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Yeah, my bad.

If you liked Majikoi's style maybe Koiken Otome could fit your criteria. Chusingura is also a good option if you like Edo Period samurais and stuff.

I searched that name on VNDB but the closest thing it could find was this Ikinari Anata ni Koishiteiru is this what you meant?

Lamunation Baka Moe Heart

Hi everyone . Once again, I want to share a Last Birdling related post, but to make things fairer, we can turn this more into a general VN discussion. When I love a VN (999, Narcissu, Ever17 etc), I want to also pick up its artbook, though truth be told, this has become less of a necessity over the years. CGs of popular games are readily available online, and while it is nice to have those illustrations in print, physical space is limited. There are, however, still plenty of things that will draw my interest, as I have seen in several artbooks I own: - Interviews with developers (admittedly a struggle since they are usually in Japanese) - Fanart - Results for character popularity polls etc - 4koma (common with Narcissu related books) - Production sketches I am not too interested in character summaries or in-game walkthroughs. By the time I pick up the book, I have already completed the game anyway. At any rate, is there anything else you can think of? I would love to know. In particular, maybe things that you have never seen in a VN artbook, and you think, "Why don't they ever do this?" Here is my artbook preview post on The Last Birdling. It contains all the history, mistakes and lessons I have learned through the past five years: Thank you !

I like it when in between there are random interviews with the staff talking about baseball or some other topic completely unrelated to the game.

Like @Chronopolis already mentioned, what's really interesting is usually artist's own vision; most of them are usually tasked with specific workload and they are rarely given complete freedom over the project (although it happens, this is when we usually get really great art that feels like an extension of the game). That said, anything from additional information about particular elements, from characters to backgrounds (aka locations) is worth having, especially if we're dealing with creative people. What I love the most are typically works in progress, showing the drawing's evolution - from design and early roughs to complete artwork.

I like having the original sketches, and the in-progress or concept art. Like you guys said, the original cg isn't that hard to get. Anything setting related is nice too. I imagine the artist has their own ideas of the setting and characters, esp. if they were the ones who did the char. design.

I'd love to see more art books go in-depth about character costumes. I want head-to-toe shots, plus close-ups of important details, for every costume. Basically, give me the originally character design sheets.

Go read Symphonic Rain instead. You'll thank me later.

In the forgotten depths of Visual Novel Talk I found this. I feel a need to post here because the OP reminded me of the reason why I love Visual Novels and continue to engage in the medium. The first Visual Novel I had a deep emotional connection with was Yume Miru Kusuri. I remember distinctly, around 4 years ago during winter vacation was when I read Yume Miru Kusuri. The music from the title screen was what originally hooked me. I knew absolutely nothing prior to reading the VN other than the fact that the title music sounded tranquil but uneasy, much like my life was. I started the journey of Kouhei Kagami's life in my bed with my laptop, shortly after waking up. Within the first couple of minutes I was hooked. The opening scene continued with a different yet equally mellow track that resonated perfectly with the monotony of Kouhei's life. Kouhei was a diligent and obedient straight-A student, but was bored with his life. He observed his life and his surroundings while internally making witty and intelligent analogies. What I quickly realized was that Kouhei was me. He led a passive existence by avoiding trouble and doing what he was told, but consequently was leading a meaningless life. When Kouhei meets each of the three heroines, an opportunity presents itself to stray away from the conventional. An opportunity for Kouhei to find himself through another person. Mizuki for one, represents a path of hedonism. She is in the same situation as Kouhei, but unlike him, she is actively trying to find excitement in life. She offers the choices to live life to its fullest and in the most reckless fashion; instead of continuing to live life in its most mediocre possible way. The "Fairy" girl whose route I have not read actually, seems to represent something similar. But I can't elaborate since I don't know her story. Anyway the other girl is Aeka. Aeka was the girl who I first chose. Unlike Mizuki who offered excessive escapism and hedonism as a choice to lead a different life, Aeka presented the option of living a meaningful life with care and love. What's more, the struggles they couple faced were huge. I could not put the story down, and when I finally got the good ending to her route, I realized that I spent over 15 hours in my bed in front of a screen. When I turned off my laptop and prepared for bed, I felt so apathetic. During that time I didn't care about my life, my mind was still too preoccupied with the story I just read. It ended up taking days to soak in that story. I spent the remainder of my vacation playing arcade classics like Pac-man and Donkey-Kong. I needed to further absorb the experience, but I needed a partial distraction for my mind as well. Some might say that I wasted those days; mindlessly playing video games while contemplating my emotions over a story, but I would strongly disagree. Sure, I felt nearly depressed after Aeka's story, but that was because it made me reflect on my own life as well. As I said earlier, I myself was frustrated over the meaninglessness of my life much like Kouhei was at the beginning of the story. On top of that, it got me to think about the bullying at my school. Much like Kouhei, I played a completely passive role and avoided associating with bully victims, and sucked up to the bullies. That worked well for me, but I was starting to question that my lack of involvement was almost just as bad. Ultimately, Yume Miru Kusuri left a mark on me. The emotions and thoughts it made me experience was something that I liked. In a weird way, the style in which the story immersed me though good writing, music and visuals; gave me a sense of meaning. When I was reading and clicking for the next set of words to appear, I was genuinely experiencing something that was powerful. Nothing else had really affected me like that before. The Kanon 2006 anime kind of did, but not in the same way. In any case, I knew from then onward that I had to further explore the medium of visual novels. I've since had many pleasant experiences with visual novels but the most emotional experience that I remember since then was reading Symphonic Rain. When I have time in the near future, I intend on writing about my emotional experience with Symohonic Rain in another post. (Sorry for the long post. I personally love long thought out posts, so I know other people must as well. But I am also aware that many people don't).