Visual Novel / Summer Pockets

Summer Pockets is set on an isolated, rural and peaceful island on the Seto Inland Sea called Torishirojima, which has a population of about 2,000 people. The protagonist is Hairi Takahara, a young man not native to the island. Hairi grew up in an urban setting, but after an unpleasant incident, he uses the recent death of his grandmother as an excuse to come to the island to take care of her estate sale. Once there, he gets to know four girls who are the focus of the story. They include Shiroha Naruse, who forgot her summer vacation; Ao Sorakado, who is pursuing the legends of the island; Kamome Kushima, a high-class girl looking for a pirate ship; and Tsumugi Wenders, a younger girl trying to find herself.

This is Key/Visual Arts 10th main work (excluding spin-offs) and their 11th visual novel^note If you count the two kinetic novels Planetarian and Harmonia. (including spin-offs), with Kanon, Air, CLANNAD, Little Busters! and Rewrite among its many predecessors. Due to its setting and themes, there are some similarities to the aforementioned AIR.

The novel's concept is by Jun Maeda, who felt that the game needed to make readers cry. Kai was brought in to direct the project, as well as co-write the scenario with Hasama and Yū Niijima. Maeda decided not to write the scenario due to similarities in themes with AIR, which he primarily wrote. Although AIR also features a rural, seaside setting during the summer, the development team aimed for Summer Pockets to have a different feeling to it. Nostalgia and the maternal bond are prominent themes in the game. Na-Ga, who has worked with Key since Little Busters!, is the chief artist and character designer, and additional character designs are provided by Tsubasu Izumi and Yūnon Nagayama. The game's soundtrack was composed by Maeda, Shinji Orito, Donmaru, Tomohiro Takeshita and Ryō Mizutsuki.

Summer Pockets was released on June 29, 2018 as an all-ages visual novel, with an English translation released on February 6, 2020.

An updated version, Summer Pockets Reflection Blue, was released in June 2020, which features a new heroine, Shiki Kamiyama, along with new routes featuring Miki Nomura, Shizuku Mizuori, and Umi Katou.

An Anime adaption is confirmed to be in development.

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Tropes associated with Summer Pockets:

