Kanon (visual novel)

Kanon is a romance visual novel in which the player assumes the role of Yuichi Aizawa. Much of its gameplay is spent on reading the story's narrative and dialogue. Kanon follows a branching plot line with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction.

There are five main plot lines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each of the heroines in the story. Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options to choose from, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made. To view all plot lines in their entirety, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and choose different choices to further the plot to an alternate direction. After Mai's scenario is completed, a replay of her route will offer an additional choice to play through Sayuri's back-story. Jun Maeda, who worked on the scenario for Kanon, commented in March 2001 that the Japanese public may have fallen under the impression that Key makes soothing games because of Kanon's influence, but Maeda affirmed that there was not one person who worked on Kanon who thought that.

The events of Kanon occur in winter. Since it often snows over the course of the entire story, the city is always presented covered in a layer of snow. The shopping district is featured throughout the story when the characters visit the town, especially whenever Ayu appears in the early story. The high school where Yuichi and the other main characters attend, including the school grounds, is often shown in Shiori and Mai's stories each. Otherwise, it is the main location where Yuichi interacts with other characters.

One of the motifs in the story is Yuichi, Ayu and Makoto suffering from amnesia in various degrees, which is used as a plot device to advance the story. Another motif deals with the favorite foods of the five main heroines. Newtype USA stated in an article on Kanon that "it's when the characters are eating something really tasty that they seem most beautiful and alive" despite the somber setting and overall tone of the series. These five foods of choice are: taiyaki (Ayu), strawberries (Nayuki), nikuman (Makoto), ice cream (Shiori), and gyudon (Mai).

Most of Kanon's development staff originally worked for the visual novel publisher Nexton under the brand Tactics. After the release of the brand's third game One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e, most of Tactics' staff left Nexton to pursue work in another publishing company where they could have the freedom to produce their next game. Itaru Hinoue, who had previously worked at Visual Arts once before, introduced Key's founding members to the president of Visual Arts, Takahiro Baba. Baba gave the developers the freedom they desired, and they officially transferred to Visual Arts where they formed Key on July 21, 1998, and started production on Kanon.

The planning for the visual novel was headed by Naoki Hisaya who was also one of two scenario writers with Jun Maeda. Hisaya wrote the scenarios for Ayu, Nayuki and Shiori, while Maeda wrote the routes for Makoto and Mai. Art direction was headed by Key's artist Itaru Hinoue who worked on the character design and computer graphics. Further computer graphics were split between three people—Dinn, Miracle Mikipon, Shinory—and background art was provided by Torino.

According to a national ranking of how well bishōjo games sold nationally in Japan, the original Kanon release for Windows achieved its highest rank at number two in the ranking. Three years later in June 2002, the original release ranked in again at 45, and then again at 46 the following two weeks. The original release also made the ranking after that at number 41 in early July 2002. The Kanon Standard Edition premiered at number 16 in the rankings.

The Kanon Standard Edition remained on the top 50 list for the next two months, achieving the rankings of 47 and 35. The all ages version of the Kanon Standard Edition premiered at number 42 on the national ranking, went up to 35 the next month, and did not appear on the rankings after that. The Dreamcast port sold 42,379 units in the first week and was the fourth top selling console game in Japan for that week. Kanon has sold over 300,000 units across several platforms, not counting the PSP release.