Original scans by midwinter at BCL
We were able to specially borrow the storyboards drawn for creation of the cutscenes for this book. This is an opportunity to take a good look at important data.
The scene in which Mio and Mayu, Yae and Sae reunite at the Sacrificial Dais. On the fifth panel is written "Mio hesitates", but in the completed cutscene, she hesitates for only a second, and then you can see that her resolve has strengthened.
Page 002 Cut 05-08In the second panel Mio is drawn as though she has already turned into Yae, but in the actual cutscene she is still Mio. Mayu also overlaps with Sae in voice alone, and doesn't change into Sae until just before she disappears.
Reunion scene with Mayu in Chapter 7. In the cutscene just before this Mio, witnessing Sae entering Itsuki's room, is unable to tell whether it is the real Mayu, who had been shut in the room, or Sae having changed her appearance.
Page 002 Cut 04-07Pay attention to the scene in the first panel. It was drawn with a really strong horror atmosphere, but she's not this scary in the actual cutscene, and her expression seems somehow empty, sad, deflated.
This new cutscene, showing the girls on the bank of Resonance Pond (the big pond surrounding Whisper Bridge before the Kurosawa house), is one of the ending conditions. "We used to play here often" is one of Sae's memories from life, but the line in the next panel, "This will be gone soon, won't it...?", seems to be a line from Mayu's current memories, showing Mayu's confusion.
In the scene in the second panel, Mayu is shown at an angle right beside her, and as Mio is facing forwards you can't see her face, but Mayu seeming sorrowful, full of grief, is more powerful.
This new cutscene, which occurs when you enter the Tachibana projector room, is also one of the ending conditions. Mayu, who you could say is mostly expressionless throughout the game, visibly smiles faintly in this scene. When Mayu is trapped in the confinement room in Chapter 5, Mio pulls her hand away without thinking, so this scene, in which they hold hands again, is important. Incidentally, the video of the festival Mio and Mayu watch in this scene shows the Shadow Festival at Kureha Shrine, which spread along with the area's religious beliefs, and the film was supposed to have been brought along by Seijiro Makabe long ago when he visited.
These are a few selected cuts from the storyboard for one of the newly-added endings, Shadow Festival. Shadow Festival isn't a definitive happy ending, but Mio and Mayu are depicted enjoying themselves and smiling, lively, so it feels as though even if only in a momentary illusion they were saved.
In the actual cutscene, their joyful image is shown as somewhat suppressed, but since there are quite a lot of scenes in the game that are dark, with very little light sources, this conveys the quite bright and happy atmosphere of a festival.
This is Frozen Butterfly, which was ordered by Mr. Kikuchi, the producer, as "a really miserable ending". This shows the storyboard for the last scene, which has a lot of impact even within the cutscene. Mio's weak, empty eyes, and Mayu's contrasting liveliness, and the joyous air that she gives off. This scene, showing the contrast between the two, leaves an intense lingering memory with the viewer.
According to the director, Mr. Shibata, the Frozen Butterfly ending was imagined and born from the last scene of Chapter 3. In other words, the shadow (Mayu) shown on the screen was...
