Title: 彼方の人魚姫
Developer: Wonder Fool
Release Date: 27th October 2023
Age Rating: 18+
Length: 15+ Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
Namishima Itsuki lives in the sleepy coastal Tatsumiya village in rural southern Japan. The area is small, where everyone knows another but the region has become more touristy in recent years.
Itsuki has spent his whole life in Tatsumiya, growing up with his small group of childhood friends. However, the accidental death of one of the girls in the group, Ayane, a decade ago still has a rippling effect on those who knew her in the present day.
The story starts in the run up to summer vacation when a mysterious girl, Aina, transfers to Itsuki’s class. It quickly transpires that she’s a mermaid who has been exiled to the human realm to live out the rest of her days. However, just what awaits in the upcoming summer for everyone?
Thoughts
The Fuyuno Donbuku + Umiko duo is a fairly established one, and given how much I loved their work on Giga’s Ao Natsu Line it made picking this title up a no-brainer. Considering this was another summer-focused title, did it manage to differentiate itself from the afformentioned Ao Natsu Line enough?
The main thing that makes Kanahime stand out amongst the other seishun-ge penned by Fuyuno is the use of supernatural elements, i.e. mermaids. However, weirdly enough, this is mainly used as a plot device to further the human elements of the story and isn’t the main point.
Instead Kanahime is a story about grief, about how loss during your formative years shapes those affected for many decades to come. The game delves into emotions stemming from that loss – regret, anger, blame – and presents them in a fairly well-written way. It’s a surprisingly subtle at times and I actually really liked the way that the game dealt with flashbacks involving Ayane. She has no sprite but only a voice, which I interpreted as a way of showing how memories of people might fade over time. I could, of course, be looking too much into it and this was a budget decision but I would be surprised if so as the other important side characters had sprites.
Moving on, and the game’s common route was pretty unique in that there’s a lot of perspective changes, which does take a little getting used to. This can be taken either way but the game spends a LOT of time developing the friendship between the three heroines, to the extent that it feels like a Yuri game at times and the protagonist Itsuki feels like an after thought. It was kind of weird imo and to this day I still can’t decide entirely what they were trying to do here. That being said, the climax of the common route was incredibly memorable.
Just make Aina the protagonist and I’d 100% play a yurige version of this!
The heroine routes themselves were better imo. They had a tendency to be a little melodramatic at times but you could still tie a lot of the more questional/irrational decisions back to the grief theme so it made some sense.
Aina
Aina is the character who starts the story, and is really the only one to have supernatural elements in her route, which makes sense I guess. I enjoyed Aina as a heroine, she’s super bubbly so brightens up the scenes she’s in. My one complaint would be that the ending to her route was a little underwhelming. I personally would’ve preferred a slightly different epilogue but that was definitely a “me” problem.
Hinowa
Hinowa’s family look after the shrine in the village, which just so happens to be a shrine dedicated to mermaids. So that means her family become caretakers of sort for Aina. I will say that despite not being my type of heroine, I actually liked Hinowa’s route. It was a different take on the childhood friend dynamic and I can respect the attempt. She also gets this one particularly good scene (minor spoilers).
Aoi
Aoi is the final of the main heroines and is the token kouhai heroine. Her dream is one day to become the author of a children’s book. Aoi is kind of the middle ground between the two other routes, and is the best imo. She’s also the most interesting heroine, although that is actually a tough call.
There’s a few side characters that show up frequently, most are pretty likable/memorable. School teacher/childhood friend Saori would be my favourite but Aina’s younger sister Suzuna is so pretty oh my gosh.
The artwork from Umiko was, as usual, very nice. They seem to improve a little with each title they work on and the majority of the CGs were great. The number of CGs was good too, especially as there were a LOT during the common route.
If you liked the Ao Natsu Line OST, then you’d probably like this one too, as they have the same vibe. Very light and relaxing overall. The vocal tracks are all pretty great so I’m glad the limited edition came with the soundtrack. The voice acting was overall fine, Kanako voices Aina so that’s my highlight.
Conclusion
My Score: 8/10
Overall, Kanahime is summery, yet somewhat sombre take on Fuyuno’s usual writings. Compared to Ao Natsu Line, we have a weaker common route but stronger overall heroine routes (although nothing that reaches the heights of Miki’s route in the latter). Despite the similarity in setting, both are different enough, and the author is skilled enough, to make both worth a read if you enjoy the genre.
The only game from this duo I have left to play is Yukiiro Sign, another Wonderfool title. I do own it and plan to play it later this year, so hopefully it’s as enjoyable!
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