Morenatsu

Morenatsu (漏れなつ. "Summer break.") is an adult-oriented Kemono Bara/Yaoi Visual Novel by the Morenatsu Project. It was led by the Kemono artist Gamma, but after his contributions he has since left the project. Morenatsu is currently only in Japanese, with characters developed by many different aggregate sources on the 2ch Kemono image board. The main site is here. The development blog is here.

The game is still incomplete (and has been for years now), so only a trial version of the game is available. A newer demo has been released, downloadable only by torrent, the link of it is here. It contains the completed stories for Tatsuki, Kounosuke, Kouya and Shun along with their love scenes.

The story: The game takes place during summer vacation in Japan. The main character, Hiroyuki Nishimura (one of the few humans in the game), gets a letter from a friend in the village where he spent his childhood, Minasato village (水郷村 Minasato-mura). He moved away to the city five years ago. His grandparents currently live there, so he decides to return there.

With regard to gameplay, it's a gay Visual Novel. The player has one month to gain the affection of one of nine men. They are:
 * 1) Torahiko Ooshima (the Tiger)
 * 2) Tatsuki Midoriya (the Dragon)
 * 3) Juuichi Mikazuki (the Bear)
 * 4) Kounosuke Kuri (the Raccoon Dog)
 * 5) Kouya Aotsuki (the Husky)
 * 6) Kyouji Takahara (the Labrador)
 * 7) Shin Kuroi (the Cat)
 * 8) Shun Kodori (the Wolf)
 * 9) Soutarou Touno (the Lion)

If the player makes the correct decisions, Hiroyuki and one of the characters will make love.

But the story is long and character-driven, with little or no sex scenes until the love scene. Morenatsu indeed has a broad gay Kemono audience appeal ranging from G-rated to X-rated, and the game's public visibility is almost entirely sustained by an enormous amount of fanart, just as equally ranging from G-rated to X-rated. (This Fur Affinity link is fairly worksafe for non-members or for accounts that do not have adult content activated. But if you have a FA account and adult content is activated, some of the thumbnails on that page will be Not Safe for Work.)

There is a character sheet.


