Kanon

Game screen in Kanon . Dialogue scene with Ayu Tsukimiya

By analogy with other representatives of the visual novels genre, the Kanon gameplay is characterized by a low level of interactivity and consists of scenes with static two-dimensional images of characters in the first person perspective, during which dialogs are presented in the form of accompanying text ^[1] . The narration is conducted on behalf of the main character of the work - Yuichi Aizawa - and includes both scenes of current events and fragments of the character’s memories ^[2] . At the moments determined by the developers, the text playback stops, and the player is invited to make a choice of several action options that determine the further course of events ^[1] . Such decisions affect the development of the protagonist’s relations with key female characters (Nayuki, Makoto, Mai, Shiori and Ayu) ^[1] .

The visual novel is structurally divided into five plot arches (one for each of the heroines) ^[3] , the transition to which is carried out depending on the choices made by the player in the general introduction ^[2] . The game does not have a strict procedure for passing story arches, and each of them is an independent story of the relationship of the chosen girl with Yuiti and has a unique positive ending, as a result of which a romantic relationship begins between the main character and the chosen heroine, as well as several bad ones if the player makes wrong decisions ^[1] . Most of the plot information is available from the first passage and does not require additional launch of the same plot arch ^[2] . The only exception is the ending of May, after which the player in the story arch of the same heroine is given the opportunity to read the side story of her friend - Sayuri Kurata ^[4] . After completing the reading of one story arch to move on to the remaining, the player is forced to begin the passage with an introduction and make other decisions in the elections in order to change the direction of the development of history ^[1] . Scenes previously seen are available for skipping using automatic text rewinding ^[1] .

Different versions of the game differ from each other by the presence or absence of intimate scenes in the plot arches between Yuiti and the corresponding heroines ^[1] , while, according to the scriptwriters, the content of intimate scenes does not affect the player’s general understanding of the plot ^[5] . In the menu of the visual novel there is a catalog of images, filled as new scenes are shown to the reader, with illustrations of some of them ^[1] .

The main character of the work, a student of the second grade of high school Yuiti Aizawa, after leaving his parents abroad in early January, moved to a city in northern Japan with his aunt Akiko Minase ^[2] . In her house, Yuiti had previously periodically stayed on vacation, but had not come there again for seven years. Upon returning, the hero discovers that for an unknown reason he has practically no memories of his past in this city ^[6] . He settles in a local school in a class where his cousin and peer, Nayuki Minase, is studying ^[2] . Gradually, Yuiti met some girls, most of whom, as it turns out later, were associated with Yuiti in the past ^[1] .

Depending on the decisions made by the player at this moment, Yuichi begins to pay more attention to one of the main characters, and the game branches into five corresponding story arches ^[7] .

Characters

Yuichi Aizawa ( Jap. 相 沢 一 一 Aizawa Yu: ichi ) is the main character-narrator. Easily joined the team of the new school ^[9] . He does not like frosty weather. He regularly makes fun of the girls around him, whom, if necessary, seeks to help ^[9] .

Seiyu : Atsushi Kisaichi (film adaptation of 2002); Tomokazu Sugita (PSP version of the game, 2006 film adaptation).

Nayuki Minase ( Japanese 水 瀬 名 雪 Minase Naiu: ki ) is Yuki's cousin, daughter of Akiko Minase. Captain of the school athletics team ^[10] . He loves cats, despite being allergic to their hair, as well as strawberry dishes ^[11] . It is characterized by high drowsiness in the morning. Since childhood, in love with Yuiti, but seven years ago she was rejected by him after recognition ^[10] . In her story arch, she draws closer to Yuichi through joint home schooling, as well as after a road incident that occurred with her mother, which caused Nayuki to become deeply depressed ^[12] .

Seiyu: Mariko Koda .

Makoto Savatari ( 沢 渡 真 琴 Savatari Makoto ) is a girl who does not remember anything about her past. Attacked Yuiti during his walk in the city’s shopping district, but fell into a hungry swoon , after which she was brought by the main character to Minase’s house, where she remained to live ^[13] . Likes Nikumans ^[14] and read manga ^[15] . In situations that are difficult for himself, he says “Au” ( Japanese я う ) ^[16] . In the course of her arch, Yuichi discovers that Makoto is a fox, which he picked up as a child, but was forced to let go at the end of her vacation, and she decided to turn into a man to meet him again ^[13] . Makoto gradually loses human ability to motor and speech , at this time the main character is constantly caring for her ^[17] . Yuichi holds a fake wedding with Makoto, after which she finally disappears, having lost her last strength in order to maintain herself in the form of a man ^[18] .

Seiyu: Mayumi Iizuka .

Mai Kawasumi ( Jap. 川 澄 舞 Kawasumi Mai ) is a graduate student at the school where the protagonist is studying. Taciturn, loves gyudon ^[19] . Every day he comes to school at night, where he uses the sword to hunt five disembodied demons that inhabit it. First met with Yuiti on one of these nights, when the main character made his way to his class behind a forgotten notebook ^[20] . He has a close friend Sayuri Kurata, who is striving to protect with all his might ^[20] . In her story arc, Yuichi decides to help Mai hunt demons, but after the exile she realizes that the reason for their appearance is the girl herself, who has supernatural powers to heal, but was forced to move to this city because of the ostracism of those around her ^[21] . The main character recalls that in childhood he was friendly with May and promised her to return, after which he helps her to reconcile with her ability ^[22] .

