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Wonderful Everyday

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Wonderful Everyday
Cover art
Developer(s)KeroQ
Publisher(s)
Director(s)SCA-DI
Producer(s)SCA-DI
Artist(s)
Writer(s)SCA-DI
Composer(s)
  • Matsumoto Fuminori
  • ryo
  • Pixelbee
  • H.B Studio
EngineEthornell
Platform(s)Windows
Release
  • JP: March 26, 2010
  • WW: August 30, 2017
Genre(s)Visual novel, eroge, denpa
Mode(s)Single-player

Wonderful Everyday: Diskontinuierliches Dasein (Japanese: 素晴らしき日々 ～不連続存在～, Hepburn: Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~),[1][a] abbreviated as SubaHibi, is a Japanese visual novel developed by KeroQ. It was released for Windows in 2010 and was given an international release by Frontwing in 2017. It is KeroQ's fourth game after Tsui no Sora, Nijūei and Moekan; it shares many characters and plot elements with Tsui no Sora, of which it is an expanded retelling.

Gameplay

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The game requires minimal interaction from the player, as the duration of the game is spent on reading the text that appears onscreen; this text represents either dialogue between the various characters, narration, or the inner thoughts of the protagonist. A number of choices exist, some of which determine the plot branch on which a story continues. The game generally follows visual novel conventions, with the text appearing at the bottom of the screen, and segments exist where it is overlaid on the entire screen.

Plot

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Wonderful Everyday consists of seven chapters, the titles of which are taken from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.[2] Most chapters take place in the fictional Suginomiya neighborhood of Tokyo and recount the month of July 2012 from different perspectives. A prologue chapter, largely unconnected to the main narrative, focuses on Yuki's relationship with Zakuro and the fictional Wakatsuki sisters, Tsukasa and Kagami, who the player is given a choice of a romance with.

Seven years prior to the beginning of the story, young Tomosane Mamiya is living a peaceful life in the village of Sawaimura, with his half-sister Hasaki, and Yuki Minakami, a student at a nearby dojo, while estranged from Hasaki's mother, Kotomi Sasami. Kotomi had an affair with a cult leader in order to give birth to "the savior," resulting in Hasaki's birth as twins alongside her brother, Takuji. The leader deemed that neither could be the savior, and cast Kotomi out. Kotomi directs Takuji to kill Hasaki as she believes that her death will restore Takuji's powers. Hasaki survives, but Yuki dies saving Hasaki, and Takuji is stabbed and accidentally killed by Tomosane. The trauma of the incident causes Tomosane to develop a dissociative personality disorder, at which point he introjects the personalities of Yuki and Takuji, from whose perspective certain chapters are shown.

Kotomi, grieving Takuji's death, raises Tomosane as Takuji. Takuji is victimized by severe bullying which escalates to rape; causing Tomosane's personality to resurface, albeit believing that he is an alternate personality of Takuji with no memory of his past. Tomosane believes he must erase Takuji so that Yuki may become the dominant personality. To this end, he bullies Takuji (unaware of the disassociation), trying to make him disappear.

Takuji meets and develops a crush on a girl named Zakuro Takashima, who Yuki also meets and briefly dates. Zakuro, meanwhile, is bullied by several students at the school. After being gang raped, Zakuro meets two girls who convince her that they must have a near-death experience to prevent an oncoming apocalypse. The ritual results in the deaths of all three girls. Takuji witnesses Zakuro's death, which further traumatizes him and changes his personality. Tomosane again attempts to erase Takuji, but is defeated and disappears.

Yuki learns of Zakuro's death the day after, and investigates. Takuji discovers Zakuro's apocalyptic prophecy written on her desk, and this motivates him to carry out her supposed dying wishes. Yuki finds a message board where students theorize about Zakuro's death. Unbeknownst to Yuki, the message board's administrator is Takuji, who later announces to the class that Zakuro's death was an omen of the coming apocalypse. Claiming that they will be forgiven by Zakuro's spirit if they follow him, he recruits his classmates into a cult and orders them to commit various crimes.

