Hatsuyuki Sakura: The Wishes of the Living, the Sighs of the Dead (Spoilers)

I first heard about Hatsuyuki Sakura from a year-end ACG ranking on Niconico back in the day, where it was pushed to the top spot of the year. I didn’t bother checking whether that ranking was legit, authoritative, or botted—just took a quick look. Chinese info on the game was pitifully sparse at the time, since there was no translation yet. All I knew was that it probably involved ghosts and might be dark.

Later I saw people’s takes on it in a few places, including forums like Fuyu no Yuki and Reddit, and they all used the same phrase: “heartwarming.”

I know how that works. Just like Urobuchi’s “healing,” it means the game is 99% not a pure happy-go-lucky route.

After that I stopped looking into it. I just knew there was this game, ghost-related, dark-leaning, best of the year. That was it.

Then on December 23, 2013, I finally saw the Chinese translation. Thanks to the translation group. I’d also bought a Win8 tablet—right time, right place, right people—and with expectations of a dark route, I clicked the game open.

So recently I finally finished the game. Honestly it didn’t take me that long, but I have to say, it was completely different from what I expected… and I almost understand why people called it heartwarming. It really is heartwarming, in two senses.

Hatsuyuki Sakura

Honestly, the story’s opening left me purely confused… way too many mysteries. How did the heroine show up, why does the protagonist want revenge, what exactly is Ghostchild, why can the protagonist be seen by so many people despite nominally being a ghost—and what really threw me was that my first playthrough ended in a Bad End. And there wasn’t even any choice to make; the protagonist kills himself, the heroine goes dark and says she’s the one who actually wants revenge.

What the hell is this! Is this what they call going dark?

I have to admit I’m pretty averse to the recent wave of elementary schoolers jumping on bandwagons, and I even kind of felt this might be one of those games that gets hyped as a masterpiece by kids because it has too many Bad Ends.

Of course, that conclusion was way too early.

Then I started the second, third, fourth playthroughs, cleared Kosakai Aya, Azuma Yoru, Shirokuma, and Shinonome Nozomi’s routes, and my feelings got more and more complicated. The truth was like a puzzle—fragments picked up in each branch slowly came together…

The final Graduation option is the path to the True End. I took a deep breath and started the ending, but actually reaching it made me even more restless… The last piece of the truth was way too big and heavy.

The protagonist is Kono Hatsuyuki, the heroine is Tamaki Sakura, and the game is Hatsuyuki Sakura. Naturally, it’s their story.

As kids they met for the first time and, due to adults’ political machinations, were betrothed. Even so, they didn’t think much of it… Then an explosion killed the heroine and many others at the banquet, leaving the protagonist alone.

The heroine’s soul couldn’t dissipate, and neither could the souls of the banquet’s victims facing sudden death. Resentment gathered, the heroine became the leader of the ghosts—GhostChild. And the protagonist, because of his revenge-hungry father, was forcibly sucked full of ghosts and turned into another artificial GhostChild with a physical body.

“Three years later, in winter, you will kill the mastermind behind the explosion in the name of GhostChild, and avenge all the wrongly dead souls.” The protagonist was fed this idea, raised by ghosts from childhood—when originally it should have been the heroine, who became the real Ghostchild, who did it.

A living dead person and a dead living person, that’s probably what it means. But even so, they’re separated by life and death—the protagonist can’t see the heroine, while she’s always watching over him as a ghost.

The exorcist couldn’t dispel the heroine and the massive resentment of the dead she carried, so the exorcist made an offer:

“I can grant your wish. Would you be willing to dissipate then?”

“I want a real body, to be able to touch him, and for him to see me. I want to spend some time with him. Even just a little is enough.”

The wish was granted. The heroine descended into the world of the living and met the protagonist, but she lost her memories.

The game’s prologue begins.

For some reason, the heroine always wants to hold the protagonist’s hand, to cling to him. It’s not being pushy—it’s instinct. After all, they used to do this all the time as kids, back when they were both alive.

After they fall in love, the heroine regains her memories, but even so she doesn’t want to talk about it. She knows she’s about to disappear, time is short, and she wants to be with the protagonist as much as possible.

But in the end the protagonist remembers too—too late. Time’s up. The heroine dissipates her soul as promised, releasing all the lingering ghosts.

And the protagonist isn’t truly dead himself. Freed from the souls possessing his body, he’s saved, but he can never see the heroine again.

The story ends with that regret—lovers separated by life and death, after just one winter together, are apart again.

The comforting part is that the heroine still watches over the protagonist. In his graduation photo, people notice a happy Tamaki Sakura hugging his arm and smiling.

I don’t know if this counts as a Happy End. To be precise, it’s a lot like Liaozhai… ghost and human, human and ghost, they fall in love and then separate again because of their fundamental difference. But Hatsuyuki Sakura handles it with a unique charm. It holds back all the early suspense and saves it for one final explosion, which makes you feel… how should I put it? Warm and fuzzy? No, more like a punch to the gut.

Someone once said that the main tool of a gripping story is an imperfect ending, and by that measure Hatsuyuki Sakura definitely delivers.

Growth and Graduation

The story of Kono Hatsuyuki and Tamaki Sakura should be the main line of the whole game—that’s what I thought from the start. But after finishing it, I feel the author wasn’t just trying to tell that one story.

The game’s English title is White Graduation, and all the other routes are full of the word “graduation.” Every route’s ending arrives at graduation. Whether it’s Aya-senpai, Azuma Yoru, Shinonome Nozomi, or Shirokuma, even the final route’s button is called Graduation.