Seiyu: Yukari Tamura .

Shiori Misaka ( 美 坂 栞 Misaka Shiori ) is a first-grade student at the school where Yuiti is studying, the sister of his classmate Kaori Misaki ^[23] . He likes ice cream , which he eats even in winter ^[24] . She was terminally ill, because of which her sister turned away from her. At the time of the meeting with Yuichi, she decided to commit suicide , for which she bought an office knife to open her veins ^[25] . Acquainted with Yuiti, begins to come to his school and communicate with him during the lunch break ^[26] . Having learned about Siori's disease, the main character decides to restore her relationship with her sister ^[23] . He also entertains Siori with joint dates and organizes her birthday celebration, which, according to doctors, she should not have lived ^[23] . The next day, Siori faints in Yuichi's arms, after which she is taken to a hospital, where after a few days she unexpectedly heals from her illness ^[27] .

Seiyu : Akemi Sato (adaptation, PSP version of the game); Hiroko Konishi (PS2 version of the game).

Ayu Tsukimiya ( 月宮 あ ゆ Tsukimiya Ayu ) is a short girl wearing a backpack with wings on her back. He loves the Thayaks , who often steal ^[28] . When designating himself, he uses the sideways pronoun ( Jap. 僕 ) , characteristic of the speech of young men, and also constantly uses the interjection “Yep” in the speech ( Jap. う ぐ ぅ ) ^[16] . After the meeting, they recall with Yuiti that they had known each other, and the protagonist agrees to help Ayu in search of an unknown item that she lost ^[29] . It turned out to be an angel figurine donated by Yuichi to her in childhood, on which the hero vowed to fulfill Ayu’s wishes ^[30] . Seven years ago, during a joint game, the latter fell from a tree, and Yuiti, deciding that she died, lost her memory of those events from grief ^[30] . After telling Yuiti about her memories, Ayu disappears, but from his aunt Akiko, he learns that all this time the girl was in a coma in a local hospital ^[31] . Arriving at the institution, Yuichi discovers that Ayu has just managed to recover ^[30] .

Seiyu: Yui Horie .

Initially, the main part of the development team of the future visual novel Kanon was engaged in the production of games of the same genre under the Tactics brand owned by Nexton ^[32] . However, after the release in mid-1998 of One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e , due to friction on the basis of choosing the direction of the brand’s new games, some of the creators of this visual novel decided to move to another publisher in the hope of gaining more freedom in production, for which they turned to their acquaintance, Itar Hinoue , who worked at that time as an illustrator for Visual Art's ^[32] . Hinoue did not refuse the request to Nexton representatives and introduced them to Visual Art's manager Takahiro Baba, who after negotiations agreed to create a new unit for these employees in the company under his leadership. Already on July 21, 1998, it was registered as a Key company and started its first project ^[32] , called Kanon in the musical form of the same name ^[33] .

In the development team, individual areas of activity were distributed - for example, Naoki Hisaya and Jun Maeda became responsible for writing the script for the future game ^[34] . At the same time, Hisaya was engaged in the creation of the basic plot concept, composed tasks for illustrators and programmers, and also chose a game engine ^[35] . According to him, initially he planned to make a story with a completely different plot, but a day before sending the preliminary draft to Visual Art's, he decided to opt for a draft script where a ghost girl would expect the main character ^[35] . This option was approved by Takahiro Baba, after which Hisaya expanded the list of female characters to the standards of romantic eroge ^[35] . The scriptwriters divided the story arches among themselves: Hisae got the stories of Ayu , Siori and Nayuki, and Maeda got the stories of Makoto and Mai ^[34] . According to Maeda, the work was carried out in an atmosphere of agreement - it was decided to complete all the arches with a sad plot , and also include various mystical elements not only in the Ayu arch, but also Makoto and May ^[34] . Due to the selected character traits, Mai was added to her script to maintain public interest, Sayuri, who became a close friend of this character ^[34] . According to Hisai, each of the stories of the heroines was given additional symbolism ^[35] , and Maeda emphasized that he tried to introduce hints for players about the possible endings of the game ^[34] , despite the desire of his colleague to leave room for speculation ^[36] . In the process of writing the script, it was decided to add speech cliches to some heroines, such as “yep” for Ayu, as well as prescribe each of them according to some favorite dish ^[35] . Hisaya did not like the idea of ​​possible wonderful positive endings for no reason, because all scenario moves were carefully verified according to internal logic ^[36] , and in addition, the author had difficulty describing the everyday life of the heroes, because he considered such work unpleasant because of the monotony ^[35] . Scriptwriters noted that a large amount of time was spent combining their achievements due to the fact that in some arches side characters received too little screen time ^[35] . However, according to Hisai, if he had the opportunity to re-create the Kanon script, he would try to make it much more fun ^[35] .

