Diamond Daydreams
Encyclopedia
is a Japan
ese visual novel
game series, set in Hokkaidō
. It was developed by Red Entertainment
and published by Hudson Soft
.
platform, . It was subsequently adapted in 2004 to an anime
series entitled . The anime was released in the United States
by ADV Films under the title Diamond Daydreams in three volumes and in a thinpack collection.
student
(17 years old), travels from Tokyo
to Sapporo in Hokkaidō
(hence the basic title of the game Kita E (To The North). There, he encounters eight different girls, including the lead character Kotori Haruno, whose family he stays with during his time up north. In the game, the player explores the island, plays video games, does karaoke
, goes shopping—and most of all, tries to find that special someone to share his heart with. The main period of the game is set during summer vacation
(August 1 to August 14), by which, at the end, the player returns to Tokyo. The conclusion of the game falls around December 28, when the player returns to Sapporo to witness the "White Illumination Countdown" on New Year's Eve
(similar to the New Year's Eve Times Square
celebrations. To win the game, the player must meet his chosen one at the Countdown on New Year's Eve, then kiss her at 12:00 midnight
on New Year's Day
.
.
in Japan. They each live in a different city on the island. Each girl believes in a myth of snow turning into diamond dust
, and if one makes a wish on the diamond dust, their wish is 100% guaranteed to come true. Another myth about diamond dust is that if a boy and girl meet under the dust, they're guaranteed happiness and marriage later in life. Each of the six girls have some stubborn moments and awkward stages in their lives, but looking into themselves and others will help them get back on their feet. When these six girls meet, their lives will change dramatically for the better as the snow begins to fall.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese visual novel
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
game series, set in Hokkaidō
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
. It was developed by Red Entertainment
Red Entertainment
is a video game developer based in Japan. Formerly known as since is foundation in 1976 , it was reorganized under its current moniker on December 4, 2000...
and published by Hudson Soft
Hudson Soft
, formally known as , is a majority-owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation is a Japanese electronic entertainment publisher headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. It was founded on May 18, 1973...
.
History
The series began with , which was released on March 18, 1999 for the Dreamcast. A fandisc, , was later released on August 5, the same year. On October 30, 2003, the series was released on the PlayStation 2PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
platform, . It was subsequently adapted in 2004 to an anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series entitled . The anime was released in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by ADV Films under the title Diamond Daydreams in three volumes and in a thinpack collection.
Story Overview
The player, a second-year high schoolHigh school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
(17 years old), travels from Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
to Sapporo in Hokkaidō
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
(hence the basic title of the game Kita E (To The North). There, he encounters eight different girls, including the lead character Kotori Haruno, whose family he stays with during his time up north. In the game, the player explores the island, plays video games, does karaoke
Karaoke
is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...
, goes shopping—and most of all, tries to find that special someone to share his heart with. The main period of the game is set during summer vacation
Summer vacation
Summer vacation is a vacation in the summertime between school years in which students and instructors are off school typically between 6 and 12 weeks, depending on the country and district.-Students:In some countries, students participate in programs such as organized sports, summer camps, and...
(August 1 to August 14), by which, at the end, the player returns to Tokyo. The conclusion of the game falls around December 28, when the player returns to Sapporo to witness the "White Illumination Countdown" on New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
(similar to the New Year's Eve Times Square
Times Square Ball
The Times Square Ball is a time ball dropped each year during the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square, Manhattan, New York City. The ball is made by Waterford Crystal and electric lights is raised to the top of a pole on the One Times Square building at 6:00 pm and then lowered to mark the...
celebrations. To win the game, the player must meet his chosen one at the Countdown on New Year's Eve, then kiss her at 12:00 midnight
Midnight
Midnight is the transition time period from one day to the next: the moment when the date changes. In the Roman time system, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise, varying according to the seasons....
on New Year's Day
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
.
Characters
- Kotori is a 15 year old high school student. Her primary hobby is that she loves to cook. She lives alone with her mother Yoko (her father is deceased). Since Yoko works so much, Kotori maintains the home. The player has feelings for Kotori, but the latter reciprocates (at the start of the game) in a fashion similar to that between siblings.
- Tanya is a 16 year old glass craftsman's assistant. She loves to take strolls around the neighbourhood. Born in RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Tanya is working in Japan at a local glassGlassGlass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
factory and is having much in the way of trouble adjusting to live in another country away from her family. Working at the factory, she tries to duplicate the shade of sunset displayed on a pendant given to her by her father.
