Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

What do you call it when the writer of Higurashi and Umineko decides to go write a Baccano! slash Cowboy Bebop esque story?

smurfing glorious that's what.



No seriously, this has to be one of the best prospects for a story I've ever heard. Rose Gun(s) Days is sometimes called Ryukishi07's most accessible work, and well, I wouldn't be surprised. It's set - for the most part - in post-war Japan, 1947 to be exact. But before I go into the story further, I have to mention the tutorial.

Yeah, the novel has a tutorial. Make that one of only two novels (the other being Majikoi) I've ever seen having such a thing.

What's this? This novel actually has GAMEPLAY? Well that's not all that unusual for visual novels, but 07th Expansion novels in particular tend to have extremely limited interactivity. Hell Higurashi has a grand total of two choices in all of its ~80 hours of reading time, neither of which affect the plot, and Umineko's only interactivity is in its final episode (although admittedly that was pretty amazing). So you may understand how this was really surprising to me.

Aaaaanyways, the fight scenes. Basically they look like this:

This is simplifying it a bit, but basically you hover over or click the white splashes. You're on a time limit of course, although so far it's been really lenient. So lenient in fact that you can go for 'extra points'! Yes you can actually 'rank up' to have more difficult fight scenes later on if you enjoy them.

Fortunately all of this is optional. If you don't like the gameplay you aren't forced to partake in it. I probably will since it's kinda neat, but if you really don't like it there's a simple way out...

Thanks Stella, I almost missed it. Basically if you press the Spacebar button you instantly win and skip the rest of the fight scene. So the game encourages you to at least give them a go, but but doesn't hold you up with them if you just want to enjoy the damn story. I guess that works.

Oh geez this gets really complicated real fast. I'm not even going to try to explain this since I have no idea what half of it means. In a nutshell... you get points for doing well in the fight scenes. Getting points makes future fight scenes more difficult until they're exactly adjusted to your skill level. That about right? I think so.

But hey I got some shiny emblems out of it! Hooray!

Okay enough of this. What about the novel part of the novel, the actual story?

The story opens up with this girl called Rose falling straight into this smartass's arms. She's being chased by some black suits for something, so Mr. I'm So Badass over here decides to step in and help her.

Oh, he's the protagonist. Well then I guess this means this is the first fight scene of the game.

That sure went by quickly. This guy doesn't screw around.

Either way, the main character is Leo Shishigami, a guy who's returned to his hometown Tokyo after three years of absence only to find it completely different from how he remembers it.

Problem is, ever since Japan was occupied by American and Chinese forces, Leo's Japanese heritage is frowned upon to the point where getting a proper employment is practically impossible.

It appears his only two options are scrambling for ridiculously underpaid day jobs, or enlisting in the army.

Neither of those two options sound pleasant, naturally. But... there may be another way. That is to get involved in the 'underworld'...

Oh, and I believe this is all being told to us by a woman called Jeanne who's being interviewed by a Japanese reporter sometime in the 21st century. Can't go without meta in a Ryukishi07 story now can we?

So there you have it. First chapter done. I assume this to be about as long as one half of a When They Cry novel, since it's four episodes/seasons.

There's a lot of things I'm already liking about this novel. The soundtrack is catchy and I'm sure I'll remember a good amount of tracks by heart by the end of this. Leo is a pretty suave protagonist and I'm very much interested in where his path takes him, and how all the other characters play into that.

And of course there's a bit of nostalgia involved. The sound ambience resembles Umineko's in many ways. It has the same glass shattering and gunshot sounds (and many others) that etched themselves into my mind over the hundreds of hours I spent on Umineko. And being translated by the same group that did Umineko, there are some recognizable translation quirks. Like for example they still have the text in tags to indicate lines being spoken in actual English. <Good>, <very good>!

So where will this journey take me? I have no idea. It's written by my favorite writer so I certainly have some expectations, but I've heard it's not complex the way Umineko is; it excels in being the exact opposite, a simple story with nonetheless great characters and plot. And if there's just one thing I unconditionally trust Ryukishi07 with it's writing good characters. Let's see how it goes!