After its announcement a year and a half ago, fans are finally able to play Key’s latest big visual novel! This is also a first in Kazamatsuri’s history, and it’s been a doozy getting here. We’ll progressively learn more about the game over the coming days, but for now I thought it’d be a good time to look over all the promotion that’s gone into this release. At the bottom of the article, you can find a tag for all our Summer Pockets coverage if you want to see how things developed over time. However, there were also a number of things we never talked about because the time never seemed right.
By far the biggest thing we’ve forgone to mention is the large series of fanart VisualArt’s have commissioned and shared over the past four months. Here’s the full gallery. There’s currently 52 illustrations with the 53rd and final one coming tomorrow. They’ve pulled in so many people for this. From what I can tell, most artists who have worked on a Key manga or mobile game has participated. Some personal favorites of mine are: GotoP’s Umi, Saboten’s Kamome, Tsukigami Runa’s Shiroha, and Tatekawa Mako’s Ao. But tell me if you have any ones you like especially much.
There’s been a bunch of stuff happening on Youtube as well. One extremely silly one was the Summer Pockets VS Sumally Pocket where–after doing a whole spiel on Twitter–VisualArt’s and delivery company Sumally Pocket had a duel about who should be allowed to shorten their title to SamaPoke. Representatives from each company first battled in who could pack merch the fastest followed by a Tori no Uta sing-off. The duel ended in a tie, and it was decided some Sumally coupon would be included as a Summer Pockets pre-order bonus. The VA live stream guys have also shown off the two mini games featured in Summer Pockets: Ping pong and Shimamon Fight. Furthermore, there’s been a daily countdown til the release for two weeks with all the characters introducing themselves and welcoming players to Torishirojima.
Finally, just a quick reminder that we’ve translated a bunch of story snippets from Dengeki the last couple of months. And there’s guides to running and reading Japanese games available. I’m extremely excited for this game; just gotta wait for customs to do their thing, so I’ll be gnawing my fingers for the next three days.
