Most visual novels also have you make decisions that influence the plot. Obviously there's the (perfect, in this case) soundtrack that the manga version can't have. But that's for Umineko specifically and probably doesn't speak for the medium as a whole.įor the medium as a whole, visual novels also come with the interactive factor. If you think the price is too steep I bought the volumes covering the episodes included in this release (which costs around 25 bucks) for over 100 bucks and that does not include the wonderful soundtrack the game comes with and has somewhat less texts than the visual novel. In addition to that the narration and character profiles are used to ♥♥♥♥ with you and that just can't happen with the anime where you are used to an omniscient and objective perspective. Umineko is particularly abstract and incredibly long and in an anime format any attempt to bring across everything would just slow the pace to a crawl. As for anime, even leaving aside the fact that the adaptation we do have is bloody awful, there are just things that can't make the transition. On the other hand visual novels are a bit heavy on the monologue side, which helps to bring the tone across in ways that a manga may not be able to (it could put all those monologue in but in that format that would just feel clunky). When dramatic shots are needed we have CGs and when it's a mundane scene it's mostly protag's monologue and dialogue between characters, with the descriptive texts from a novel greatly reduced (mostly), making for a brisk pace. The presentation is such that I can fill in the exact details in my head while the sprites and background are there to show the character expressions and settings without overlong exposition. You find it difficult to fill in the blank due to the existence of the visual presentation but those of us used to the medium don't have that problem. It's the space between a manga and a novel to me. The story the anime hinted at was promising enough. If anyone could present me a positive aspect of a visual novel, maybe I will even buy this one. That is taken away from me for a bad visual presentation that reduces everything you could have imagined to a blank slate with two cardboards talking in front of a poster. The point of the novel medium is too create the visuals with your fantasy and therefore you can make everything that is not pointed out exactly how you want. If you want to argue that it should be taken more like a novel than a manga then I have to ask why the visual part is taken away. Most of that completely breaks immersion and prevents any emotional connection to any of the characters. and have to have a consistent quality.Īll of that together results (at least for me) in a really bad experience for me. The characters are constantly drawn with new reactions, emotions etc. Still it costs more than the average big novel (in digital format of course)Ī manga has to do a different shot for each (part of a) sentence and focuses on different parts of the scene during each shot. Especially considering the low quality of most sprites. Given that the story (in length) is comparable to that of an actual novel, even for main characters there aren't that much sprites (50 for rena in higurashi 1 I heard) and these sprites don't differ that much from each other. The price is extremely high compared to the content. You always have the same angle and see the characters always from the same side.Ī manga can show us dozens of angles and pov's in the same discussion. And the sprites mostly have to overact so you can actually notice the difference.Ī manga can actually place the characters in the world and let them face each other while changing their reactions. The expression only changes every few sentences and I get the exact same sprites a hundred times in the same novel.

The characters are mostly static and placed in front of a background where it mostly doesn't make any sense that they would be there and sometimes even the artstyle is different. But I actually only see negative aspects of visual novels.įrom this point on I will give my major complaints about the medium along with examples how other mediums could resolve that. I mean the story is available as a manga (and a debatable anime series) which I can see positive aspects of. I never played a visual novel and I don't really get why I should.

Umineko when they cry manga volume 16