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Info on Natsu no Kusari (Clockup)


Okarin

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Well, as I'm enjoying Euphoria now (not the sexual content though), I think I would like this other game by Clockup:

https://vndb.org/v18806

It was just released this year so of course it won't be translated, but I want to know if someone somehow is trying to do so. Also in the rare event that some company plans to release it in the West, that should go in this thread too.

To avoid this kind of thing I'm planning to learn Kanji and grammar, but I don't know when I can pull it off, nor when I'll achieve a good enough level.

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I mean, if you didn't enjoy the sexual content in Euphoria, then I'm not sure if you'll enjoy this game that's literally about keeping a girl as your sexual slave against her will and raping her all the time.

Unlike Euphoria, there really isn't a grand plot here, it's just a rape game. Albeit a high quality rape game, but still a rape game.

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I like Euphoria for the underlying plot... you know.

Still, I'm not wholly opposed to the rape thing -but not my favourite scenario either. I just wanna try this eroge sometime. Of course I'm no rapist, but having a look at it could be interesting. Enjoyable... we'll see.

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On 2016/10/5 at 4:33 PM, Kurisu-Chan said:

Well, Maggot baits is supposed to be like Euphoria, aka sexfest with actual plot. 

It is, but in a different way. You are correct that Maggot Baits is plot based, with it's plot aided by lots of H, but the H in Euphoria can be tame in comparison to Maggot Baits.

(Light, general content spoilers for Maggot Baits.)

Spoiler

Think, instead of rape themes you have murder, amputation, torture etc, and many times in the story the people are doing it for fun, or are totally cold blooded. Kinda need to steel your nerves for it. I'd say many scenes in Euphoria are light in comparison.

 

As for Natsu no Kusari, keep in mind that Mangagamer has the rights to Clock up games, and they are already TLing Maggot Baits, a very dark VN from them. Although nothing is set in stone, a TL for Natsu no Kusari could definitely happen down the line. But, it is very unlikely that fans will choose to pick it up, as the license belongs to Mangagamer. So, it really does come down to Mangagamer in the end, unless a daring fan chooses to risk the possible backlash from the community, as well as an unlikely legal response from Mangagamer / Clock up.

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8 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Although nothing is set in stone, a TL for Natsu no Kusari could definitely happen down the line.

rather unlikely, since the staff of theirs views it as nothing but an arkward nukige, btw partly trashtalked the title itself.

edit: guess people who are reading natsu no kusari only for the porn are equivalent to those going for kawarazaki-ke2´s netorare. rip world, where have we gone wrong....

edit2: them picking up natsu no kusari would require having some balls since it´s a more realistic take on the matter, which i cant see happening as things stand for now - call me a pessimistic piece of crap, i know i know... but in a way it´s abit comparable to yabai!, a title i can´t see them doing either. potential social outcries are more easy to handle/avoid when sticking to fantasy, or settings that are strongly giving off a fictional vibe than their opposites, regrettably so. doesnt help that some readers seemingly can´t comprehend such matter, or refuse doing so by default.

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1 hour ago, Dergonu said:

As for Natsu no Kusari, keep in mind that Mangagamer has the rights to Clock up games, and they are already TLing Maggot Baits, a very dark VN from them. Although nothing is set in stone, a TL for Natsu no Kusari could definitely happen down the line. But, it is very unlikely that fans will choose to pick it up, as the license belongs to Mangagamer.

MangaGamer has the rights to Eroge, euphoria and Maggot Baits, that's it. Any publisher that isn't MangaGamer could come and license the title, if Clockup is not opposed to it they could license it.

Do not forget that MangaGamer licensed titles from Innocent Grey who also licensed Flowers to JAST USA.

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It's rare for other companies to license games from a developer that one company already has the rights to. For instance, once Mangagamer obtained the rights to the Sono Hanabira series, they took down all fan TLs of 1-10, despite the fact that they only actually licensed 1 game at the time. (Now they are bringing 1 more over.) In addition, 3 games from 1 developer, 1 of which was released last year and announced for a TL this year, is a decent amount.

I don't know if Clock up in particular is doing it differently, (like Innocent Grey etc,) but most of the time, 1 title being licensed means the rest of the games from that developer has a higher chance of being picked up by that company, and less of a chance that fans and other companies will do it.

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4 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

It's rare for other companies to license games from a publisher that one company has the rights to. For instance, once Mangagamer obtained the rights to the Sono Hanabira series, they took down all fan TLs of 1-10, despite the fact that they only actually licensed 1 game at the time. (Now they are bringing 1 more over.)

