Umihara Kawase: The True Story? (Not my title)

[sol-alpha]

So degica games who published the Umihara Kawase games on Steam put out this on their blog. I don't know where it comes from exactly, to me though it just sounds like someone's fan-fiction. lol

http://blog.degigames.com/story/umihara-kawase-story/

Umihara Kawase: The True Story?

The world of Umihara Kawase is an odd, surreal environment. You play as the heroine, Kawase, fighting aquatic foes in a flooded world. But why?

The popular interpretation is that it is a world that is built in Kawase's imagination: the aquatic foes relating to the game's setting in which our heroine is a chef, on a quest to discover the ultimate ingredient.

But there is another rumor floating around the sea of the internet about our fishing line wielding heroine. One that is much darker and tinged with sadness.

I'm only quoting part of the article as it's not mine and I don't know if they need clicks for ad-revenue, or plagiarism etc etc

Click the link to read the rest of the article.

[KawaseFan]

There is a basis for this, believe it or not!  I found out about it one day when I was looking through an old archived version of Kiyoshi Sakai's website, which had some Umihara-related content before it was redeveloped in 2003.  Here's the relevant page.

[sol-alpha]

It finally translated. Still, can only make sense of it because of having read the degica article.

Then noticing the last part saying via Google translate.

In addition, this article has been created in order to dictate the character image in the development stage, does not expose all the outsiders. (Because the setting is too intense)

Okay, there is less reason to think it was fan-fiction. I thought that it was due to the degica article saying it was a rumour and not stating any source for it.

[Princess Rescuer]

I had an idea for a story to the games where Umi starts out as a young and crippled child with a fear of water, and learns how to use the hook shot to have above-average physical adeptness. She is an ordinary schoolgirl in one timeline, and part of a resistance group who battles against mutant fish who have enslaved humanity in the other. The sea goddess, who is upset about overfishing, wants to combine the two timelines to punish humans with a flood.

Now, that sounds pretty epic and absurd for an innocuous, plotless game such as this one. I like what they officially came up with, though I like to imagine that's what's happening when I'm playing. It would make for a good non-game adaptation. Still, I like how the game sticks to being a game and doesn't even have a villain (which I think is interesting).

[KawaseFan]

Here's a Wayback Machine link to the Degica article, since the original link seems to be dead.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190922154639/http://blog.degigames.com/story/umihara-kawase-story/