• Accidental Pervert: Hairi walks in on Ao changing in the back of the sweets store. It almost becomes a Running Gag.
• All Just a Dream: The entirety of the Islamon minigame, which is revealed to have been created by Ai to cheer up her sister.
• All There in the Manual: Several things, such as the significance of Ao's pet fox and where Umi goes when she goes out to play, are only explained in the side stories found on the website.
• Animal Motifs: Doubles over with Arc Symbol. Hairi is constantly compared to a wounded bird, and on his journey to Torishirojima he sees a pair of wounded seagulls flying behind their flock.
• Arc Words:
  • Torishirojima is called "the place where memories return".
  • "Summer vacation".
• Ascended Extra: Nomiki and Shizuku get their own routes in Reflection Blue.
• Beach Episode: Due to its seaside setting, basically most of the scenes are going to be this.
• Beautiful Dreamer: Ao, whom our first encounter is with her sleeping under a tree on the side of the road. Doubles with Sleep Cute in her route when both her and Hairi fall asleep while taking care of the candy shop. Umi also counts as she falls asleep from tiredness (on Shiroha's lap, no less) after a game of hide-and-seek.
• Brick Joke: A lot of em'.
• Big Sleep: Ao succumbs to this at the end of her route, due to brain overload from absorbing too many shichiheichou. Thankfully, she gets better thanks to Hairi's and Inari's efforts.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the original version of the game, the final timeline has Shiroha never awakening to her latent powers of precognition, and grows up to be more well-adjusted to the deaths of her parents and more friendly with the other islander children. The problems of Hairi and the other heroines also appear to have been mysteriously fixed. However, Umi has all but ceased to exist, and Hairi, who is now working on tidying the shed, never gets to know the islanders. The ending has Hairi trying to connect with Shiroha but it is still ambiguous if anything comes out of it.
  • Reflection Blue confirmed that they did get together thus Earn Your Happy Ending.
• Bland-Name Product: Especially in Tsumugi's route. Prangles, anyone?
• Book Ends: Not counting the epilogue, Hairi starts his story at the port and end with him returning to the port to return to his home after summer is over.
  • In Reflection Blue, double as Call-Back. From Umi's perspective the Opening scene of the original game had only her footprint on the beach, representing her loneliness. by an epilogue, she notices that are now 3 people footprints on the beach.
• Butterfly of Transformation: Butterflies are present in the game's title screen, and are closely tied to the island's mythos.
• Butt-Monkey: Ryouichi, though it's usually his own fault for walking around topless.
• Cast from Hit Points: The time-based abilities possessed by the females of the Naruse family fall into this category. Doubles with Cast from Sanity with Umi, who gradually regresses to an infant the more she travels through the timelines.
• Cerebus Retcon: Comes with the territory. Notable example is Umi's speech, which changes as more routes are completed, and Ao's constant sleepiness, which is explained in her own route.
• Cessation of Existence: Umi preventing Shiroha from gaining her powers also stops Shiroha from meeting Hairi at the pool, erasing Umi from existence. Hairi's brief vision of her in the shed suggests she isn't completely gone, but it's not clear if she'll ever come back. Subverted in Reflection Blue where thanks to Shiki, Umi (or rather her shichieichou) is able to return back to reality.
• Character as Himself: The vocalists for "Tsumugi's Summer Vacation" and "Shiroha's Lullaby" are credited as Tsumugi Wenders and Naruse Shiroha respectively.
• Character Development: Hairi and Shiroha both experience this.
• Chekhov's Gun: Remember those glowing butterflies you keep seeing everywhere?
• Cherry Blossoms: Little to be found, considering that Summer Pockets is Key's second "summer" work after AIR. However, the Tachibana of the Lost on the mountain doesn't shed its petals until the end of summer, as it is a tree that is removed from the normal flow of time.
• The Chew Toy: Ao and Shiki are often a subject of various jokes by the cast.
• Childhood Friends: Ryouichi, Tenzen, Ao, and Nomiki, who have been living on the island together since they were young.
• Children Raise You: In the Alka route, Umi's presence inadvertently causes Hairi to become slightly more responsible. All the more so when Umi is actually revealed to be Hairi's actual child.
  • Ditto for Shiroha, who grows more social and friendly playing Umi's mother. When Umi begins to fade away Shiroha talks about how much being a mother changed her.
• Class Representative: Shizuku is mentioned to be one.
• Color-Coded Characters: Each heroine has a distinct color associated with them: Shiroha is white, Ao is blue, Kamome is black, and Tsumugi is yellow/gold. As of Reflection Blue, Miki is green, Shizuku is purple and Shiki is red. See also Leitmotif.
• Dead Guy Junior: Discussed at then end of Tsumugi's route. While reminiscing about Tsumugi after she disappeared Shizuku jokes that most stories like this would end with Hairi and Shizuku hooking up and eventually having a daughter they name Tsumugi.
• Decoy Protagonist: Our main point-of-view character is Hairi, but once the main routes are cleared, greater importance is given to Umi, such that Hairi himself doesn't even appear for half of the final route, Pockets.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Shiroha.
• Deliberately Monochrome: In Shiroha's route, when she falls into the water during the Summer Bird Festival, and speaks of the "weavers of time".
