Random VNs: Kono Sekai no Mukou de
Entry posted by Clephas
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Kono Sekai no Mukou de was the first game made by Orange Yell, and it is based in the same world as their second game, Sakura Nikagetsu. This company is a low-budget maker that produces comedy/nakige (from the time between each release and the low budget, I'm guessing they are almost completely self-funded). While they are nothing special visually or in terms of the audio, their games 'have heart' as some people put it.
Kono Sekai starts out just after the protagonist, Asobu, discovers his parents have disappeared, leaving him with a massive amount of debt. What makes it worse is that that debt is owned by yakuza who have made it very clear he is going to have to 'sell a lot of things and go far far away', lol. As he goes out to have his last meal using his final paycheck, Asobu finds himself on a street in front of a strange shop, unable to pass it by. Helpless to do anything else, he enters... and finds an expressionless loli named Suzu waiting for him.
Suzu offers him a job... in exchange for 'saving' a dying girl named Kazari, he is given the money necessary to pay off his debts, and he is told that he will have a chance to change his own future once he has fulfilled his part of the bargain. At first, that doesn't seem like such a bad deal... but he finds that he is living in his apartment with Suzu and a shinigami named Touko.
To say it straight, this VN sets out from the beginning to grab your emotions. It doesn't even make an attempt at hitting the intellect very hard, and it doesn't have the budget to grab the moe-addicts. So, this is a VN you go to if you want to laugh and cry, which is precisely why I wanted to go back and replay this.
You are forced to do Kazari's path first, since she is the obvious center of the story, followed by Touko's then Suzu's paths. This VN is full of heart-warming moments, minor laughs (mostly manzai-style comedy and him poking fun at the girls' expense), and - toward the end - tears. While this VN doesn't try to do anything out of the ordinary with its story, its appeals to your emotions are so straightforward that it doesn't even need to go out of its way to grasp your heart.
One thing about this game and Sakura Nikagetsu is that they both blur the lines between life and death, treating them almost casually, which is an unusual occurrence even in VNs where you have a ghost or megami heroine.
If you aren't an art bigot, this company's games are an excellent choice for stories that tug on the emotions, and I'm glad I went back to this one for a refresher.
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