Ask John: Is School Days the First Interactive Adult Anime?

Question:
I have a question about the School Days game. From what I read, it is revolutionary in being the first fully animated hentai game ever made. Have there been other hentai games made that are also as fully animated as School Days? Is this a new trend that will be more common in the future or will it be limited to a small minority of the hentai game market? How expensive is it to make a hentai game fully animated versus still frames with voice actors included?

Answer:
To be honest, Japanese adult computer games are not my specialty. While I have a passing familiarity with the genre, it’s not an area that I’m especially familiar with. Despite my somewhat lacking knowledge, I’ll do my best to provide an answer.

I don’t know exactly which computer visual novel game was the first to employ full animation. Relatively early adult interactive anime games like Sogna’s Viper series and Jellyfish’s Lovers used extensive, but not necessarily non-stop animation. Games like Forester’s “Doll,” released on July 23, 1999, Forst’s “First Anchor,” released on May 3, 2002, and Forst’s “Vanquish,” released on October 22, 2004, used full animation, but these games were fully CG rendered rather than hand drawn.

The interactive adult anime computer game School Days, released on April 28, 2005, is definitely not the first game of its kind. In fact, it’s not even the first fully animated adult PC game from School Days developers. Prior to School Days, Overflow released its animated adult PC game “Miss Each Other” on April 30, 2004. Going a bit farther back, Ainos & jamCREATION’s game “eye’s only ~Sono Kagayaki wa Mabushisa ni Michite~,” released on September 22, 2000, featured full animation. Ainos & jamCREATION’s “Momoiro Paradise ~Sumikomi Baito Renai Tsuki~” game released in Japan on January 24, 2003 also featured full hand drawn animation. Also prior to School Days, AQNOS’s “full animation ryojoku adventure” game “Tsumibatsu” was released on December 17, 2004. I’m sure that there may be other fully animated H games the pre-date School Days which I’m not aware of.

A number of fully animated adult PC games have followed School Days as well. Beside the School Days spin off, “Summer Days,” which was released on June 23, 2006, AQNOS’s March 2007 title “Jokeieisha Eriko” is described as a fully animated game featuring 90 minutes of hand drawn animation. And I believe that Erogos’ recent “Inn” series of adult computer games are fully animated, unlike Erogos’ earlier “Mahotama” and “Love Fetish” game series that used extensive animation, but weren’t fully interactive anime. Fully interactive adult anime games still seem to be occasional exceptions rather than a growing trend. Ainos’ January 2006 game “Pachi Pachi Circuit” includes 90 minutes of hand drawn animation, but is not a fully interactive anime game. Similarly, Leaf’s July 2006 game “Full Ani” features many hand drawn animation sequences but isn’t fully animated throughout. Countless other recent games, such as Cyon’s “Double Ronde,” Egis’s “Reversible,” and Societa’s “HEXA ~Nikuyoku no Nijuu Nichi Kan~” all feature fully animated sex scenes but still images for the majority of gameplay.

I don’t know what the difference in production cost between traditional visual novel computer games and interactive anime computer games is, but I imagine that it’s significant. The lower production cost of traditional visual novel games, or games that feature periodic animation sequences, combined with the apparent popularity of conventional visual novel games among Japanese fans seems to ensure that fully animated interactive anime computer games are destined to remain occasional exceptions rather than a new, dominant trend in Japanese computer gaming.

Article revised on October 7, 2007. Thanks to “Flopsy” for providing assistance