Landscape ~ano natsu no negai~

 

Landscape ～あの夏の願い～

Company: Honey Bee
Based on: Original
Released: 2009.09.29
Official site: http://www.honeybee-cd.com/landscape/land_top.html


Landscape could be described as a bitter-sweet love story mixed with several kaidan (horror stories). You visit the village where you once spend a summer at your grandma's as a small child, and run into a childhood friend while at a festival.

At first you don't seem to remember Hiro (CV: Ishida Akira), but when he talks about how you used to play together every day during one summer vacation you get a feeling that you indeed know him. Now that you are back Hiro wants to show you the fireflies, he apparently knows a place where there are hundreds of them.

While walking there he talks about that summer you spend together as kids, and how you loved scary stories. He was always scared of them, but you never seemed to be afraid. He decides to try and scare you now, so while you are walking he tells several scary stories.

Between those stories Hiro talks about the summer that you spend together, and there are occasional hints that it wasn't all fun and games, such as Hiro mentioning "that there are some things that are better not remembered".

The first kaidan is about a few boys that go and play hide and seek in the school after it has closed. One of them hides in an out of use bathroom, and encounters something there...

The second kaidan is about a doll. A boy moves into the room of his grandmother after she has passed away. There he finds the doll she used to take care of all the time carefully packed away in a box. He moves it to the storage, but somehow it keeps returning to the room...

The final story is about a boy that drowned while trying to save a girl he liked. When he wakes up he is in a mysterious place, and continues to wander there. When he realizes that he seems to be going somewhere without return, he tries his best to return to where he came from.

This last story, together with all the hints that Hiro has been dropping and his saving you from falling make you remember that you went to see the fireflies together before but never got to see them, and why.

It is fairly obvious where the story is headed when you are listening. But even when it is so obvious, the ending is still very sad. I didn't expect this when I started to listen, but I nearly cried at the end. Part of this is probably because the hints give you an idea of what to expect, but you lack the details to known what exactly happened, when Hiro tells you those things in the end all the feels come rushing in.

The kaidan aren't too scary, which is probably because they are relatively short. They might raise a few goosebumps, but that is it. What I didn't realize until I saw it mentioned on the official site, is that they used the dummy head mic for some of the sound effects. After re-listening some of the tracks I did notice it, and it does explain why those sounds effects really creep me out (the sound of the doll's hair for example)


Conclusion:
This CD is only moderately scary (if you'd compare it to something like Kurayamigatari it is almost cute). But the main point isn't the kaidan but the bitter sweet story about the summer that you and Hiro spend together as children. Despite being predictable it was really effective on that part. So all in all a slightly scary CD that drowns (see what I did there?) you in bitter-sweet feelings at the end.