• Delinquents: Hairi sank into delinquency after his departure from the swim team. His eventual suspension drives him to go to Torishirojima in an attempt to run away.
• Developer's Foresight: A downplayed example, during an Islandmon tutorial, you can ignore Umi's instruction until she get annoyed and calls you out.
• Diabolus ex Machina: Happens in nearly every route, except Shiroha's. And even Shiroha isn't exempt from it, as the Alka route goes to show.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Umi disappears while being cradled in Shiroha's arms.
• Dream Sequence
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • In Ao's route, after Ao goes into a coma, Hairi tirelessly returns to the island year after year until he finally finds Ao's memory butterfly.
  • In Kamome's route, Hairi fulfills Kamome's wishes to build the pirate ship, after which he and Kamome are reunited.
  • In Tsumugi's route, Tsumugi finally finds the original Tsumugi, and afterwards returns to the real world to be reunited with Hairi.
  • Reflection Blue gives one to Umi who thanks to Shiki's actions is able to return back to existence to be reunited with Shiroha and Hairi so they can be a family once more.
• Eldritch Location: The never-ending lighthouse in which the original Tsumugi resides, which has become separated from the normal flow of time after being entangled with the Tachibana of the Lost.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Depends on the choice Hairi made, he can get quiet number of titles that spread around the whole island.
• Evolving Title Screen: Each girl disappears from the title screen after their route is cleared for the first time, not appearing again until after the game is completed. Post-completion, the menu shifts to fill in the conspicuous blank space at the right side of the screen.
• Exact Words: Shiroha specifically asks Umi if she knew the future, past tense, not knows. This reveals Umi is a Naruse since it means she used the family's Mental Time Travel to return to the past with the knowledge she had rather than gaining some from a form of foresight.
• Fanservice: Key/Visual Arts hasn't been shy about fanservice even with their all-ages novels since Little Busters! The Prelude Book reveals some fanservice CGs such as Kamome being topless or Tsumugi's dress being soaked in water.
• Funny Background Event
  • In Shiroha's route, when Ryouichi is having a conversation with Hairi on the beach, Tenzen appears on screen several lines before he starts speaking.
  • In a scene at the sweets shop, Tenzen's grunts of exertion as he trains actually continue to play in the background as the conversation continues, until Ao suggests that the training will be more efficient if he keeps silent.
• Final Speech: In the Alka route, Umi gives one as she fades away from the effects of repeated time looping.
• First Girl Wins: Depends on whether you count by order of introduction to the audience or to Hairi.
  • In the first case, it's played straight, where Hairi first notices Shiroha as the boat nears the island's harbour.
  • In the second case, we can argue that Kamome was actually the first to meet Hairi (though never in person).
• Foreshadowing: Lots.
  • The opening sequence shows things like Ao standing in the forest with a lantern and Tsumugi's reflection having different clothes.
  • The first time one plays the game, the "Start" button on the title screen changes to "Restart" after two heroine routes have been cleared.
  • The cinematic scenes which play right after the first time you clear each heroine's route are actually fragments of conversation between Umi and her guide.
  • Hairi somehow gets Shiroha confused with Umi while waiting for her to get out of the bathhouse even though he can't fathom why he'd mistake the two. Umi is Shiroha's Kid from the Future.
  • If Ao's route is played before Tsumugi's route, we can actually see the regrets of the lighthouse keeper who died without meeting Tsumugi one last time.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Kamome, but never physically.
• Gainax Ending: If you count the final route, Pockets, to be the ending of the game as a whole. The mechanics of how Umi travelled to the past and ended up as Nanami are never fully explained, nor are how the problems of the other heroines mysteriously resolved. One possible explanation is that Shiroha being more involved in the lives of the other islanders changes history for the better. Helping Shiroha learn to be a better friend has a Butterfly Effect on the rest of the island. (See what we did there?)
  • It is implied that the mysterious Silhouette that Umi/Namami has been conversing with all this time is actually Hitomi, Shiroha's own mother, who foresaw the events of the main story/Alka route and sought to avert them.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In your first playthrough of the game, after two heroine's routes are cleared, the "Start" button changes to "Restart". This is because time is being looped, though not by the protagonist this time...
• The Gadfly: Hairi, especially to Ao.
• Happily Married: Hairi and Shiroha, at least temporarily in the Alka route before Umi is born.
• Hot-Blooded: Kobato, Shiroha's grandfather.
• Hotter and Sexier: Compared to prior Key/Visual Arts titles, Summer Pockets has a much higher amount of fanservice.
• Identity Amnesia: In the final route, Pockets, Umi travels back in time with help from the Silhouette, but loses her memories and her goal in the process and becomes Nanami. She gets better.
• I Have This Friend: Ryouichi uses this when he speaks about his past with Shiroha and how he was the child who nearly died due to Shiroha's precognitive visions.
