"Bubble Winter Scene" review: a successful Sino-Japanese cooperation of Galgame

To put it simply, "Frothy Winter Scene" is a kind of ideal, good people more than bad values. Its story happened at the beginning of the Japanese bubble economy, the aftershocks of capital have not yet affected all classes, for different people, the winter of capital is coming one after another, the crisis is not a simultaneous occurrence. Therefore, the two men and women in the lower class of society initially faced life choices, are reconcilable, there is room for manoeuvre, but under the entanglement of "luck", they are also forced to integrate into this unfortunate era.

Around them, and troubled them, are those who because of the changes of The Times caused people to fall into the blind and extravagant life concept. This clash of ideologies leads to a mysterious encounter between Shiori, a man who is somewhat of the same lost character, and Shiori Sakurai, a Shiori girl, who have an interesting job and spend the next year together, each with the goal of amending a healthy nest egg.

"Bubble Winter Scene" is a Sino-Japanese joint production, written by Satoshi Kataoka script, Chinese personnel responsible for the production, art, programming, part of the dubbing, and singing the theme song. The story of the male protagonist Jing Xiaoran, the background is from China, he failed in the college entrance examination, in order to seek their ideals, he came to Japan, and need a sum of money to support their ideals is not much.

The responsibilities and pressures of Shiori Sakurai are entirely different from those of our male counterparts. After an accident leaves our home town for Tokyo, a city full of opportunities and shadows, Shiori Sakurai, a young girl with limited skills, meets with Jing. For a year or more, both of us are away from home for the first time. Will be under the same roof with a "non-love feeling" to support each other, live on.

"Frothy Winter Scene" is short, single-line, and can be cleared in an afternoon. In the script, it does not use superfluous ink to describe what kind of vicious circle Japanese society had fallen into at that time, nor does it involve those grand changes. Therefore, players do not need to worry about contact with this era of the background may not be their own understanding of the Galgame, to do some homework. And because there are Chinese male protagonists, as well as some characters with Chinese backgrounds, it is not difficult for domestic players to understand and accept the presentation of some ways of thinking and values in the game.

Jing doesn't speak Japanese, and he has trouble communicating with Shiori Sakurai - the premise for some of the key dramatic developments in The film. On the one hand, you can say that the setting is the product of a "combination of China and Japan" to cater to a wide range of domestic players. But on the other hand, this setting is also novel, and Kataoka has written a lot of emotional passages around it. It is also because of the poor communication between men and women, some misunderstandings, or the dissolution of misunderstandings since then, and new ways of emotional connection are being born in their relationship day by day with the change of the seasons.

In a way, it's fair to say that "Frothy Winter Scene" doesn't contain anything that would be "stomach-wrenching," or "heart-wrenching," which isn't much for everyone.

Until the last few chapters, Satoshi Kataoka wrote the story very flat, and although the Froth Winter Scene is like some Galgames, with monologues and text descriptions mostly placed under the identity of the main character and narrated in the first person, the intense inner conflicts and overly emotional catharsis in Froth Winter Scene are much less frequent than in similar games. This is partly due to the characters of Jing Xiao Ran and Sakurai Shiona, they are pure, ignorant, not too much involved in the world. On the other hand, "Bubble Winter Scene" has written a lot of what can be called "parental" content, which is far from warm, far from sweet, as the promotional film says, this is "not a 'love' encounter."

For space reasons, there are not many characters in Froth. Thus, perhaps in order to deepen a theme, and to allow the player to interpret and feel the core content of the game from different perspectives, there are hidden commonalities between the main characters of Froth Winter View, which will allow the player to see the shadow of the other person in one character. Simply put, when "Bubble Winter Scene" tells the story of different characters, it is actually a multidimensional and three-dimensional presentation of the same way of life or the same values.

In addition, "Bubble Winter Scene" is based on CG illustrations, but it is not a simple "PPT" performance. Take some scenes that contain conflicting character dialogue, for example, it will use the position and segmentation of different characters in the picture, as well as the way CG enters and moves, to assist the narrative, and make the player feel more deeply about the fluctuations in the emotions of the characters. Sometimes, "Bubble Winter Landscape" will also be oil painting, or chic style of plain painting to set off the corresponding narrative scene.

But while Satoshi Kataoka's script for "Froth" takes place in 1980s Tokyo, beyond economics, "Froth" also contains contemporary, rather realistic discussions of cities and individual values. I don't know if this topic is applicable in Japan today, but in the domestic context, some of the regional differences in the concept of life in Bubble Winter Scene are also ubiquitous in the vast country.

A quick mention of the dubbing and theme song. Horizontal comparison, the level of dubbing of "Bubble Winter Scene" is similar to the level of works of some domestic producers specializing in Galgame. In particular, the theme song sung by the Chinese and Japanese bilingual singers sang the original style of the Japanese Galgame soundtrack in the form of Chinese, which was not easy. Coupled with many small details and developments in Kataoka's script that will make Japanese Galgame players feel familiar, the general feeling of "Bubble Winter Scene" after completing the game will be very much like a pure Japanese game, or perhaps "Bubble Winter Scene" is limited in size and ambition, but there is no doubt that it is a successful "Sino-Japanese cooperation".