#Back to Trianthology soon!

[lyendith]

Ciconia no Naku Koro ni Phase 1 : To You, The Replaceable Ones

I had planned to write this… review? analysis? of Ciconia Phase 1 right after finishing the game about two weeks after its release, but since then I've had trouble organizing my thoughts. The reason is that this first installment alone tackles a lot of themes: war, nationalism, technoscientism, media consumption and manipulation, the blurring limits between physical and virtual reality, education systems, generational gaps induced by technology, artificial procreation, old people robbing the youth of their dreams, the meaning of family and interpersonal bonds, and even transidentity (albeit briefly). And it is quite remarkable that almost all of those themes are represented by one object: the Gauntlet and the idea of “parallel processing” associated with it.

It's gonna be a long and messy review, I'll probably forget to mention some aspects of the story or overlook others, and I won't talk about every single character, but I'll try to cover the essential parts. Not easy considering how densely-packed the story is, but let's go!

So to start, I should probably focus on this VN's protagonist, Mitake Miyao. On a surface level, he's a bit of what you'd call a “tsundere”: harsh, a little irritable and sarcastic with his pals, but always well-meaning and easy to befriend in the end. One of the running threads of the story so far is that he's too well-meaning in fact, idealistic to a fault, which contributes to his odd charisma but also makes the increasing realization of his powerlessness all the more depressing. You don't want to see this guy fail, but because of the way the story is framed, you know he inevitably will.

For a while, the narration and dialogue like to repeat that “youngsters are each generation's main characters”, but that's a sentiment I couldn't quite share − in our real world, youngsters may be the ones will all the dreams, but they sure as hell aren't the ones making the decisions. The climate change crisis, for example, wouldn't be left unaddressed if that was the case. And sure enough, Ciconia isn't so naïve as to ignore that reality. Every single step of the way, Miyao thinks he can use his power to overturn the situation. Every single step of the way, he's reminded that in the end he's just a pawn moving however his higher-ups or other nebulous forces wish him to. That's a really powerful and relatable theme in this day and age, which raises the question of how far you can oppose a system you're an essential part of.

One thing that makes Miyao special, at least compared to his pals from the AOU, is that he's “ciconia-born” − born from natural procreation. Which means that unlike Jayden or Gunhild, he has bilogical family bonds but also hasn't been subjected to a genetic selection that would predetermine his path in life. At least supposedly, but we gradually learn that that may not quite be the case. In fact, that biological link to Toujirou ends up acting as a tether that robs Miyao of even more control on his own life than he thought, leading to the final tragedy of this first Phase.

There also lies this story's commentary on technology and man's increasing dependence on it − technology makes the kids' life easier, but it's also their undoing. One technology prevented an apocalypse that another caused, and the loss of the former brings about a new apocalypse. Humans created the 8MS but only a handful of scientists have a full understanding of how it works, just like today's technology are only fully understood by a small elite of technicians. We are increasingly dependent on tools whose principles are increasingly out of our grasp. Again, the Gauntlet is another reflection of that.

But back to Miyao and the Gauntlet Knights. In retrospect, it is clear that the way both the characters and readers learn about most dramatic developments through disincarnated news reports (with a goofy “news flash” alert by the frog AI Keropoyo to make it worse) is meant to build up that feeling of powerlessness, and also of disconnect. We should be alarmed that war is approaching, that terrible things are happening… but it all feels distant. After all, do you cry or tremble in fear when you learn that an eathquake killed a thousand people on the other side of the globe? No, you'll think “it's terrible” for a minute and then move on, because what can you do about it? Reading the second half of Ciconia felt a lot like that. And while that's part of the message, it is also to the detriment of the reading experience a lot of the time.

For a while (around the 60-to-80% portion of the game, roughly) we get a lot of redundant dialogue about commenting the news and Miyao rambling on about how they're all COMRADES MAINTAINING THE WALLS OF PEACE, again and again and again, to the point it becomes annoying. That's my only real gripe with the game − the feeling that, at times, Ryukishi forgot he was writing a story and went into political or philosophical essays about its themes instead. Maybe a manga or anime adaptation could help make these parts more… show-don't-telly. But as it is, it could have used some serious trimming down. That's hardly something entirely new − who can forget Krauss' tangent about 1986 Japan's economic situation or Beatrice's explanation of Hempel's crow? But in Ciconia the narration doesn't seem to come from any specific point of view except that of the author (and even on that front, the opening disclaimer warns us that the views expressed don't necessarily reflect the author's opinions), so those parts become all the more conspicuous. Unless this all turns out to be part of a Witch's game, which wouldn't be surprising.

