Studio Key Works Air - The curse (spoiler warning)

Turn back now if you haven't seen all of Air. If you've seen the Summer special and the movie, it might help, though it's not necessary.





Anyway, I was thinking. At the end of the Summer arc of Air, Kanna was cursed by Buddhist monks. I forget the exact curse was mentioned, but basically Kanna and her loved ones, and their descendants would suffer from endless sorrow; it's this curse that resulted in Misuzu's death.

Now, they're BUDDHIST monks. I don't know much about Buddhism in general, but doesn't buddhism teach peace and tranquility? Cursing someone to endless sorrow is hardly that. So why exactly did they curse Kanna, and why with such a horrible curse that goes so against their religion's basic teachings?

 

Hmm it's been a while since I saw that part (I'll have to see it all again) but it seems they were very afraid of the winged beings, and therefore they held them captive. And after Kanna wrecking havoc, they wanted to seal her off forever - why they'd use a curse like that, though, I have no idea :/ I wonder if it is explained in the game

 

Yeah, it might be. I've got a copy of the game, but I was never able to get it to work. And the translation would be babelfish-esque.

And it's an H-game. :shy3:

I still find it strange, though. They feared her, for what? What did she, or any other winged being, do to them to make them fear them so deeply?

 

Maybe just because she was so different? That might have scared them. Plus, Kanna and her mother did have strong powers. I feel so sorry for them

I may be able to make your game work - which edition do you have, and in which way won't it work? I'd really like to own it myself, but they haven't released a Standard Edition all age of Air yet, and I don't want the H-edition :'(

 

Yeah, I've got the H-version. :shy2: If I remember right, though, there is a non-H version, though I could never find it. It's all japanese, but I got a program called Text Hooker or something that attaches a window to the bottom of the game window which translates all the text, in a Babelfish-esque way.

Unfortunately I don't remember where I got any of them, although I know I bookmarked the sites at some point. It's simply a matter of digging through masses of bookmarks. :/

It's strange how the human mind works. That their fear of something or someone can lead them to do something so cruel. They fear the power of the winged beings, yet there's no evidence showing any reason for them to. (IE, they destroyed a village or something) Perhaps they believed it to be an ill omen or something?

 

If your game freezes when you try and start, it may be because you need a new font for it - it worked for my Kanon game. I also heard something about the sound not working on WinXP if you have one of the old versions of Air. Just some guesses to what your problem may be, though.

That could be. Even though they also said something about them being God's messengers or something like that - very strange I'd also like to know why they treated Kanna and her mother so differently (Kanna being in a castle, and her mother locked in a cave).
Maybe her mother rebelled in some way, which resulted in the lock-away and the curse?

 

I haven't tried it in awhile, but I'm pretty sure the sound did work. The game froze when I tried to use Texthooker, though. I could play it in Japanese. Perhaps I do need a new font. I haven't a clue how to select a different one, though.

Both Kanna and her mother were imprisoned, it's just the nature of the imprisonment. Somehow Kanna got locked up in the castle and her mother in a cave. Perhaps they thought they could "convert" Kanna to make her serve them, and thought that her mother never would, and that if she were near Kanna, she'd teach her the "wrong way" and be an "obstruction" to their goals.

This is all inference, though. I don't think there's anything in the actual story to support any particular explanation.

 

Here is how: http://forums.haeleth.net/viewtopic.php?t=289

Hope it helps

 

Indeed it did, I reinstalled the game and got it running, however there is another problem, now. On a test run of the game, following the instructions found here, it started up and ran properly, but Texthooker either displays no text at all, or multiple copies of the Japanese text. Which is, needless to say, not very helpful.

We are like, SO far off topic right now, lol.

 

I have the same problem, I can't get text-hooker to work either And I don't know what to do about it :'( (if you figure it out, please do tell)

Heh, true.... :shy2:

 

Hmm, I fiddled around with the settings of Texthooker a bit, apparently the font is not an issue. I looked around a bit, and found this:

http://ohhara.sarang.net/ohthk/

Scroll down a bit, and you'll see that you need to download a new jetrans.dll, and it provides links to where to find it.

After testing the new one I got, I can't say it's working very well, but it's a start. I'll look more into the linked thread on Hongfire a bit later, right now I'm exhausted and about to go to bed early.

Oh well, I wonder if anyone'll notice. Buuut, we could say we're talking about "The curse of the Air game not working" It's *sorta* on topic then.

 

Hmm I have that one as well, still not working for me either. I wonder if I am doing something wrong.....

Hehe and yeah, making the game work could give us some info about the curse, ne?

 

Hmm, sorry about taking so long. I checked it out again, using the new jetrans.dll, and I messed with the settings a bit.

There's a lot of left-over text in the sentences, but you can kinda get the gist of what's going on. It's readable, if only barely. And it doesn't seem to work for any text that's displayed on screen, rather than in a text box.

And surely our knowledge of the series'll help us out

It'd be nice if it would get officially translated some day, ne?

 

My opinion

The monks cursed Kanna, but the nature of the curse was up to the being they invoked to make the curse, in this case Buddha. The lesson: At least in the anime, Buddha is evil!

Yeah, that sucks. But c'mon guys, it's just an anime! Born from an h-game! We shouldn't really worry about this stuff... it's like wondering what'd happen if superman found yellow cryptonite.

In any case, I recall the characters saying that with time, the curse would dissolve, and Kanna would be happy again. Now what we'd us like, would be Kanna not being cursed in the first place, but well, we're talking about Shintoism and ancient (and weird) religions. I believe that If Kanna existed in this world she wouldn't have to worry about being cursed at all, God wouldn't allow it

But let's add more wood to the fire: What if Kanna didn't exist at all, Misuzu was suffering from a mental disease which made her have fake memories? Ouch, that really sounds angsty, but hey, i'd prefer that to being cursed for 1,000 years

 

Buddha is evil? Perhaps not. After all, a religion is interpreted by it's followers. By that reasoning, the catholic god would be evil if I cursed you in his name. It's the followers that are evil, not the religion.

This statement has always meant nothing to me. It's like, "Why bother?" Well, why bother discussing anything, then? It's unimportant, who cares? I wonder about it and discuss it because I want to, because I enjoy it, not because I have to know or the world will end, or whatever.

Gah, I don't recall that. In any case, I think that with Yukito's sacrifice, the curse ends. Somehow Misuzu still falls victim to it, but I'd like to believe that his love for her, his strong desire to save her, broke the curse.

I dunno. Air is complicated. Every element of the story depends on another element, no? To remove one of those elements could change a lot. I'll have to get back to you on that.

...Maybe someone should write a fanfic about it. There's precious little enough in the way of fanfics for Air as it is.