The main technical task posed to illustrators was the creation of a “fantastic female atmosphere” ^[37] . During the initial study of the appearance of the characters, Hinoue tried to choose the color of the eyes and hairstyle of the heroines according to their character, experimenting with the color scheme, however, in the process of development from the initial sketches of the heroines, these parameters were preserved only in the cases of Mai, Ayu and Nayuki, yet other options were revised ^{[ 38]} . The principle of working on images of scenes was built from a ready-made text script, where a place was noted for a possible image insertion, on the basis of which pencil sketches were created and then stained, and at each stage the illustration variant was discussed collectively by the entire Key composition ^[39] . The most difficult, according to Hinoue, were May sprites , in which case it was necessary to display the character's movement along with the sword . Since the illustrator was experiencing serious difficulties with the image of the weapon, it was decided to make it thinner than the real one and use Jun Maeda as a sitter when posing ^[39] . The school uniform of the heroines was completely invented by Hinoue without any real prototypes, however, according to her admission, the costumes of male characters turned out to be rather strange ^[38] . Miracle Mikipon was commissioned to create half of the stage images, as well as to choose the type of lighting and glare for the characters' eyes for the sketches. The main work on coloring was done in the Adobe Photoshop graphic editor , which was chosen for the ability to easily change hues and color saturation , as well as due to the presence of a layer system ^[38] . Miracle Mikipon also prepared bonus erotic images of heroines for publication, which in the end were not included in the released version due to the low capacity of the used CDs ^[39] . Editor Sinori was engaged in changing the color scheme of illustrations for evening and night time, and the background images were prepared by the artist with the pseudonym Torino ^[37] .

Musical accompaniment was commissioned to write OdiakeS, Shinji Orito ^[40] , as well as scriptwriter Jun Maeda, who from childhood dreamed of trying himself as a composer for computer games ^[34] . In addition to music, Maeda was also entrusted with writing the text for the final song and choosing names for the created compositions ^[40] . However, already during the recording of the song it was found out that the melody of speech proposed by Maeda in “Last regrets” went beyond the vocal range of the invited singer Ayana , which is why Orito was forced to completely rewrite the text ^[40] . Musical compositions were created by composers under the influence of the soundtrack to the film “ Titanic ”, as well as the works of musicians BT and Chicane ^[41] , taking into account that background melodies could be used in scenes of everyday life of heroes ^[40] . Sounds and compositions were recorded in Hokkaido using the Yamaha EX5R synthesizer ^[42] . Difficulties arose when recording the effect of falling objects in the snow outside the room - microphones were turned off due to frost, later this operation was repeated already in the room ^[42] .

On June 4, 1999, the visual novel was officially released for PC on CD-ROMs in Standard and Limited Editions ^[44] ; the latter was distinguished by the presence in its composition of a remix album of musical compositions of the game anemoscope , arranged by Magome Togoshi as well as souvenir products ^[45] . On January 7, 2000, a version of the game was released, from which all hentai scenes were cut to reduce the age rating , and new illustrations were added ^[45] . September 14 of the same year, NEC Interchannel publishing house published a ported version of the game without erotic content for the Dreamcast platform ^[46] , and on February 28, 2002 released a similar port on the PlayStation 2 ^[47] . In the first week of sales alone, 42,379 copies of the game were sold in the Dreamcast version ^[48] , and by 2007 the total number of copies sold of all versions exceeded 300 thousand ^[49] .

Since 2004, additional episodes of the visual novel began to be produced on other media. On November 26, 2004, the standard version of the game with additional scenes was re-released on a DVD- carrier for personal computers ^[50] , and on January 28, 2005, the version of the game for age group B according to the CERO rating ^[44] . On December 22, 2004, Kanon was re-released on the PlayStation 2 platform as part of the games category “ The Best " ^[51] . Later in 2009, Kanon was included in censored form in Key's game collections - Key 10th Memorial Box , containing updated versions of games for the Windows Vista operating system ^[52] , and Key 3-Part Work Premium Box for PlayStation 2 (along with Air and Clannad ) ^[53] . April 30, 2010 was the publication of the Kanon Memorial Edition , adapted for Windows 7 ^[54] . On December 16, 2011, the adapted uncensored version was released by Visual Art's Asoberu! BD-Game on a BD- carrier ^[55] .

After the adaptation of the visual novel in the format of the anime series, Kyoto Animation created versions of the game with voice acting, the first of which was ported and released on February 15, 2007 on the PlayStation Portable platform from the publisher Prototype ^[56] . This was announced on a specially released DVD for this occasion, containing a video recording featuring five actors ( Tomokazu Sugita , Mariko Kody , Mayumi Iizuki , Akemi Sato and Yuko Minaguchi as Akiko Minase). On November 9, 2009, this version was uploaded for purchase on the PlayStation Store ^[57] .

In addition to personal computers and game consoles, since 2007 Kanon began promoting the market of games for mobile phones , first appearing on November 30 of that year in the FOMA service of SoftBank mobile communications company ^[58] . In 2011, during the year Prototype, separate story arches for Android were released ^[59] , and the full version on this platform was released on November 30 of the same year ^[60] . April 4, 2013 the premiere of the game for iOS ^[61] .

