…But take care, milady,
For not all our stories are touched by the sun.
From here, we shall see a night close to the truth,
And we will talk of a witch’s life.
This actually came out a few months back, but seeing as I don’t know too much about the Aozaki corner of the Nasuverse, I decided to try the trial instead of waiting for the full version. And…wow. Type-Moon really outdid themselves.
Note: Light spoilers ahead.
Silence, please everyone.
It’s been a long time coming.
But now, Witch on the Holy Night begins.
Plot and Setting
The story follows a young girl, Aozaki Aoko and her efforts learning sorcery as a high school student from a magus named Kuonji Alice. A boy named Shizuki Soujuurou is somehow attracted to the mansion and ends up living with them, and stuff ensues which I’m not completely sure of since this is still a trial version xD But the whole appeal to this isn’t the basic plot or even the fact that it’s a Type-Moon work, but instead because the Aoko in this story is still young. At this point she’s still not that insanely powerful magus that can fight on par with Servants but instead just a normal, untalented girl. Watching her develop into the Miss Blue that she’ll become later on is going to be exciting, and I’m sure that it wasn’t a walk in the park for her either. Perhaps Nasu will go into more detail about the Fifth Magic from the point of view of the person using it – Aoko – and how exactly she became the walking WMD that she grows up to be. The story is linear as well (that means no choices or boys to fall in love with) otherwise this gets classified as an otome game doesn’t it?
Mahoyo is set in the Nasuverse, which is the same world as everything else Type-Moon has made apart from Canaan. A grown-up Aozaki Aoko ends up giving Shiki his Mystic Eye-blocking glasses in Tsukihime, and Aoko’s sister Touko is around a lot in Kara no Kyoukai. She was also involved at the end of a Fate/stay night route as well, meaning that the Aozaki sisters are quite central to the Nasuverse. Of course, this means that there’s the same moon-magic present in this too, and that’s…really cool xD The depth of the magecraft that Nasu’s works go into have always been inspiring, albeit every character being pretty much a one-trick pony (Tohsaka Rin only ever uses those projectile thingies, and Touko uses puppets).
Characters
Meet Aoko. A normal high school student, and oh – she’s also secretly a magus-in-training. I can already tell she’ll be interesting, what with her love of take-outs and not being a morning person, supported by lots of fun facial expressions. Much like Tohsaka Rin, actually. Surprisingly, at this point she isn’t sure whether she wants to walk the path of a magus (…over being a student?) and isn’t exactly great at it either, so the whole time I was all: “This is Miss Blue? Really?” We’ll get our dramatic change in resolve soon enough, and it’s always better to have a character develop rather than start off as a Mary Sue.
Her other magus friend is the badass Kuonji Alice (I love you!) who oddly enough, looks like Ryougi Shiki from that time she went to that boarding school in Kara no Kyoukai. I would have still kyaa’d over her even without the magecraft, but we even got an epic one-sided fight in which we got to see some of it – which was confusing, but I grasped well enough that she fights using what seems to be nursery rhymes turned into magic arias. I recognized London Bridge and Hey Diddle Diddle, if that helps. It was really cool, except I had no idea what was up with the poetic style of talking her familiars had.
Of course, a Type-Moon work isn’t one without a big bad, except we don’t know who that is just yet xD The male lead seems to be a guy named Soujuurou (your average joe) who we again, don’t know much about because of trial limitations. I hope he doesn’t have any magic circuits though, since we need more useless male leads in stories. Well…in moderation, anyway.
Graphics/Music
The ED is “Hoshi ga Matataku Konno Yoru ni” (Upon the Stars Twinkling Ever So Brightly That Night) by supercell – if Ryo is commissioned to write a song specifically for a VN, you can be guaranteed that the VN in question is nothing to scoff at. The song itself is really good as well, and fits the motif of supercell’s sentimental J-pop style perfectly. There isn’t any voice acting in Mahoyo, but the OST clearly makes up for it, and it’s almost like you can imagine the characters actually speaking to each other, or fight scenes actually being acted out in your head.
Graphics, which matter slightly more seeing as there’s no voice acting, are superb. Looking back at Type-Moon’s Tsukihime (not counting the fact it was doujin-produced and that it was ages ago) it’s clear how far they’ve progressed with scene transitions, and most obviously, the artwork. All the scenes flow together seamlessly, and they make good use of different types of shots, panning in and out of the screen. Many of the screens are moving as the text is displayed, and I particularly remember the moving scenery porn of the Kuonji mansion, which was visually stunning.
Overall First Impression
How could one not like this? Type-Moon aside, everything about the VN makes it a really interesting read. I’m glad there’s no full text version of Nasu’s original story online, since I don’t think I’d be able to resist from reading the rest of it. The full VN is floating around the internet, and an English patch is in the works. The day that’s released, I’ll fangirl with the force of a thousand suns.
