Genre: Band Comedy Slice of Life Visual Novel
Developer: Overdrive
Publisher: MangaGamer
Release Date: Mar 02, 2012
Music and slice of life anime are two of a kind, yet also two sides of the same coin. This is how I feel about many anime, K-On! specifically, and yet I also get this feeling from DEARDROPS. DEARDROPS is a musical slice of life visual novel developed by OVERDRIVE back in late 2009/early 2010, and released by MangaGamer in 2012 for visual novel readers all over to enjoy. This slice of life novel is a step up with its catchy music, well developed writing, and excellent visuals, even with the pacing issues the story presents early on.
Plucking the strings of a violin to its own beat, DEARDROPS tells us a tale of a past longing to be forgotten, and a future that may bring it back up more than it wants to be. Our protagonist is Shoichi Suganuma, a dedicated and talented violin player, who left Japan five years before our novel’s story begins, to go to Germany and be a part of an orchestra. This dream was working out well, until an event somewhere in those five years lead him to retire as a violinist and return to his home in Japan. This return was not a pleasant one, however, as upon returning home, he is disowned by his family. Shoichi is given shelter in a small bus-turned-living-quarters atop of a little music practice studio owned by Sakurai Kanade, her younger sister, and her father, who everyone just calls Master. Now working at the small studio for his living, Shoichi starts to learn of a new type of music called rock and roll, and through that, he meets new people who bring him to play a new instrument, the guitar. Now with guitar in hand and new friends at his side, they decided to take on the world of rock as a band – but this path is not an easy one, as he and his new friends soon find out. I will end the story here, but this novel is an amazing read, being very slow to start up, but showing strong character development as the story goes along its fifteen plus hours ride. I must warn, however, as with some novels, there will be sexual content hidden in the novel and DEARDROPS is no different. This content is kept rather tame, in terms of how often it shows up in the story, but there will be scenes in the novel that show nudity. This said, the treatment they gave these scenes was well intended and taken with great care, as I felt like these were natural events of feelings that the story develops on its own.
The greatness of the writing can not be underestimated, but I do feel the pacing is a big mar on an otherwise nearly perfect story, something that really does hurt itself in the beginning. Novels like DEARDROPS are rare, and I can say a slowly paced opening and build up to a main event is needed to really show off each of the main characters, their attributes, and to some degree, their personalities, but DEARDROPS just goes too slow for its own good. The first one to two hours, which is the main build up into the band forming, was very slow and I oftentimes had to force myself along to get to a portion I enjoyed. However, once you got there, the story and pacing finally met on an even level, where I felt like the pace was keeping up with story as the band’s development starts. The one thing this slow pacing does deliver in true succession is character development. Character development to me is a focal point in slice of life novels. I want to see these characters grow and become bigger, yet better, people while progressing as a overall story, and DEARDROPS does get this right.
Coming from a visual standpoint, DEARDROPS is one a novel where I can say that simple is better, as shown by the hand drawn art style used in the novel’s characters, CG scenes, and backgrounds. The backgrounds are not plain in the slightest, being designed to have a life all their own, as little decorations and posters pop out at you to say where you are. These little things make the backgrounds interesting to look at, and add a splash of life to the scenes, something I think would be missing otherwise. The CG scenes are similar to this, putting more focus on the characters than the backgrounds behind them, but allowing a balance of both to shine through as the events play out. Lastly, the character models are drawn to be detailed, but also simple. This small thing allows for the reader to know a character by their image and remember this character better as the story progresses. It also allows for very active facial animation, giving the characters face a chance to show more than a few emotions.
Grab your headphones and prepare to rock out as the soundtrack in DEARDROPS will make you want to shake your head like you are at a live concert. The soundtrack has a great diversity within its core, going for a rock and roll theme to match the story in most cases, but not always, as the soundtrack does have a few classical pieces where needed. From memories of the violin and tender moments, to some jazzy elements thrown in, these tracks spice up what is already a solid set of songs. The sound effects in DEARDROPS are small but effective ones, something I do not find as widely popular, but in this case, do make the subtle difference. These effects, depending on the scene used in, will add a small flare to an already welcome soundtrack and voice acting.
Overall, I found that even with the sluggish pacing issues at the start, DEARDROPS was a good time with an excellently crafted story, good character development, rockin’ soundtrack, and intimately placed love scenes. The well-crafted writing, excellent storytelling, intimate love scenes, slow but needed character development, simplistic but detailed backgrounds, well animated characters, rockin’ soundtrack, and subtle sound effects made for an experience that I would headbang to again.
Pros:
- Writing was well crafted
- Storytelling was slow but on point in most cases
- Few but well placed intimate love scenes
- Slow but nicely done character development
- Backgrounds kept it simple but detailed in small ways
- Character felt animated well for their lines
- A rockin soundtrack for the senses
- Subtlety used sound effects
Cons:
- The early bits of story are very slowly paced, may turn away some readers
- Characters can feel stiff in some poses but very rare
DarkLunarDude gives DEARDROPS a Drastik Measure 9.0 out of 10.0 (90).
For the price of $39.95 on MangaGamer, I can easily recommend DEARDROPS to any music or slice of life novel reader as the title mixes both together well, and also to those who love a good story, and solid soundtrack to rock out to in the background, with its over fifteen hours of read time.
Editor’s Note: This picture is a semi-accurate representation of the bosses in the background as DLD writes all of these reviews.