Where Ciconia shines however, is at weaving a web of connections between the characters, one by one, to make you care about some and suspicious of others, sometimes both, and deliberately confuse you about who really controls whom. First we have the kids, with Warcat and Grave Mole which instantly grew on me (the slice-of-life TIPS focused on them had some of my favorite scenes actually), then the other kette with their own quirky charms… then the “villains”, with Toujirou and Seshat, then the Three Kings and Jestress who has a delightful dynamic with Toujirou, and then Toujirou is revealed to be Miyao's father, etc... It's a testament to how well all of those characters are established that I could remember almost all of them very quickly despite their massive number. Save for the Cairo Squad maybe. They're just kinda there. The (mostly) gorgeous character designs certainly help, even if Ryukishi still has a somewhat loose grasp of body proportions and of the… number of fingers on human hands. There's some improvement even in that department though.

While Miyao is for the most part the center of the cast, at least on the kids' side, that doesn't mean the others aren't interesting in their own right. Jayden is your classic “best buddy dudebro” whose easygoingness lets him bounce off Miyao's more strait-laced personality in a fun way, but his relationship with Meow, Miyao's “little sister” who shares the same body, allows him to show more sensitivity and shyness he would otherwise have. Speaking of Meow, she brings about another interesting element of worldbuilding − the existence of “Congenital Parallel Processors”, or CPPs, i.e. people born with multiple personalities, who are not considered mentally ill but a full-fledged minority with its own issues and “coming outs”. Although that aspect isn't developped much (Meow herself kind of disappears from the radar in the second half), we do get other examples of how it can manifest, notably with the character of Naima, whose unnamed alter-ego is violently protective of her, or Rukshana who's prone to abrupt personality changes when she laughs. The way Jayden kinda walks on eggs but genuinely tris to to treat Meow as her as her own person while respecting her and Miyao's privacy is frankly adorable, and I almost wish we got more of that at least in the TIPs!

The kette I found the most interesting, though, was Grave Mole, composed of Chloe, Lilja and Koshka. While a lot of characters have issues, all three of these girls are complete mental wrecks to some degree. Koshka spends her time between grumpily taking part in Kizuna chat rooms and horrific body experiments (usually simultaneously) when she's not training, Lilja has to take drugs to pretend like she's a happy, cute and mischievous cat-girl for the sake of making Koshka a more-or-less functional human being, and Chloe has to constantly deal with unfair punishments and a constantly battered self-esteem. As comedic as Okonogi's angry rants and karate-chops are played (and as much as I like this version of Okonogi, strangely enough), that scene where she gleefully lets Lilja be killed in battle makes it clear that her mental state is just as unstable as the other two's.

On the antagonists' side, things are a lot more blurry: a lot of them utter the arc phrase “All is in the name of guiding humanity down the right path.” However, what the right path is seems to vary depending on who says it. That's where a lot of the mystery lies − be it with Jestress, Seshat or Toushirou, their goals seem contradictory, and Tak… I mean Vier Dreissig doesn't even seem to have a goal beyond SCIENCE. But a big part of Phase 1's hook is that constant uncertainty as to who is playing whom and for what purpose. Even the Three Kings, who seem like your bog standard Illuminati knock-offs, might not be as much in control as they seem − hell, one of the big catastrophes (the fatal damage to the atmospheric 8MS) happens completely outside of their control, in an almost comically sudden way.

Speaking of comical… let's get to what I found personally fascinating but what other readers might have gripes with: the brutal tonal shifts and dissonances throughout the story. A cheery scene to announce the big success of a plan for the Order of the Public Bath? Keropoyo pops up to gleefully announce… an avalanche of terrible news that make the success from a minute ago meaningless. A big conference for peace where World War IV will most certainly be stopped? All of its participant die in an “accidental” explosion. Not to mention characters that are walking balls of tone dissonance like Chloe (who has many comical scenes but is clearly broken beyond repair) or the Yeladot Shavit girls (who by the end are forced to spew out fanatical bullshit with the same sparkly smile they sport when gushing about yuri ships).

This is of course embodied by the incredible climax where all the Gauntlet Knights celebrate their comraderie together in a virtual room… while their real selves are busy killing each other lest they're court-martialed for treason. The moment where all of Miyao's ideals are brutally trashed and scattered in a battle we don't even know the purpose of. The moment where the kids' taent for “parallel processing” becomes their sole mean of escaping the horror of their situation. The moment where all the absurdity, all the unfairness explodes in a depressing flourish. The moment also where the thematic resonance with Umineko becomes fully apparent − how can we not be reminded of Sayo and Maria escaping their shitty lives through their magic? Though of course Rose Guns Days also constantly came to mind, with the focus on war and nationalism, Japan being divided between a union led by the US and one led by China, and two of Miyao's closest friends being the American Jayden and the Chinese Lingji; as well as Miyao being an idealistic and charismatic leader-by-circumstance whose dreams crash into a wall much like Rose's in RGD.