I don't know if Clock up in particular is doing it differently, (like Innocent Grey etc,) but most of the time, 1 title being licensed means the rest of the games from that developer has a higher chance of being picked up by that company, and less of a chance that fans and other companies will do it.

I think what @Nier meant is that a game being licensed by MangaGamer doesn't immediately mean all of the company's games are legally bound to MangaGamer. Usually what happens is a company purchases the rights to a single title, which means if they want another title, they need to get the rights to it, and so on and so forth.

Of course, there's also the type of deal where a company can form a partnership with a localization company and use them exclusively, but we never know if this is the case or not, so we can't just assume every future Clock Up game is bound to MangaGamer.

The SonoHana fan TLs were taken down either because MangaGamer contacted the group or the group themselves wanted to take them down in hopes of encouraging a possible localization. But if they weren't contacted by MangaGamer, they had no legal obligation to take down the patches.

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Just now, Nosebleed said:

I think what @XReaper meant is that a game being licensed by MangaGamer doesn't immediately mean all of the company's games are legally bound to MangaGamer. Usually what happens is a company purchases the rights to a single title, which means if they want another title, they need to get the rights to it, and so on and so forth.

Of course, there's also the type of deal where a company can form a partnership with a localization company and use them exclusively, but we never know if this is the case or not, so we can't just assume every future Clock Up game is bound to MangaGamer.

The SonoHana fan TLs were taken down either because MangaGamer contacted the group or the group themselves wanted to take them down in hopes of encouraging a possible localization. But if they weren't contacted by MangaGamer, they had no legal obligation to take down the patches.

Exactly, this is pretty much my point repeated tbh, just worded differently.

Also, my post was in reply to Nier, not Xreaper.

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8 hours ago, Nosebleed said:

I mean, if you didn't enjoy the sexual content in Euphoria, then I'm not sure if you'll enjoy this game that's literally about keeping a girl as your sexual slave against her will and raping her all the time.

Unlike Euphoria, there really isn't a grand plot here, it's just a rape game. Albeit a high quality rape game, but still a rape game.

You are wrong...very wrong, yes there is a lot of sick shit going on in this vn(rape, torture, etc) but it's not just a "rape game" there is much more than that, specially with the plot, @Tyrosyn probably can explain it much better than I do (maybe if he doesn't feel like writing a whole lot I can just copy his explanation, I will ask him)

 

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20 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

You are wrong...very wrong, yes there is a lot of sick shit going on in this vn(rape, torture, etc) but it's not just a "rape game" there is much more than that, specially with the plot, @Tyrosyn probably can explain it much better than I do (maybe if he doesn't feel like writing a whole lot I can just copy his explanation, I will ask him)

Stockholm Syndrome and protagonist questioning his own morality, likewise point of existence make for some preety good stuff. Rape and violence are bound to happen in such stories, sooner or later. The only question is whether they push story forward, or exist only to fulfill reader's darkest desires. On another sidenote, Natsu no Kusari isn't even half as sick as Euphoria, it's more down to earth. Kind of :makina:

Can't see this licensed, nor translated, though. There's still an impenetrable boundary, when it comes to certain things; such fiction is widely unacceptable on the west, due to cultural differences and moral police would instantly made an outcry on how "dangerous" and "sickening" notions it brings. I don't think MG is insane enough yet to dwelve into that kind of zone.

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1 hour ago, Deep Blue said:

 @Tyrosyn probably can explain it much better than I do (maybe if he doesn't feel like writing a whole lot I can just copy his explanation, I will ask him)

I'm not really at my PC this week, so can't write longer walls of text at the moment. I don't mind you copying anything if you think it benefits this discussion.

I just wanted to chime in to say that Natsu no Kusari was by far the best eroge I have read in years, easily in my all time Top 3.
Also, everything @XReaper said is true. I also don't see Mangagamer licensing this game.

38 minutes ago, Narcosis said:

Stockholm Syndrome and protagonist questioning his own morality

Interestingly, Natsu no Kusari has neither a cliched Stockholm plot, nor an protagonist doubting himself.

Spoiler

It's actually the complete opposite.

It's far from being your typical rapist escapism story. What makes this game so great is that it's more realistic and down to earth compared with similar games of this genre.

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3 hours ago, Deep Blue said:

You are wrong...very wrong, yes there is a lot of sick shit going on in this vn(rape, torture, etc) but it's not just a "rape game" there is much more than that, specially with the plot, @Tyrosyn probably can explain it much better than I do (maybe if he doesn't feel like writing a whole lot I can just copy his explanation, I will ask him)

 

I mean, that still doesn't make it not a rape game (I did say it was a high quality rape game even), but ok.

