Kanon

I absolutely love Kanon. It has amazing stories, decent graphics(considering it was released in 1999 and the images still look good, good character designs and music which I loved so much, that I have most of the soundtrack on my Ipod.
The name comes from Pachelbel's Kanon. It's a pretty famous song i'm sure most people have heard

The story of Kanon is based around the main character, Yuichi Aizawa. A 17 year old boy who has moved back to a town he lived in 7 years prior to the start of the Novel.
He meets 5 girls who are all connected to him:
Ayu Tsukimiya, the main heroine, is a short, mysterious girl who wears a winged backpack and red hair band. She likes eating Taiyaki, refers to herself with the masculine first-person pronoun boku, and is known for her catch phrase, "ugū", which she says to express negative emotions;
Nayuki Minase, who is Yuichi's cousin. A slow girl who is always sleepy and tends to state the obvious;
Makoto Sawatari, a girl with amnesia and can only remember hating Yuichi. She is mischievous and when she is caught pulling pranks she says "Aū" but she says that she doesn't notice herself saying it. She refers to herself in third person which Yuichi isn't very fond of;
Shiori Misaka, who is away from school due to an illness. She is the younger sister of Kaori Misaka, one of Yuichi's classmates.
She likes to eat Ice-Cream even though it is freezing outside;
and Mai Kawasumi, a third year who is known for smashing windows at night. She carries a sword during the night and is a fan of Gyudon. She knows little of emotions and doesn't talk much, but her friend Sayuri Kurata can somehow tell Mai's unchangeable expressions.

There are 6 good ends for the 5 main girls and Sayuri, and each one is as emotional as each other as you'd expect from Key's work. My favorite endings are Mai's and Nayuki's.
The artwork isn't as great as the 2006 anime adaption or any of Key's more recent Visual Novels but it is beautiful. Especially the eyes and the way lighting is done.
When I play Kanon I use the ps2 sounds which include amazing voice acting and high definition background music. I loved Last regrets and Girl's prison the most but a few other songs stood out for me such as Omen, when I wait for the wind, afterglow and Seafog Mukai.
You can Listen to the ost here
The only downside I can think of is the fact that some parts of peoples routes can make others seem a bit boring. An example of this is lunchtimes. If you do Mai's route first lunchtimes in other routes become boring as well as the night of the ball, and the amazing jokes through Nayuki's story are left out in other routes leaving them seem a bit more plain.
However the jokes and pranks, lovable characters, emotional scenes, beautiful artwork and wonderfully composed music all fit together so well making this my favorite Visual Novel and favorite video game.

That's all I can really say about this game without giving the story away. If you haven't played the visual novel or seen the anime I highly recommend it. A little tip for people starting the Visual novel: Do Mai last. It has the most stuff going on and it makes a few days in other routes seem boring.
-Daggerd
-Rating 5/5
-Age Rating Adult +18
(Note: there is an all ages version)
http://cecilsanimevisualnovelreview.blogspot.com

Kanon is a wickedly cool Manga to watch I totally enjoyed it from beginin to end,
the characters are all cool an very colorful,
I would love to have a group of friends like that,

I totally give this 5 stars

Kanon (カノン?) is a Japanese visual novel developed by Key and originally released as an adult game on June 4, 1999, playable on a Microsoft Windows PC. An all ages version for the PC was released in January 2000, and was later ported to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable. The Kanon Standard Edition was released for the PC as an adult version in November 2004 and an all ages version in January 2005. Both Standard Editions are playable as a DVD-ROM and incorporate the extra graphics added to the earlier all ages version of the game, added support for Windows 2000/XP, and other technical changes such as more save slots. The gameplay in Kanon follows a linear plot line, which offers pre-determined scenarios and courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the five female main characters.

Kanon has been adapted into light novels, drama CDs, and two anime and manga series. The first anime is a thirteen episode TV series that aired between January and March 2002; this version includes a one episode original video animation (OVA), Kazahana, released in March 2003. Both the original anime adaptation and the OVA were produced by the animation studio Toei Animation. The second anime adaptation, created by Kyoto Animation, contained twenty-four episodes and aired in Japan between October 2006 and March 2007; this series was first licensed by ADV Films, but the license was transferred to Funimation in July 2008 and is released in English. The second TV adaptation plays on the association between Kanon and the musical term canon by using Pachelbel's Kanon D-dur, or Canon in D major, as a background piece at certain instances throughout the series.


In the October 2007 issue of Dengeki G's Magazine, poll results for the fifty best bishōjo games were released; out of 249 titles, Kanon ranked fifth with seventy-one votes. According to a national ranking of how well bishōjo games sold nationally in Japan, the original Kanon release for the PC premiered at number two in the ranking. Three years later in June 2002, the original release ranked in again at forty-five, and then again at forty-six the following two weeks. Kanon has sold over 300,000 units across several platforms, not counting the PSP release.


Plot......

Setting and themes...

There are several important locations featured in the Kanon story, though the location names are seldom mentioned explicitly in Key's works. The time of year the story occurs in is during winter, and since it often snows periodically over the course of the entire story, the city is always presented covered in a layer of snow. The shopping district is featured throughout the story when the characters go into town, and especially whenever Ayu appears in the early story. The high school where Yuichi and the other main characters attend, including the school grounds, is shown predominantly in Shiori's and Mai's stories, and is otherwise a general setting where Yuichi interacts with other characters.