- Kaoru is a 24 year old medical student at a local university. The player meets her first on the airplane from Tokyo to Sapporo. She loves to go driving and read mysteryMystery fictionMystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
novels. At first meeting, Kaoru seems cold and unapproachable, always with her head inside a book. As the player sees her more and more, she begins to open up.
- Yuko is a 20 year old public defence officer. She loves to take pictures with her camera, which she carries with her even while on duty. While performing her duties on a bicycleBicycleA bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
, Yuko often interacts with the player and willingly takes pictures of him when they tour all the interesting places he wishes to visit.
- Megumi is a 15 year old junior high student. She loves to collect postcardPostcardA postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
s, gazes at the starStarA star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s and studies animalAnimalAnimals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s. A cute yet very clumsy girl. The player interacts with Megumi when he goes to the Aida family home to assist her and her parents (including a pregnant mother). Megumi is the atypical genkiGenkiwas a after Eiroku and before Tenshō. This period spanned the years from April 1570 through July 1573. The reigning emperor was .-Change of era:; 1570: The era name was changed because of various wars...
and innocent young girl.
- Ayu is a 15 year old high school student and Kotori's best friend. She loves to play tennisTennisTennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
(she is a part of the school tennis club with Kotori) and karaoke. It is Ayu's ambition to become a professional singer. The player supports her music and helps her when it comes time for Ayu to get an auditionAuditionAn audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performing artist.Audition may also refer to:* The sense of hearing* Adobe Audition, audio editing software...
.
- Hayaka is a 17 year old high school student. She likes to knitKnittingKnitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...
. At first meeting, Hayaka is a very unpleasant girl (as witness the fact that she wears an eyepatchEyepatchAn eyepatch or eye pad is a small patch that is worn in front of one eye. It may be a cloth patch attached around the head by an elastic band or by a string, or an adhesive bandage. It is often worn by people to cover a lost or injured eye, but it also has a therapeutic use in children for the...
). The player learns later that her family restaurantRestaurantA restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
is in trouble with the local thugsYakuza, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
, thus he strives to help her with recipes and advertisingAdvertisingAdvertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
.
- Kozue is a 17 year old high school student. She's into cosplay, gameGameA game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s and e-mailE-mailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
ing on her personal computerComputerA computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
. The spoiled rich girl of the cast, she is heavily into animeAnimeis the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
and other forms of modern entertainment. Like all other spoiled rich kids, she always gets what she wanted -- until she met the player.
Game information
The game was released on March 13, 1999 by Hudson Soft, exclusively for the Dreamcast system. Average price for the game at time of release was 5800 yenJapanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...
.
Story
The story is about six different girls from different lifestyles living on HokkaidōHokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
in Japan. They each live in a different city on the island. Each girl believes in a myth of snow turning into diamond dust
Diamond dust
Diamond dust is a ground-level cloud composed of tiny ice crystals. This meteorological phenomenon is also referred to simply as ice crystals and is reported in the METAR code as IC. Diamond dust generally forms under otherwise clear or nearly clear skies, so it is sometimes referred to as...
, and if one makes a wish on the diamond dust, their wish is 100% guaranteed to come true. Another myth about diamond dust is that if a boy and girl meet under the dust, they're guaranteed happiness and marriage later in life. Each of the six girls have some stubborn moments and awkward stages in their lives, but looking into themselves and others will help them get back on their feet. When these six girls meet, their lives will change dramatically for the better as the snow begins to fall.
Characters
- Atsuko is Hakodate-born and Hakodate-bred. She lives inside a food store with her mother. The store and the family are deep in debt, and to resolve their financial problems her mother tries to urge Atsuko into an arranged marriage with a wealthy yet friendly boy her own age named Minoru Jinguji. Atsuko is conflicted by her feelings for an older man, Kenji Kurata, who is a local musician.
- When her mother tries to force her into the marriageForced marriageForced marriage is a term used to describe a marriage in which one or both of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will...
, Atsuko runs away to Kurata. He helps Atsuko out, and talks to her about her situation without taking advantage of her. At the end she realizes that she may have feelings for Minoru - she just doesn't want to be forced into marriage.
