Otome Game 'Norn9' to Receive Anime Adaptation

by Dunois
Mar 2, 2014 4:14 AM | 116 Comments

According to reports by the attendees, it was announced at the NORN9 with Ark & for Spica fan event that the Sony PSP game NORN9 Norun+Nonetto will get an anime adaptation. The game features music by Nobuo Uematsu with arrangement by Kevin Penkin and theme songs by Nagi Yanagi. The character design is handled by Teita (Juuzaengi ~Engetsu Sangokuden~).

Synopsis:
The story takes place a little in the future. Guided by one particular song, young elementary school student Suzuhara Sorata, from the Heisei Era, is warped through a time skip to an unfamiliar place that looks much like the towns from the Meiji or Taishou period from his textbooks. In this world, he meets three young ladies and nine young men and joins them on a journey aboard the mysterious Norn ship, a giant globe that floats in midair.

Game main cast:
Sorata Suzuhara: Atsushi Abe

(Heroines)
Koharu: Ayumi Fujimura
Mikoto Kuga: Ayahi Takagaki
Nanami Shiranui: Asami Seto

(Heroes)
Kakeru Yuiga: Yuki Kaji
Senri Ichinose: Hiro Shimono
Touya Masamune: Takuya Satou

Natsuhiko Azuma: Daisuke Ono
Sakuya Nijou: Mitsuki Saiga
Itsuki Kagami: Kouji Yusa

Shukuri Akito: Sugiyama Noriaki
Ron Muroboshi: Tomokazu Sugita
Heishi Otomaru: Hiroyuki Yoshino

Source: Yaraon

News submitted by Shadow-Chan

Norn9: Norn + Nonet on MAL

New Anime

20 of 116 Comments Recent Comments

Hahalollawl said:

One potential problem with this is the number of characters. 13 characters is a lot, if they all have significant roles. I'm not sure significant character development can be done on that many characters even in a two cour show. This may be an arbitrary number but for me anything more than 10 important characters seems unlikely to be conducive to good character development and/or interesting characters. Or the show might be all over the place and confusing.

This is my biggest fear as well. If they try to cram everything in 13 episodes...nah, I can't see it working out.

Hahalollawl said:
Also, the gender imbalance is a problem for me too. Maybe it's because I'm a dude, but this seems to be a sausage fest (10 male 3 female?). Something more equal would be preferable to me.

I understand your feelings. I feel the same way when a lot of anime are announced.

Hahalollawl said:
Also, I tend to prefer older characters in general, so lolis and young boys are not usually my favorite. Though it doesn't necessarily automatically make a show bad.

I also prefer older characters.

Mar 27, 2014 10:42 PM by phoenixalia

phoenixalia said:

Hahalollawl said:

High expectations for Yanagi Nagi, she has become one of my favs. Beautiful voice.

By the way, what's up with the little kid male character trope lately? SoreSekai and now this? To each his/her own, but I'm not particularly into that trend. I guess Ao Haru Ride is the one to look forward to for those of us intrigued by a shoujo romance but who want a male character who isn't elementary school age...

Oh, but, the little kid isn't a love interest at all, afaik. He's just there in the beginning and the end I think. We'll have grown up bishies don't worry. xD

About SoreSekai, I'm with you on that. xD I adore older male x younger female but vie versa is a no-no for me. But I'm not going to be avoiding SoreSeka just because of that since it's rare for any kind of shoujo romance manga to get adapted into an animein the first place. If Hakusensha(the company which owns SoreSekai) makes an anime of Fukumenkei Noise(which I think they should, as it's only two volumes long but already selling 50k copies in Japan), it would be amazing.

One potential problem with this is the number of characters. 13 characters is a lot, if they all have significant roles. I'm not sure significant character development can be done on that many characters even in a two cour show. This may be an arbitrary number but for me anything more than 10 important characters seems unlikely to be conducive to good character development and/or interesting characters. Or the show might be all over the place and confusing.

Also, the gender imbalance is a problem for me too. Maybe it's because I'm a dude, but this seems to be a sausage fest (10 male 3 female?). Something more equal would be preferable to me.

Also, I tend to prefer older characters in general, so lolis and young boys are not usually my favorite characters. Though it doesn't necessarily automatically make a show bad.

Mar 27, 2014 4:01 PM by Hahalollawl

Mar 27, 2014 1:33 PM by phoenixalia

The cast is somewhat interesting, but perhaps the most interesting part is...

Dunois said:
theme songs by Nagi Yanagi.

High expectations for Yanagi Nagi, she has become one of my favs. Beautiful voice.

