Original, or fan-based?
As I try to mention when making forum posts for new episodes of ANC, the audio drama is based on a PC game that was only released in Japan entitled “Yoru ga Kuru! -Square of the Moon”. There are many, many differences between the game and the audio drama, but the biggest is that the game itself is what’s known in Japan as an “eroge”. An eroge is, basically, a video game that features erotic content. The audio drama has not and will not ever feature anything sexual that you wouldn’t find in a PG-13 movie. What drew me to the original game wasn’t the erotic content, it was the roleplaying game elements and the character designs. I didn’t know much about the details of the story for a few years, but I knew that it was awesome, and that I wanted to know more about it.
I did a lot of online roleplaying on AOL around that time, and so from there I decided to gather a group of people in what’s called a “storyline” based on Yoru ga Kuru. An explanation on roleplaying would take a whole post in and of itself, but basically, what we did was assume roles of the characters and act out the story. I make it sound extremely boring, but in actuality, it’s pretty fun once you get into it, and it’s a shame that the AOL roleplaying scene is mostly dead.
That was where my first itineration with ANC began; I had no idea of the actual plot from the game and, in some cases, the real names of characters (mainly the villains), so I just took what basic plot I knew and winged it. I attempted the storyline on three different occasions, and out of those three, the character that was developed the most was Izumi. The girl who roleplayed Izumi, Allison, took the character in a direction that I never would’ve thought of, and really, I can’t take any credit for fleshing out Izumi’s personality because it was Allison that breathed life into our favorite cold and calculation Astronomy Club leader. I won’t get into too much detail regarding Izumi’s characterization now, as I’ll be doing individual blogs regarding all of the characters and their developments as the radioplay continues. In those, I’ll also explain how Manami’s roleplayer, Michelle, helped bring the character to life, and how Lieutenant Sakaki (a character that has yet to be introduced), was also developed by his roleplayer, Tom.
As the years went on and the roleplaying storyline faded, I still felt a connection to these characters, this ragtag group of kids carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders while trying to follow their dreams and get through school like any normal teenager would do. After planning on turning it into a novel and getting a few chapters written, I started to feel like I was going into the completely wrong direction. And from there, I turned it into the audio drama. As of now, six episodes have been developed, eleven episodes have been scripted, and the rest of the story is all in my head. I know all of the plot twists, the secrets, the betrayals, the victories, and the losses that these kids will have to persevere through, and even just thinking about all of it makes me excited to press on.
So the real question is this: is A Night Comes! an original work, or fan-based? It’s hard for me to take an outside perspective and form an opinion. The characters in the game and the audio drama share the same name, and the basic plot of the two moons remains the same. But liberties have been taken for the audio drama that make it virtually unrecognizable from the game. For example, under normal circumstances, you’ll never see Izumi doing this:
In the game, Izumi is the picture of niceness. In the audio drama? Notsomuch. In the game, Ryou’s power is precognition, and that’s about it; in the audio drama, he’s the Red Flashy Thing. Game: Kyoka has a little white baby snake/dragon-thing named Chiro. Audio drama: Although the same little creature will appear in an episode as a Kasha, Chiro does not and will not exist. There are a lot of other examples that I can give that are major spoilers, but those are the minor ones that I can point out at the top of my head.
So, I pose the question again: is the audio drama original, or is it fan-based? What do you think? Voice your opinion in the comments! I’m not sure when I’ll update next or what the subject will be, so if you’ve got a question about ANC or audio dramas in general, or if you’ve got an idea of what you’d like to hear, post that in the comments as well!