The highest position of the original version of Kanon in the national ranking of bisejo games according to the Japanese online magazine PCNEWS was the second place received by the visual novel in 1999 ^[62] . For the first three years, Kanon has consistently been on the list of the fifty most popular games of its genre, ranking in the top ten in 2002 ^[63] . The standard edition of the visual novel in the first week after its release in 2004 returned the game to this rating at 16th position ^[64] and kept it on the list for another two months ^[65] . The same version for a broader age category in 2005 again fell into the ranking at 42nd line and remained in it for another month ^[66] . According to a rating compiled by Dengeki G's Magazine in 2008, Kanon became the fifth most popular visual novel in history. ^[67]

Kanon characters have been used repeatedly in various dojin games. Ayu Tsukimiya and Akiko Minase were included in the fighting game Glove on Fight from developer Watanabe Seisakujo together with the heroines of the visual novels Tsukihime , Di Gi Charat , To Heart and ^[68] . Together with other Key characters, Kanon heroines entered the Twilight Frontier series of Eternal Fighter Zero fighting games ^[69] .

The plot of the visual novel has been repeatedly adapted for other art formats. The first such example was the novelization made by the writer Mariko Shimizu and published by Paradigm in five volumes as a ranobe between 1999 and 2000 with illustrations by Itaru Hinoue ^[70] . Each of the volumes was an arrangement of the story arch of the game and received an additional name after the musical theme of the main character of this script in a visual novel. On October 23, 1999, the first volume of Yuki no Shoujo ( Japanese 雪 の 少女 Yuki no Shё: jo , Snow Girl) , dedicated to Nayuki ^[70] , was followed by Egao no Mukougawa ni ( Japanese ( の 向 こ う 側に Egao no Mukogawa neither , “On the Other Side of the Smile”) about Siori of December 16 ^[71] . In 2000, the series continued with the publication on March 30 of a volume on the story arch of May Shoujo no Ori ( 笑顔 の 向 こ う 側 に Sh:: jo no Ori , The Girl’s Cell) ^[72] and The fox and the grapes (from English - “ Fox and grapes ”) May 23 about Makoto ^[73] . The last volume of the rune was the book published on August 1, 2000 by the Ayu script - Hidamari no Machi ( Japanese 日 溜 り の 街 Hidamari no Mati , “The Solar City”) ^[74] . In 2009, the series was reprinted by the imprint of Visual Art's - VA Bunko ^[75] . Unlike the first edition, all erotic scenes were deleted in the new one ^[76] , and in addition, Shimizu prepared an additional volume Kanojotachi no Kenkai ( 彼女 た ち の 見解 Kanojetati no Kenkai , “Views of the Girls”) dedicated to Sayuri ^{[77 ]} .

According to the scenario of Key , two manga adaptations were released. Between 2000 and 2002, the mediaWorks publisher Dengeki Daioh published the work of the mangaka Pati Morishima, whose chapters were later assembled in two tankobons and published under the Dengeki Comics label ^[78] . Of the six chapters that make up this manga, four are set aside for separate story arches of the heroines - Ayu, Mai, Siori and Makoto - and retell the plot of the visual novel. Nayuki, who did not get her own storyline, is a secondary character appearing in scenes with Yuichi ^[79] . Chapters Mai, Siori, and Makoto break off the original story, not bringing it to a climax and denouement, while the adaptation of Ayu's story arch, on the contrary, is brought to its finale and serves as an epilogue to the entire manga ^[80] .

From 2006 to 2007, another adaptation of the visual novel Kanon: Honto no Omoi wa Egao no Mukougawa ni , illustrated by Kinusa Shimotsuka, was published in Fujimi Shobo's Dragon Age Pure magazine ^[81] . Like its predecessor, the head of the manga, of which nine were released, were assembled into two tankobons, the first of which was completely devoted to the history of Nayuki along with the ending of its script ^[82] . The heads of the second tankobon were broken down according to the stories of individual heroines, and only the arches of Ayu and Makoto were brought to the denouement, and in other cases alternative endings were invented ^[83] .

In addition to the main adaptations, Ichijinsha ^[84] , Ohzora Publishing ^[85] , Softgarage ^[86] , Rapport ^[87] and Enterbrain ^[88] produced anthologies of manga and yenkoma ^{[85] [89]} based on the setting and Kanon characters from various authors, including those combined with other adaptations of Key visual novels ^[90] .

Toei Animation (2002)

In the wake of the popularity of the visual novel, following the novelization and adaptation to the manga format, Visual Art's agreed to the proposal of producer Daisuke Kawakami about the adaptation of the plot of the game in the form of a series designed for one television anime season ^[92] . For the practical implementation of this project, Kawakami chose the Toei Animation studio, which had not previously worked with eroge as the primary source. The production of the picture began in 2001 - Naoyuki Ito, whose previous work was character design in Grappler Baki: Maximum Tournament ^[92], was approved as a director. The script for the individual episodes was entrusted to Rete Yamaguchi and Makoto Nakamura, and the team of animators was led by Yuiti Onisi ^[93] .

