• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Tencent to Purchase Clannad, Kanon, Air Publisher Visual Arts

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Gold Member
Visual novel publisher Visual Arts announced on Thursday that it will become a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings. Current company president Takahiro Baba is retiring and becoming an adviser to the company. The new company president will be Genki Tenkumo (also known as Tohya Okano).
Baba explained in the blog post that the company had its biggest earnings in its 33-year history in June, thanks to the hard work of the staff and the performance of the Heavens Burn Red smartphone game.
Click to expand...
He explained that as to why he is retiring, while he is currently very healthy, he is now 63 years old. According to Baba, while the company is a joint stock company, the Baba family owns 100% of those stocks as a private enterprise. Since the company has no successor, if something happened to him, the company would have no choice but to close. Baba said he wanted to avoid that happening no matter what. He stated, "of course Visual Arts will stay Visual Arts" even though it is becoming a subsidiary of Tencent. Baba stressed that Visual Arts did not go through middlemen for the purchase; instead Baba and the staff selected the company that they thought would be best for the future of Visual Arts.
Click to expand...
Visual Arts was founded in March 1991. The company is known for publishing many visual novels and "kinetic novels" from its brand Key, including Kanon, Air, Clannad, Little Busters!, planetarian, Kud Wafter, Rewrite, Angel Beats! 1st Beat, Harmonia, Summer Pockets, LOOPERS, and Prima Doll, among others. The company was also credited as the original creator of the The Day I Became a God anime, and has been involved in the anime adaptations of many of Key's works.

Visual Arts released the Heaven Burns Red smartphone game in February 2022.
Click to expand...

va_2023s_blog_04.jpg


Sources:

www.animenewsnetwork.com

Tencent to Purchase Clannad, Kanon, Air Publisher Visual Arts

President Takahiro Baba to retire, become adviser // Visual novel publisher Visual Arts announced on Thursday that it will become a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate...
www.animenewsnetwork.com www.animenewsnetwork.com

visual-arts.jp

株式譲渡のご案内【VISUAL ARTS BLOG】

ビジュアルアーツはなんと、社長交代します！あーんどM＆AAA、いやあ、ちょっぴり淋しいけれど、これも時の流れってやつ？　うん、麻枝がえらい
visual-arts.jp

 
Last edited:
C

Chastten

Banned
Never played any of their visual novels and I dislike their artstyle, but man, the soundtrack of the Air anime is still burned in my mind close to 20 years later. Both the opening as well as the ending still give me the chills.

As for the news itself, I'm just gonna assume Tencent is just in it for the money and will let them do as they have so far. So far we haven't heard any stories about censoring and stuff, so I'll just hope it stays that way.
 
STARSBarry

STARSBarry

Gold Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
LOL, yeah!

Nothing of value was lost in this.
Click to expand...

I mean for starters those are the 21 year old anime based on the VN's from the company... not what has been purchased


Also and this is not a joke



Like everyone laughs right up until they watch it. Clannad is special for a reason, these guys literally wrote the script that stays in my head to this day.

Little busters is fantastic, love that baseball and battle minigame, but nothing of value was lost? This is horrible for VN fans, key make great titles and consistantly release them officially in the west for some time now.
 
Last edited:
John Wick

John Wick

Member
Why not eh? Better Tencent than MS. At least this way games come to all formats.
But watch the tears because it's a Chinese company.
 
Paltheos

Paltheos

Member
STARSBarry said:
Like everyone laughs right up until they watch it. Clannad is special for a reason, these guys literally wrote the script that stays in my head to this day.
Click to expand...

Clannad sucks. I say this as someone who watched the show and even read through the VN. Too many of its characters are unconvincing, pixie waifus and the scenarios take themselves hyper seriously despite being both dumb and melodramatic.

Go to example for the latter is the Fuko route. Fuko's wish is for her sister to get married at the school, despite her sister having only been there as a teacher years prior for a short stint to the point where no students still attending would even know who she is (a point the story points out before dropping it). Fuko has no idea if this is even what her sister would want nor are we the viewer given any good reason she would care - when the main characters meet the sister in the story she seems pretty nonplussed by it. The story invents reasons we should supposedly care. "Oh, Fuko's actually a coma patient and this is her soul's way of reaching out" or some shit. People tragically forget who she is and what she asked of them as she's desperately crafting and handing out more starfish~ (aside: that's they're starfish and not stars is supposedly a hilarious gag). Bottom barrel melodrama stretched out to the extreme.

There are good characters in the story. I like Kyou and Tomoyo - I think most people do, but Kyou gets shafted in her route, crumbling far more easily and completely than is really plausible compared to how rock-solid she is as a wingman and coraller of the pixie crew in Kotomi's arc. For the sake of drama, is my impression. Tomoyo's is handled the best, probably the best of any character in the game but her story's also stretched out too much. Probably why I like the OVA for the first season of the show so much - It condenses her arc into a neat 22 minutes just hitting the highlights. Best episode of the entire show (and it's not even close).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Jason Schreier: "Inside the Making of Redfall, Xbox’s Latest Misfire"
News
3
1K
Majima Everywhere System replied
Steam bans adult visual novel months after release, raising censorship fears
2 3
140
19K
Wonko_C replied
Marvel's Spider-Man Review Thread
2 3 4
172
21K
RPS37 replied
  • Locked
Rewrite (anime/tv) |OT| Key VN transformed into beautiful anime once again
2
77
16K
Linkark07 replied
Corpse Party: Blood Drive |OT| Not the Red Cross You Were Expecting
7 8 9 10 11
511
64K
atomsk replied
Top Bottom