Narcissu

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Narcissu
Narcissu icon for the Mac OS X version.
Developer(s) stage-nana
Publisher(s) insani (English version)
Engine NScripter (JP)
ONScripter (EN)
Release date(s) 2005
Genre(s) Visual novel
Mode(s) Single player
Platform(s) Mac OS X, Linux, Windows
Media Download
Input Keyboard, Mouse
Screenshot from the title screen.
Screenshot from the title screen.
Screenshot from the Prologue, showing the hospital.
Screenshot from the Prologue, showing the hospital.
Screenshot from the map chapter, showing the sea.
Screenshot from the map chapter, showing the sea.

Narcissu is a free visual novel by the dojin group stage-nana, telling the story of a terminally ill young man and woman.

The work was originally written in Japanese by Tomo Kataoka, and subsequently localized and translated into English, Chinese, and Korean, by various fan translators. Unlike most fan translations, however, this was an authorised work and can be considered a semi-official localisation. Both the original Japanese visual novel and its English version were released as free downloads over the Internet.

Narcissu is an experimental work: it uses minimalist graphics in a very narrow window, and includes two full scripts, one accompanied by a voice track, and the other adapted to work without voices. In the English translation, different translators translated each version, to provide multiple perspectives on the story.

The original Japanese version uses the NScripter engine; for the English localization, the open source clone ONScripter was used instead, as this has been modified to support English.

A prequel is currently in production, entitled Narcissu -side 2nd-.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The anonymous protagonist is diagnosed with an unspecified terminal illness shortly after his twentieth birthday, and is admitted to hospice care at a hospital in eastern Japan. There he meets Setsumi, a woman a few years his senior, who is also terminally ill. Finding that they both rejected the expectation that they will wish to die either in hospital or with their families, they run away together in a coupé belonging to the protagonist's father.

They travel west across Japan's many highways and prefectures, initially not knowing where to go, but later collectively decided on taking the famous narcissus fields of southern Awaji Island as a somewhat arbitrary destination. When eventually they reach this goal, Setsumi's condition begins to deteriorate rapidly despite - or in spite of - medication, and in a final act of self-determination, Setsumi takes her own life.

[edit] Influences

Narcissu is both stylistically and thematically similar to the opening chapter of Gin'iro, a commercial title by the same writer, Tomo Kataoka; he himself describes it as essentially a modern-day version of his earlier work (Gin'iro begins in medieval Japan).

On a level more familiar to Western audiences, the work has much in common with road movies; the screen layout is even intended to evoke a cinema screen. Many of the scenes and events of the story are road-movie clichés, and the ending, in which the physical journey itself is explicitly linked with the metaphorical journeys the characters have undergone (their lives, their self-discovery), is typical of the movie genre.

[edit] Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Narcissu includes 12 tracks, composed by various authors, and provide a soothing and refreshing background for the eloquently-written story. They are arranged as follows:

  • "The Emerald Sea" - Composed by MASA.
  • "The Silver Coupe" - Composed by Ebi.
  • "Narcissu -instrumental-" - Composed by Ebi.
  • "Rather Than a Life of Finality" - Composed by Masashi Yano and arranged by Kometto Nekono.
  • "I'm Right Here (vocal ver.)" - Performed by Mari Mizuta, composed by Hirofumi Ishihashi and with lyrics by Tsukasa Umitomi.
  • "Lamune 79's (from 'Lamune')" - Composed by Elements Garden and arranged by Kometto Nekono.
  • "#1 Route" - Composed by Sentive.
  • "7F" - Composed by Sentive.
  • "Eightmoon (from 'A 120-Yen Spring')" - Composed by Ebi and Arranged by Shitoshi Fujimoto.
  • "The Emerald Sea (ver.2)" - Composed by MASA.
  • "Scarlet" - Composed by Noriyasu Uematsu and arranged by Hirofumi Ishihashi.
  • "Narcissu ~Setsumi's Theme~" - Performed by REM, composed by Ebi and with lyrics by Tomo Kataoka, the author of Narcissu.

[edit] External links

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