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Nippon Ichi Reveals Shinigami Hime to Ishokan no Kaibutsu Game
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The fantasy side-scrolling adventure game features a picture book aesthetic and storytelling style. The story centers on Mono (voiced by Rena Motomura), the child of a family that runs an opera house. Mistreated and cast aside, she does chores for her family around the opera house, and lives in the attic, loved only by her beloved older sister (Reina Kondo), who teaches her of opera and dance. One day, her sister is infected with a virulent disease known as "Shinigami-byō" (The Paper Death) that eventually turns all it infects into a picture book, and eventually into a horrific "paper monster." The disease seems to greatly affect teenage girls in particular. The state has given up on curing it, and instead confines patients into facilities known as Asylum Libraries, where they are allowed to waste away.
With her sister confined in one such facility, Mono sets out toward it, desperate to do the impossible: to find a way to reverse her sister's disease. Within the Asylum Library, she finds it overrun with paper monsters, and filled with strange warps in reality: manifestations of the picture books that patients have turned into, expanded into a bizarre realm that contains their memories and traumas. Mono encounters a legendary paper monster named Märchendia (Makoto Koichi), with whom Mono forges an uneasy alliance. Märchendia is keen on exacting revenge against the human race for a past grievance, but will protect Mono as she navigates the Asylum Library and the picture book worlds in search of her sister.
Kento Jobana (Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, Disgaea 7) is directing and writing the game. Illustrator Sayaka Oda (The Cruel King and the Great Hero, The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince) is the character designer and illustrator for the game. Takeshi Matsumoto (The Cruel King and the Great Hero, The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince) is composing the music for the game. Akiko Shikata, known for her work in the Ar Tonelico series, is performing the game's theme song. (Shikata also performed songs for The Cruel King and the Great Hero and The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince.)
Sources: Shinigami Hime to Ishokan no Kaibutsu game's website, Gamer