The creators of the future series preserved the original design of characters and objects, the only fundamental difference from the work of Itaru Hinoue was the visual display of demons that May hunted in the form of shapeless monsters that was absent in the original source ^[91] . The composition of the series was built from a compilation of elements of all the plot arches of the visual novel based on the script of Ayu ^[94] and the epilogue of Nayuki ^[95] . The final series was its own story, written by Ryota Yamaguchi without reliance on the original ^[96] . The musical accompaniment was written by composer Hiroyuki Kodzu who prepared both compositions of his own composition and arrangements for tracks from the game ^[97] .

The series premiered on January 31, 2002 on Fuji Television and Kansai TV . Broadcasts took place on a weekly basis and continued until March 28 of the same year - a total of 13 episodes were shown ^[98] . During the show, Kanon occupied the thirteenth line of the television rating among all anime series ^[99] . In the same year, from April 1 to October 2, the recordings of the series were published on seven DVDs in Japan ^[100] , but the international edition of the series did not take place ^[101] . In March 2003, Takamichi Ito produced and released an additional OVA series, called Kanon Kazahana, and contained a film adaptation of all the epilogues of girls who were not included in the television version of the series ^[102] . On December 22, 2004, all series were combined and released as a separate DVD collection ^[100] .

Kyoto Animation (2006)

In 2004, Kyoto Animation started filming Key 's second visual novel, Air ; The result was released in January 2005 ^[103] . This work debuted as a director for Tatsui Ishihara and received positive marks for animation from critics ^[104] . Visual Art's decided to continue collaborating with Kyoto Animation on the production of anime adaptations of visual novels, and the animation team began the initial introduction to the latest Key game, Clannad ^[105] . However, a new task from the producers of this joint project was the re-adaptation of Kanon , which was again assigned to Ishihara ^[103] . The director decided to keep the team with which Air had previously prepared: Fumihiko Simo was again approved as a screenwriter ^[105] , and Kazumi Ikede was assigned the animation leadership ^[106] .

While working on the concept of a future film adaptation, Ishihara realized that he could not bring the plot to the full-fledged romantic lines of the original ^[103] , and requested an assessment of the situation from a screenwriter who had been familiar with the game since 1999 ^[105] . Simo supported the director’s opinion, and they focused on exploring new everyday scenes ^[103] . This decision was dictated by the director’s confidence that there was no other way to link all five story arches together, and therefore the script was given the installation to make the protagonist’s romantic relationship more monotonous compared to Air ^[103] . Since the musical term “ canon ” meant a combination of a time-repeating motive , Simo wanted to write a script according to this structure, lining up all the plot arches in a sequential row ^[105] . When transmitting the scenes, it was decided to follow the game as accurately as possible in terms of the plot, focusing on the elaboration of visual details to make the film adaptation original, for which purpose a reconciliation with the text of the visual novel was conducted ^[103] . For the same reason, and to meet the expectations of the franchise fans, the speech cliches of the heroines were preserved, although Ishihara believed that such elements could look good in games and manga, but not in the anime ^[103] . Nevertheless, Kyoto Animation was regarded as the target audience of the series, including as new viewers who were not familiar with the original source and early adaptations ^[107] .

During the study of the behavior of the characters, Ishihara decided to reduce Yuichi's comic actions, for example, a deliberate desire to take a bath with Makoto (it was replaced by an accidental situation), in order to move away from the characteristic plot moves of the eroge ^[107] . Ayu's character was contrasted with Nayuki, where the first of them was given the character of a little girl, and the second - an adult and lonely “childhood friend” ^[107] . Makoto was depicted in the tsundere template, Shiori - the younger sister, and Mai - kudere , whose behavior was revealed in the course of the plot ^[107] . An additional search for new character traits of the heroines was complicated by the need to comply with the framework of the harem genre, so that all five girls would eventually fall in love with Yuiti ^[108] .

Simo tried to experiment within the framework permitted by Ishihara, changing the scene of individual scenes and their meaning while maintaining the dialogue part ^[108] . A long discussion with the director arose during the approval of the order of inserts in the final script of the parts of the plot arches: Makoto and Siori did not dare to put the first, because the creators were afraid that the existing sad ending of their stories would immediately create a pessimistic atmosphere of the series, stretching to the final series ^[108] . As a result, it was Makoto’s arch that became the first story, and the last one was decided to make the Nayuki epilogue ending on a positive note, however, according to Simo, the culmination of this heroine’s line suffered due to the lack of new ideas for plot moves by Kyoto Animation staff ^{[ 108]} .

As a musical accompaniment, the director's choice fell on the original compositions of the visual novel, which, in his opinion, were well suited to everyday scenes ^[107] . According to Ishihara, Key’s requirements for the visual component of the new series have increased compared to the previous work, which the director intended to surpass as animation ^[107] . Backgrounds were performed in order to show the Kanon setting as a kind of “snow country” ^[107] . The animation team leader Kazumi Ikeda, unlike the rest of the team working on the series in Kyoto , was located in Osaka and kept in touch with the management by telephone and fax ^[106] . Before starting work, Ikeda demanded additional clarification from the director about the images of each of the characters and only after long consultations began work on their visual images ^[106] . In addition to the original costumes, it was decided to increase the number of possible options for clothing characters ^[109] . As in the case of the adaptation of Air , Ikeda, when developing the design of the heroines, proceeded from the need to transfer the moe- style of the original source sprites , however, she experienced certain difficulties because of the desire to give them more femininity ^[106] . In addition, difficulties arose with the choice of eye sizes and the hairstyle of some heroines, since the illustrator wanted to make them more realistic than in the game ^[109] .

Ishihara decided to try to maintain the composition of the seiyu who participated in the creation of other adaptations ^[107] - the only change was the role of the protagonist, to whom Tomokazu Sugita was selected ^[110] . The director decided not to give the actors additional instructions for dubbing , because he was sure that they had already managed to understand the images of their characters well ^[107] . Sugita was instructed to play "a calm hero, in which youth would still be visible" ^[110] . According to the actor, he tried not to make a difference in intonations when communicating with various female characters, because of which, in his opinion, scenes with male and adult heroes were emotionally affected ^[110] . The performer of the role of Ayu - Yui Horie - noted that compared to previous works in this image in the second part of the season, the heroine's speech was notable for the high pace, which the actress hardly supported ^[111] . Mayumi Iizuka , in turn, emphasized that in the new film adaptation, Makoto came out more emotional, which also required her efforts in voicing ^[112] .

The first announcement of future adaptation took place in March 2006 ^[113] , at the end of August a DVD teaser Kanon Prelude ^[114] was published, and preparations for the release were completed already in the autumn of that year ^[107] . According to Ishihara, at that moment he felt very tired of tension and the fact that the final version of the anime included scenes containing errors that were not corrected due to a time lag ^[107] . The Kyoto Animation group soon began to adapt Clannad ^[109] , and the series itself appeared on television on October 5, 2006 on the BS-i Tokyo channel in ^[115] . The film adaptation, consisting of 24 episodes, ended on March 15, 2007 ^[115] , and, according to Newtype magazine, Kanon finished it in ninth place in the composite popularity rating of anime broadcast at that time ^[116] . Since the beginning of 2007, even during the broadcast on television, the sale of series recordings on DVD-media began, which lasted until August 1. In total, 8 discs were published during this period, each of which contained three series of paintings ^[117] . These records were regularly included in the rating of the best-selling anime production at that time ^{[118] [119]} - the highest position was the first place in sales, achieved in the first decade of April ^[120] .

Outside of Japan, the series was licensed in the Republic of China by Proware Multimedia International ^[121] , ADV Films ^[122] in North America, and Madman Entertainment ^[123] in Australia and New Zealand . In July 2008, after the release of the first five DVDs, ADV Films removed Kanon from its upcoming product listing ^[124] and resold the rights to a further publication by Funimation , which completed publication in October of that year ^[125] .

The first collection of musical compositions anemoscope was released as a bonus material for a limited edition of the visual novel ^[45] . This album was composed of the main tracks of the game, which included both melodies of common scenes and the keynotes of individual heroines in the processing of I've Sound ^[126] . In addition, it included opening and closing compositions - “Last regrets” and “Kaze no Tadoritsuku Basho” - performed by singer Ayana ^[126] . On November 23, 1999, these songs, together with their instrumental versions, formed the basis of the single album Last regrets / Place of wind which arrives , which was also distributed on the Winter Comic of that year ^[126] .

Between September 29, 2000 and April 27, 2001, Kanon radio show was released on five discs, the plot of which covered all five story arches of the heroines, each of which was allotted one disc ^[127] . From December 2001 to May 2002, a radio show was compiled again on five media, compiled from the stories of individual authors in the form of an anthology ^[128] . To release a visual novel on the Dreamcast platform by Movic Kanon: The Snow Talk Memories Yuki Furu Machi no Monogatari was broadcast with seiyu Tomoko Kawakami (Sayuri Kurata) and Yukari Tamura (Mai Kawasumi). In total, 13 broadcasts of the program were produced from October 6 to December 29, 2000 ^[129] . The following year, 2001, the broadcast of the Minase-san Chi program was broadcast, in which the roles of the leaders went to Atsushi Kisaichi (Yuichi Aizawa) and Yuko Minaguchi (Akiko Minase). Later, the recordings of this production, which consisted of 53 issues, were published on five CDs in 2003 ^[130] .

By the 2001 Winter Comiket, Key released a new album of musical compositions Recollections , which presented tracks previously published in the anemoscope that received a new arrangement, as well as bonuses from the single album Last regrets / Place of wind which arrives ^[131] . This work became the third album for a record company created on the basis of Key, Key Sounds Label ^[131] . A complete collection of all the compositions of the game was released in the Kanon Original Soundtrack album on October 25, 2002 ^[132] . In 2003, the same label released the album Re-feel , containing compositions of visual novels by Kanon and Air in piano arrangement ^[133] .

The musical accompaniment of the anime series from Toei Animation was released as two TV Animation Edition Kanon Soundtrack albums, for which the highest positions in the Japanese Oricon chart were 98th and 53rd, respectively ^{[134] [135]} . Opening and closing compositions of the series - “Florescence” and “Flower” - to the music of Koji Ueno were performed by singer Miho Fujiwara ^[136] , and after that they were also released as singles ^[137] . In 2003, Koji Ueno prepared a separate album, Orgel de Kiku Sakuhin Shuu , composed of compositions he had arranged for the same series ^[138] . Like other albums associated with the Toei Animation series, it was released by Movic ^{[135] [138]} . To adapt Kyoto Animation, the original “Last regrets” ^[139] and “Kaze no Tadoritsuku Basho” ^[140] were used as opening and closing compositions, but a version of “Last regrets (X'mas floor style) was added to the 16th series. "Performed by Eiko Simamia , which was previously published in a collection of songs from Regret 's visual novels in 1999 ^[141] . The two main theme songs were the single album Last regrets / Kaze no Tadoritsuku Basho from Key Sounds Label ^[142] .

Genre

Kanon became one of the first representatives of a special subgenre of visual novels - nakig ( Japanese 泣 き ゲ ー Nakige: literally “a crying game”) ^[143] , aimed at achieving a player's sense of strong empathy with the characters and able to bring him to tears ^[144] . According to eroge researcher Satoshi Todome, Kanon continued to follow the principles of building a plot of nigig that started by future Key employees while working on One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e , and due to its popularity, it entailed a serious restructuring of the entire market of visual novels, intensified with the release of the next work on the script of Jun Maeda - Air - in 2000 ^[145] . In 2008, Kanon took fifth place in the ranking of games, the plot of which can cause tears, according to the portal Dengeki Online ^[146] . Famitsu Magazine rated the game for all ages 29 out of 40 ^[147] .

When evaluating the plot of the game and the anime adaptations, Western critics also pointed out the tragedy of the stories of the heroines and noted that in the fan environment the work was nicknamed “sad girls in the snow” ^{[9] [148] [149]} . At the same time, in the opinion of some observers, the dramatic element was presented in such a way that the viewer could better perceive the bright moments, and the plot twists did not look like “emotional extortion” and “tragedy for the sake of tragedy” ^{[9] [16]} , were mainly based on the backstories of the characters ^[150] and demanded tough decisions from them ^[150] . The absence of reflection among the main characters about a possible evasion of responsibility for the development of events was also indicated ^[150] . However, Theron Martin of Anime News Network noted the fundamental uniformity of development of all the scenarios of girls ^[151] .

Due to the fact that the game belongs to the erogen, observers added a harem to the number of its genres, however, it was noted that for a number of reasons there were deviations from the clichés that were not typical for such games ^[152] . Mania.com critic Chris Beveridge emphasized that, unlike other harem stories, the viewer could easily understand the reasons why girls like the main character ^[153] . Greg Smith of The Fandom Post explained this by saying that Yuiti “doesn’t look weak, is not afraid of her own shadow, doesn’t bleed from the sight of a naked girl”, and is “the most vivid character” of the work, overshadowing the character of the girls due to her self-sufficiency and sarcasticity ^[9] . Various reviewers emphasized that the focus of the story is focused on the main character, and not on female characters ^{[16] [148] [154]} , and it is he who contributes to the development and disclosure of the character of the heroines ^[26] . An almost complete absence of etti elements was also noted, with the exception of intimate scenes, which also did not affect the overall plot ^[155] . The plot of the story was made according to the “hackneyed scenario” about moving to another city ^[149] . When evaluating female characters, Theron Martin noted in his review that although Kanon presented the typical harem “choice of girls for every taste” ^[155] , they themselves were spelled out much better than in Shuffle! , which allowed the story to “beautifully develop and without vulgarity bring the heroines closer to Yuiti” ^[156] , despite the initial lack of interest on the part of some of them ^[16] .

Reviewers noted that the appearance of elements of the supernatural was unexpected during the plot , but it did not look out of place ^[157] and even emphasized the emotionality of the stories of the heroines ^[17] . Browser of The Fandom Post Mark Thomas described such a step as the features of magical realism , and emphasized the success of combining them with humor, drama and romance, which could interest a wide and diverse audience and ultimately diversify the action typical of the everyday genre ^[150] . In Chris Beveridge’s view, the only exception to this was the story of Mai, who came to the verge of verisimilitude, but looked weaker than Makoto and Ayu ^[26] . The DVDTalk reviewer was completely surprised at the lack of attempts to investigate the causes of mystical incidents, which the heroes accepted on faith without problems ^[154] .

Story and characters

The central element of the plot, according to observers, was the drama taking place with the characters, during which their backstory was revealed ^[16] . According to Mark Thomas, Kanon easily found an emotional response from viewers along the way ^[150] . He also noted that comedy scenes were not based on the physical interaction of the characters, but were based on the characters' characters and appeared only in dialogs ^[150] , which made their behavior similar to real high school students, rather than clichés typical of the anime industry ^{[148] [150 ] ]} . It was noted that for a long time there was no conflict in the arches and the atmosphere of everyday life prevailed instead of the development of the plot ^{[148] [152] [154]} . The musical accompaniment of the work was recognized as successfully emphasizing the measured course of history ^{[148] [150]} .

The opinions of reviewers were divided in assessing the emotionality of individual scenarios of girls. So, Greg Smith considered the most successful in this regard arches Ayu and Nayuki, which were the core of the whole story along with Yuiti ^[9] . Chris Beveridge admitted that at first he considered Makoto's weakest story, adding melancholy ^[148] and weak intrigue throughout most of his own arch ^[153] , which, however, turned out to be very emotional in the finale ^[17] . Siori, in his opinion, was also distinguished by a long exposure ^[153] , and the drama itself became, though interesting, but fleeting ^[23] . The epilogue Nayuki Beveridge was recognized as the weakest of all due to the scriptwriters' use of the plot course with the accident, which did not follow from previous events ^[31] . Other reviewers indirectly confirmed this, noting that the drama and finals of different girls are not equal to each other ^{[149] [151] [152]} , and the behavior of the characters in them did not always correspond to their real age ^{[17] [158]} .

Moe Elements

The character design used by Kanon was met with numerous criticisms from observers. In a review for the THEM Anime portal, Jeremy Beard stated that such an “ultra- kawaii ” style reduced the sense of drama of the work, because the characters looked “like eight-year-olds who at the time are interested in sweets, rather than romance” ^[157] . For this reason, many critics have noted that this aspect may become unacceptable to a large part of the audience ^{[9] [16] [155] [156]} . Nevertheless, it was emphasized that in 1999, for Japanese fans, images of female heroines with oversize hairstyles, huge eyes, a very small mouth and wide faces looked completely normal and were one of the manifestations of moe- stylistics ^[149] , which became the subject of the 2010s ridicule ^[9] .

The inappropriateness of speech cliches was also noted, the use of which was ultimatum ^{[16] [150]} . This was explained by Theron Martin as an attempt to introduce fan-service based on moe-elements into each scene ^[156] .

2002 anime adaptation

Jeremy Beard, in a review of the adaptation of Toei Animation, described the series as "not a good, but not a bad adaptation of an eroge" ^[157] . In his opinion, the endings of the plot arches turned out to be less tragic than in the original, but Naoyuki Ito managed to maintain the general tragedy of the atmosphere of the original source ^[157] . Nevertheless, the development of relations between the characters was considered Byrd too fast, and the secondary heroes, according to the critic, received too little attention ^[157] . The reviewer considered that it would be better if the script was focused on fewer protagonists, which would enable the viewer to better experience the emotionality of the climaxes of the plot arches that went one after another in the series with a break in two or three episodes ^[157] . Among the positive aspects, the observer noted the exact transfer of character design and a well-executed visual series, separately focusing on background images, which, in his opinion, successfully conveyed the atmosphere of winter ^[157] .

2006 Anime Adaptation

The 2007 adaptation of Kyoto Animation received average ratings from critics who compared the picture with the studio’s previous work - the series “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya ” and Air . Even at the stage of previewing the series, Carlo Santos from Anime News Network noted the closeness of Yuichi's character and his behavior with the main character of Melancholy Haruhi Suzumiya, Kyunu, and also described the style of all female characters as very reminiscent of Mikura Asahin from the same work ^[159] . Other reviewers ^{[16] [152] were of a} similar opinion. Compared to Air, it was emphasized that Tatsuya Ishihara managed to film all the story arches at the same time ^[9] , make the humor over the girls more fun ^[155] and significantly improve the visual part ^[155] .

The adaptation plot, according to critics, was distinguished by a weak romantic part ^[152] , and the exposition was considered protracted, although not complete enough for a number of heroines ^{[148] [154]} . In the opinion of Theron Martin, the work failed to neatly stack separate stories of girls into a single plot ^[156] , because there was a sense of ignoring some heroines who were not involved in specific arches ^[158] , and the interval between separate stories turned out to be too small ^[158] . This reason Martin singled out as the main one, according to which the series could not be ranked among the "best" ^[158] .

The visual part of the work, on the contrary, received mostly positive reviews, which emphasized the successful transfer of snowfall scenes ^{[150] [153]} , a good selection of colors ^{[148] [150]} and smooth animation ^{[148] [155]} . However, the presence of some defects in the background images was noted, which Permalink / nevertheless did not affect the general perception of the series ^{[148] [150] [155]} . Despite the reservations, the character design also received positive reviews, which indicated that it was improved in comparison with the original game ^{[16] [149]} .

In total, the adaptation of Kyoto Animation was recognized to be significantly superior in all aspects to Toei Animation ^{[9] [16]} , the existence of which, in Greg Smith’s view, was completely forgotten by fans a decade later ^[9] . Observers emphasized that only viewers deprived of cynicism and calmly referring to the character’s moe-design can fully appreciate the work ^{[17] [149] [151]} , which, according to Theron Martin, made Kanon the absolute opposite in emotional terms to the series “ Gurren-Lagann " ^[151] . Greg Smith said that, in his opinion, this film adaptation was the best adaptation of visual novels at the time of its release, but it soon gave way to Ishihara's next work - Clannad ^[9] .