Across the sunflower field — Photorealistic ingenuity: bringing together realistic environments and cartoon characters
The Boku no Natsuyasumi series brings together many elements (both interactive and aesthetical) to make the experience of a child spending the summer with his relatives an unforgettable one. One of the ways this is achieved is by ensuring every area in the game — even those that at first glance seem to have nothing particularly interesting — feels like a unique experience worth of in-depth exploration.
This is mainly achieved via the usage of gorgeous backgrounds that make the areas where each game takes place feel like they were literally taken out of the real world, rather than simply based on real-life locations. This realism is not limited to visual aspects, with rooms and landscapes in each game often adding a lot to the titular character’s vacation: be it by checking posters on walls, by uncovering old letters and photographs inside drawers, by reading old books placed in a conveniently obscured shelf or by jumping in realistically drawn beds, many of the rooms each Boku visits holds the possibility of uncovering little details that feel like they were meant to be discovered, and that’s only talking about rooms. Outer landscapes are designed with the same attention to detail, with many of the stunning areas the player can visit offering possibilities like little shortcuts, interactive playgrounds, closeups of trees, or even beehives the player can knock down to access new zones.
Beautiful as they might be, backgrounds are not the only visual appeal of the Bokunatsu franchise, with character designs by Tokyo Illustrators Society member Ueda Mineko (whose work besides character design for games about summer vacations includes album covers, hand soap ads, and fashion illustration) ensuring each character has a unique visual trait associated to them (something that would hold on even as the cast numbers increased with each title); in addition to this, Ueda’s designs make the series aesthetic take a step back in terms of realism, which results in a charming contrast that makes each installment’s minimalist and colorful cast feel akin to toy figures, adding to the idea that each summer vacation is being played, not just in terms of they being videogames, but by virtue of everything being presented through the perspective of a young boy whose view of the world is probably simplified and reminiscent of the way cartoons looked during that time.
The integration of highly contrasting art styles is something Millennium Kitchen managed to turn into a trademark of the franchise, even after it moved to more powerful consoles. The development team’s insistence on gracefully incorporating hand-drawn backgrounds as a main graphic asset, even after the transition to 3D modeled areas was a technological possibility, is a testament of both dedication and impeccable art direction. In time, this would ensure the series a big part of its charm and identity, by making environments and characters seamlessly integrate into the interactive experience offered by each of these titles.