Tomosane reassumes control of his body and tries to stop Takuji, but fails. Yuki, experiencing dissociative amnesia, is confused by the impacts of Takuji's actions. Takuji leads the cult to leap from the roof in a mass ritual suicide. Hasaki attempts to save Tomosane's body from falling. Tomosane, now remembering the truth of his past, takes control again, at which point he breaks his fall.

In Jabberwocky I, the player is offered a choice to have Tomosane romance Yuki, Hasaki, or no one. Depending on the branch chosen, one of three endings follow.

  • Hill of Sunflowers
    Tomosane survives his fall. A year later, he revisits Sawaimura with Hasaki and Yuki. They reflect on their memories of Sawaimura, and Hasaki expresses jealousy towards Yuki for courting Tomosane's love.
  • Wonderful Everyday
    Hasaki and Tomosane visit Kotomi and reflect on her role in the incident.
  • End Sky II
    Yuki awakens on the rooftop of Kita High, greeted by Ayana. Yuki questions Ayana about what has become of Tomosane, to which Ayana responds cryptically.

An epilogue chapter[b] follows Tomosane and Yuki, who is still sharing Tomosane's body after the events of Hill of Sunflowers. Yuki wishes to pursue a romance with Tomosane; he initially rejects as he fears she will disappear, but they commit after confiding their feelings. Yuki assures Tomosane she will never disappear, and they promise to always live together.

Development

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The first game developed by SCA-DI and his studio KeroQ was Tsui no Sora [ja], first released in 1999. Because of some technical issues with the game, compounded with a large audience of people who wanted to play it in spite of those issues, KeroQ began production on a remake of the game. However, the remake's scope drastically expanded during production, leading SCA-DI to realize that he was in fact creating an entirely new work, which would eventually be released as Subarashiki Hibi (shortened as Subahibi). While Tsui no Sora was inspired primarily by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Subahibi instead pulled concepts largely from the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.[3][4] As the producer, planner, and scenario writer for Wonderful Everyday,[5] SCA-DI worked on the character designs and graphics alongside Kagome, Motoyon, Suzuri, and Karory.[5] Renowned mangaka Aka Akasaka, creator of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, contributed to the backgrounds assets.[6]

Prior to the release of Wonderful Everyday, a demo of the game was made available on the official website on January 30, 2010.[7] Wonderful Everyday was originally planned to be released on February 26, 2010 but a release was announced on December 26, 2009, pushing the release date one month back to March 26, 2010.[7]

The opening song of Wonderful Everyday, "Kūkirikigaku Shōjo to Shōnen no Uta" (空気力学少女と少年の詩, Aerodynamics Girls and Boys Song), was performed by Hana,[8] who also performed the ending songs "Shuumatsu no Bishou" (終末の微笑, The Final Smile) and "Norowareta Sei / Shukufukusareta Sei" (呪われた生／祝福された生, Cursed Life/Blessed Life). Monet performed the other ending songs: "Naglfar no Senjou nite" (ナグルファルの船上にて, On Board Naglfar), "Kami to Senritsu" (神と旋律, God and Melody), "Noborenai Sakamichi" (登れない坂道, The Hill I Could Never Climb) and "Kagami no Sekai niwa Watashi shika Inai -another version-" (鏡の世界には私しかいない-another version-, Alone in the Looking-Glass World -another version-). The lyrics for all of the songs were written by SCA-DI. The music was composed by Matsumoto Fuminori under the alias "szak", ryo from Supercell,[9] Pixelbee, and H.B Studio. Matsumoto was also in charge of composing the opening song and the ending songs The Final Smile and Cursed Life/Blessed Life, while Pixelbee composed the other ending songs.

