Let’s admit… er… Nanaka will be one of the more popular Da Capo II girls, mainly because of her lineage. Nanaka Shirakawa has a striking resemblance to Da Capo Generation One’s Kotori Shirakawa. She is also the “perfect girl”. Sweet, kind, smart, loves to sing, and is a popular school idol. Actually, them two girls are almost exactly the same, Nanaka is only a little bit more energetic. Even their powers are the same.

That said, wouldn’t it be boring to see the same Shirakawa, only slightly different? This kind of similarity is comparable to a old song that has been remade. The remake may be good, but you still like the old song better. Such a pity, because Nanaka’s story is arguably tighter and more interesting than Kotori’s.

Nanaka’s scenario would seem to intertwine steadily with Koko’s, and so I guess a run-through of Koko should be in order. Hopefully I will have time to play more Da Capo II (oh no, is that Summer Days I see in the computer table?) and show Koko’s scenario next time. For now, please spend some time and enjoy Nanaka Shirakawa’s story!

Disclaimer: Lacking Japanese will mean lack of story details. I expect that there will be a LOT of errors in the way I understood some events, because I rely only on the spoken dialogue. To the Japanese-literate game players who may have found this page, please do help me in case I have mistaken in understanding some parts of the story. Please do post a comment or contact me.

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Let’s admit, Kotori is the #1 girl of the Da Capo series. It’s almost always tradition that most female leads of bishoujo games only settle for second place in the hearts of many-a-bishoujo gamers (legions of Tamaki fans come into mind), so Nemu takes a back seat. In the case of Da Capo, Kotori Shirakawa is what you can say as the “perfect girl”. She’s sweet, kind, smart, loves to sing, and is the most popular school idol.

This is the reason why so many of us were disappointed with the second season of the Da Capo anime. We all thought Kotori will be the main girl, but then Aisia almost always steals her spotlight. The first season did her justice, however, as apparently Kotori’s original scenario in the game was more or less executed well.

But of course we wouldn’t know the entire story about Kotori without playing the game, right? Unfortunately no Da Capo game is available in English. Thankfully though, some kind folks have been strutting their stuff in translating them. Maybe you know already, but not so long ago there was a partial translation patch for D.C.P.C. (Da Capo Plus Communication) that included the entire Kotori scenario. I thank those guys very very much. If you are a Kotori fan even in miniscule scale, go grab the game somewhere and install the patch. If it’s not a possibility though, maybe you would settle for my summary? So finally, here she is, Kotori Shirakawa!

Disclaimer: I played Da Capo Plus Communication, and so some additional scenes and characters may have been added which were not present in the very first version of the game scenario. Also, even though it is available in English, my memory might fail me, so please do comment or contact me in case I have mistakes in describing each girl’s scenario.
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I was browsing through my stats today, and… behold! I found myself giggling at the sight of the search phrases some people use. Basically, some of you probably found this site using a search engine right? So let me tell the most popular search terms you use, as well as some rather amusing ones that, well, amuse me.

These phrases are from the very recent days only it seems, but hopefully it is a precise description of what kind of topics people want to find in this blog.

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Circus

Games
Circus Team
Aries
Final Examination Kujira
Gadeem & Juteem

Northern Team
Da Capo
Infantaria
Suika
Da Capo II
AR: Forgotten Summer

Fetish Team
Homemaid
Sukumizu
Sukumizu 2

Metal Team
Mai-HiME

Joint Projects
Sakura
Suika O-157
true tears

Sanctuary
Da Capo Girls Symphony

Anime
Da Capo
Da Capo Second Season
Da Capo II
Da Capo II Second Season
Da Capo if
Suika (H)

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.

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D.C. ~Da Capo~

Back in its time, Da Capo was one of those animes that probably instigated the new wave, a sudden outburst of the popularity of bishoujo games being converted into anime. The game was made by a company named Circus, and I can only imagine how big the Da Capo franchise is to them. With already 7 games (maybe more) composed of rehashes, fandisks, after stories and console versions, Da Capo is huge on the games front. Not to mention all those singles, drama cds, and manga serializations. Da Capo is as big as any Dengeki G's series such as Futakoi.

The anime is equally big. This is the very first bishoujo game based anime series that ever had a full season run of 26 episodes. And with 26 more on the way on its second season this summer 2005, it will very well be the biggest bishoujo game based anime franchise in history. Well that’s saying much, but how does it fair really?

