Narcissu: its lineage, descendants, and standing in Japan
01What this origin is
Narcissu is a Japanese visual novel written and directed by Tomo Kataoka and produced by the doujin circle Stage-nana, first released as a free download in 2005 and later expanded and sold commercially. Following a terminally ill young man and woman who slip away from the hospice ward together to spend their final days on the road, with no miracles, heroes, or villains, it is a quiet, melancholy meditation on death; built and given away as an amateur work, it is a landmark origin of the lyrical Japanese kinetic novel that confronts mortality through the last days of someone about to die.
02Sources
03Buried gems that carry this root
Shizumeru Rakuen Buried gem
A multi-ending novel game that traces the last day of two girls who came to die. On a fictional island in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, two college students, Mio and Nagisa, have come to drown themselves, and at the start you choose whose eyes to see that day through. Conversation choices branch the ending, but one thing never changes: the girl dies. The path bends, the death does not. It includes a Chapter mode to re-read any scene and a Gallery mode to revisit the stills. Made by the Japanese solo doujin circle Sajinage-bu and published by the Japanese company Waku Waku Games. Priced at 700 yen, with an eight-track soundtrack sold separately. Positive in Japan at 5 reviews and 100 percent, yet the West has not reached it at all: zero English reviews out of 5. There is no English version and no official English title, the store supports Japanese only, so the language itself is the wall.