• Image Song: Each heroines has their own song. The original 4 heroine also have their song played during certain point in Reflection Blue.
• Indirect Kiss
• Informed Obscenity: Apparently, "dosukoi" is a word to not be used lightly in the island's culture. Doubles over somewhat with Innocent Swearing when Hairi uses it on Ryouichi without knowing exactly how strong it was.
• Joshikousei: Like in all of Key's big projects, the girls mainly wear sailor fuku. Kamome's early design has her also wearing a sailor fuku, but a different one from the other girls.
• Kid from the Future: Umi returns to see Hairi and Shiroha.
• Leitmotif:
  • One for each heroine, named roughly according to their hair colors (Shiroha's being White Loneliness, Ao's being other side Blue, Kamome's being Adventure for Black, and Tsumugi's being Golden Hours.)
  • Less explicitly, Umi is associated with Twinkle of Alcor.
  • The theme of the shichieichou is the aptly named Rainbow Butterfly, which get remixed into the more intense This Memory, That Memory that shows up in Ao's route, when they gain more importance.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Since the game released in 2018, it's not easy to avoid that Umi and Shiroha are related in someways with good amounts of promotion material or leaked images floating around.
• Lethal Chef: Mentioned to be a trait for those in the Katou bloodline; Kyouko's cooking is notoriously bad. As were Hairi's attempts, until he learns from Shiroha.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • Hairi and Umi quickly fall into a brother/sister relationship, though it turns into more of a father/daughter relationship on the Alka route. Perhaps unsurprising, since they actually are father and daughter.
  • Shiroha, Ryouichi, Tenzen, Ao, and Nomiki, having grown up together, all see each other as basically siblings and find the idea of dating each other really weird.
• Luke, You Are My Father: While Umi doesn't outright tell Hairi she's his daughter, her lack of a denial mixed with the intensity in her eyes is enough for him.
• Magic Realism: As is standard for a Key work.
• Maybe Ever After: In the original version it was not confirmed if Hairi and Shiroha will get together after the events of the final route.
• Meaningful Name: Each and every single character's name has relevance to their role to some extent.
  • Deliberately invoked in Pockets, where an amnesiac time-travelling Umi is renamed "Nanami", for one that has traveled across the seas of time.
  • Shiroha ("shiro" meaning "white"), who has white hair, and wears both a white school uniform and white casual clothes.
• Mecha Show: The April Fools joke from 2017 marketed Summer Pockets as a mecha show, parodying Gundam and Gunbuster.
• Memento MacGuffin: Tsumugi's ribbon, given by Hairi. Shiki's Omusubi pouch. Umi's letter and photograph of Hairi, Shiroha, and the other islanders.
• Miko: Rather unsually, there are two of them who fit the role in the main cast: Shiroha, the miko of the sea, and Ao, the miko of the mountains.
  • Reflection Blue introduced the third miko, Shiki.
• Mind Screw: At least two routes will have you shaking your head in confusion. Chances are that things will get wonky when the butterflies appear.
• Mirror Match: You can set the human Islamon (and Inari) against themselves. It usually produces extra dialog.
• Mr. Fanservice: Ryouichi, who sports a tanned and ripped body and also constantly goes around shirtless. To some extent, Tenzen too.
• Multiple Endings: As is expected for a visual novel, there exists one route per heroine.
  • Fail to enter a heroine's route, and a Nonstandard Game Over occurs where Hairi returns to the mainland early.
  • The Alka route becomes available after all of the four heroine routes are cleared. The Pockets route becomes available after Alka has been cleared, and serves as a true ending of sorts.
  • A third Nonstandard Game Over (which is not, technically, a bad ending) is obtained if one manages to defeat the final boss in the Islamon or Islapong minigame.
• Mundane Fantastic: Nobody questions the existence of Inari, a highly intelligent fox with odd coloring that is somehow able to beat Tenzen in table tennis.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Who knew that playing table tennis could get this intense?
• My Greatest Failure: Hairi's sudden inability to swim during a crucial competition, which lead to his eventual delinqunency and his coming to the island.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: In Tsumugi's route, where the original Tsumugi failed to show up at the lighthouse, the lighthouse keeper was shipped off to war and died without saying goodbye. We get to see his regrets as a shichieichou briefly in Ao's route.
• New Game Plus: Restarting after the completion of the game allows you to change how Umi will address you, which in turn changes her dialogue during the route.
• Nice Guy: Despite their quirky personality. Ao, Miki, Ryoichi, Tenzen are believe and willing to help Hairi in a various situation despite only knowing him for a few weeks.
• No Antagonist: The story mainly deals with how internal traumas and struggles are overcome.
  • Arguably false in Shiroha's route (and the Alka route), where her grandfather, Kobato, is present. It's only temporarily, though.
• Official Kiss: In Reflection Blue, at least one CG for each heriones route with the exception of Shiki.
• Older Than They Look: In the Alka route, the character sprites remain unchanged even as we are told a few years have passed, leading to a case of this. Tsumugi is also a case of this, having been on the island since Granny Katou was a young girl.
