So I’ve been busy going through the English translations for the horror/mystery doujin visual novel HnNKn. The anime adaption has brought about so much hype that someone has decided to actively release the visual novel translation one day at a time. In fact, the first chapter of the next visual novel in the series Umineko no Naku Koro ni (or When the Seagulls Cry as opposed to HnNKn: When the Higurashi Cry) also done by 07th expansion has already been translated, but you’ll have to buy it from Himeya Shop if you want to play it now. Canned Dogs has reported that the first chapter of UnNKn has been released for free on 07th expansion’s site, but as of now no translation patch has been released for this version. Shouldn’t take long though, so keep your fingers crossed.

Oh and I really hope Studio Deen doesn’t animate UnNKn again, coz they didn’t really give HnNKn the respect it deserved, at least for the first season. The second season was quite good, but, perhaps UnNKn should receive some KyoAni love no?

When you start the game, you’ll immediately be hit by Rena in the famous costume outfit. Not much, but made for some minor lulz though.

I’ve played until day 4 or 5 thus far, and it did suck up quite a huge chunk of my time already. Nothing majorly scary has happened yet, but its still damn freaking fun.

The most gripping part of the visual novel thus far has to be the very first card game they had when Keichi was initiated into the club. The anime adaption may make it seem trivial, but when playing that part in the visual novel I could positively feel my heart racing. In fact, I didn’t totally get what was really going on, and may have to play it through a few more times.

Oh and Rena is damned moe! Even though the character designs mostly suck, Rena sticks out like a sore thumb bitten by some loli. In fact, I prefer the visual novel depiction of Rena much more than the anime adaption. Actually, after you play through at least 4 days of the visual novel, you’ll realise the anime adaption rushed EVERYTHING too much. I couldn’t detect that Rena was moe in the first episode of the anime while in the visual novel she was simply moe madness.

The visual novel builds up the attachment for the characters much better than the anime adaption, quite similar to KyoAni’s adaption of Kanon which as of now is still the best Renai anime out there since Clannad’s ending was more or less fail. (However the big difference is that in Kanon, the girls slowly dissappear but in HnNKn they get beaten up by a baseball bat) I know I’ll feel really sad towards the end of Onikakushi-hen, but I’ll still have to press myself to keep going. Studio Deen never captured the same feeling that KyoAni did and when I first watched HnNKn, I was given the impression that this was some ass crazy anime that morphed cute little girls into psycho monsters for cheap horror scares. Not so in the visual novel. You really get a sense of how happy Keichii’s carefree days in rural village of Hinamizawa were, and how sad it will be at the end of Onikakushi-hen when he has no choice but to bash the girls into a bloody mess.

So if you thought you have went through the whole HnNKn experience simply by watching the two seasons of the anime adaption, think again. Its always nice to go through the story again from a different perspective.

And I might add, Rena is much more crude/vulgar in the original visual novel. Comes as a mild shock to me, since she was either really cute, or really psycho crazy in the anime adaption. Never dirty.

As for the rest of the characters, I would say that the anime adaptions made them more attractive/sexy. Especially for Satoko. Rika’s original visual novel iteration was quite ok actually, but Satoko definitely felt much more childish and stupid in the visual novel compared to her apparent maturity and deviousness that was depicted early in the anime adaption.

Also in the visual novel, Rena possesses some hyper punch thing that can knock both Mion and Keichi out in one blow. I can see how troublesome it is to actually adapt this into animation, and am glad that Studio Deen decided to keep it out. Buuttt…. it was really refreshing to see Mion recover after getting owned by Rena a few times lol!

I also have no idea why they decided to leave out the usage of moe in the anime adaption. I mean, Haruhi had HER say:

Well, nothing much so far since I’ve only played till around day 5, but I’ll update with more impressions as soon as the scary stuff starts.

HnNKn has been translated up till day 13 now, and you can learn how to buy the game (1500yen or around 20 SGD only) and patch it up via the translation group’s blog.