Navel

Navel

Games
Shuffle!
Soul Link
Tick! Tack!
Bokutachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai - under the innocent sky (upcoming)

Anime
Shuffle!

Generic Disclaimer: Of course I wouldn't know how the bishoujo games industry truly works, so some info below may be wrong or misinterpreted. This feature is from an outsider's point of view, namely, my point of view.

Now this is a company I really know nothing about.

Navel is apparently a new contender in the bishoujo wars. With two games released so far (and two more upcoming), I think they're relatively new, but nevertheless a force to reckon with. Why?

As far as I know, their very first game, Shuffle, is an extremely hyped game. I should believe so, because even I were not supposed to know about the game back in early 2004. But nevertheless, I saw the game OP, and I became hyped too. Why? Because the character designs are extremely beautiful! But when I talked to someone who played the game… er… it didn't live up to the hype. It's a good game nevertheless, but not that good.

What went wrong? Dunno.

It really had a lot going for it. For one, the character art is drawn by Aoi Nishimata. I only recently recognized her work, but it's really absolutely amazing. She also did the designs for Princess Soft's Final Approach game. More importantly, Navel was literally 'brave' enough to release it alongside Fate/stay Night, a major, major game by TYPE-MOON. With the same release date, you could imagine the event somewhat like a bishoujo version of two major movie blockbusters battling it out in the box office. Of course, the latter won, but bishoujo gamers were thinking "If Shuffle had the balls to go against Fate/stay Night, it must be really good too." Well, it has become popular ever since, having a manga serialization, a current anime series, and an upcoming PS2 version with added characters.

The rest of the games are relatively unknown to me.

Only found a bit about Soul Link. It has a kinda space and military theme to it. The artwork is nice, but the girls seem a bit "out of proportion", if you know what I mean…

Tick! Tack! This game seems to be a Nerine afterstory with a twist. Assuming that you finished Shuffle with a Nerine ending, Tick! Tack! transports the player and Nerine… into the past! Actually, it seems to be Nerine's home world too. They meet various characters, such as new girls Sage and Ai. All seems good, but the problem is… one of them may be Nerine's mother! Ooh, it will screw up the space-time continuum this way!

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Bokutachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai - under the innocent sky looks like another huge hype machine similar to what Shuffle had dealt with before. This is another intricately beautiful CG work. My jaw dropped when I saw these scans. It's the kind of drawing that makes me go "ooh~". I've never seen bishoujo girls this beautiful and appealing to me ever since Pia Carrot 3. I'll definitely catch it, and I hope it does have a story to tell at least.

So that's it. Navel is churning out some good stuff, both in anime and games front, so check them out.

This is a Summer of Bishoujo feature