• Otaku: Shiroha, of all people, though she only expresses it when she thinks she's alone.
• Parental Abandonment: Hairi never did have a good relationship with his parents. To say nothing of Umi, who was basically neglected by a grief-stricken Hairi after Shiroha's death by childbirth.
• Parental Substitute: Hairi and Shiroha to Umi in the Alka route. A rare case of the actual parents serving as substitutes to themselves.
• Pose of Supplication: Hairi frequently gets into this after messing with Ao.
• Prophetic Fallacy: As Hairi learns, pain comes in many forms. Such as a bad stomachache, which thankfully had no lasting consequences.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The song Tsumugi's Summer Vacation is derived from the German folk song Die Vogelhochzeit, which roughly translates to "bird wedding".
• Pyrrhic Victory: Ao herself falls into a coma after she successfully revives Ai. Thankfully, she gets better.
• Raised by Grandparents: Shiroha, after the death of her parents.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Inari.
• Screw Destiny: In the final route, Umi, armed with the power of all the good summer memories gained from each heroine's individual route, travels back in time to Shiroha's childhood to prevent her own mother from manifesting the Naruse precognitive powers. She succeeds by giving Shiroha knowledge of the happy future she would have, and this results in Shiroha never becoming an outcast on the island.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Shiroha's determination to find a way to prevent Umi from manifesting the precognitive powers of the Naruse bloodline to avoid Umi's eventual disappearance from the timeline eventually leads to her overworking and dying during childbirth. This leads to Umi having a unhappy childhood without her mother, which in turns leads to Umi manifesting her powers.
• Serious Business: As Hairi learns, there is no substitute for using a wok to make fried rice.
  • The Islander all took the fried rice seriously as Umi find out prior the story begun.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Not Umi's original reason for travelling back in time at first, but it becomes this as of the Pockets route.
• Sitting on the Roof: Tsumugi, who can often be found sitting on the lighthouse.
• Shout-Out: The entire Islamon/Shimamon game is reference to Pokemon.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Hairi thinks he sees one on the beach, but it was actually just Tenzen with seaweed on his head.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: If a romance is based off shared trauma, don't expect it to occur again if that trauma has been somehow healed.
• Technicolor Eyes: Ao's red eyes, and Shiroha's blue.
• Theme Twin Naming: Ao and Ai Sorakado.
• Third-Person Person: Tsumugi, for good reason. Turns out the Tsumugi we see is actually a replacement for the actual Tsumugi who has chosen to lock herself away in the endless lighthouse.
• Time Master: It's should be noted that Naruse's precognitive ability and Mental Time Travel are two different things.
• Time Skip: Happens in most epilogues.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Umi's fried rice, Shiroha's watermelon ice pops, Tsumugi's cotton candy and Shiki's Omusubi.
• True Final Boss: One for each minigame.
  • A mystery challenger shows up once you reach the top rank of the Islamon battle rankings. It's actually Ai, Ao's comatose sister.
  • For the expanded table-tennis minigame in Reflection Blue, Tenzen fights solo against you and your partner, but is much tougher than before.
• Tsundere: Oh, Ao.
• Turn of the Millennium: Despite being released in 2018, most of the game is set in the year 2000 (not that it's obvious).
• The Unreveal: Despite a few set-ups, Hairi's alternate ending to the butterfly fairy-tale is never read aloud. Subverted in Reflection Blue where the whole story is shown during the credits during the true ending.
• Utsuge: Or Nakige. Jun Maeda specifically made it as a goal to make the readers cry or else "it's the end of Key." The developers submitted many ideas, but it was Maeda's offered concept (despite that he originally didn't intend to plan one and only offered it as a sample) that the staff members accepted instantly since it was the only one that made them cry.
• Verbal Tic: Tsumugi's "mugyu".
• We Sell Everything: Why does the candy shop sell real estate and shotgun shells?
• Wham Episode: At least one in every route. Ao's collapse after finally reviving her sister, the appearance of Tsumugi in a photograph that dates back to Hairi's grandmother's time, Kamome suddenly vanishing into a flock of shichieichou...the list goes on.
• Wham Line:
  • From Shiroha's perspective, during the Alka route, where Umi basically confirms that she's the daughter of Shiroha and Hairi by revealing her precognitive knowledge.
  Shiroha: You...knew?
  Umi: Yeah.
• Wistful Amnesia: Shiroha and Hairi during the Alka route, as Umi progressively disappears from the timeline.
• Word Salad Title: It's unclear as to what exactly "Summer Pockets" is supposed to refer to. However, one can get some hints from the kanji 懐 which has a dual meaning. Pocket, but also fond memories, nostalgia, even love. These end up being prominent themes throughout the story. You can also interpret this more broadly, in that each of Umi's time loops are isolated from each other, as if by the walls of a pocket. However, much like the contents of adjacent pockets, the time loops can influence each other. In the final Pockets route, Kyoko-san even makes a point to somewhat mysteriously spell this out for you, as she relates the concepts of pockets in your clothes, and nostalgia.
• You Can't Fight Fate:

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