By the way, what's up with the little kid male character trope lately? SoreSekai and now this? To each his/her own, but I'm not particularly into that trend. I guess Ao Haru Ride is the one to look forward to for those of us intrigued by a shoujo romance but who want a male character who isn't elementary school age...

Mar 27, 2014 12:48 PM by Hahalollawl

precious said:

orchidork said:

sweetangie said:
How come there's no link adaptation for this title in here in MAL yet?

i sent in a request for mal db admins to add norn9 go the db but they told me that they weren't gonna add it until they had more information about the adaptation

based on the news opening post, they've got plenty of information already, don't they?
the only thing I want to know is which studio will be in charge for it

Otomate could be turning it into an OVA like they did for Juuza Engi(still really pissed about that).

Mar 27, 2014 10:28 AM by phoenixalia

orchidork said:

sweetangie said:
How come there's no link adaptation for this title in here in MAL yet?

i sent in a request for mal db admins to add norn9 go the db but they told me that they weren't gonna add it until they had more information about the adaptation

based on the news opening post, they've got plenty of information already, don't they?
the only thing I want to know is which studio will be in charge for it

Mar 27, 2014 9:11 AM by Vanessa-

Dunois said:

(Heroes)
Kakeru Yuiga: Yuki Kaji

Enough for me to watch.

Mar 26, 2014 6:30 PM by busan

sweetangie said:
How come there's no link adaptation for this title in here in MAL yet?

i sent in a request for mal db admins to add norn9 go the db but they told me that they weren't gonna add it until they had more information about the adaptation

Mar 26, 2014 6:29 PM by orchidork

pennyiscute said:
Based on the fact that it's a otome game adaptation, does this mean it's like Amnesia, Brothers Conflict or Arcana Famiglia; lots of male interests and NO romantic ending(s).

Depends on the studio that makes it. I know Hiiro no Kakera and La Corda (manga) ended with a couple at least. Utapri seemed like it was leaning towards one male (Tokiya)

Mar 26, 2014 7:20 AM by Mayuka

sweetangie said:
How come there's no link adaptation for this title in here in MAL yet?

Mar 25, 2014 7:36 PM by Mayuka

How come there's no link adaptation for this title in here in MAL yet?

Mar 25, 2014 7:16 PM by sweetangie

i picked up this game recently and i'm enjoying it a lot so far so i'll be looking forward to this! i just really hope they don't turn the heroines into doormats though :\

Red_Keys said:
And people keep saying things about the "three heroins".. but even though this is an Otome game, isn't the main character that little boy?

lmao hardly. the little boy shows up for the prologue and hardly shows up during the main routes when the point of view is shifted to the heroines. he only becomes important again later on in the epilogue.

Mar 9, 2014 12:20 AM by Syumai

Red_Keys said:
And people keep saying things about the "three heroins".. but even though this is an Otome game, isn't the main character that little boy?

Well, the story is told from his perspective in the prologue and epilogue, but everything else is experienced from the point of view of one of the heroines. :O After all routes are cleared, Sorata's epilogue is unlocked which basically clears up the prologue. (And just because it's the "epilogue" doesn't mean that there's no proper (plot-related) ending in the actual routes)

Mar 8, 2014 1:06 PM by Face_Faith

Red_Keys said:

Also, for a non-weeb like me, can somebody explain what years the "Heisei Era" and "Meiji or Taishou period" are?

wikipedia

phoenixalia said:

Yeah, this kind of worries me too. A lot. They can't be thinking of making this into a 12 episode anime. This needs 24 episodes. Or God forbid, they turn this into a completely worthless OVA.

If they make it into a one cour anime, they need a really good script writer to fit everything without it feeling rushed and- oh my gosh, this anime is doomed isn't it? xD

if they want to make this show even half decent, it has to be at least 24 episodes especially with that cast of characters. the story's pretty confusing and it's gonna take more than 12 episodes to get through it all. but that's me being idealistic

Mar 6, 2014 6:59 PM by orchidork

Red_Keys said:
With such a large cast, I doubt this will amount to anything greater than scenery porn. Assuming the visuals are on par with what's on the website.

Yeah, this kind of worries me too. A lot. They can't be thinking of making this into a 12 episode anime. This needs 24 episodes. Or God forbid, they turn this into a completely worthless OVA.

If they make it into a one cour anime, they need a really good script writer to fit everything without it feeling rushed and- oh my gosh, this anime is doomed isn't it? xD

Mar 6, 2014 9:47 AM by phoenixalia

With such a large cast, I doubt this will amount to anything greater than scenery porn. Assuming the visuals are on par with what's on the website.

