Nostalgia strikes again.
Summary:
- Visual novel adaptations used to be very popular, but have faded out of popularity in recent years.
- Recently, there have been many new announcements for VN adaptations.
- It’s another case of nostalgia being a factor in the industry.
Visual novel adaptations used to be a trend back in the 00s and early 10s. They have slowly faded out — particularly because the visual novel medium itself has been slowly dying — but with a couple of new announcements, it might just seem that they are back on the menu.
These series used to be very popular
The most popular visual novel adaptations include Fate/stay night, Steins;Gate and Higurashi: When They Cry (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni). However, we used to get way more of these series back in the day, and not all of them were as plot-heavy as these three.
In particular, the 00s were the period of romance and harem-oriented visual novel adaptations, which were held in the same regard as isekai now. They were often seen as generic, and eventually disappeared.
In recent years, we have barely been getting any new visual novel adaptations at all — that aren’t sequels or spin-offs. Even fewer of them were in a full-length TV format, with series like Rail Romanesque being shorts, and the popular otome game Collar x Malice being adapted into a movie.
Many new — seemingly random — announcements
In the past few months we have got an unusually high amount of visual novel adaptations being announced.
Some of the more recent ones include Nukitashi the Animation and In a World Filled With Zombies, I'm the Only One They Won't Attack (Zombie no Afureta Sekai de Ore Dake ga Osowarenai), although the latter originated as a web novel. Both of these raise the question of how much of them will be censored.
Even bigger works are currently in development. Type-Moon’s Witch on the Holy Night (Mahoutsukai no Yoru) movie revealed a new trailer on December 31. An anime adaptation of Atri: My Dear Moments is scheduled for this year. Grisaia: Phantom Trigger the Animation, a spin-off to The Fruit of Grisaia (Grisaia no Kajitsu) has already received three movies and has an actual series in the works.
Perhaps one of the most anticipated visual novel adaptations out there is Summer Pockets — made by Key, the creators of Clannad, Angel Beats! and Charlotte. Their works are famous for being emotional rollercoasters, and fans are eagerly awaiting another one.
What are the reasons for this?
Why are visual novel adaptations coming back? The answer is actually simple: nostalgia. The anime industry has been teasing us with projects that remind us of earlier days and play with our feelings.
The recently released 16bit Sensation: Another Layer actually focuses on visual novels as well: although it isn’t an adaptation of one, it has a time travel plot that involves the heroine going to the past to work on VNs — and save the industry. Some fans joke that because of that anime, we have entered the correct timeline