Ever 17



"Who... are you? Who... am I?"

Ever17 is a Visual Novel made by the now-sorta-defunct studio KID, and is one of the very few visual novels to be officially translated into English (by a company called Hirameki International, now completely defunct). It tells the story of six (or is it five? Or seven?) young people who are trapped in an underwater theme park called LeMU when it unexpectedly springs a leak. They then have 119 hours to find a way to escape before the place implodes and they all die. It's a little like The Poseidon Adventure, if The Poseidon Adventure were set in the future and had sinister German pharmaceutical companies and some interesting uses of quantum physics. So not much like it at all, really.

The game has two first-person protagonists, each with their own set of paths. The first is an amnesiac boy known only as the Kid; the second is Takeshi, an ordinary college student. Other major characters include Coco, a fourteen-year-old who looks ten and acts about five; You (it's a nickname, not a pronoun, although it's still pronounced "yuu," and not "yo"), a cheerful and friendly employee of LeMU; Sara, an imaginative girl who is a little obsessed with ninjas; Sora, a calm and mature woman who also works at LeMU; and Tsugumi, an enigmatic and unfriendly girl who seems to want little to do with anyone else.

The game is also a huge Mind Screw and possessed of a plot so twisty that any attempt to explain or describe it more thoroughly would, by necessity, involve spoilers. Speaking of which, beware of falling spoilers in the trope examples section; some tropes are big spoilers just by being listed.

Recently, a Manga adaptation (based on the Xbox 360 version) has started (translated chapters).

See also Never 7, Remember 11 (the other two games in the series),12Riven (a spinoff of sorts that takes place in a similar setting), Code 18 (the "official" fourth game in the series, though without any input of the original staff), I/O (directed/written by the game's director/main writer), and Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (directed/written by the other main writer), all which have similar themes and setups.

'''Warning! Due to the nature of the game, the trope page contains many SPOILERS even after following our usual spoiler policy. If you are the type of reader who is bothered by them, probably you shouldn't look at this page at all, before reading the game.'''