The point I was making is that this game is heavily centered around rape. Whether it's a super meaningful introspective on rape or not is irrelevant, it's still rape galore, hence why I pointed it out to OP because he didn't seem to like that kind of sexual content from euphoria. 

If he still does want to go into it despite that though, more power to him. 

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17 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

I mean, that still doesn't make it not a rape game (I did say it was a high quality rape game even), but ok.

"Unlike Euphoria, there really isn't a grand plot here, it's just a rape game. Albeit a high quality rape game, but still a rape game."

You didnt just say it was a rape game you said there wasnt a grand plot either.

Here is part of the conversation I had with Tyr

SPOILERS
I included my points of why I didn't enjoy it so much (also because you need some context to understand why the conversation headed that way) which is also something that some people might confuse with what the plot is really about thus not giving the novel a proper chance to begin with, at a first glance it does look like a rape game and nothing more. 
The important stuff is what he writes, I wont cut anything out because I think this is probably one of the most in-depth "reviews" out there, he grasped some concepts that I missed the first time or I wasnt very sure about them.

Spoiler
On 1/7/2016 at 0:43 AM, Deep Blue said:

3-this will sound obvious but it's a clock up game and it really shows, in the eroge scenes for example and this is something I don't really enjoy how they portray it, the scream of the girl chocking and all that shit, it does immerse you in the novel but at the same time if you don't enjoy this type of things it's something that puts you off a bit.

Tyr:
That's why I said it's not a nukige. It's not written in an enjoyable way. While the scenes itself indeed resemble stuff you see in a Clockup game, the writing differs in certain ways.
For example, I liked how the main character is the typical rapist protagonist who watched way too many AVs and has a clear understanding of how kidnapping and raping should work in his mind (as he's seen several times in a porn flick), but the heroine is not the usually kidnapped AV/eroge girl who can play her part like he expects her too. She has literally no idea what he wants from her, she doesn't understand what his goals are, probably because she has never watched AVs and doesn't know these tropes.
When he wants her to talk dirty, she doesn't understand the concept of it. In every other eroge, the heroine would do it just fine, because then it's erotic for the reader, just like he expects from a porn game. In this case however, the story is, dare I say, more "realistic". She can't do it. Because it's impossible for her to understand it. (It took me several years of reading eroge and watching JAVs to understand the Japanese idea of pornography myself.) There is a route in the game where he forces her to watch several JAVs so she can "learn" this. This is the kind of "realism" I can really appreciate. When she does her part of the fucked silly victim "right" after this, you have to wonder whether she really is his slave or she only does what he wants from her in order for her to not be harmed by him anymore.
There is this other scene where he implies that she wants her teacher's D, a storyline a normal eroge would certainly take, and she is like "what? why would you even think that?".
I really like the blandness of Mitsuki and how this deconstructs all the eroge tropes the protagonist wants to invoke here.

 

On 1/7/2016 at 0:43 AM, Deep Blue said:

I'm at the part where he goes to the house of mizuki and her dad sees him there and you ran away like a little bitch screaming lol

Tyr
Awesome scene, yes :D
The main character isn't cool or anything. He is a low-life and the game doesn't try to make him look cool so you want to self-insert in him.

On 1/7/2016 at 5:00 AM, Deep Blue said:

The ending where you go to jail and then she see you again it was bit confusing, she was smiling all the time when she is in the taxi so maybe she did know it was him, I mean in the ending where you dont kidnap her and met her at the party almost the same time passes and she knows who you are by just for looking at you 3 seconds in the rain and talking about an umbrella in the past, so it's not possible for her to not remember you while she was tortured by you for many days.. but then again why would she smile? she wasnt  like him they showed you that when she is taking care of you but still I can't figure out that part... I don't know it was a bit confusing.

Tyr:
Did you unlock the true end without finishing the other two bad endings?

I will tell you how I interpreted the normal and the true end. I think you missed the pivotal point of the story here.
She indeed didn't recognize him when he drove her in his taxi. He explicitly states the reason for this in his last monologue when he starts crying. The reason that she doesn't notice that it's him is: he is not the same person anymore he once was. He changed, for the better.
In the true end, they obviously play with this theme of remembrance. They make it a point that she remembers him just because of a short encounter in the rain. Why is this? This is especially intriguing when you consider that she didn't remember him in the scene when he revealed himself in front of her, removing his mask and voice distorter, and which made him very angry. So why is it that the whole point of the true end (which in itself must be the central point of the story 'cuz it's the final end which needs to wrap up the story) is to show that she remembers him?