Wonderful Everyday contains many intertextual references to a variety of philosophical and literary works, including Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, and many others. This proved to be a challenge for the TLWiki translation group, as the translation's main editor herkz[10] was involved in cross-referencing the English versions of many of these titles with the translators' interpretations of their appearances in the text. It was said by one of the translators, vvav,[11] that as SCA-DI's interpretation of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus carried some of the greatest narrative significance, it is sometimes believed to be "required reading" for fully understanding the story, prompting them to research Wittgenstein's body of work for the project.[4] Vvav also said that SCA-DI had made the challenging philosophical concepts driving the narrative accessible to general audiences, making it easier for them to comprehend when translating the game. However, vvav also admitted that, while they put in an "honest effort to be realistic with myself" about parts of the story that they needed to do more research for, as they lacked formal higher education in the fields of philosophy and literature, it was entirely possible that some errors had been made.[12]

On June 15, 2012, it was made public by TLWiki that a fan translation was in the works.[13] Three years later, it was made public that the translation was complete and it was being edited. The team was later contacted by Frontwing to negotiate acquisition of the translation to be released officially. A Kickstarter campaign, announced by Frontwing during their panel at the 2017 Anime Expo, was planned to fund the production of a limited physical release and other merchandise. It was originally slated to launch on July 12 of that year,[14][15] but was delayed[16] and instead commenced on August 2, 2017, with a goal of $80,000 and stretch goals of $120,000 and $180,000 to fund an English translated artbook and new scenario content by SCA-DI that, it was said, would have released in the summer of 2018.[17][18] The Kickstarter campaign reached its goal on August 6 and ended on August 27, with an ultimate total of $105,928, though it continued to receive additional pledges through slacker backers via Backerkit.[19][1] The game was released on Steam on August 30, 2017, with newly redrawn higher resolution assets.[19][20][21] Due to Valve's prohibition of adult content on the platform and its importance in the narrative of the title,[22] it was decided they would release a censored version of the first chapter on Steam, and a free patch that readers could download to unlock the rest of the content.[23][24] The adult content patch released fully uncensored,[19] save for a brief scene depicting bestiality which Frontwing said had been cut due to legal concerns, although no text was removed due to this.[24] Concerning Subahibi's international release, SCA-DI expressed that he was nervous on account of the extreme nature of its content, but that he would be very happy if it was able to lead to his other works getting localizations as well.[3]

Prior to the release, one of the editors of Wonderful Everyday's English translation, herkz,[10] posted a Twitter thread criticizing Frontwing for decisions they said the company had made in producing Subahibi's English version.[25] Herkz said that the Frontwing staff had refused to let the team finish much additional work on the translation that remained to be finished,[26][27][28][29] such as an additional translation pass and technical modifications.[30][31][32][33][34] Herkz also said that Frontwing had not facilitated communication between the TLWiki team and their internal staff,[35][36] and called the quality of the finished product into question.[37][38] In a reddit AMA held by Frontwing, TLWiki translator vvav[11] responded to herkz's tweets, saying that their discontent over having been denied ultimate control of the game's finished script was indicative of a strong emotional attachment to their long-term personal investment in the work, but told fans that the end product would be a quality one nonetheless.[39] When asked what had been done to address potential inconsistencies in translation that might have arisen from the script changing hands between the TLWiki team and Frontwing's internal translators, the company's PR representative declined to comment, citing non-disclosure agreements.[40]

On July 20, 2018, an updated rerelease suffixed "Full Voice HD Edition" was released in Japan. This new version featured new art, menus, and a newly designed user interface, and added voice acting for every character, as only one male character was voiced before, and used the higher-resolution assets included in the English release the previous year. It also contained a brand-new short scenario called "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."[41] This version's additional content has not received any official release in other regions. On December 25, 2020, KeroQ released the "10th Anniversary Special Edition," a complete collection containing the Full Voice HD Edition of Subarashiki Hibi, the original Tsui no Sora, and an all-new remake of Tsui no Sora featuring new art and a dramatically revised and expanded script.[42]

Reception

[edit]

Wonderful Everyday won the bronze prize in the overall category of the Moe Game Awards 2010,[43] as well as the gold prize in the Scenario category.[44]

The game also made a good showing in the 2010 PC game rankings on Getchu.com, a popular online Japanese games shop. It ranked second place overall as well as first place in the Scenario and Music categories, and 3rd in Graphics. Additionally, Yuki Minakami was voted the 4th best character from games of that year.[45]

