From that first moment I wanted to protect you...
At the end of the school year, Kotaro Makimura resolves to confess his love to his crush, Kaho Serizawa, and plans to become her boyfriend by the end of summer vacation. On the way home from school, he runs into a cloaked stranger and accidentally gets covered with a mysterious powder. When he wakes up the next morning, he is shocked to find that it is the first day of September. As he returns to school, his friends tell him that his girlfriend Kaho has died in a traffic accident. But wait! He hasn't even spoken to her yet! And why is the second term suddenly started up when summer break was supposedly just around the corner?
A Visual Novel released in Japan in 2002, Hourglass of Summer is unusual in that it (a) was released in America, (b) contains no hentai, and (c) can be played on a DVD player. It was later adapted into a two-episode OVA that was released exclusively in Japan. While it never received the amount of success as other visual novels like CLANNAD or Tsukihime, it is still fondly remembered by Western audiences as their first foray into the visual novel genre.
Provides examples of:
- Anime Chinese Girl: TP Lee Jane.
- Beautiful Dreamer: Mana watches you sleep after you rescue her from her suicide attempt.
- Bittersweet Ending: A couple of the "Bad Endings" are this.
- Cassandra Truth: Down Played. Ai and Tomomi don't flat-out reject Kotaro, when he tries to tell them about future tragedies you've witnessed. But they don't believe him at first.
- Childhood Friend Romance / Girl Next Door / Patient Childhood Love Interest: Ai.
- Compressed Adaptation: The game had a two-episode Original Video Animation released in 2004, around the same time the title hit store shelves in the United States. It tried to squeeze a ten-hour character route (Kaho's true ending route, to be precise) into a 45-minute anime, and general consensus is that it did not do a good job. There's a distinct lack of explanation of many major plot points (the time-traveling aspect, most notably), some things no longer make sense (again, time-traveling), and the pacing seems to suffer due to being so tightly crammed into such a short runtime
- Curtains Match the Window: Tomomi, Mana, and Kaho.
- Cute Little Fangs: Ai.
- Downer Ending: Video Games have plenty of opportunities for these, and this one falls right into line. A couple of the "Bad Endings" are Bittersweet though.
- Ear Cleaning: One of three choices of compensation for doing Ai a favor, should Kotaro demand such.
- Elaborate University High: Their school is a magnet for students from far-away homes. Although the school skimps on luxuries such as air conditioning.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Kaho. Kotaro says that flat-out, pondering out loud over Kaho.
- Festival Episode: Kotaro must choose once and for all between Kaho and Ai.
- Genki Girl: Ai is very excitable and quite clumsy.
- Girlish Pig Tails: Lee Jane.
- Good-Guy Bar: Paradise Cafe is about as close to this trope as you can get in a high school setting.
- Happily Married: Ai and Kotaro, in Ai's ending.
- Hidden Depths: One of the major draws of the story, everyone has more to them than one would expect.
- Hot Librarian: Tomomi. Kotaro constantly talks about how beautiful she is with her glasses off. Not that she doesn't look just as beautiful with them on...
- Interrupted Suicide: Mana, by jumping off the roof of the hospital.
- Irony: Mana's route is the only route where you can't save Mana from her injury (except for Tomomi's, which breaks off before Mana appears).
- Missing Mom: Ai's mom died when she was very young. Kaho's mom is also gone.
- Naked First Impression: How Kotaro is introduced to Mana. Chronologically, anyway...
- Ordinary High-School Student: Kotaro has a minor day-drop ability, which is enhanced and manifests itself when Lee Jane inadvertently dumps the powder over him.
- Out of Focus / Demoted to Extra: Mana, after preventing her accident in every route but her own. Especially in Tomomi's route, which can be beaten without encountering Mana at all.
- She also has precisely zero screentime in the second OVA episode.
- Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: In Mana's route she breaks her leg and can no longer competitively swim. When asked about it by some children at the end, she calls it her reminder from God that she is human.
- Piggyback Cute: Ai, any time Kotaro carries her on his back or on his bike. Also when Kotaro carries Kaho on his bike.
- Reset Button: As a TP, Lee Jane is capable of this.
- Tomomi's route.
- A few times where Kotaro (or the player) behaves badly, Lee Jane resets the scene, giving him another chance.
- In such a case, if he persists a second time, Lee Jane resets him to the beginning of the game.
- Road Cone: Generally in use throughout, but one choice is an extremely obvious fork in the road between Kaho and Ai. (Though Lee Jane's ending may also be a possibility at the time.)
- Romance Game: The Bishoujo type.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Kotaro's first day jump sends him to the first day of school in the fall, when he learns of Kaho's death. This sets the entire plot in motion, to avert her death.
- Shout-Out: In his opening narration, Kotaro recalls a scene from a book where a cat is looking for a door into summer.
- Spell My Name With An S: Is it Ligene or Lee Jane?
- Stable Time Loop: Plenty of them.
- Kotaro gets a clue about his desperate last-ditch plan to save Kaho, sending letters to Kaho and Tomomi before he comes up with the plan. It's a Stable Time Loop if Kotaro (or the player) notices the clue, and uses it. It's You Already Changed the Past if Kotaro forgets, but independently comes up with the right solution. It's Make Wrong What Once Went Right if the Kotaro tries the wrong tactic.
- Shrinking Violet: Maho, soft-spoken and very shy. Probably comes from upbringing, thanks to her Missing Mom and strict artist father.
- Stalker with a Crush: Tomomi's ex-boyfriend, Oonuma.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Mana is very cold on the outset, but her route shows she can be very girly and stubborn when the occasion calls for it.
- Third-Person Person: Ai.
- Time Police: Lee Jane is a rather incompetent one.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Oh, yes.
- Training from Hell: Takeshi puts Kotaro through a light version of this in preparation for his boxing match.
- Unlucky or Victorious Childhood Friend: Ai, depending on how you play your cards.
- The Unpronounceable: Lee Jane's real name.
- Updated Re-release: The original release was clean, but the Japanese PC rerelease added H-scenes into it.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Kotaro and Takeshi. Mana even comments on it, comparing them to a manzai duo.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Kaho. On the surface anyway. Once you are invested in her route she shows her true self.
