Episode 07 has been released!
Finally, after months of waiting and procrastination, a huge cast overhaul, and the longest search for extras known to man, episode 7 is finally complete! Download it at the main site, or better yet, why don’t you hop on iTunes and subscribe so that you can get every new episode as it’s released! Just search “A Night Comes!” and all of the episodes will be there under podcasts! /shameless plug
That’s it for now. I’ll be updating again within the next couple of days, just for the sake of updating. ;]
Just a quick update…
Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that I’m definitely not dead; the current episode is just at a standstill as I wait on one last set of lines. The good news is that I have most everyone’s lines for the next TWO episodes, so episode seven and episode eight should both be (ideally) released within two weeks of each other.
Episode nine will see the end of the Haiji Arc, and then from there I’m going to be releasing a “remastered” episode one with the updated cast and with better mic quality from the cast and better mixing quality from me all-around. The one big worry I have when introducing the radioplay to new potential listeners is the fact that the quality of the first couple episodes could be better, mixing-wise.
For consistency, I’ll probably be giving all of the earlier episode the “redux” treatment (mainly because of the casting changes), but those will be mostly projects that I’ll be doing on the side. The main episodes will still continue to be released on a monthly basis (bi-weekly would be ideal, but everyone has lives!), with me possibly doing the remixed episodes while I’m waiting for lines from the cast and whatnot.
That’s it! I’m going to try and stay on top of this blog more than I have been, so stay tuned for cool things that aren’t just me rambling; in-depth character bios, cast Q&As, and how exactly I make this whole crazy business work. ‘Til next time!
The opening and ending songs…
While I’ve been mixing, I’ve been wondering about the opening and ending music for the audio drama. When I first started the project, it was a given that since the series itself is anime-influenced and is set up mostly like a full anime series (24-26 episodes planned), that I should add an opening and ending song, much like your typical anime episode.
Both songs are about two minutes each, and I’ve tried to integrate them both fairly seamlessly into the audio drama; the opening music (trivia! The opening song, A Night Comes!, is a remixed version of the opening song from the game that the audio drama is based on, and also happens to be Izumi’s cell phone ringtone) is played after the opening scene for that particular episode, and the ending music starts playing during the last thirty seconds or so of the audio drama.
But lately I’ve been wondering; do these two songs add to an episode, or does it detract from the listening experience? Do listeners listen to both of the songs all the way through, or do they skip the opening and go straight to the next scene? I decided to put a poll up for the listeners of the audio drama (and readers of the blog) to try and figure out the general consensus regarding the music. So do me a favor and vote!
Yes, you! IZUMI WANTS YOU…TO VOTE IN THIS POLL. Or she’ll mind wipe you. She told me so herself.
If you vote, thanks for taking the time to help improve the audio drama to be the best that it can be. And if you didn’t, well…let’s just say that you might have a memory lapse or two in the near future.
Anyway! If you’re looking for an update on the next episode, here it is: The recasts are finished, and we now have a brand new Makoto and Tsubasa, two very talented voice actors who definitely strengthen the cast as a whole. Right now, I’m in the process of mixing the lines that I do have, taking my time doing so because I’ll be at a standstill until I get my laptop (with pretty much all of my BGM and SFX files) up and running again. I’m thinking the next blog post might be about recasts, but you can never tell with me. Stay tuned!
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!
First post!
Hello, random internet-viewer, and welcome to the official production diary for A Night Comes! -Square of the Moon- The Audio Drama. Wow, that’s a liiiiittle bit long. Let’s just shorten that to ANC, shall we? Anyway, if you’ve stumbled across this blog, the chances are that you know all about audio dramas and the audio drama itself, and so you can skip the next paragraph or two. However, if you’ve never heard of an audio drama and you’re wondering “what the hell is ‘A Night Comes’ and why does it have such a strange name?”, then read on, dear…reader.
First, I’ll steal the definition for “audio drama” from Wikipedia, since every time I’ve tried explaining the concept, it devolves into “It’s like watching a TV show without the picture! Wait, no. Okay, uh…you know War of the Worlds, right? Like on the radio back before TVs? It’s like that. ” which usually leads to the person asking “Cool! So what radio station is it on?” “Uhh…” Whoa, digression. Anyway, Wikipedia in its infinite wisdom defines an audio drama as “a dramatic performance written and performed specifically for audio presentation. It had its greatest popularity on radio, before television was introduced.” Except these days there aren’t many radio stations playing things like The Shadow or War of the Worlds, so most people who are interested in the medium go the route of posting their productions up on the internet, whether it be via podcast or uploading it to a streaming audio website. From there, it can be downloaded and enjoyed by anyone willing to listen, so the process of making a production available to everyone is pretty painless. Creating an audio drama, however, is a completely different story…
And that’s what this blog is about; the creative process behind writing, casting, mixing, promoting, and distributing an audio drama. A Night Comes! -Square of the Moon- The Audio Drama is the story about a group of high school teenagers who have special abilities and use them to fight the Kasha, demons that appear due to a second moon that appears in the sky three years before the story begins. “X-Men with an anime twist” is what I’ve seen it described as, and really, that’s probably the best description for it. The plot sounds basic and paper-thin, but like any good story, what lurks beneath a lackluster summary lies an intricate and (attention: bias approaches!) fantastic story involving betrayal, friendship, heartbreak, surprises, and the occasional erased memory. I heard you groan a little there, oh weary role-playing gamer, but there’s no amnesiac hero in this story. I promise.
I’ll be posting anything in this blog from full blown ramblings about the story itself, my random musings about characters, and status updates as to when the next episode will be done. As of this post, six episodes are complete and episode seven is waiting in the wings. I think now’s a good time to stop for this introductory post. The next post will be about the audio drama came to be (and almost wasn’t!), and about the difficulties of adapting an existing story enough that it’s mostly considered your own. Stay tuned!
A Night Comes! The Production Diary 