And people keep saying things about the "three heroins".. but even though this is an Otome game, isn't the main character that little boy?

Also, for a non-weeb like me, can somebody explain what years the "Heisei Era" and "Meiji or Taishou period" are?

Mar 6, 2014 9:40 AM by Red_Keys

Laciie said:
Oh, interesting, I actually didn't know that it's reception was so good considering Amazon's reviews for the game (which weren't so great). All I've heard about the game from my friend is that the art is great (which I can see for myself) and the music is beautiful but the story is kind of confusing but most characters are likeable.

Since I haven't played the game myself here's a review made by a blogger I follow: [url]http://breadmasterlee.com/2013/06/14/otome-game-review-norn9-norn-nonette/[/url]

Ah, yes, some parts were confusing, but it makes more sense after playing the first route and even more after the epilogue. There are still a few unclear things for me but that may change with the fandisk.
And thanks for the link, I took some notes regarding things I need to pay attention to during the anime/fandisk/possible replay. I actually wanted to read some reviews right after my playthrough but at that time there was only someone who reviewed two characters... ^^° (I suppose I could have also looked for a Japanese reviewer, but rather than a review, there is more often a -- compared to English writers short -- text about their feelings on the characters/game which wouldn't have been satisfying for me)
I noticed the reviewer misunderstood something very important, which also happens in this person's reviews of other games which is why I'm not really surprised, and is thus having big troubles with the timeline, so I stopped reading around there toward the end.
*heavy spoiler*

And now that I've read the whole thing (well, most), I think the author of the review is seeing inconsistencies where the creators didn't mean these things to be perceived as such...
In the game, you end up choosing a heroine and one of the three guys assigned to her and in the meantime of the route with your guy, it would be strange if the heroines wouldn't be doing anything, either. So in some routes you may catch a glimpse of one of the other heroines making progress with one of the three guys "available" to her. I was wondering if such things were occuring before playing the game and I think it's better not to worry too much about the other heroines' relationships during one's own route. It's best to look at the whole thing as parallel worlds, which makes everything the easiest to explain in these sorts of games lol. I mean there are good and bad endings, both are possible, so if in your route (AxB) there's a side pairing (CxD) but the same doesn't apply vice versa (playing CxD but also encountering AxB in the background) and it smells like plot hole, there should also be the possibility for the side pairing not to occur in the first scenario which would in turn validate the second one not being vice versa (but doesn't exclude the vice versa situation).

Frostav said:

Face_Faith said:

I heard how that happens a lot in R18 otome games, and along with that there seem to be many aspects that make the game look like it was intended for a male audience instead O.o I can only think (if that's true, that is) of the creators not being sure what to do... o.o Which reminds me of how male authors had supposedly trouble writing shoujo manga until female authors got popular or something, but since I haven't played an R18 otome game, I have no idea how many women (and men) are actually involved in such productions... (Not that I usually pay much attention to the credits, though)

Why do you not want to admit that this kind of thing is apprently liked by the women who buy these games?

Look, that is the most ****ed up way to explain, but given how often rape themes show up in yaoi, even more in yaoi fanfic, and often in even non-R18 shoujo manga, apparently there are a lot of women who want to fantasize about these kinds of things. Personally rape immensely turns me off (though I love passionate stuff like pinning your lover to the wall and kissing them, don't know how that goes with you), but this stuff sells.

I don't play many Otoge--actually, I've played none, but as a bisexual male I have an interest in checking one out. I might watch this, but it'll probably be shafted like so many VN adaptions (becuase shitty adaptions aren't endemic to just Otoge, Otaku VNs get them all the time).

The guys are cute, but I hope they don't make the protags some utterly spineless wimps, I get that enough in Otaku VNs and it's honestly a lot creepier/nasty with a feMC. When will they cut out the middleman and give me my BL anime....

Any shotas/younger boys amongst the 9 hot dudes? I always go for shota first.

U~n, I seem to have expressed myself inaccurately... If that's the case, I apologise.
*spoiler because wall of text*

I do think that there are people (or talking specifically in this case, women) who may be into that. I'm not denying that at all. People are individuals so of course that is the case.
It's just that where I read about this topic, rape (and other possibly problematic aspects) was described to be frequent to the point of it being barely avoidable at all among R18 otome games, but -- surely there may be players who like that -- if it's even hard to find an exception to this sort of thing, it sounds like all (adult) players are into such themes. And if there are so many successful otome games which aren't R18 (often for all ages or for at least 12 year olds) and instead rather "pure", why shouldn't there be an R18 otome game treating issues such as consent in a respectable matter? At the same time, if these themes of R18 otome games mirrored the ones (adult) otome game players enjoyed that much -- if many different companies decide to stick to themes like rape, you'd think that the costumers are content with that --, you would have more games like, uh, DiaLovers or something among the non-R18 ones (and otome game players in their 20s and 30s make up a big part). It was also said there that this isn't a problem for doujin game creators (which I cannot verify).