Da Capo is not too bad, but it had its share of little faults here and there. For the first 7 episodes, the main episode is actually short in length, in favor of having a music video of a girl’s seiyuu after each episode. Those music videos were average, some horrible, but nonetheless a part of the Da Capo fandom. I have no complaints here, some seiyuu were popular and cute anyway. Many other episodes have a side story part focusing on a character or number of characters, which eats up the main episode’s time as well. While some of those side stories are interesting, others are just annoying. The recurrent figure in these side stories is a certain mysterious cat guy, but it never adds any coherence to the side stories nor does it add up to the main Da Capo story at all. Furthermore, there are two recap episodes in this anime. So much for 26 episodes you think?

Well, the latter half is where this series shines. The tone slowly changes from filler-comedy to pure classic drama involving the magic of the sakura tree. The characters in Da Capo actually live in a town where a mysterious power exists within the cherry blossoms. Because of this, our characters actually have some sort of magical affinity as a result. For example, one of the girls can actually read people’s minds, while another girl is actually a cat transformed in human form. These unique but weird traits haunt them somehow throughout this series, and is where the dramatic parts explode into. I tell you, the drama here is powerful, and that is definitely a treat.

And my favorite girl? Mako! She rocks!

Of course, getting the good stuff like this requires you to go through 15 or so episodes of comedic and mindless filler, but the result will not leave you disappointed. Try out Da Capo. You may be disappointed with some parts, but in general I hope you will like it eventually. Besides, the second season is up for you to anticipate as well.

This is a Summer of Bishoujo feature

Well, she’s just one of the few seiyuu I find beautiful, on certain angles and levels of make-up though. It’s undeniable that she is one of the cutest and most popular faces in the industry, and she has that extremely distinct voice that is instantly recognizable. I have already seen a LOT of anime with her voice on it. I like her songs too.

These are some shots from a certain School Rumble Live Concert. She sang Scramble and Feel My Feeling in these two shots, along with other songs. Well, she’s cute here with the gothloli outfits and all, but she didn’t sing well in Scramble. Having her jump around and dancing made her voice a bit skippy at times, but I enjoyed the live rendition of Scramble. In Feel My Feeling, I feel like her voice is a bit off at some notes.

This is from the same School Rumble live, singing School Rumble 4Ever, along with 3 other female seiyuu. I enjoyed this performance! She has a nice outfit here too. The musical notes in her dress… liked it.

Apparently some groups are kind enough to share many anime/jpop promotion video goodies to the public, I’m thankful to them. Please support them as much as you can.

More PVs meant more Yui Horie for me, so here’s some more!

This is a music video called Sakura. Apparently it’s from her first solo album, which is virtually unknown to me surprisingly. Seeing that in that album there is another version of Yakusoku (my all-time favorite Love Hina song), I feel deprived of information. Sakura as a music video… isn’t too good by jpop standards, but oh well, it isn’t aimed at mainstream anyway.

Okiniiri no Jitensha looks like a very refined PV. On the flip side though, dunno why, but I didn’t like her in this one.

All My Life, the OP for Mao-chan, is a simple PV. If you ask me it’s trying to be jpop mainstream but as always anime-related stuff rarely succeed when they do that.

Do I have weird taste? Just tell me. This is Kirari Takaramono, the Love Hina Again OP. And… I liked it. I just like those scenes where she sings in an 80′s microphone and dances around (it’s much like the School Rumble PV). This kind of fun, hectic, and wicked energy is just what anime PVs should be.

Here’s a promotion video for Sister Princess, she sings Love Destiny here. Not bad a music video, not too good either.

She’s in a live concert here, singing again Love Destiny… wearing some sort of school uniform. Kinda in-fashion for that otaku crowd, they like her a lot apparently.

In the Fruits Basket DVDs, she has some sort of omake interview show, where she’s the host and she interviews the three main male seiyuu of Fruits Basket. These are kinda interesting segments.

This is an Ultra Maniac making-of interview. On the left is Kanda Akemi, a bit of a newcomer seiyuu back then.

Another PV, this time from the anime Da Capo. In the anime she plays Shirakawa Kotori, one of my favorite bishoujo game characters. It would have been interesting if she had a PV for Soyokaze no Harmony (a very beautiful song), but this (Pureness) is kinda a consolation.

And another PV, this time from School Rumble. The song is Scramble, a joint with a certain ska group named Unbalance. I have to admit that this is one of the best anime PVs I’ve seen so far because of its style, plus the catchiness of the song itself.