So recently every VN I’ve read has left me wanting to rant or praise specific things in it. Whether it’s how a VN does an archetype I hate, or why a VN makes a perfect example for why a specific trope of Japanese VN’s can be great or just ruin the entire thing. But since this is a game blog I’ve avoided talking about any of them outside of those almost game VN’s I’ve thrown up, like Kara no Shojo. But even with those, I’ve never talked about the VN in any real depth, instead just going over the usual synopsis with a gameplay overview.

Reading Konosora(the fixed version, not the one on Steam. Don’t buy that one.), I found I had something I wanted to say about just about every route. So I figured, why not? Let’s rant. Honestly I should just go to forums and talk about this kind of stuff but meh. I’d prefer to just throw something up when the save goes up.

I’ll avoid spoiling the big moments and such. I’m more focusing on specific issues or good ideas I liked and wanted to point at and say “Isn’t that cool/horrible/stupid?” This isn’t a review, consider it more of a rant going heroine route by heroine route.

I guess a basic introduction of the game and characters is needed before I start ranting. Konosora, or If My Heart Had Wings, is a visual novel made by Pulltop from 2012, localized by Moenovel in 2013. Moenovel is Pulltop’s English localization branch. Moenovel is fairly infamous in the English localization scene for their over the top censorship acts, which have toned down greatly since Konosora’s release. In Konosora, Moenovel removed sex scenes, rewrote an entire route that was focused on a friends with benefits relationship, removed any sexual jokes, and got rid of kissing cgs. Kissing was censored! They claiming they wanted 12 year old french girls to be able to read the Vn, so they scrubbed any sexualization they could from a title that was 18+ only. It was also localized badly. Eventually fans restored the cut content and a true English patch was released that featured a proper translation.

As for the girls, you have 5. Kotori is the technical main heroine. She’s in a wheelchair, but loves the sky because of her name, which translates to little bird. Ageha, the normal childhood friend with a thing for building stuff. Amane, the real main heroine, is a chidlish genius and is far older then everyone else. Eventually you get Asa and Yoru, the twins with contrasting personalities. They are trying to build a glider to fly over a specific cloud formation.

Kotori(spoilers for the last five minutes of her route)- So Kotori is a pretty rare heroine, in that she has an obvious physical disability. I don’t want to go to in-depth in why I find that rare despite moege being about protection fantasies and all that, but whatever. Kotori’s route is probably the reason Moenovel chose Konosora(I’m sticking with the Japanese name, it’s quicker) as their first English project, despite the game having a route focused on sex friends. It’s one of those rare VN routes that has a theme that actually kind of matters and can teach an actual lesson beyond friendship and love are the greatest. One of those lessons you really want kids to learn before they ruin lives with there obliviousness.

Kotori’s theme is about reclaiming her future. She lost her ability to walk a few years back and when you meet her she’s at the lowest point in her life. She still has some self confidence, but her ability to get along with people, have hope in herself, and dream are basically gone. She truly believes that because of her feet she doesn’t deserve normal happiness, or at least she’ll never find it. Which is of course wrong, and the VN does a decent job of showing that despite her disability, she’s still human. She does eventually get her desire and reclaims her future via the Soaring Club, but then the VN kind of ruins her routes lesson. In the last five minutes of the VN, Kotori gets her legs back. This fits the game thematically, as she literally gets her future back as a result of the route’s events, but teaches a garbage lesson in hope that doesn’t help anyone.

This just might be me, but I’ve always found lessons in waiting to be bad. Waiting for prince charming or for your crush to notice you, waiting for your popular streak or some such are pretty bad ways to live. It’s a big part in why I hate childhood promise romances or main characters who won’t confess or move on from some random inciting event even though they are surrounded by interested girls. Kotori’s route basically ends with have hope, you’ll be fixed. It ignores the idea that her future was still obtainable in her wheelchair, and instead heals her for no good reason other then happy ending. And don’t get me started on the 1 in a million surgery non sense they bring up about her chances of recovery. VN writers have a tendency to value happy ending over what is more sensical or best for a character/lesson of life, though really all anime has that problem in the moe genre at least. At the very least the fandisc does bring up that she’s not entirely cured, she will likely need a cane the rest of her life. This lessens the whole miracle cure business of her ending and makes it more realistic, if still a tad to sweet as far as endings go.

Ageha– She makes no damn sense. Early in the game it’s revealed that the protagonist confessed to her before he moved away, and she turned him down. That combined with a bunch of other things leads to an aversion of wanting to enter a romantic relationship with him, but for some reason a physical one is fine. I don’t think it’s self worth, though that’s the only good reason I can think of. When she finally explains why she’s avoiding being the protag’s girlfriend, her entire reasoning sounded wrong. Like shouldn’t your reasoning be the exact opposite? If turning down the main character led to all your issues, wouldn’t doing that again just keep horrible things happening around you? I feel like her entire route is handled in the exact opposite way it should have based on her story. To be honest though, I only really read her background and a bit of her ending, I knew going in I wasn’t going to like her. Sex friends and temporary loves are pet peeves of mine in romantic stories, so even without her weird as hell drama I wouldn’t have like her.

Asa and Yoru/Asa(Harem) Route- First, I see a lot of people refer to Yoru’s route as a harem route, but it’s only the twins so it’s not. Two, Asa’s route might as well not exist. Seriously, Asa’s route is basically an excuse to give her two h scenes to herself, as that’s all that really happens in her story. Yoru’s has actual drama and character growth and is like twice as long as Asa’s. The fact that you have to read Asa before Yoru is weird. Usually you have to do that because of foreshadowing or to avoid spoilers for the locked route. Here? It’s just so that you see two h scenes for both sisters before the threesome. I do think the three way route makes sense, and its probably my favorite attempt at twins in VN’s, an archetype I tend to find done pretty poorly, usually because one of the twins is more of an addon then an actual focus character.

Amane– Her routes fine. No real complaints. I do want to bring up her age though. At one point in the story, Amane is stated to be almost double the age of the twins, but none of the people in her age group act or look like they are in their 30’s. The twins, at youngest, are 16 by the end of the story, and Amane is not 32. The twins did not skip grades, as Asa is not smart enough for that so they should be 15-16 at the start of the story. So we know Amane stayed in school longer then she should have, but it’s never stated how long that is. We do know that the reason Amane is stuck in the school happened 5 or so years ago. So if Amane was in her final year at this 5 year highschool, then she started repeating at around 21. Add a year for the year the story skips over, and about 4 or 5 for her repeating and you get 27 at best. So I doubt the authors ever really thought about how old Amane actually is other then her being older then the rest of the cast, but she is not double the age of the twins.

Last thing though. The game makes a pretty big deal about the school being barrier free so that Kotori has a reason to be their. But wouldn’t a school that size have more then a single girl who needs the school to be that way? The people in the school make a big deal about Kotori being wheelchair bound, like she’s the only one in the entire school. That’s kinda ridiculous.

Save– has saves to all the routes.