 * Adorkable - Tatsuki and Kounosuke, incidentally also the first stories to be completed. Shun and Soutarou also have Adorkable qualities.
 * Author Appeal: The Big Beautiful Men, the Megane, the DILFs, the Cast Full of Gay, the way it seems that Everyone Is Gay...
 * Bara/Yaoi: A lot of each. Torahiko, Tatsuki, Juuichi, and Kounosuke are more masculine and brawny and fit the Bara mold. Shin, Shun, and Soutarou are more lithe and boyish (with Shun and Soutarou being out-right twinks) and fit the Yaoi mold. Kouya and Kyouji straddle the Bara-Yaoi border and fit well in either mold. Kounosuke superficially looks more boyish when fully-clothed (just chubbier than normal), but he displays very much a Bara body type when the shirt comes off.
 * If you look at the list, they're actually in descending order of masculinity, starting with Torahiko, Tatsuki, and Juuichi. They transition from masculine into more boyish territory, ending with Soutarou.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: The game is kinda odd about this trope's use. While penises are never shown on actual portraits (H-scenes not counting), pubic hair can be seen on certain characters and nipples are always there except on Tatsuki, Tappei (where they would be Non-Mammal Mammaries), Shin, and Shun.
 * Beach Episode: In the middle of the game, you and the 9 other guys go to the beach. You then get to choose who you want to spend the party with.
 * Similarly, there's also a camping trip with you and the 9 other guys. Like the trip to the beach and the welcoming party, you get to choose who you spend the trip with.
 * Big Beautiful Man: Tatsuki, Juuichi, and Kounosuke, as well as Tatsuki's Hot Dad Tappei, and Botan, and Tetsuya.
 * Bittersweet Ending: After the summer vacation is over, Hiroyuki returns to the city. Of course, the open-endedness of the game and the allowed free-use of the characters means there's plenty of room for interpretation. On top of that, when his friends ask him if he will return again, he answers outright that he'll see them next vacation. It doesn't keep the parting from being sad though.
 * Kounosuke's profile clearly states he wishes to live in the city. There's nothing to say that wouldn't happen even after Hiroyuki leaves.
 * In Tatsuki's route, Hiroyuki has a dream that . There's nothing saying that wouldn't happen either.
 * Playing through all the routes and seeing what kind of problems Hiroyuki's presence helps to fix, you can't help but feel bad about going through one of them and knowing how bad all eight of your other friends have it.
 * Bizarre Beast-Men Biology: While the Beast-men in the game obviously have the same organs and biology as a human, the rate at which they grow up seems to vary wildly. For example, big animals like tigers, bears, and dragons grow naturally bigger than a human and at a faster rate, while relatively small species like dogs, cats, and mice are usually the same size of a human or smaller.
 * Carnivore Confusion: In the restaurant scene at the beginning of the game, characters are shown eating foods such as beef and chicken.
 * With the possible exception of Chuukichi (mouse), Akira (horse), and Botan (who is a boar, which are known to eat other animals!), all of the characters and supporting characters are predatory species. There's likely a separation between beastmen and normal feral animals.
 * Cast Full of Gay/Everyone Is Gay - In this game, most of the cast is gay, including the older supporting characters Tappei (who is actually bi), Botan, and even the elderly mayor Shigure. Chuukichi is also found to be gay. The rest of the characters (Akira, Yukiharu, etc.) are of unknown sexuality. Tetsuya is married with a daughter, but then again, Tappei has a wife and son too, so it's unknown whether Tetsuya is straight or bi. Still, in such a small village, the sheer demographic skew of gay male characters makes it seem more like a Gayborhood, or at least like a strikingly postheteronormative community where sexuality is not a social marker.
 * Because all nine dateable characters are Invisible to Gaydar or Manly Gay, the entire cast could potentially be bisexual (Kyouji is listed as a "ladies man" after all). Therefore, the interest in Hiroyuki doesn't bother them. The only possible exception is Soutarou, who moved to the village only three years ago. In his case, it may be that his sexuality was undecided prior to Hiroyuki potentially showing interest in him.
 * Cast Herd: Seeing as there will be individual routes for each choice, this is very likely to be the end result. The released routes introduce at least 3 characters each.
 * Cast of Snowflakes: Being a game with heavy use of Kemono characters, this was to be expected with everybody being a different animal except in certain cases, where they still look very different. Exceptions are the Uncanny Family Resemblance of Kounosuke and Yukiharu, and Nanafuse assuming the appearance of Shun. Even in the latter case, Nanafuse has eerily distinct facial expressions that make him impossible to actually confuse with Shun.
 * Kouya, Kyouji, and Shigure may be dogs, but they're different breeds. Kouya is a husky and Kyouji is a labrador. No clue about Shigure though.
 * Character Development: Arguably the entire point of the game. You begin with only a basic understanding of the mindsets of the characters, and learn more about them as the plot advances, which culminates in the relationship and consummation of said relationship. However, the sheer quantity and quality of the character development makes the journey to the hook-up all the more satisfying, if not better than the hook-up itself.
 * Development Hell: The game has been in production for around 5 years. Justified in that the game is the result of a collaboration between multiple artists, and the first demo alone totalled in with over 50,000 lines of dialogue alone, NOT counting the recent patch that added two of the nine complete paths. There's still nothing remotely resembling an estimated completion date.
 * Eyes Always Shut: Kyouji and Tetsuya.
 * Eyes of Gold: This seems to be the most common eye color among the characters, with Kounosuke, Kouya, Shin, Soutarou, Chuukichi, and Yukiharu having this color.
 * Fan Service: All the fucking time.
 * Five-Man Band: Literally, Kouya's band. The positions differ depending on whether you view it by character roles or by musical roles.
 * Grumpy Bear: Juuichi. And he's actually a bear.
 * Subverted in that according to his profile, he looks mad all the time, but usually isn't.
 * Hot Dad: Tatsuki's father Tappei.
 * His profile even calls him a DILF!
 * Homoerotic Subtext: Lots of it, even not counting sex scenes.
 * Invisible Parents: Semi-averted, since quite a few of the characters have parents, but not all of them have a complete set. Most of the time it's the father that's the one missing. Tatsuki's father Tappei seems to be sole instance where not only is the father present, but the family is a complete set. It likely helps that Tappei is a major supporting character as well. In addition, the mothers are all background supporting characters.