Writing for Hardcore Gamer, Marcus Estrada gave a positive review, praising the story's complexity and the quality of the artwork, however they noted that a significant portion of the game constituted an "absolute madhouse of cruel imagery." Although the title came strongly recommended with a 4.5/5 score, and an encouragement to go in knowing as little as possible, readers were cautioned to "steel themselves" and "be prepared for anything" on account of the extremity of the content within.[46]

Notes

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  1. ^ The subtitle means "discontinuous existence" in German.
  2. ^ In the Japanese-exclusive "Full Voice HD Edition"

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "Frontwing's Kickstarter for Wonderful Everyday Visual Novel Meets Goal". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  2. ^ "素晴らしき日々~不連続存在~ Story" [Subarashiki Hibi: Furenzoku Sonzai official home page, story summary] (in Japanese). KeroQ. Archived from the original on December 30, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  3. ^ a b "Wonderful Everyday/Subahibi AMA responses from SCA-DI". reddit. SCA-DI. 2017-08-26. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  4. ^ a b "Frontwing team here feat. KeroQ - Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi) AMA!". reddit. vvav. 2017-08-21. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-28. That being said, I did make sure to familiarize myself with Wittgenstein and his works (although only the Tractatus seems to be relevant to Subahibi)...
  5. ^ a b "Subarashiki Hibi: Furenzoku Sonzai "Information" section" (in Japanese). KeroQ. March 26, 2010. Archived from the original on November 24, 2010.
  6. ^ Aka Akasaka [@akasaka_aka] (Dec 7, 2019). "（今まで内緒にしていたのですが、素晴らしき日々の背景何枚か描かせて頂いていました）" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-25 – via Twitter.
  7. ^ a b ケロＱオフィシャルホームページ [KeroQ Official Homepage] (in Japanese). KeroQ. January 3, 2010. Archived from the original on November 24, 2010.
  8. ^ "Subarashiki Hibi: Furenzoku Sonzai "Download" section" (in Japanese). KeroQ. Archived from the original on February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
  9. ^ SCA-DI [@sca_di] (Dec 7, 2019). "ご本人から確認が取れたぞょ。なんと『素晴らしき日々』には、あの超有名な『supercell』のryoさんのみならず、『かぐや様』や『インスタントバレット』で超有名な赤坂アカ先生も背景で少し関わっているぞ！すげぇ！ マジ神作じゃん！ シナリオが人を選びすぎるけどな！" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-05-16 – via Twitter.
  10. ^ a b KeroQ. Wonderful Everyday Down the Rabbit-Hole (PC). Frontwing. Scene: Credits. Editing: Vodka, herkz
  11. ^ a b KeroQ. Wonderful Everyday Down the Rabbit-Hole (PC). Frontwing. Scene: Credits. Translation (main route): vvav
  12. ^ "Frontwing team here feat. KeroQ - Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi) AMA!". reddit. vvav. 2017-08-21. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-28. And of course, I don't have a degree in either philosophy or English literature, so it's possible that I butchered some of the philosophical or literary references without even realizing that I was butchering them, but I put in an honest effort to be realistic with myself about what parts of the game I understood and which parts I needed to do more research on in order to properly understand...
  13. ^ "Subarashiki Hibi - TL Wiki". Archived from the original on 2017-04-26. Retrieved 2017-04-26.
  14. ^ "Frontwing Reveals New Momoiro Closet Game, Sets Subahibi Release for August". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  15. ^ "Frontwing Reveals Momoiro Closet and Gives Wonderful Everyday Adult Patch Details". DualShockers. 2017-07-04. Archived from the original on 2021-05-06. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  16. ^ "Wonderful Everyday/Subahibi Visual Novel's Kickstarter for Physical Goods Delayed". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  17. ^ "Frontwing Launches Kickstarter for Wonderful Everyday Visual Novel". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-06-14. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  18. ^ "Frontwing to Launch Wonderful Everyday Kickstarter on August 2 to Produce Physical Goods For Fans". DualShockers. 2017-08-01. Archived from the original on 2020-10-22. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
  19. ^ a b c "Visual Novel Wonderful Everyday Released On Steam by Publisher Frontwing". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2022-07-16. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  20. ^ "Frontwing Releases Wonderful Everyday on Steam - Hardcore Gamer". hardcoregamer.com. 2017-08-31. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  21. ^ Frontwing [@frontwingint] (2017-08-30). "Wonderful Everyday: Down the Rabbit-Hole (Subahibi) is OUT NOW on Steam..." (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-29 – via Twitter.
  22. ^ "Frontwing team here feat. KeroQ - Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi) AMA!". reddit. Frontwing. 2017-08-20. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-28. Many of the adult-oriented scenes are directly tied into the game's story, and removing them would require rewrites so extensive that they would compromise the integrity of the author's vision, so unfortunately a full all-ages version isn't feasible for this title.