 * All There in the Manual:
 * Ambiguous Situation: Unlike most of the mysteries, it's never made clear what exactly happened in the game of kick the can.
 * Arc Number: 17, 34 or other numbers divisible by it.
 * A few of the times/dates have 17 in them.
 * The most obvious one, being that the year is 2017.
 * Coco's birthday falls on December 17th, 2002.
 * 17 meters (56 feet) between each floor of LeMU.
 * 17 minutes in the decompression chamber in the prologue.
 * Takeshi mentions the Ninneko Song 17 when Coco starts calling him Takepyon.
 * 17 seconds for the lights to come on after repairing the generator.
 * 34 rings in Tsugumi's Jewel Chocolate metaphor to Kid.
 * You's father disappeared 17 years ago, when she was 1 year old.
 * Bishonen: On a different note, it's kind of amusing when even a Bishonen trope involves major spoilers.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Blind Idiot Translation: Not as bad as some, but it has its moments -- like when a line that should have been something like "Of course I know what a hacker is" became "Naturally, I knows the hacker", which became a minor Memetic Mutation among the fanbase.
 * A more literal example would be near the beginning, where someone in a tanuki suit being bitten by a girl who is being bitten by a dog. The dog looks nothing at all like the tanuki, and yet the game calls the dog a "smaller tanuki". And then, mind-bogglingly enough, the game later states the obvious and tells you that it's not a tanuki.
 * Not to mention all the "find and replace" errors, as with "youth" and "Kid". The result gives us sentences like "Kidere" and "Kidink," instead of "You there" and "You think".
 * Which is particularly ironic, considering a find-and-replace error is an actual plot point during Kid/You's scenario.
 * Book Ends:
 * Break the Cutie:
 * Broken Bird: Tsugumi.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Too many to list. EVERYTHING is important.
 * Cloning Blues:
 * Closed Circle: More or less the game's premise.
 * Continuity Nod: Several to Never7, such as
 * Curtains Match the Window: Everyone.
 * Death Seeker: Tsugumi.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Tsugumi.
 * Determinator: Takeshi. The game even states, and he still gets up and saves the day. After having enough done to him to kill him in about six different ways without eating in over a day because he threw up his last meal after swimming through frigid water and without resting at all. Unless you consider
 * Deus Ex Machina:
 * Diabolus Ex Machina:
 * Did Not Do the Research: Decompression from 6 atmospheres to one would probably cause death. Look up the 1983 "Byford Dolphin" accident for the gruesome details.
 * Ditzy Genius: Sara is perhaps the silliest character, saying the silliest things (both how she says them and what she says, though a lot of it is lost in the English translation), but she is a genius, especially when it comes to computers. Coco is silly too, but she's a loli so it's expected.
 * You seems to be pretty smart too, but most of silliness seems to stem from the fact that she's a Genki Girl.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: You demonstrates a point about perception to the Kid by making him cap a pen with one eye closed. The tip is slippery. It won't go in the hole. It's his first time doing this. See Does This Remind You of Anything? page quote for details.
 * See Les Yay for another example.
 * Downer Ending:
 * Dying Declaration of Love:
 * Earn Your Happy Ending
 * Everybody Lives:
 * Face Doodling: You and Sara do it to sleeping Takeshi.
 * Find the Cure: May 6th is devoted to this as everyone is infected with Tief Blau.
 * First Girl Wins:
 * Flat What: After eating a sandwich with Takeshi's special ingredients (sage, soy sauce, mayonnaise, Tabasco, etc.), Tsugumi claims it tastes like pizza, and Kid's first thought is this.
 * Foreshadowing: Lots of it, inside each path and in a game as a whole.
 * Fridge Logic: Just how
 * : The LeMU incident turns out to be an unplanned version of this.
 * Generation Xerox: Deliberately invoked on
 * Genki Girl: You, Sara, and Coco, to varying extents.
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Takeshi has the option of using one of these on the Kid. Subverted if he does do it, as he instantly regrets it and is looked down upon by the others.
 * Go Mad from the Revelation:
 * Gratuitous English: The message at the end of every route.
 * Dying Declaration of Love:
 * Earn Your Happy Ending
 * Everybody Lives:
 * Face Doodling: You and Sara do it to sleeping Takeshi.
 * Find the Cure: May 6th is devoted to this as everyone is infected with Tief Blau.
 * First Girl Wins:
 * Flat What: After eating a sandwich with Takeshi's special ingredients (sage, soy sauce, mayonnaise, Tabasco, etc.), Tsugumi claims it tastes like pizza, and Kid's first thought is this.
 * Foreshadowing: Lots of it, inside each path and in a game as a whole.
 * Fridge Logic: Just how
 * : The LeMU incident turns out to be an unplanned version of this.
 * Generation Xerox: Deliberately invoked on
 * Genki Girl: You, Sara, and Coco, to varying extents.
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Takeshi has the option of using one of these on the Kid. Subverted if he does do it, as he instantly regrets it and is looked down upon by the others.
 * Go Mad from the Revelation:
 * Gratuitous English: The message at the end of every route.
 * Foreshadowing: Lots of it, inside each path and in a game as a whole.
 * Fridge Logic: Just how
 * : The LeMU incident turns out to be an unplanned version of this.
 * Generation Xerox: Deliberately invoked on
 * Genki Girl: You, Sara, and Coco, to varying extents.
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Takeshi has the option of using one of these on the Kid. Subverted if he does do it, as he instantly regrets it and is looked down upon by the others.
 * Go Mad from the Revelation:
 * Gratuitous English: The message at the end of every route.
 * Go Mad from the Revelation:
 * Gratuitous English: The message at the end of every route.