 * Keet: Shun and Soutarou. Kounosuke has a Keet personality but less of a Keet appearance.
 * Kemono
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: This game has at least 20 characters and only two routes have been released so far. If all routes were complete, the number would likely jump all the way to 50.
 * Lucky Charms Title: In Japanese, but not in English. In Japanese, it's officially spelled 漏れなつ. including the Asian full stop punctuation in all utterances. In English (even on the homepage) it's simply Morenatsu without punctuation.
 * Megane - Botan, Tetsuya and Shigure.
 * Kounosuke is Meganekko with lots of Moe.
 * Meaningful Name: The game is stuffed with these, from character names referring to their own species (Torahiko, where 'Tora' means 'tiger') to the title of the game, which comes out to something like "My Summer Vacation".
 * Multiple Endings: A given, seeing as there's 9 different characters to hook up with. The decision during the welcome party determines which route you're going on, so you wind up hooking up with someone regardless.
 * Kounosuke route by itself has two endings, one bad and one good, while Tatsuki route has some bad endings which result out of bad choices.
 * No Export for You: Though the international fandom (and its fanart) is acknowledged and welcomed, there are no plans to ever release the game in English or to sell it outside Japan. The Morenatsu Project team has also become distrustful of foreigners, and their policy is to forbid all translation into other languages or countries, even if formally asked. The team says on the front page that anyone who tries to make a fan translation will have their entire country locked out.
 * One Teacher School: Justified. Minasato village's population has been dwindling for years, just like most Japanese rural towns in real life. The village still has a school, but Botan is the only teacher.
 * Plot with Love Scene: Only after characters have proven their chemistry and cemented their relationship, they will become lovers and have a love scene. This doesn't happen until the ending.
 * The Power of Friendship: During Tatsuki's route, you help him try out an airplane he constructed after the first test flight failed, during which all your other friends cheer the two of you on.
 * Public Domain Character: Specifically mentioned by the Morenatsu project, because of the way the characters were designed. No one person designed the game's characters, and no character was designed by just one person, but by the aggregation of many different people's ideas. Consequently, the Morenatsu project does not claim ownership over any of the characters, and in fact encourages their reuse in other people's works.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Torahiko and Juuichi.
 * Romantic Comedy
 * Sempai-Kohai: Kyouji and Soutarou brings this straight out of a Yaoi Genre.
 * She Who Must Not Be Seen: Females characters do appear on the game, but their roles are extremely minor and they don't get a portrait. This is because the original board where the game began production prohibited images of female characters.
 * Ship Tease: The game likes to tease some non-Hiroyuki pairings. For example, Kouya x Shun and Kyouji x Soutarou get teased often.
 * Shout-Out: While perhaps unintentional, anyone who's played Persona 3 or Persona 4 will notice a striking similarity in the art style of the page's icons of the 9 characters to the style used for the Persona characters' status icons in battle.
 * Tatsuki's route seems to include one to Mobile Suit Gundam, with a reference to Char and Amuro (and how the airplane is painted red) during the second airplane sequence.
 * In the same route, there's a bizarre Neon Genesis Evangelion moment as well if you pick the second choice during the airplane sequence.
 * Slice of Life
 * Invisible to Gaydar/Manly Gay: Practically every gay or bi character, even the Bishonen and Yaoi Guys. There is virtually nothing Camp Gay in this game. Even Hiroyuki plays this trope straight.
 * Too Much Information: During the camping trip, the conversation shifts rather abruptly to everyone's masturbatory schedule and what kind of "tools" they use. Hiroyuki and Juuichi (to an extent) are the only ones who seem to think this odd.
 * The kicker?
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Seemingly played straight. Since you can only choose to pursue 1 of the 9 characters, the other 8 would appear to become this, except that the point of the entire game is to develop a relationship that's more than just being friends. So technically, the other 8 don't count, except...
 * Torahiko is all but confirmed as this, as during Tatsuki's route, 2 days before Hiroyuki leaves, Torahiko gives a pause-filled speech about how Hiroyuki and Tatsuki make good partners and that he hopes they are happy. His constant pauses and hesitation is a dead giveaway that there's something on his mind.
 * Which has led many to believe that Torahiko is a sort of "canon route"; the game seems to make you feel guilty for not picking him.
 * Unresolved Sexual Tension: This game wouldn't be nearly as interesting without it.
 * Not so much unresolved as almost non-existent. The sexual tension doesn't seem to even start appearing until the last week and a half or so of the summer vacation, and even then it's extremely gradual. This ties in nicely with the Invisible to Gaydar aspect of the characters however.
 * Victorious Childhood Friend: The person you hook up with becomes this.
 * Younger Than They Look: Some of the teenager characters do not look young enough to be teenagers. It is however difficult to otherwise cast teenage characters as Bara roles.
 * Hiroyuki's exact age is next to impossible to determine at all. There are hints to his age being in the same range as his friends, but the hints themselves are as remarkably vague as he is.
 * Torahiko looks more like an adult than someone who's 16 or 17.
 * Same goes for Tatsuki. He looks too physically mature to be 17.
 * Juuichi is the biggest offender. For someone who's 17 or 18, he looks like he's at least in his 20s, and easily in his 30s.
 * Kounosuke is a more borderline example who can look older or younger depending on the circumstances.
 * Kyouji's clothing and demeanor seem to hint at an older age or even adulthood, but he's only a third year high school student like most of the characters.
 * While this appears to be the case, it's also possible that species plays a role. If you compare Tatsuki to his father, the difference implies his species is naturally very large, which would make him appear older than he actually is. Same with Juuichi, being a bear (a normally large animal) would contribute to him looking much older. Kyouji is the only exception, but it might simply be that he's just very mature-acting for his age.