2020 was a rough year for the whole world. COVID hit a lot of industries hard, and that includes the Japanese visual novel business. I say “even” because visual novels theoretically shouldn’t be affected by the pandemic. Selling software, collaborating online, selling through online stores, and the customer base is all otaku who can’t be bothered to go outside—by all rights, the industry should’ve been totally fine. Unfortunately, the actual visual novel market doesn’t work that way. Because visual novels live and die by first-week sales, and first-week sales don’t depend on game quality at all—they depend entirely on the bonus merch driving purchases. And bonuses are tied to specific retail stores, which means, surprise, you’re back to physical storefronts. It’s 2020 and software sales still rely on brick-and-mortar. Only in Japan, I swear. Saga Planets, though, doesn’t seem worried about money. Their previous title Kinkoi was a huge success and clearly raked in a mountain of cash. Rumor has it Saga Planets split from Visual Arts (Key’s parent company) and went independent. They’re really flying high now. My guess is they’ve gone back to the “money is no object” phase. Remember what happened last time Saga Planets had money to burn? Yeah, you know where this is going. Last time it was Karumaruka. This time, probably because Kinkoi did so well, they made Kakenuke★Seishun Sparking!