  23. ^ Wonderful Everyday Patch for Steam Archived 2021-06-08 at the Wayback Machine, JAST USA
  24. ^ a b "Details on the Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi) 18+ content patch". Tumblr. Frontwing. 2018-12-12. Archived from the original on 2018-12-12. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
  25. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "i wouldn't buy subahibi tbh" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  26. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "they wouldn't let us finish the script before handing it over so it was quite the mess" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  27. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "not to mention there's a bunch of stuff that i was in the process of fixing on my second pass" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  28. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "oh yeah, since the beginning of the project was such a clusterfuck, the translator was going to TLC a lot of the game" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  29. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "but after i finished, i obviously knew what was going on and could edit it while keeping the double meanings and such" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  30. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-04). "also there was a lot of stuff manually positioned (basically the game draws ASCII art with words) that will look wrong if it's not exact" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  31. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-04). "we made tons of changes to make the game work better in english: smaller font size, adding italics support to the engine, adding lines" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  32. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "some of it was translated 5 years ago and is of extremely dubious quality obviously, he wasn't given much time to do that" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  33. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "but as soon as things did happen, they basically wanted the script immediately (even though this was like 8 months before release)" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  34. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "i offered to finish it for no extra money and they said no lol" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  35. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-04). "like, their american division where all the translators work didn't even seem to know about the script being incomplete until very recently" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  36. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-04). "just a few weeks ago, one of their translators(?) asked us for the scripts because they didn't even have them" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  37. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-03). "sad to see something i spent so much time on go down the drain because of money" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  38. ^ herkz [@herkzzz] (2017-07-05). "yeah, because a company would never lie to make more money. c'mon guys, don't be so gullible" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-28 – via Twitter.
  39. ^ "Frontwing team here feat. KeroQ - Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi) AMA!". reddit. vvav. 2017-08-21. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-28. It's unfortunate that Herkz feels sour about losing control over the ultimate form that Subahibi's script would take, but I think that his displeasure over losing control just shows how much he cared about the game after putting so much work into it for all those years when we were just working on the game as a fan translation project.
  40. ^ "Frontwing team here feat. KeroQ - Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi) AMA!". reddit. Frontwing. 2017-08-20. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-08-28. We can't go into a lot of detail about the translation for this title due to the contracts and NDAs involved.
  41. ^ "素晴らしき日々～不連続存在～ フルボイスHD版". www.keroq.co.jp (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2021-03-23. Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  42. ^ "素晴らしき日々 10th Anniversary特別仕様版". www.keroq.co.jp (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2022-08-29.
  43. ^ 2010年度 萌えゲーアワード大賞 [Moe Game Awards 2010 Grand Prizes] (in Japanese). Moe Game Awards. Archived from the original on December 26, 2010. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  44. ^ 2010年度 萌えゲーアワードシナリオ賞 (in Japanese). Moe Game Awards. Archived from the original on December 26, 2010. Retrieved January 14, 2011.
  45. ^ "Getchu.com 美少女ゲーム大賞2010" [Getchu.com Bishoujo Game Awards 2010] (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2013-01-19. Retrieved 2013-02-06.
  46. ^ Estrada, Marcus (2017-10-09). "Review: Wonderful Everyday - Hardcore Gamer". hardcoregamer.com. Archived from the original on 2022-07-25. Retrieved 2022-07-25.
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