Principal characters.....

The player assumes the role of Yuichi Aizawa, the protagonist of Kanon. He is a cynical seventeen year-old high school student, and is known to play jokes on the girls his age he knows and interacts with throughout the story. Despite this, Yuichi is very loyal and will go to great lengths to please others, even at the expense of his own time and money. He generally has a selfless personality and does not ask much from others in return for what he does for them. Ayu Tsukimiya, the main heroine of Kanon, is a short, strange, and mysterious girl immediately recognizable by her winged backpack, red hair band, and tendency to refer to herself with the masculine first-person pronoun boku (僕?). She has a fondness for eating taiyaki, and is notorious for her catch phrase, "ugū" (うぐぅ?), which she mutters as an expression of various negative emotions such as frustration, pain, and fear. Yuichi's first cousin Nayuki Minase, another of Kanon's heroines, has been in love with him since childhood, and must learn how to deal with her feelings, especially with the threat that he may fall in love with one of the other girls. Nayuki talks noticeably slower than those around her, and has constant trouble waking up in the morning except on a few occasions when she is up before Yuichi, much to his surprise

Story...........

Kanon's story revolves around a group of five girls whose lives are connected to the same boy. Yuichi Aizawa is a second-year high school student who had visited the city where the story takes place seven years prior to Kanon's beginning. The story opens on Wednesday January 6, 1999[1] when Yuichi arrives in the city and is very detached from it and its inhabitants. Prior to his return, it is decided that he is to stay with his first cousin, Nayuki Minase, and her mother, Akiko. After his long absence, Yuichi has forgotten almost everything except minor details of what happened seven years before and is in need of being reminded of what he left behind. Nayuki initially tries repeatedly to jog his memory, but is unsuccessful. Throughout the story, as he learns about the supernatural undertones of the city, Yuichi is reminded of the events of seven years ago.

On the day after Yuichi's return, he is out with Nayuki who is showing him around city. Nayuki remembers that she has to buy things for dinner, but Yuichi is reluctant to go into the store with her, arguing that he might get lost. Moments after Nayuki leaves him waiting on the sidewalk, a strange girl named Ayu Tsukimiya collides with him with little warning. Upon recovering, she drags him away to a nearby café and confesses to inadvertently stealing a bag filled with taiyaki after being accidentally scared away by the salesman before she had a chance to pay. Yuichi drags Ayu back to the salesman, where they both apologize for the trouble, and Ayu is forgiven. They decide to meet up again another day and Ayu scampers off. A few days after he has been in the city, Yuichi is accosted by a girl named Makoto Sawatari who has lost her memories, though still remembers that she has a grudge against him from when he last visited the city. After she collapses in the street, he takes her home and learns about her situation. Akiko gives her permission to live with them for the time being, which is against Yuichi's plan to hand her over to the police.

Another girl who is connected to Yuichi's past is Mai Kawasumi who attends his high school as a third-year. She takes it upon herself to fight and defeat demons at night while the school is deserted.[9] Due to this, she is constantly blamed for accidents because she never denies them, being too sincere to say anything and knowing that no one will believe that there are demons in the school. Yuichi coincidentally meets a fifth girl named Shiori Misaka for the first time who he gets to know along with the other four heroines in the story. She has suffered from an unexplained affliction since birth which makes her weak to the point of missing school because of it. Yuichi starts to talk with her more after noticing her in the school courtyard one day. It turns out that Shiori stands outside on the school grounds nearly every day because she wants to meet someone dear to her.


Anime......

The first Kanon anime was produced by the Japanese animation studio Toei Animation and directed by Takamichi ItoThirteen episodes[
were produced and aired in Japan between January 31 and March 28, 2002.[53] Later, a single original video animation (OVA) episode entitled "Kanon Kazahana" was released in March 2003.[54] The anime series and OVA used the songs "Florescence" and "Flower" for the opening and ending themes, respectively. While it does not appear as the ending theme in the first twelve episodes or in the OVA, the game's ending theme "Where the Wind Reaches" is used as the ending theme for the series in episode thirteen.[55] Additionally, the game's opening theme "Last regrets" is played near the end of episode thirteen during the flashback scene.

Starting in 2006, Kyoto Animation, the animators of another Key game-turned-anime, Air, decided to animate a new adaptation of Kanon. This version, directed by Tatsuya Ishihara,[56] aired between October 5, 2006 and March 15, 2007 on the Japanese television broadcasting station BS-i, containing twenty-four episodes.[57] ADV Films announced on September 21, 2007 at the Anime Weekend Atlanta anime convention that they have officially licensed the second Kanon anime series.[58] ADV had previously posted a trailer for the series in August 2007, but was soon taken offline once the news had been spread on the Internet.[59] The first English-dubbed episode was made available via streaming online at Anime News Network between December 23 and December 30, 2007.[60] In July 2008, the licensing rights of the second Kanon anime were transferred from ADV to Funimation Entertainment who continued to produce the series in North America


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