癒し系魔法少女

沙耶の唄(Saya no Uta) is a PC game by Nitro+ that came out at the end of 2003. I first read about it in Haniwa-dono's diary when he expressed an urge to eat BBQ after playing the game. He didn't go into any details of the game, and I occasionally would see its name or the image of Saya pop up randomly online. For years, I never gave it much thought nor bothered to look for more information on the game. Reading Japanese was still somewhat difficult for me at that time and I wouldn't be able to play the description text heavy game anyway.

A few days ago, someone was putting up Nitro+ games for grabs, so I figured I'd do a little research to see if it's worth it. The front illustration of Saya no Uta looks innocent enough for a Nitro+ game, so I failed to read the genre description: Suspense horror ADV.

I got seriously traumatized when I browsed through the game's official website last night. *WARNING* If you accidentally triggered the alternate site view, click on the flower to go back to the normal view immediately before you look around! If you are still curious and want to continue browsing, *do not* stare at the images and try to decipher what the contents are like foolish me. orz

Anyhow, I went on to browse the game sites for other Nitro+ games and forgot the horror for the time being, as nothing else came close enough to evoke the trauma. Unfortunately, I am a very strong visual person and tend to remember images I see or text I read, especially when I put in an effort to understand the meaning of some foreign language text or discerning image details (hence I can still be spooked whenever I recall the Red Room now, despite the fact that I only could barely understand Japanese at the time many many years ago). As a result, the images and story background were still itched to my mind around midnight. Bad idea.

So I decided to watch a few episodes of healing type anime to wash off the horrendous feeling. Originally I planned to finish the very funny Ring ni Kakero 1 series since it's hilarious and I only had 2-3 episodes left anyway.

Then I thought of an anime series under a certain writer's credit, the same writer behind the Saya no Uta game, Urobuchi Gen. Yes, that anime series is the famed Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Episode 5 and 6 later, my mind was put to ease.
さすが癒し系魔法少女（キャラデザインを無視すれば）！虚淵の言う通り、温かく幸せな気持ちで一杯になってもらった！（°∀°）　
正しく「解鈴系鈴（解鈴還須繫鈴人）」ってやつだ～