The people who were talking about their experience with the R18 otome games tried to categorise the problematic aspects and rape was only one of them. My reply earlier was made considering the whole list, not just looking at rape. Among the other points listed, some were addressing how without fail, the producers managed to draw attention to the heroine instead of the actual assumed object of affection (the guy). I could confirm this perspective when googling to apply to many Japanese players as well. As for something specific, the way CGs were constructed was mentioned by them. That's also something I've been noticing in the regular otome games which I play, but it appears to have been done in a much more blatant way for R18 otome games. So while there may be players who like such themes (rape etc.), they seemed to occur together with the other points listed that would among other things please a male, not female, (heterosexual) audience. And because this way about creating the R18 games feels so much different from regular otome games and themes such as rape were being mentioned in the same breath (again, not all otome games are like DiaLovers, if anything, the opposite is the case), it's just much easier to assume all these things are occuring due to the same cause, which is also easily believable considering how different the proportions supposedly are for regular and R18 otome games. Maybe my reply was a bit misleading there...

I was more concerned about this issue concerning general R18 otome games (and the people who play them), not R18 BL games. I haven't read much BL myself, but since everyone is saying rape is prevalent in BL (wait, does that go for both books & games?), I'll just assume that's true.
However, if you want to say that rape (or similar themes) are being enjoyed by females because rape occurs often in BL (since females are both involved with the production as well as the consumption of it and thus should carry the main responsibility for it happening), this can also sort of be understood as a counterargument; not to "witness" rape, but when it comes to being involved in it.

In BL games, the playable character is a guy. But even if these days, many people seek to create a world where your gender/race/etc. doesn't matter, we should consider that media representation wouldn't be a problem if people of one underrepresented group could sort of identify with another group that is often represented, thus the gender of the protagonist will also make a difference here. That's why rape under these circumstances would most likely be perceived with weaker self projection (if at all) than compared to a female protagonist, and not to mention that many people wouldn't self-project in the first place, which doesn't mean they wouldn't feel empathy. With that being said, the male protagonist will most likely tend to be seen as a separate individual and any action (such as rape) being inflicted upon this character will not leave as much of an impact upon the player as it might happen in R18 otome games where the protagonist is (usually) female.

Now, to introduce some numbers, on a site listing otome & BL games, drama CDs etc., the number of entries for R18 BL games is 221. The number for R18 otome games, however, is 74.
From that you may conclude that female consumers prefer a male protagonist to be raped rather than a heroine (...did I really just type that...), which again might indicate a preference for a male to be raped rather than a female as she might make the player identify with her, consciously or not. So if you mean to say that (some) female (adult) consumers want to see a male and/or "someone else" to be raped, you're probably right, but higher demand for R18 BL games could also indicate that they may want the one who is being raped not to be female and not want to identify/self-project onto the character who is being raped (which is the case I was actually talking about).

I don't know about such themes occuring in shoujo manga, but comparatively "pure" shoujo manga are definitely not hard to find and that is why the comparison doesn't work here, but that is probably connected to the way I was expressing myself.

If you mean whether there are guys who are younger than the respective heroine, then I suppose there's only Senri.
The heroines' ages differ as well, with Nanami being 16, Koharu 17 and Mikoto 18. The other guys are all older than the heroines, although personally, it never felt like that... The highest age difference should be with Nanami and Ron with the latter being 25 years old.
Senri is also being voiced by the same seiyuu as Kurusu Shou from UtaPri and now that I think about it, him being in the role of "the younger guy" really came out well imo (through the voice, too). His character is usually shy, timid and he usually looks kind of... vulnerable, or something (?)

*heavy spoiler below*

Iluz said:
So I have to ask, why does Amnesia have such a bad reputation even when compared to these other two? Sure, the heroine was kinda weak and useless (though cute. But I'm a guy so y'know) there as well, but at least she had the excuse of, umm, having amnesia. Being strong-willed with amnesia doesn't sound that simple, especially since she dies a few times (though I'd assume that in the original otoge that wasn't the case and that was just meant as a way to show all the routes in one go, right?) which should be kind of a shattering experience.

