The Da Capo franchise

They have the same voice though (in the animes, at least).

Suginami asked the Cherry Blossom Tree for immortality.

Suginami is also Vegeta.

edited 1st Jul '11 11:34:40 AM by RunoEddie

Suginami married Haruhi

^^ Yes, but I'm pretty sure there's a picture with both of them in the same frame.

Pics, Arha.

Someone else either in this thread or on the Da Capo page claimed to have it. I believe it because the two do have different personalities.

Dream X Mas? He could be hanging out with himself, time travels are weird.

But yeah, I don't believe that. It would be awesome if it was true though.

edited 1st Jul '11 11:53:08 AM by RunoEddie

Hey! So I was skimming through vndb.org looking for my next timesink and I stumbled on some info about Da Capo III! (Admittedly, really really little information, but hey it's something!).

http://vndb.org/v6438

"The all year round cherry blossoms is a thing of the past, and now the island is normal. MC 2nd year student of the annex school Yoshino Kiyotaka along with sempai school idol Morisono Rika (middle one in character chart), sister like childhood friend Katsuragi Hino (Nemu look alike), half blood Yoshino Charle (rightmost one), and two girls more are in the newspaper club (Rika is the president). Unlike in the past, nothing mysterious happens, but one winter day the cherry blossoms start to bloom and a mail reaches everyone's cellphone: "If the cherry blossoms start blooming, in the promised place—", with date 1951."

[From Mazyrian]

edited 31st Jul '11 9:57:39 PM by RunoEddie

Sakura clone, Nemu clone... Well, I'm fine with that.

So if this is even farther in the future than DCII... what the hell is going to happen? Or is it something else? I'm just confused.

edited 31st Jul '11 11:12:23 PM by Five_X

^ Asakura Junichi must be lol-ing wherever he is now at how successful his lineage is.

But there's something really bugging me so far: why is the protagonist's and the Sakura-clone's surname Yoshino? I thought that that name vanished along with Sakura. Sure her lineage goes on, but Yoshiyuki's surname is Sakurai, so he would pass that name, right?

And even if we don't have her pic, we can all be sure that DC 3's "School Idol" is gonna be a Kotori look-alike.

edited 1st Aug '11 9:12:03 AM by RunoEddie

This lookalike thing kinda bugs me.

I reached an all-clear of DCII last night. Well, it's less than 100% Completion, but I'm pretty sure I'm only missing a few alternative scenes and bad ends.

Had something in my eye on more than a few occasions: there's some pretty emotional stuff in there, and I found most of the particularly gutwrenching moments in the Asakura sisters' routes (predictably enough). Some of the metaphysical juggling of realities and existences don't really stand up to scrutiny and tend to raise more questions than they answer, but it would be churlish to probe too deeply into actual mechanics: the whole point of the DC-verse (as with all good bishoujo games) is that it shamelessly aims for the heart, and not the head.

I have no idea what the hell is going on at the end of Sakura's sub-scenario (the extra "D.C" option when you finish all the main routes), but if there's any truth to the DCIII rumours posted above, I'm pretty sure Sakura will have significant role in the events. After all, D.C's story is as much Sakura's story as it is anybody else's: it would be nice if she was able to find happiness for herself one of these days.

I interpret Sakura's bonus story in a positive manner, actually. Think of it like this. Sakura was never able to physically grow older because of unrequited love for Junichi, right? And apparently it's a 'this guy or no one at all' situation. This led to her being unable to have a family etc etc. you know the rest. However with the bonus scenario her memories are gone and thus she is not in love with Junichi anymore. I'm ignoring wistful amnesia because that would make things worse. Anyway, continuing with that, she is now free to grow up and have the happy life she wanted. Someone theorized that she's her own grandma, but I don't buy that theory.

Also, you know what I want to know? Who the hell did she meet in that epilogue? The game acted like I should know, but the only non Da Capo game I've played from Circus that I can think of is Suika. While my favorite Suika heroine showed up in the original Da Capo the settings otherwise don't really overlap.

edited 7th Aug '11 8:22:13 PM by Arha

Oooh, fun, DC-verse WMG-time!

I've forgotten exactly why she's functionally ageless, but I always thought it was because she's attuned to the Everlasting Cherry Tree, of which there is still a sapling : it's in her hand at the end of the bonus route. I think that's how the miracle works at the end of the Asakura routes: somewhere, somehow, the wish-granting mechanism of the tree is still in operation.

