Shinza Banshonote is a series of visual novels written by Takashi Masada that tells the many tales of the gods who change the way of the world by imposing their laws on it via the Throne, a hyper-dimensional artifact that allows one to control reality.
Originally starting with the somewhat experimental novel Paradise Lost in 2004, the series has since grown as each new installment added more to the world at large. While each story is self-contained, they all tie together in a multiversal canon where large scale Reality Warping is a common occurrence and where strong enough individuals can impose new natural laws in accordance with their own desires.
The series is also known for its rather verbose writing and over the top scale. This has had the somewhat unfortunate side-effect of making the novels infamously difficult to translate properly, making good translations hard to come by. However, with the official English release of Dies Irae, that now seems to be changing. Unfortunately, Greenwood, the parent company of Light, closed its doors at the end of March 2019 leaving both the series itself and any future English localizations up in the air.
Installments include:
- Paradise Lost (2004)
- Dies Irae (2007)
- Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~ (2016)
- Dies Irae: Song to the Witch (2017)
- Kajiri Kamui Kagura (2011)
- Dies Irae Pantheon (Canceled)
- Avesta of Black and White (2019 - 2021)
- Event Horizon Battlefront Aditya (2022 - ongoing)
Tropes common to Shinza Bansho Series:
- Abstract Apotheosis: Becoming a Hadou/Gudou God means becoming an embodiment of the Law. For example, 'I want this moment to last forever', 'I want to become a blade that cuts all' and so on.
- Art Evolution: The series has undergone quite a few changes in style over the years. Paradise Lost for instance was drawn in a much more cutesy style compared to when G Yuusuke took over as lead artist starting at Dies Irae. Even G Yuusuke's own style has changed somewhat over the years. Dies Irae Pantheon looks to evolve the artstyle yet again.
- Black Speech: Sort of, when a god (or any character for that matter) speaks in their original tongue then their words tend to be heavily filtered and garbled alongside any accompanying text being unrecognizable scribbles in order to symbolize just how alien their speech is to those hearing it.
- Genre Roulette: As a result of that almost each entry in the series takes place in a different God's era it allows for a wide range of fantasy to crop up, from Cyberpunk Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Jidaigeki Fantasy and High Fantasy. Some additional genres tend to also be added to spice things up.
- Magical Incantation: All over the bloody place. The series has a real fondness for long and intricate incantations to induce all manner of reality altering effects. Avesta is an exception as
according to Masada, the first era is so close to the Zeroth era that powerful magic and abilities can still be used with relative ease. - Purple Prose: The series is somewhat infamous for its writer's extremely verbose and grandiose style. The novels often find themselves ranking extremely highly on lists for the most difficult-to-translate Visual Novels because of this.
- Reference Overdosed: The series tend to reference a lot of various famous works of fiction in a number of ways.
- Sentient Cosmic Force: Any Hadou God is a walking universe.
- Shadow Archetype: A recurring concept within the verse is that of the Apoptosis, also known as the Self Destruction Factor, a being born from a Hegemonic God's self destructive desires with inverse values from those of the original. Additionally, the Apoptosis and the original will often be drawn to one another while at the same time being unable to stand each other.
- Soul Power: Most abilities are soul-based.
- Story-Breaker Power: A lot. Some of them include: the ability to be always faster than the opponent, an attack which never misses the target, ability to cut through anything, including abstract things such as distance and many others. It's actually easier to list characters that do not have one.
- Übermensch: A central and recurring theme throughout the series is that of characters forming their own beliefs and moral codes that breaks not only the the social norms, but the norms of the universe itself and then imposing that belief upon the world. The hegemonic gods are those that has managed to take this all the way, to make their beliefs the new reality.
- World of Ham: Perhaps one of the most ham-filled Visual Novel series around.