 * Gratuitous German: LEMMIH's system declares its announcements in German. Also, Leiblich originated from Germany.
 * There's also and.
 * Go Out with a Smile: Several characters in bad endings.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: are classified as such, though not a true example of this trope.
 * Half-Identical Twins: Averted.
 * : Also Averted.
 * too. Her personality is a complete 180 of her mom though, so it may not feel the same. Though nowhere near as bad as her mother, Sara did seem to be pretty cold and anti-social before she met You, telling people not get involved with her.}}
 * Hand Behind Head: In the Kid's route, Takeshi's right hand is always behind his head.
 * Head Pet: Pipi, sometimes.
 * Healing Factor:
 * Helium Speech: Used in the prologue by Coco. Combined with the fact that her normal voice is already high-pitched... your eardrums will explode.
 * In the remake, Takeshi also has this in the same scene (which makes more sense in hindsight, since all voices, his included, should sound like this without the headphones).
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hidden Eyes: A strange version of this: while we never see either Takeshi or the Kid while playing as them (except in some CGs, but even there they are not fully seen), we see exactly what the other looks like while playing from the opposite perspective.
 * Hot Mom:
 * Hope Spot: See the Diabolus Ex Machina above.
 * Human Popsicle:
 * Idiot Hero: Takeshi, at times.
 * Incurable Cough of Death/Blood From the Mouth: Symptoms of Tief Blau.
 * Inferred Holocaust: Sora's ending seems to imply that But it's still supposedly a "good" ending.
 * Even in the True Ending,
 * Karmic Death:
 * Kuudere: Tsugumi. When she's not being visibly disgusted with everyone (especially Takeshi), she'll prefer a cold emotional distance.
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Kid.
 * Les Yay: You and Sara have a pretty close relationship. A little too close at times. Most evident in Kid/Coco's route, when refusing to smile or laugh in front of You (in response to getting over his amnesia) results in her picking Mayo's nose in order to get Kid to lighten up. Cue Sara sensually reacts to You's finger being inserted into her nostril, followed by the words "And at that moment, Senpai and I became one." Everyone laughs it off afterwards, though Sara isn't quite as amused as the others.
 * Also apparent when Kid walks in on You and Sara cuddled together sleeping, and You being particularly possessive of Sara's body in their half-asleep state. Slightly subverted in that Kid contemplates on squeezing in between the two, if only he was sleepy.
 * And again in You's route, while not quite obvious; Sara realizes Kid and You's relationship and tells Kid she's jealous, but because it's him, she'll let it go.
 * In the remake, this becomes a Running Gag: Sara and You frequently act out dialogue similar to cliche Schoolgirl Lesbians at a boarding school (speaking to each other very tenderly, mind you) in order to tease Kid, and at the end, just when it looks like they're going to take it to the next level, they break off and laugh, usually leaving Kid blushing.
 * Lethal Chef: There's a reason Takeshi was designated as the one to cook the chicken sandwiches, as one scene proves. You's, Kid's and Coco's sandwiches apparently don't taste bad, but they end up looking bad. Coco's sandwich in particular has a long list of ingredients that probably don't go well together.
 * Limited Wardrobe:
 * Long-Lost Relative: More of a  in this case.
 * Love Makes You Crazy: Both Sora and Tsugumi get steadily more unstable in Sora's route resulting in
 * Love Triangle: Sora, Takeshi and Tsugumi. Obvious in both of his routes but only really problematic in Sora's The Kid as well, sort of, but his two choices aren't a Kuudere Broken Bird and a Tin Man with emotional expression issues.
 * Though one of them is . Good thing the other one is the "canonical"/True Ending love interest, huh?
 * All the UST between and the Kid admittedly does disappear instantly after that reveal. But there was more there than in any other route in the game which is mildly disturbing.
 * Luke, You Are My Father:
 * Lyrical Dissonance: Sara's Image Song, "Lullaby of Tears", is a poppy, catchy, obnoxiously cute song about how alone and sad she is and how much she misses.
 * Meaningful Echo: In the prologue, You's line "I am You" is said Just for Pun. Next time, And in the epilogue, it's a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
 * Mega Corp: Leiblich Pharmaceuticals.
 * Memento MacGuffin: Sara's pendant, which contains a hologram of her deceased father.