Well, I'm not entirely sure she's completely forgotten about Junichi: even if her memory is ostensibly gone, a big theme of the DC-verse is that love of sufficient strength can survive a reality reformat. But assuming that she's now free to pursue her happiness as normal...well, where/when is she going to do this? It looks to me like she's been displaced from the current timeline...

Yes, very much this. I don't know, the only indication that you're supposed to know who the mystery girl is is when Sakura's voice actress brings it up in the interview, and I think she was just teasing us.

edited 7th Aug '11 8:52:53 PM by zeroplusalpha

Yeah, I know Da Capo likes Wistful Amnesia. I'm choosing to ignore it, or perhaps to state that if she ran across Junichi again she would remember him a little and be in love again. But if she doesn't see him then that wouldn't be the case.

In the original Da Capo, at some point Sakura's grandmother stated that she might very well have been immortal if she hadn't fallen in love. Falling in love lets you grow old.

Also, if that really was a sapling and not just a memento or some sort that does strength the idea that Sakura is her own grandmother and it's a time loop.

Well, considering the name of the franchise, it would only be appropriate. Not sure if I buy the "Sakura=own grandmother" theory exactly, but I'm pretty sure there's at least some kind of temporal Moebius-strip shenanigans going on.

It was a pity we never got to see grown-up Nemu. I know any woman over the age of thirty (who actually looks her age) is anathema to bishoujo games, but I for one, would have welcomed a brief cameo.

Yeah, I don't buy the theory either. Didn't Sakura meet whoever outside of a church or something? A church like that has never been alluded to so far as I know. I should probably reread that scene. I know the person recognized the branch/twig/sapling that Sakura had, but I don't remember how familiar she was with it. Like maybe Sakura ended up in 1910 Europe outside a church and some girl saw her and recognized the blossoms from a book she'd seen or something.

There was never any concrete indication that Mystery Girl knew exactly what the branch was, but I think it's a good bet that she knows more than the scene lets on. I also think it's a pretty good bet that Mystery Girl isn't just an accidental passerby.

One of Sakura's lines nags at me:

" I made a wish for the tree to show the life I could have had, one of all possible realities..."

Also of importance: you're led to believe that the game starts with Yoshiyuki's narration (something about "announcing the beginning of the dream"), but it's actually Sakura's monologue. Bearing this in mind, would it be too outrageous to posit that the entire DC-verse is actually Sakura's dream, only we keep seeing it from a perspective other than the dreamer's own? In which case, the DC timelines are all bad ends from Sakura's POV: she's the one looped back to her own beginning every time her dream ends, because she never physically left her original timeline, the one in which she made her wish.

edited 7th Aug '11 9:19:30 PM by zeroplusalpha

Right, I was the one who theorized Sakura could be her own grandmother. It's mostly based on that Sakura and her grandmother are uncannily similar looking, so when I was playing her route on Da Capo 1, I was just waiting for the moment she would, I don't know, go back in time to prevent the cherry tree to be born or something, I just knew something would come up and she would be sent back to the past and eventually become her grandmother. Nothing happened anyway.

Then Sakura Epilogue happened and she WAS sent back in time, with a branch of the cherry tree even! So they even gave her the means to create the Original Everlasting Cherry Tree.

But, what the heck do I know anyway? It's just that, I had a feeling since the first one that Sakura would be going to the past, and she did, so maybe the rest of my reasoning wasn't as far fetched as I thought at first.

Edit: Blearh, I think I'm not really good at explaining my thought process.

Edit2: You know what, I'm gonna spoiler tag all of this.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:43:05 PM by RunoEddie

How do you know she was sent back in time?

Not so much "know", more like the game pretty strongly implied.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:44:48 PM by RunoEddie

^^Well, it's kind of implied: it's difficult to believe that the horsewagon that she sees is part of DC's current timeline.

We're all assuming that she went back in time: I'm not sure she ever went forward.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:44:33 PM by zeroplusalpha

Her going forward makes even less sense if horse wagons are peculiar right now.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:48:53 PM by RunoEddie

Eh, probably. I dunno. Sakura being her own grandmother is kind of unsatisfying, though. Maybe I will prefer to believe that it's like a cycle. Sakura is not her grandmother, but will someday have a grandaughter that's a witch who will also go back in time.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:49:37 PM by Arha