*put in spoiler because it's kind of OT*

I think it's basically because of that (and since she was so quiet and helpless) and other otome game to anime adaptions having similar heroines is adding fuel to the fire.
Well, the dying was only happening in the bad ends (iirc).
I played the game so I wasn't that bothered with the anime series and there may be the problem the producers of the anime had in order to adapt the game faithfully enough as they wished. In the first place, in many games there's the option to use a custom name instead of the heroine's one, but in Amnesia, there is no standard name. So while you need to insert some name for the game which would be personal use, deciding on a name for the heroine which is such an important thing might be exerting too much influence even though it's "just" an adaption (especially considering there are also fandisks and sequels for this series with the same setting for the name...) and I think there were many people bothered by her not having a name. People who play these games often and those who listen to drama CDs (probably more the latter than the former) however may be used to this. This may also feel less awkward in Japanese than in English ^^°
I actually liked that the heroine wasn't talking that much in the game because despite not knowing what she was exactly saying or doing (or lack thereof), you still saw the reaction of the other characters and things bothering me with some heroines were removed that way without any impact on the story/plot or anything (which, as I recently found out, seems to apply to some Japanese players as well).
What made the game VERY likeable personally was Orion. It was like in exchange for the heroine not talking, you have this little fairy boy with all sorts of quirky and funny reactions which often felt more realistic for someone to say (if not as such a response, at least for thoughts) than how many heroines would have behaved (in my experience at least). So it felt a little like Orion was the hero(ine) or at least reacting in her stead, although I cannot tell whether this was done on purpose or not. And as soon as I had that thought, I was wondering whether it was done on purpose, it's not because of something like "girls cannot behave this way, so have a boy who is allowed to be more outgoing" Q_Q So when there were hints within the game concerning the heroine's original personality, I was relieved that the image of her seemed unusually, er, rebellious (?) for a otome game heroine, which would imply that there was no need to place Orion in this role just for such a purpose. Needless to say I was quite upset when in the fandisk, she was behaving like all these other forgiving anyone to an inhumane degree heroines from other games... I suppose the creators were noticing that this was a hindrance in Toma's route

phoenixalia said:
Agreed. I said it before but Idea Factory's games haven't been that good in the story department lately. I can only think of Princess Arthur as a recent otoge by them with both a great story and great art.

The first thing that I think of concerning PA is how I'm so grateful that it's one game where the heroine is allowed to wear freaking PANTS. <333
I think there was one review mentioning that there were many plot holes in the game, but tbh I was so happy that there were so many things going in between the routes yet everything (well, one or two things were left unexplained iirc) made perfectly sense to me and I'm like the consistency in this is asdfghjkl<333 XD

phoenixalia said:

orchidork said:

sorry to butt in but do people really not enjoy redjuice's art? i thought most people thought that the art was one of the pluses of guilty crown. it kinda seems weird that people wouldn't enjoy redjuice's art since it's pretty great

From some summaries, yes, apparently some people were turned off by it.

Seriously, I definitely thought I was the only one lol. It was to me like 'the, um, "females" are fine, but the guys...'

Mar 6, 2014 9:17 AM by Face_Faith

The art looks great. Three heroines? Interesting. VAs don't particularly hold my attention but I know a few of them, so why not? Anyway, not expecting a great story or anything. It'll probably end up as a guilty pleasure of the season it'll air in.

Mar 5, 2014 6:59 PM by Mayuka

Going to watch it for sure.

Mar 4, 2014 9:18 PM by Frost_Kiss

phoenixalia said:

Hahalollawl said:

Meh, as far as I'm concerned (and as a guy) the label of "shoujo" doesn't hold all that much significance to me. I'm more interested in what the story is about than who the supposed "demographic" is supposed to be. Ao Haru Ride seems like it has the potential to be interesting but Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii probably fits less with my preferences (the girl's design seems cute though, shallow I know but I may check it out just for that lol).

But yeah, it's important to remember how much discs cost, so a lot of the people buying them are probably pretty hardcore fans. And as for which gender probably dominates the hardcore fanbase well...

I agree, when it comes to watching an anime, it's the story, not the demographic that I care about usually. But if you're a shoujo romance fan and only get medioce otoge anime instead of really good shoujo manga anime, it hurts. The demographic matters if you're tracking sales and such. If the anime is shoujo or josei, you can bet that it won't sell well no matter how good it is.

It is definitely the males who dominate the hardcore fanbase but in recent years, fujoshi have been buying shows aimed at them.

Yeah, I usually watch anything with a good story too, although art and characters are also huge factors for me. Idk but I seem to prefer shoujo art when it comes to both anime and manga. (Not the sparkly, huge-eyed designs though). I guess I shouldn't get my hopes too high especially after knowing that shoujo anime don't sell well.

Mar 4, 2014 5:01 AM by mapotofuu

See All Comments