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Spike Chunsoft to Release YU-NO Visual Novel on PS4/PC in 2019
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Anime News Network's coverage of Anime Expo 2018 is sponsored by Yen Press.
Spike Chunsoft announced during its panel at Anime Expo on Thursday that it will release the MAGES. and 5pb. Games' game remake of Hiroyuki Kanno's Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shōjo YU-NO (YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world.) visual novel in the West for the PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam in 2019. It also announced that its release of the 428: Shibuya Scramble (428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de) visual novel is slated for September 4, with a playable demo this summer.
MAGES. and 5pb. Games' Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shōjo YU-NO remake shipped for the PS4 and PlayStation Vita in Japan in March 2017.
The original, critically acclaimed 1996 game for the PC-98 computer platform inspired the four-part 1998-1999 adult anime YU-NO. 5pb. then released the game for the Sega Saturn in 1997 and for Windows PC in 2000.
The game is getting a new television anime adaptation that will run for 26 episodes for two cours (a quarter of a year). MAGES., production company GENCO, and anime studio feel. are partnering for the anime project. Studio feel. is producing the animation. Tetsuo Hirakawa (Grimoire of Zero) is directing the anime, and Mai Otsuka (This Art Club Has a Problem!, Shakugan no Shana) is designing the characters. The anime will depict all the characters and all the routes from the original game.
The original game also inspired a manga adaptation by Mario Kaneda (Girls Bravo, Saving Life), which ran in Enix's (now Square Enix) G Fantasy magazine from 1997 to 1998. A new manga adaptation by Sawji Ishida launched on Kadokawa's Comic Clear website in March 2017, and ended on March 15. Kadokawa published the manga's second and final compiled book volume on the same day.
Spike Chunsoft will ship the 428: Shibuya Scramble game for the PlayStation 4 and for PC via Steam.
The visual novel's story is told from the perspective of multiple protagonists, whose stories all begin from a kidnapping incident. The sister of the kidnapping victim orders a detective to deliver a ransom to the kidnappers, and the arranged meeting place is the Shibuya scramble crosswalk. Meanwhile, a young man sees a girl standing near the Hachiko statue, with someone pointing a gun at her. He rescues her and they then run for their lives.
The game follows the stories of the detective, the young man, a virus researcher, a freelance writer, and a cat mascot character. The stories intertwine with each other, and choices made by players through the game for one character may affect and even end the plotlines of other characters. The game's visual uses live-action footage and photography of actual locations in Tokyo.
Kōichi Nakamura and Jirō Ishii (Under the Dog creator, BBK/BRNK series composition) created and wrote the game's story.
The game shipped on the Nintendo Wii in 2008, on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable in 2009, on the iOS in 2011, and on Android in 2013. Japanese game magazine Famitsu awarded the game a perfect score, the ninth game in the magazine's history to achieve the feat.
Kinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi of Type-Moon (Fate/stay night, The Garden of Sinners, Tsukihime) wrote and contributed character designs respectively to a bonus scenario in the game. P.A. Works' 2009 CANAAN television anime serves as a sequel to that specific scenario. Sentai Filmworks released the anime on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in 2010.
Source: Spike Chunsoft's Anime Expo panel (Lynzee Loveridge), Spike Chunsoft's YouTube channel
