Last night, multiple distributors (JAST USA and Steam in particular) announced that a very highly-anticipated English translation of a certain visual novel was set to release soon. That game is the one and only Sakura no Uta: Sakura no Mori no Ue o Mau, an eroge developed by Makura. Though it was released over a decade ago on October 23rd, 2015, it has long remained untranslated outside of Japanese, much to the dismay of myself and many others. Those who know of the game might also be aware of the fan translation which was unfortunately taken down near its completion back in 2025 due to a DMCA takedown notice. It's unusual for fan translations to be targetted on copyright grounds, since they typically go unnoticed by companies large enough to pursue legal action in the first place. This led many to believe an official translation was in the works, and lo and behold, about two months later, the production of an official English release for Sakura no Uta was announced on July 11th, 2025.

This was an exciting announcement for most hardcore visual novel fans, since the other works by Sakura no Uta's writer, such as Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~, have been lauded heavily for their excellence amongst even the most stand-out visual novels. But, the lack of communication provided by Makura's translators to the fan translators led to some warranted controversy; judging by responses from many of the latter, there was little if any warning regarding the official translation's existence prior to DMCA claim issued by Makura. Thankfully, according to a recent tweet by Phantom (@PhantomZero99), one of the main workers on Sakura no Uta's fan translation project, both teams did eventually get into contact to work together on the official localization's final script and seemed to have reached a happy resolution.

I've been a huge fan of Subarashiki Hibi ever since I first read it about three years ago. Back then, I was in a visual novel-reading frenzy, and I actually finished the entirety of that 440,000 word story in-between Higurashi chapters three and four. It normally takes me a very long time to completely finish reading a story, as I like to take my time and deeply analyze everything I come across. But Subarashiki Hibi entranced me into finishing it faster than nearly anything else I've had the pleasure of reading. It's safe to say that I am a tremendous fan of SCA-DI's writing. Every otaku reference (as unsubtle as they can be at times), every brain-bending hallucinination, and every rich, philosophical monologue delivered by a teenager on a rooftop, they're all dripping with SCA-DI's twisted and engrossingly delirious perspective of the world, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Given that the same man wrote Sakura no Uta, it's no wonder that I've been so eager to finally get my sordid, (mostly) monolingual hands on a copy of an English-translated form of the game's script. It's a shame that, as of today, the release date is yet unknown. But I know with absolute certainty that the moment it comes out, I'll find myself rapaciously eating through yet another 50+ hour visual novel without breaking a sweat. And I couldn't be more excited.

And once I've seen the most important scene in the VN, I'll finally be able to call Naoya Kusanagi my #1. He is the most important character of all time, after all.

(...Wishlist Sakura no Uta here!
...And read Subarashiki Hibi too if you haven't already!
I'm serious!!!)

--> Return to Blog.