 * Mind Screwdriver: Coco's route manages to clear up virtually every mystery in the game.
 * Moon Logic Puzzle: Without a walkthrough, some paths can be difficult to succeed on a first try. Most notably Tsugumi's good end.
 * Morality Pet: Chami is this to Tsugumi.
 * Mr. Exposition: Sora generally fullfills this role inside LeMU
 * Multiple Endings: An interesting subversion occurs here since the "True End" is actually much, much happier than the so-called "Good Ends".
 * Murder the Hypotenuse: Subverted in route: she decides to  instead.
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Tsugumi, when at her wangstiest.
 * No Export for You: You're from Europe? Tough luck.
 * Official Couple:
 * Older Than They Look: Coco. Takeshi thinks to himself how energetic elementary school kids are these days... then is shocked to find out that Coco is a third-year in middle school.
 * One Degree of Separation:
 * One Steve Limit:
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: The Kid, by virtue of his amnesia, and You, whose full first name is ridiculously long.
 * Overly Long Name: That's why she wants to be called You instead.
 * Pair the Spares: in the Drama CDs, rather awkwardly.
 * Parental Abandonment: You's father died in an accident when she was young, which lead her to work for LeMU to find out what happened to him.
 * The Plan / Batman Gambit:
 * Playful Hacker: Sara.
 * Properly Paranoid: Tsugumi.
 * Pygmalion Plot: Takeshi and Sora, sort of.
 * There's actually a scene with an extended bit of exposition specifically about the legend of Pygmalion as a thinly veiled allegory for the relationship between Takeshi and Sora. May bea Lampshade Hanging, but probably is not.
 * Rapunzel Hair: Tsugumi's hair extends to around her knees.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old:
 * Red Herring: Several, but two notable ones only applies to Japanese players/those who played Never 7 first.
 * The Remnant: Non-military example:
 * Relationship Voice Actor: Kana Ueda, Noriko Shitaya, and Yuu Asakawa also played characters who were close to each other in some way in a certain other visual novel...
 * Robot Girl: Sora, although of a Holographic AI Girl.
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
 * Shown Their Work: The authors clearly knew their way around theoretical physics, as well as just what kind of circumstances would be required to operate an underwater theme park.
 * Shout-Out: All of the names that the Kid can choose for himself are the names of protagonists from other KID visual novels, except for Prince (which is a Shout-Out to the KID game Prince Level 1):
 * Tomoya Mikami -- Memories Off. Makoto Ishihara -- Never 7. Naoto Miyama (mistranslated as Naoto Fukuyama) -- Yume no Tsubasa. Shiina Hasegawa -- Tentama. Motoki Homura (mistranslated as Motoki Inamura) -- Close to inori no oka. Ken Inami -- Memories Off 2. Kyosuke Watarase -- My Merry May.
 * In one of the paths, there'll be a party. You will perform an impression of a strange old archaeologist, who had a talent for cracking a whip.
 * There's a few other Shout Outs to Never 7, including:
 * The scene where Coco is introduced as a third-year in middle school is close to Kurumi introducing herself as a third-year in high school. Both of them are Younger Than They Look, and likewise act the same mentally.
 * The same argument over the name of the card game. Coco/Izumi call it "Super Memory," You/Kurumi call it "Mental Guts", Tsugumi/Makoto call it "Concentration", and Takeshi/Makoto settle for "Concenmemory".
 * A scene with a sleeping male character (who is the only other guy in the group apart from the current protagonist), who mutters things in his sleep that change/randomize depending on how many routes have been cleared beforehand.
 * Significant Anagram: LEMMIH spelled backwards is HIMMEL.
 * Snow Means Death: Inverted, it's stated to have been snowing on the night
 * Soap Opera Disease:
 * Space Whale: The "Cosmic Whale Room" has an animatronic one.
 * Stable Time Loop
 * Stepford Smiler:
 * Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Tsugumi.
 * Talking to Himself: Takeshi and the Kid, which happens in the prologue, but is otherwise averted due to them having no voiced lines in their own routes.
 * Temporal Paradox: Very unpleasant. see trope page for details.
 * The Dog Was the Mastermind:
 * The Rashomon: Takeshi and the Kid both come off as being far more competent and interesting in their own routes. In Takeshi's routes, the Kid is a semi-stable, emotional kid who follows whatever the group says. In the Kid's routes, Takeshi is a huge Butt Monkey.
 * Third Person Person: Coco.
 * Tin Man: Sora.
 * Tomato in the Mirror:
 * Tricked-Out Time