So…

All in all, Ciconia might not entirely be what I expected from a When They Cry game, but it is certainly what I expect from a 07th Expansion game: a thought-provoking experience. Again, I finished my reading shocked and confused. Although it might seem like it shows its cards more explicitly than the openers of Higurashi and Umineko, deception still plays a big part in the story, even if the interaction with the reader is less direct.

Now there might be no murder mystery for the reader to solve, but that won't stop me from speculating! The invisible turning point to me is the “Proof of a Program” chapter, where Blue Miyao tells Miyao that he'll show him someone's face, and that that will activate Miyao's murder program instantly. Miyao first laughs it off, but then the scene brutally cuts to something that might be a flashback, a flash-forward or a nightmare, maybe all of that at once… The most graphically horrifying scene of the entire game, to the point it's almost at odds with the rest. And then… it's never mentioned again. Not even when Miyao meets again with Blue Miyao. Like it never happened. My theory is that everything Miyao experiences from that point onward is some kind of simulation, and that's where the obligatory When They Cry time loop will come from this time. See you in May for the answer?

That is all for today, folks!

[diaboluslapis]

Ryukishi07′s Q&A at Animecon in Finland

Full Q&A video:

Part 1: https://youtu.be/DBQe_zsF-tk

Part 2: https://youtu.be/WOh-MWhv4UE

Translation under the cut:

Part 1:

Interviewer: Could you start out with explaining how your career started and how the circle 07th Expansion was born?

Ryukishi07: It’s a very boring story, but I just thought about what I wanted to do with my life and simply decided to try what I wanted to do, and this is what happened!

I: Your career started in doujinshi circuits. What’s it like making games for an audience similar to Comiket?

R: I did work for an audience similar to Comiket happening in August and it’s been very stressful but also rewarding.

I: Wasn’t there another happening in December as well?

R: For the happening in August there’s a lot of time to do work to prepare, but for the happening in December there’s only 4 months to prepare which makes it harder.

I: Could you tell us how your masterpiece Higurashi no Naku Koro ni was born?

R: I got an idea from the American movie The Blair Witch Project and thought it’d be fun to make a Japanese version of the movie’s scenario.

I: Higurashi is told through many stories that raise questions about the plot, questions which are then answered in the later games. Where did the idea for constructing the plot like this come from?

R: By drinking Coca-Cola, you get a lot of ideas! *laughter*

I: Which character is your favourite in Higurashi?

R: It depends a lot on when you ask the question because it changes for me all the time, but at the moment it’s Satoko Hojo.

I: 07th Expansion’s games are described as sound novels, where the world of sound plays an important role. How does this affect the writing?

R: For example, you can hear sound in an anime. I wanted to combine anime, manga and visual novels and create my own coherent ”chain”.

I: Your games have been released for various consoles. PC, Playstation, and Nintendo DS. Do you have a favourite console?

R: At the moment it’s either Playstation 4 or Nintendo Switch.

I: The When They Cry series later became very popular and was made into manga, anime and even movie adaptions. How does this popularity feel?

R: I’m very grateful for all the support that I get from everyone.

I: Was it possible to imagine, when making the first Higurashi, that it would ever become this popular?

R: In my dreams I thought it’d be amazing to become that popular, but of course it was still a surprise.

I: Nowadays a lot of visual novels use shocking and horror elements. Do you feel like Higurashi was a ”trendsetter” in that regard?

R: I feel like works like that existed before as well, I don’t feel like a ”trendsetter”. I’m an especially big fan of Kamaitachi no Yoru, it was an inspiration for me because it was also connected to horror, so I wanted to a work with horror as well. It was presumed that sound novels were mostly based on horror, but nowadays you can find a lot of cute girls in them as well. But even these cute girls can be horrifying! *laughter*

I: After the Higurashi series, there was Umineko no Naku Koro ni. What inspired you to write it?

R: I wanted to make a more Western-based story, since I previously made a story based on Japanese country life.

I: Did you have to do any background research for writing Umineko?

R: I went to a small island where there was believed to be a ghost. Of course there was no ghost but I tried to capture the feeling from that island, but since there wasn’t actually a ghost there I had to come up with some white lies in my work. *laughter* It was challenging, since there wasn’t actually anything on that island.

I: What motivated you to show clearer answers in the Umineko manga?

R: Because as the final release, I thought it would make it special.

