battler a hard time, Eva speaks bluntly all the time, Kanon is quiet yet resentful, Shannon is moe, and so on. Unlike Fate/Stay Night, Seagulls doesn't take pages among pages of text to establish its characters and settings. Even though most of what I've seen is family members talking . . . and talking . . . and talking, what they have to say is actually interesting, and the fleshed-out personalities make me want to learn more.
However, criticism entails both positive and negative observations. I will mention the only negative thing so far. First, the obvious:
TYPE-MOON SPOILED ME!
You know how I keep going on and on about how beautiful Takashi Takeuchi's character designs are? Arcueid the busty blonde that actually is a genuine bombshell, Archer the chiseled veteran of war, Ilya the token loli that's insanely cute, and so on? . . . you won't be seeing any of that in Seagulls. The backgrounds are alright; they're real-life photographs with filters, kind of like the backgrounds of Tsukihime, but there are much fewer CG images than in traditional visual novels. As for the character art? It's lame. Not as bad as whenever CLAMP fucks up, but I know people in real life who can draw better than this, and most of those people are not professional artists. (Hi Mom! Hi Brother!)
But then again, this is advertised as a sound novel. The music that plays whenever the family is mingling is the kind of music you would want to play in the background during a family reunion. I couldn't help but remember the times my own family gets together during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's on a yearly basis while playing this. But then, we see the portrait of the woman known only as Beatrice, and the music then is very unsettling; a creepy composition that entails that not all may be right in this series.
Depending on how much I enjoy this trial, I may consider buying what has been translated into English in the future.
Now, let's move on to Higurashi, or When Cicadas Cry.
There is a website called Mangagamer, where you can buy the sound novel version of Cicadas. It also has a demo. I downloaded the demo . . . and it won't start up. Either it's incompatible with my PC, or it's defective. Drat.
However, the manga version of Cicadas is currently being released by Yen Press. I have free time tomorrow; I'm gonna check out the local bookstore and see if I can test read Cicadas. If not . . . well, I can always buy it online.
However, I am staying away from their anime adaptations. Nobody seems to like the animes based off anything 07th Expansion has made. People have noted that both the Cicadas and Seagulls anime improve the visuals, but seriously dumb down the plot. Ergh! Don't think you can get away with pulling a Michael Bay on me, marketers! Their mangas are also said to improve the art, without sacrificing story.
That's all I have to say for now, save for this one last tidbit. I like Key Visual Arts. They are making a visual novel called Rewrite. They are not making it alone. 07th Expansion, who is quickly earning my respect, is also collaborating with Key in making Rewrite. One of the members of 07th even considers Key to be the makers of "Masterpieces." (Well, Kanon and Clannad are masterpieces.) Not only that, Romeo Tanaka, the author of Cross Channel and Kana: Little Sister ( . . . whatever those VNs are) is also contributing. Whatever the end result, I'm sure Rewrite will be epic, to say the least.
P.S. According to my brother, Michael Bay did make one good movie: The Rock. I haven't seen that, but I'm taking his word for it. But I will never forgive him for Pearl Harbor!
