Kana Little Sister

"I saw the ocean. I'm not afraid anymore."

I can say I played most games on this genre, so I consider myself a quite jaded player. All started long ago, when I downloaded from a dubious site a game called Seasons of Sakura, expecting some kind of anime porn fiesta. Instead of that, I found a touching and romantic story with some scarce and extremely well done (for that time) erotic scenes.

I became interested on the genre, and started playing that kind of games. I played them all. I suffered both X-Changes (And I'm not planning on suffering the third, thank you) I enjoyed Crescendo and its beautiful piano music, I laughed at Heart de Roommate and I was seriously touched by the beautiful story of Snow Drop.

Then I heard of some game called Kana: Imouto or Kana: Little Sister. It was the touching story of love between a boy and his terminally ill sister. Being from the developers of Crescendo, I quickly acquired the game, but then I lost interest and archived it without even touching it. After all, 2005 was a great year for gaming, and a man only has so much time to spend with videogames.

Yesterday I remembered Kana and decided to give it a try. I inserted the CD on its drive and installed it. A beautiful opening song, which I later discovered it's called Shiroi Kisetsu, greeted me. I then started playing and discovering Kana and Taka's story.

At first, I was bored. The pace was so slow and the story wasn't extremely interesting. But I know most visual novels suffer of this at the start, so I waited while the beautiful music drawn me into Kana's world. The world froze. A frail-looking 8 years-old girl vomited.

Five hours have passed like a sumer breeze. I close the game window. I touch my cheek; there are tears. I sense a knot in my neck, and it's not my Adam's apple. It's already February and I'm living on a tropical location, so it's not snowing outside, but I wish it was.

Kana: Little Sister moved my heart like no game has ever did before. It's a story about love, about brotherly love, about love between a man and a woman, about unrequited love. It's a story about a girl, a weak and fragile and marvelous girl who has a damn sickness rotting her insides slowly. You're her big brother, her most beloved person in the whole word, and she has only a few months to live. You need to show Kana, who always has been secluded on a hospital room, what's the world like. She needs to her experience life, have fun. She has to live now.

But there's also Yumi. Yumi's a bright, smart, pretty girl with cat-like eyes. She's also somewhat of a sex-crazed fiend... devoted to you. You hate her with a passion. She was your first love, and the first person to break your heart. What happened with that letter?

Kana: Imouto is a masterpiece. You will love Kana as if she were your own sister. Well, maybe not that much, but you'll never forget her . When it snows, you will sometimes remember her. Any reference to chronic renal failure will bring her sickly smiling face to your head.

Specially touching for me was aunt Sumako's own story. My mother had breast cancer two years ago. He also had her breast removed, and luckily the cancer did not methastize, so she's OK now. It was too late for aunt Sumako, though. Kana: Little Sister show me what could have happened yo my mother with unsurpassed crudeness. It show me Sumako's deep thoughts. She didn't want to die, but she was brave. She hadn't a chance. Seeing Sumako breathing heavily on a oxygen mask jerked my first tears. I would cry even more.

It's true that there is some sex, but it's really scarce and never gratuitous. There are also some incest elements. Kana has known almost no kind man her age besides her brother, who always (well, not ALWAYS) cared for her, and he can't ignore the fact Kana's slowly becoming a beautiful woman. But are you going to pass on the most touching and moving story ever made for a videogame just because of some stupid moral issues?

It's your job to make Kana as brave as aunt Sumako.

Or maybe you could save Kana somehow?
Please, don't pass on this one. This is the most beautiful story you can find in a game. It's better than most movies. It's better than most anime, manga and comic. It's better than a lot of books. It's certainly better than any other visual novel I ever read.

f there were a god who would grant any wish, what would you pray for?

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/06