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Boku no Natsuyasumi (ぼくのなつやすみ, lit. "My Summer Vacation") is... well, perhaps calling it "an Adventure Game with some light Life Simulation elements" comes the closest to describing it. Billed as a "summer vacation adventure", the game was developed by Millennium Kitchen and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation in Japan on June 22, 2000.

The game follows "Boku" (a Japanese first-person pronoun usually associated with boyishness), a nine-year-old boy born and raised in the bustling city of Tokyo, in the August of 1975, as he visits his aunt and uncle's home in the Japanese countryside for his summer vacation. While the game does suggest some activities Boku can engage in both subtle and overt ways, like Bug Catching, kite flying, fishing, helping out your aunt and uncle with various odd jobs, and exploring the local area, it — for the most part — otherwise leaves it entirely up to the player how they wish to spend their time between the in game hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM for all of Boku's 31-days-long vacation. Through wandering the countryside during the day, Boku might stumble upon small story events, which both serves to establish the mood of the story and give the player insight in the other characters, whether they are Boku's family members or other people living in the area. Finding the events also imbues Boku with some defining memories of the summer of 1975; some which might shape his life in different directions.

Quite popular in Japan, though never seeing a western release, the game would spawn three sequels, Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 for the PlayStation 2 in 2002, Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 for PlayStation 3 in 2007, and Boku no Natsuyasumi 4 for the PlayStation Portable in 2009. Curiously, these sequels works as Alternate Universes of sorts to the original, as all are also set in August 1975 (except 4, which is set in August 1985), and also starring Boku as the main character, though his aunts and uncles and cousins are portrayed as widely different character in each one. The game itself would have an Updated Re Release for the PlayStation Portable in 2010, featuring updated graphics and several new characters. In 2021, Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation, a Spiritual Successor staring Crayon Shin-chan was released. In 2023 a Fan Translation of the second game was released, allowing players to experience one of the mainline games in English for the first time.


Tropes:

  • Alternate Company Equivalent:
    • Polygon Magic's Inaka Kurashi: Minami no Shima no Monogatari ("Countryside Life: A Southern Island Story") is set in a high school girl's holidays in sunny Okinawa, although it's more focused in character interaction than miningames.
    • Jorudan's Bōken Shōnen Club Gahō ("Adventure Shonen Club Report") is also themed on a small kid's life in mid-Shōwa Japan, although it's more themed around collecting licensed memorabilia as toys, candy or even watching and listening era-accurate commercials and songs.
    • Konami's Hōkago Shōnen ("Afterschool Boys") is a game themed around a 1970s boy's after-school hours, instead of summer holidays. The game even keeps the strict month limit, since the boy has only a month before moving to another town. As a city-based game, it pushes a toy collecting theme with menko cards / milk caps and supercar keshigomu toys that can compete in ballpoint pen-powered races or sumo matches, as well as other traditional stuff like hula-hoop, pogo sticks or monkey bars.
  • Bug Catching: One of the game's optional side activities, as well as one of its most popular features. It is one of the areas where the developers have really Shown Their Work, as the game progresses over the month of August, the summer bugs that Boku can catch gradually die out and give way to autumn bugs in accordance with how it would roughly happen in real life. A few of them, mostly beetles, can be pitted in sumo matches on a makeshift dohyō ring (usually a tambourine).
  • Death of a Child: Boku's male cousin died 3 years ago in what is heavily implied to be an accident involving the pond behind his aunt and uncle's house, and his death is still very much a spectre that haunts the entire household.
  • Dude, Where's My Reward?: Complete Boku's bug collection quest, which requires you to thoroughly investigate and memorize every screen in the game, and you get... nothing else than the satisfaction of having a complete bug collection. No character or the game itself ever acknowledges this achievement in any way.
  • Earn Your Bad Ending: The "worst" ending can only be triggered by Boku deciding to never venture outside the gates of his aunt and uncle's garden for the entirety of his stay with them. Doing this is entirely counter-intuitive, as even if the player doesn't decide to go into the countryside by themselves, the game quickly gives them plenty of reasons why they should, even if they are entirely optional.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The fourth entry, set a decade later than the other games, adds kinkeshi-like eraser toysnote  as optional collectable objects. Much like the series' traditional bug fights, the toys can "fight" on a cardboard box tapped by the children until one of them loses balance.
  • Multiple Endings: The game has five different endings, where the game does a Time Skip to the Turn of the Millennium and explains what kind of life Boku has lead in the 25 years since the August of 1975. Which one the player ultimately gets is based on how many "memorable moment" points Boku has accumulated during the game.
  • No Communities Were Harmed:
    • The original game is set in "Tsukiyono", a fictional village somewhere in the northern Kanto area (i. e. Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma Prefecturesnote ). After the game was released, the game's director visited a real village named Tsukiyono in Dōshi, Yamanashi Prefecture which was rather similar to the game's one.
    • 2 is set in "Tonomi", heavily based in Futo ward in Itō, Shizuoka Prefecture, although it was also inspired by the Balinese town of Ubud.
    • 3 is set in the fictional "Hanashi" in Hokkaido, heavily based in Kyōgoku, Hokkaido Prefecture, although many of its surroundings were inspired by other Hokkaido places like Mount Yōtei or the Niseko / Kutchan Stations.
    • 4 is set in the real Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture and its surroundings, although it was allegedly more inspired by Kasaoka, Okayama Prefecture.
  • Precocious Crush: If the player involves themselves in the college-aged Wolf Girl's storyline, Boku develops a crush on her, and dreams of marrying her one day.
  • Present Tense Narrative: The story is told from the perspective of an adult Boku who looks back on the events of the game about 25 years later, around the Turn of the Millennium. As a result, he will sometimes step in and briefly pause the narrative to explain the context for some of his child self's actions to the player. One of the endings, where Boku grows up to become a famous writer, takes this to its logical conclusion, by implying that the story was one of Boku's novels.
  • Reality Has No Soundtrack: Downplayed. The game has very few musical cues which are only used during some of its more significant events, but for the vast majority of the game, the background "tracks" are the natural sounds of the wilderness of rural Japan, along with some occasional diegetic music use — most prominently Boku's older cousin, Moe, practising the clarinet on the pouch on certain evenings.
  • Title Drop: On August 15, Boku's aunt in a conversation muse on how Boku's vacation is at the halfway point, referring to it with the words "Boku no Natsuyasumi". This serves as a Double Meaning. It refers to the character of course, but it also Leans on the Fourth Wall in reminding the player that the game's plot is at the half-way point.

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