- Karin is stricken with pneumothoraxPneumothoraxPneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the pleural cavity of the chest between the lung and the chest wall. It may occur spontaneously in people without chronic lung conditions as well as in those with lung disease , and many pneumothoraces occur after physical trauma to the chest, blast...
and lives mostly in the hospital. Her big brother Mitsuru comes by occasionally from college to help cheer her up. She has her own laptop which she is only supposed to use for two hours a day, though she sneaks on at night. Karin has her own homepage were she occasionally updates and writes about her dreams.
- A new young doctor named Amakasu says that Karin is a spoiled princess, causing Karin to lose her temper. In truth, Karin is scared to have an operation because her father died during surgery. She gets e-mails from someone named "Your Fan" who encourages her to stay strong. Karin speculates that Dr. Amakasu is sending her the e-mails and attached photos of Hokkaidō, and Karin finds herself falling in love with Dr. Amakasu.
- She later finds out that Nurse Yuki and Dr. Amakasu have been seeing each other since high school, and Yuki was the one sending her the e-mails. Her intentions were trying to open up to Karin and convincing her to go through operation. A few days afterwards, Karin's brother is sent to the hospital when he falls unconscious at work. Her brother had been overworking himself trying to help their mother pay the massive hospitalization fees. Karin realizes that she is spoiled, and decides to go through with the operation if Dr. Amakasu will watch over her.
- Kyouko is a young filmmaker who loves to capture life's moments on film. Her closest friends and fellow colleagues begin to worry about Kyouko's obsession with perfection, and it causes major conflicts. However, Kyouko's willing to sacrifice everything to achieve the perfect picture.
- Kyouko tells a story about a girl named Charinka who forsaken YoshitsuneMinamoto no Yoshitsunewas a general of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian and early Kamakura period. Yoshitsune was the ninth son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, and the third and final son and child that Yoshitomo would father with Tokiwa Gozen. Yoshitsune's older brother Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura...
while living on an island, but when Yoshitsune leaves the island, Charinka regretted her cold-heartedness - too late. Kyouko says that Charinka got what she deserved.
- After her pride causes her to isolate herself even from the person she loves, Kyouko learns the hard way that the people who care about you are more important than winning.
- Suomi loves ice skatingIce skatingIce skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and...
and is a natural performer. When Suomi was young, she and her friend Hanna Janinen made a promise to each other. Now that she's grown up, she hopes to fulfill her promise. Suomi was chosen to be part of FinlandFinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
's figure skating team, but Hanna accidentally bumped into her causing Suomi to injure her leg, causing rumors that Hanna did it on purpose and it earned her the moniker of "The Cold-Hearted Queen of the Ice". Because of that, Hanna blamed Suomi. Suomi almost gave up skating until she meets a young boy named Haruto who is also an ice skater and had a similar fallout with his best friend Kuda. Now, Suomi hopes to get back into ice skating and complete her promise with Hanna.
- Shouko hosts a radio talk show in Sapporo called "Cappuccino Break" where she discusses romantic issues with her audience. Every love story Shoko hears is fuel for her talk show. Secretly, Shouko is dating her closest friend Takeda whom she loves, but Takeda is already married with a wife and daughter and warns Shouko not to make unexpected scenes. Elsewhere, Shouko receives gifts from someone called "Radio Boy", which gets the production staff worried that Shouko might have a potential stalker after her. When a woman calls in to the show about her heartaches with a married man, Shouko breaks down and says on the air that she wants to give up. Her fans call and come in to support her, showing her that she's not as alone as she thinks.
- Akari has lived with her father ever since her mother died. Most of the time, her father drinks a lot of alcohol to ease the pain of losing his wife. He's also unsuccessful in trying to pan for gold dustGold DustGold dust refers to fine particles of gold produced by machining or occurring naturally.Gold dust may also refer to:*Goldust, the ring name of Dustin Rhodes, an American wrestler...
. Akari is a hard worker at Ryuon Confectioneries to support them both, and does most of the work in her house because her father is too weak and depressed to help. Akari also has run-ins with Kurokawa, a former coworker who has trouble expressing his feelings for her.
- Suddenly, her father becomes very ill with brain cancer. The doctor mentioned to Akari that her father was diagnosed with brain cancer six months ago and was recommended to go to a university hospital that had the proper equipment. As of now, it would be impossible for the surgeons to operate on his tumor. To help ease his pain she goes with her father to the river one last time to pan for gold dust, with Kurokawa's help. Kurokawa has trouble committing himself to the work he loves, but during the trip Akari's father helps him see that he should follow his passions.