I first saw the words Yotsunoha (よつのは) on the cover of Comp H’s issue seven 2-3 months ago and the first thing that came to mind was “did they spell Yotsuba&! wrongly? Is there something wrong with my Japanese?” I kept reading it over and over again, “Yotsunoha? Hmmm… Yo-o-no-ha? Yotsunowa?” because the 2nd character in Yotsunoha (tsu: つ) can be used as a vowel extender, and I’m not familiar enough with Japanese to determine whether it was being used as tsu or an extender.

(Look at the bottom of the picture and you’ll find the Hiragana characters Yotsunoha (よつのは))

With delusions of Yotsuba&! finally being animated, I was actually quite unhappy when I opened it up to the poster in question (even though not all that unhappy… I got some loli in school uniform afterall):

Since Comp H covered the latest anime, and I did know all the titles at that time, Yotsunoha was something I did not see online covered by any anime blogs or even announced on Moon Phase. So I did a little research and discovered it was an OVA based on a 2006 eroge slated to release soon.

I felt the poster was not anything to wow at but then I found the HQ OP on the now defunct Stage 6. I really, really liked the OP song and have the short version in my handphone which I listen to quite often. I’ve also watched the game OP about 30 times over now (nothing compared to the CLANNAD OP though XD). The HQ OP can downloaded from the eroge’s downloads page, including a lot of other stuff like the demo for one (look for the file titled 4leaf_trial.zip). It can be easily navigated even if you don’t know Japanese. I’ll just provide the YouTube version of the game OP for now:

I was really wowed by the game’s CGs. Here is just a sample of them from the DVD version of the game OP:

Nekomiya Nono - They managed to combine the voice of a moe human with a moe cat. Its actually quite interesting to listen to (note that “neko” means “cat” in Japanese, look at the screenshots for the kanji) She is Yotsunoha’s flagship character.

Iori Yuzuki - Better known as Yuzunee. The anime gave me the impression that she was a big-breasted air-head, but in the game it was really fun to play through her scenes. You start off the game with her as your companion.

Amachi Matsuri - Yotsunoha’s resident tsundere. Also the most intrigueing girl of the whole game/anime.

Arisa Yuki - A mysterious character. She has not appeared in the OVA and was almost completely omitted in the demo. Notice she does not have a grown up version of herself in the game OP, while the other 3 girls do.

I’ve also played through the demo and here are some screens…

Must say that the backgrounds are very detailed…:

…and they are great to look at even without the girls. The background music is also excellent. No where near Key’s standard but still made the demo very fun to go through quickly (can’t understand most of the Jap lol).

The first episode of the OVA has been fansubbed, and I recommend playing the demo after watching the OVA, as the first episode of the OVA essentially summarises the entire demo. The OVA itself isn’t anything excellent so far, but for those of us who liked the eroge but don’t know Japanese (yet), there isn’t much choice, is there?

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