I: In Umineko there is a character named Yasu, whose persona and feelings are presented to the reader indirectly through the stories she has written. How was the process of creating this character?

R: From the start, I had considered a character who was a criminal, but then felt like that would be too extra, and so I ended up with a character like Yasu.

I: There are apparently plans for a new episode of Umineko, could you tell us about this?

R: There will be a new character, who will be revealed soon, so be prepared for that.

I: There is also a new When They Cry game in the works, could you tell us more about this?

 Part 2:

R: It will be more international this time, and there might even be a Finnish character!

I: Higurashi refers to cicadas, while Umineko refers to seagulls. Do you already know what the next When They Cry series will refer to?

R: I haven’t decided yet, but I want it to have the same theme, like being connected to plants and rain. It’s still in the works, please wait and be excited.

I: Do you know if the new part will be released in English?

R: If someone is ready to translate, then absolutely. My English abilities aren’t enough for this.

I: What’s your opinion on the games being translated to English and gaining an international audience?

R: I’m very thankful and appreciate that people have been able and wanted to translate my works. I see a lot of appreciation for the translators and they’ve definitely had a lot to work with.

I: You’ve previously worked with Key Studio on their game Rewrite. Rewrite’s art director Itaru Hinoue also visited Finland this year. When working on Rewrite, did the two of you get to work together?

R: Yes, it was our first time working together.

I: Who are your favourite characters from the game Trianthology?

R: There are a lot of characters, but Alice is my favourite.

I: A game called Iwaihime is also in the works. Could you tell us about this?

R: I was asked for a horror work and I decided that since there are primarily two types of horror in Japan, creepy horror and horror that focuses on monsters, I wanted to bring these two types of horror out in the finished work.

I: Video games are very popular today, perhaps more than ever before. How well do you think visual novels are surviving in the video game genre?

R: I hope that it could become as big of a thing as novels, anime and manga, and I think it has a chance, but at the moment smart phone games are more popular in Japan, which makes me a bit sad but I’m still hopeful.

I: Which work you’ve written are you most satisfied with?

R: A very hard question... *laughter* It’s always the one I’ve most recently released that I’m the most satisfied with.

I: How do you stay motivated when writing?

R: At the moment I’m very motivated simply because work is work, but previously my motivation was that I played war video games on the Xbox and when I lost, it made me so angry that I wanted to work! *laughter*

I: You said that your most recent work is always the one you’re most happy with. If you could go back and change something about an earlier work like Higurashi or Umineko, would you change anything?

R: I gave it my all, so there’s nothing I would like to change. If I changed something, that would make it an entirely different story. A lot of people ask me about going back 10 years in time, but 10 years back in time would mean that the pages would be empty, there wouldn’t be any text yet, which would probably mean playing a lot of games!

I: What other hobbies do you have beside playing war video games?

R: All kinds of killing games!

I: What’s your favourite anime?

R: Girls und Panzer.

I: What’s your favourite game?

R: Even though I like war video games, I also like zombie video games.

I: What’s the best thing about your work?

R: The state of flow, when you’re so focused on your work that you forget to eat and even to go to the bathroom.

I: When you write a story, how do you come up with the characters? Do you get any inspiration from other characters or real people?

R: I want to connect older characters to newer characters, it’s very important to me to make that connection. But sometimes when playing games I just see a character that I think is cute and it gives me inspiration.

I: Have you ever thought about adding your old characters in a new game, like for example having the characters from Higurashi in a new story?

R: Inside my head, these characters are my friends, but now that the work on that story is done, these characters are gone. But if I had to work with the same story, the characters would probably return back into my head.

I: What advice do you have to aspiring writers and visual novel creators?

R: Seriously or not seriously? It’s important to think of your own style. If you want to make it your job, it’s very important to know what your own thing is. There are three different styles: liking money, wanting praise from other people, and just liking writing. So if you like writing, but also like getting money from it, that’s very good! You should consider, even though there are people who write and write and write without making money, money is still a big motivation. And even though you like getting money, you should also want to write because you enjoy it, that’s more important.

I: What kind of stories do you like writing the most?

R: Of course it’s fun to think about women with big boobs, but it’s also fun to think about environmental issues... *laughter*

I: You’re mostly known for writing games, but would you ever want to try making an anime?

R: I don’t think I’m good enough at drawing for creating it, but if someone else would do that I would be very proud and happy.

I: Our interview is coming to a close. Is there still anything you would like to tell the audience?

R: I want to complain about how warm Finland is, I had heard about how cold Finland is and only brought long-sleeved shirts, and then I got here and it was sultry and far too warm, so I would like to say that nobody told me Finland would be warm!