Ballad of an Evening Butterfly or Yachoukitan is a dark, Gothic, and short visual novel by Zig-Zag.
It's about the amnesiac Kaoru Sera, who wanders into a forest and stumbles upon a ominous, old-looking mansion. He enters the house and is greeted by a stoic boy surrounded by black butterflies. The boy introduces himself as Yoru Mutsuki. He lets Sera in and gives him a job to do, which is to occupy a girl locked in a basement. Yoru then gives him the keys to the basement where he finds the albino girl in white, Chou. After he finishes this task, Yoru tells him that Chou is a ChouTsuki (a vampire-like species) and Kaoru was brought to be her sacrifice.
Ballad of an Evening Butterfly provides examples of:
- Amnesiac Hero: Kaoru starts the visual novel with no memory of his identity or past. He remembers everything towards the end of the visual novel though.
- Animal Motif: Butterflies, of course, are a major motif in this visual novel. Black butterflies are associated with Yoru and white butterflies with Chou.
- Ballad of X
- Cute Mute: Chou only speaks through Visible Silence, has a childlike composure, and is very endearing. It didn't take much time at all for Kaoru to become enamored.
- Delicate and Sickly: Chou is a very cute yet frail girl due to her albinism (and she's already weak to the sun because of her species). If she goes out in the sun, she will die in five minutes. This is why she lives most of her life in the basement.
- Downer Ending: The story ends with Yoru shooting both Sera and Chou dead when they try to escape the mansion.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Yoru has raven hair, pale skin and is pretty enigmatic and creepy. He doesn't go outside much due to being weak to sunlight.
- Ethereal White Dress: Chou the vampire girl is clad in a pretty white dress, which adds to her enigma. It also contrasts her with Yoru, her twin, who's in all black.
- Mystical White Hair: Chou has white hair. It probably has to do with her albinism, the fact she’s from a unusual species very similar to vampires and her mysterious powers.
- Rainbow Speak: Red menacing-looking text appears several times in the visual novel to set the creepy and suspenseful mood.
- Splash of Colour: The entire work is completely monochrome save for the colour red, which shows up in Chou's eyes, blood, and the text. Given the fact that the world is described as achromatic, it seems this applies in-universe as well.
- Stoic Spectacles: Yoru wears glasses and he never seems to lose his cool, no matter how dangerous the situation is.
- Technicolor Eyes: Chou's eyes are blood red. They are most likely a trait she got from her albinism.