Looking back, I realized—Hatsuyuki and Sakura’s romance might just be the hook. What the author really wanted to describe is exactly a story about growth and graduation.

The other heroines’ routes explain a lot of the story’s origins. Kosakai Aya’s route is a prequel of sorts, explaining why the protagonist is seen as a delinquent and his transformation from a naive kid to maturity. I think Aya is the most successfully written character in the whole game. She shows us what a truly strong woman is. Unlike the usual tsundere senior, she’s always calm—even when the protagonist pushes her down, she looks like she’s got everything under control. That innate dominance and kingly aura, that’s what it is. It’s because of her that the protagonist grows. But after going through so much with him, she’s saved and forgets her memories of him, only to meet him again as a stranger. Well, another imperfect ending.

Honestly, imperfect endings are everywhere in each heroine’s route. In Azuma Yoru’s route the protagonist disappears as a ghost, same with Shirokuma’s. Shinonome Nozomi’s is a bit better—she sees the protagonist again at graduation, but he disappears again. After all, the protagonist is the king of ghosts; only Tamaki Sakura can save him. Otherwise, he can only disappear.

And the protagonist’s character is exactly the author’s fairly complete take on graduation.

From the start the protagonist was fed the concept of “revenge,” so I thought this was a story of love and hate. But the story goes completely the other way. The protagonist himself isn’t that interested in revenge—he doesn’t even know why he should take revenge. It’s just the wandering souls around him egging him on: “You’re the king of ghosts, your mission is revenge, blah, blah, blah.” He goes to school only because he promised someone, and he has no interest in further education. He knows he’ll complete his revenge in three years, at graduation, and destroy everything. No future, so no graduation.

I used to get annoyed at the plot because there was so much school slice-of-life, so many interactions and activities with various people. “Why aren’t they unfolding those mysteries yet?” I wanted to complain more than once. But looking back now, when the protagonist finally gives up revenge, is saved, and chooses to graduate and start a new life, remembering those everyday school days, with the final Ghost Graduation song playing, the tears hit me out of nowhere.

Some things you only realize are precious when you’re about to say goodbye forever.

Personally, Kosakai Aya, Shinonome Nozomi, and even Shirokuma’s routes all tie into the main plot to varying degrees, while Azuma Yoru’s story has nothing to do with the main line, yet the developers gave her the longest branch. Maybe it’s just the author’s taste (lol).

Character Design, Music, and Other Stuff

The character design in Hatsuyuki Sakura is great. I don’t know if it has any connection to Yuzusoft, but no matter how you look at it, it really resembles Yuzusoft’s art style.

But look closely and there’s a difference—Yuzusoft girls always have their mouths open…

Music needs no comment. I’d give it full marks. You can go find it on Spotify.

http://www.xiami.com/album/519044@@H11@@

Especially the ED, Ghost Graduation. Listen to it enough and you really feel like crying.

Honestly, the plot of Hatsuyuki Sakura could totally be arranged in a single line, but the game chose a fragmentary presentation. Normally, this kind of here-a-bit-there-a-bit approach should leave you confused, but actually I had no confusion at all—maybe because I was immersed in the game.

The Chinese translation isn’t great, I have to say. It’s just that there’s a lot of profanity. Probably to reflect the protagonist’s “delinquent” personality, they used quite a few swear words, but translating “baka” as “shabi” is a bit much. Still, the translation quality gets back on track in Sakura’s route, so it doesn’t hurt the experience. Anyway, I have to thank the translation group for letting a Japanese-illiterate like me experience this game.

The theme of graduation runs through the whole game. The existence of the career guidance committee is also set up for graduation. Everyone’s graduation in the story comes with their own growth. Azuma Yoru chooses not to run from herself anymore, Kosakai Aya chooses to let go of her guilt toward her brother, Shinonome Nozomi stops lacking confidence, and Shirokuma… uh, well, she just grew up.

The protagonist’s graduation is more important. He abandons his boring past life, discovers he’s been protected by someone, and starts facing the future positively.

Many people complain a lot that Hatsuyuki Sakura has no true Happy End, but I think this ending is actually a rather gentle one. There’s no excessive bloodshed in the story—many scenes could have had gory CGs, but they didn’t make them. Clearly the developers deliberately avoided sensory stimulation, just wanting to properly tell this slightly sad story. And in fact, it’s precisely because it’s sad that it leaves you restless. There’s a rumor online that Hatsuyuki Sakura has a true true end—a beautiful lie. Having hope is always good.

The Melancholy and Hope of 1095 Days

The game mentions 1095 days multiple times. 365 x 3 = 1095, exactly three years. The story even makes me recall my own school life a bit…

Ashamed to say, apart from second year of middle school, I don’t have many deep memories from other periods. I even graduated with an attitude of escape. Even so, only after starting work can I feel that even a boring school life was way better than the shitty work environment now.

Tamaki Sakura fulfilled her wish and became the soul watching over the protagonist. Is there also a soul watching over me?

Thinking and logic are delicate things. Some things, if you believe they exist, they really do. You can call it self-satisfaction and self-comfort, but isn’t that how adjusting to life and emotions works too?

There’s an insurmountable gap between the living and the dead, but as long as you believe, you can still watch over each other. Fulfill the wishes of the living, and let the dead sigh no more.

Believe that you’re always being watched over and protected by some soul. Live each day seriously, and welcome the graduation and future of every stage of your life.