To understand this question we need to understand the point of the main part of the vn, the kidnapping. Why did he kidnap her? To understand that we need to understand him, his motivation. (This is the reason why this novel is really only about Shinji, it's essentially a character study of him.) Why did he do it?
The way I see it, he wanted to break free from the normal life that lied before him. He's disgusted by the thought of being just anyone, a small part of the society whose only function is to work like everyone expects.
You see, he is talented. Both characters are talented, but in a fundamental different way. Mitsuki's talent makes her famous. She has a great career in front of her. Shinji however, despite being quite intelligent and cunning, can't or rather doesn't want to use his talents for the sake of society because he loathes it. But he also can't get the positive attention his low self-esteem ego desperately needs. Especially not considering how socially awkward he is. And that's one reason more why Mitsuki is the perfect target for his plan. Although he lets it seem as if she was a random target, the fact that it was "her", who is also the ideal victim, just motivates him even more to go ahead with his plan. Because she is everything he envies and breaking her would mean that he is "better". He would be the "best" in the small world he made for himself. And she, who is the "best" in the "outside" world, would be his slave.
Shinji and Mitsuki are complete opposites. They would never interact in real life, that's why Shinji has to bind Mitsuki to himself. That's what the title "Natsu no Kusari" refers to. In this summer, he shackles her to his world.

And because they are polar opposites, she can't "see" him. She doesn't recognize him when he reveals himself to her because she would never notice someone like him in real life. They are too different. And this is what Shinji upsets so much. This arrogance with which she looks down on him. That's why he hates her so much. That is what drives the "Oni" in him. (The ingame choice regarding this represents his ability to introspect on his hatred for her.)

In the normal end, she can smile at the taxi driver, because he is a good person. In the true end, she recognizes the nice guy who wanted to give an umbrella to her in the rain.
But there is a tragic and melancholic subtext behind this at the first glance painfully clichéd "good person" moral. In every "good" ending ("good" meaning that Shinji becomes a good person), he doesn't use his talent. He becomes a lonely nobody. However, in both "bad" endings, ("bad" meaning he successfully corrupts Mitsuki thus erasing her personality, the very core of her existence), he also, thanks to his cunning talents, makes a lot of money and is also on the way to become a powerful person in society.
He can't become someone without killing Mitsuki's soul. Mitsuki can't become his without him erasing Mitsuki's personality. It's impossible.

That is the final message of the game, represented by the final title screen and the true end music theme. It shows the distance between Shinji and Mitsuki but also his lingering glance to the other side, to her, to her "world", which he envies but would never admit to himself.
And the player knows that there is no way that these two people could become one in this life. Not without force, not without a chain binding and destroying at least one of them in the process. And the player also knows that the only way for this story to have a "happy" end is for Shinji to fail. Even without committing a crime, he is fated to be forever alone. Because his talents and his desires are not compatible with the world he's living in. Like we saw when he stands there, alone, in the true end right after Mitsuki leaves him to go back to "her" world of success and happiness. He did the right thing, but the only reward he gets is solitude. Because he will never be part of her world.

I do understand the implications the writers tried to show with the game/story and I thought it was really interesting.
I think you did an amazing job explaining everything (even some parts where I wasn't quite sure about them like the ending where she doesnt recognize him) but still and this is a huge issue I have with him as a writer (and the company too) and it happened with euphoria at some level, to get to the point and understand what he is trying to say you need to muster hours of torture (literally speaking) which I'm not very fond of, specially not when they add the voice acting of the girls screaming endlessly and doing choke sounds and all that kind of stuff.

Yes the writer is probably trying to immerse you in the plot itself showing you things that maybe just with words would be hard to achieve...,(and maybe there is some fan service mixed there too) either way it's the same for me, I don't like it and it's really hard for me to read and immerse myself in the story with it, creating the total opposite result.

If I have to suffer thought out the story, for example I need to watch 3 torture scenes and then read a few minutes of his diary (where I think the real plot was) then another sex/torture scene, yes in that torture/sex scenes were some amazing parts like the ones you pointed out and she being clueless about everything that was going on, she didn't know how to respond or react to anything and this contrast between the "vn heroine trope" and her behaving like a real girl would in a kidnap situation was a great, but for me it's impossible to enjoy it, add a narration that it is a bit verbose (which is a good thing... if I could read japanese in the same way I read english xD)

 

 
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