 * True Companions: Takeshi gives a lecture to Tsugumi about the meaning of "nakama" (which is translated as "friend"), though she rejects the idea.
 * Tsundere: Tsugumi by the end of her route, and the epilogue.
 * Utsuge
 * Valley Girl: Played for Laughs- In Sora's Route, Sora asks Takeshi to teach her how to act more human-like. The ultimate result is that she begins speaking like the trope. However, after it ends up making Coco cry, Takeshi and Sora agree she should just talk like she normally does.
 * Verbal Tic: Sara, being a ninja fangirl, sometimes refers to herself as "sessha" and ends sentences with the archaic "de gozaru". The translation renders this as over-the-top flowery Antiquated Linguistics.
 * What Year Is This?: The Kid asks Takeshi this since he can't remember a thing. Takeshi seems to not know either and has to rely on his admission ticket.
 * What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Sora's route revolves around this.
 * Translators Cannot Do Math: There are 17 meters between each level, but America doesn't really use the metric system. So they converted it to feet. The only problem is that there are about 3.3 feet in a meter and not just three. So not only do you lose another reference to 17, the conversions aren't done properly in some places.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Sora, Justified as that's her programming as a park employee AI.
 * You Already Changed the Past: Found out the hard way.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Coco's is pink. Everyone else's is a reasonable color.
 * Younger Than They Look: Sora, who is 6. Justified in that she's an AI, and her age is given as eternally 24.
 * The Dog Was the Mastermind:
 * The Rashomon: Takeshi and the Kid both come off as being far more competent and interesting in their own routes. In Takeshi's routes, the Kid is a semi-stable, emotional kid who follows whatever the group says. In the Kid's routes, Takeshi is a huge Butt Monkey.
 * Third Person Person: Coco.
 * Tin Man: Sora.
 * Tomato in the Mirror:
 * Tricked-Out Time
 * True Companions: Takeshi gives a lecture to Tsugumi about the meaning of "nakama" (which is translated as "friend"), though she rejects the idea.
 * Tsundere: Tsugumi by the end of her route, and the epilogue.
 * Utsuge
 * Valley Girl: Played for Laughs- In Sora's Route, Sora asks Takeshi to teach her how to act more human-like. The ultimate result is that she begins speaking like the trope. However, after it ends up making Coco cry, Takeshi and Sora agree she should just talk like she normally does.
 * Verbal Tic: Sara, being a ninja fangirl, sometimes refers to herself as "sessha" and ends sentences with the archaic "de gozaru". The translation renders this as over-the-top flowery Antiquated Linguistics.
 * What Year Is This?: The Kid asks Takeshi this since he can't remember a thing. Takeshi seems to not know either and has to rely on his admission ticket.
 * What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Sora's route revolves around this.
 * Translators Cannot Do Math: There are 17 meters between each level, but America doesn't really use the metric system. So they converted it to feet. The only problem is that there are about 3.3 feet in a meter and not just three. So not only do you lose another reference to 17, the conversions aren't done properly in some places.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Sora, Justified as that's her programming as a park employee AI.
 * You Already Changed the Past: Found out the hard way.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Coco's is pink. Everyone else's is a reasonable color.
 * Younger Than They Look: Sora, who is 6. Justified in that she's an AI, and her age is given as eternally 24.
 * You Already Changed the Past: Found out the hard way.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Coco's is pink. Everyone else's is a reasonable color.
 * Younger Than They Look: Sora, who is 6. Justified in that she's an AI, and her age is given as eternally 24.

The Xbox 360 remake provides examples of:

 * Big Brother Mentor: Takeshi to the Kid. This was slightly present in the original, but really taken to its fullest in the remake.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * Enhanced Remake: Contains an additional route, rewritten story (the main plot and major events are mostly the same, but a lot of the events in-between are completely different), complete background graphic, additional CGs, character conversion from 2D to 3D, remixed soundtrack, and re-recorded voices.
 * Fix Fic:
 * Schrödinger's Cast:
 * Stable Time Loop:
 * Stepford Smiler:
 * Schrödinger's Cast:
 * Stable Time Loop:
 * Stepford Smiler:
 * Stepford Smiler: