Welcome to the KawaseFan.net Forum!

[KawaseFan]

Welcome to the KawaseFan.net Forum!  Discuss the Umihara Kawase games in their respective boards, or discuss non-Umihara-related subjects in the off-topic board.  If you have any site suggestions, please post them in the Site Discussion board.  If you have any issues with the forum, please send me a private message.

This also used to be the introductions thread, but it has been retired from that role as of 30th January, 2020.  New users, feel free to jump in to the discussion!

[Umihara Kawase]

Hey, thanks for making this fan site! I'm a big UK fan, but I've struggled to find a good place to actually talk about the franchise. Hopefully it becomes populated with other fans.

[海腹川背]

I guess this is the introductions thread now.

This is my introduction. Hello!

[KawaseFan]

Hey, thanks for making this fan site! I'm a big UK fan, but I've struggled to find a good place to actually talk about the franchise. Hopefully it becomes populated with other fans.

No problem at all!  It's a great series and I want to try my best to spread the word.

I guess this is the introductions thread now.

This is my introduction. Hello!

Hi!
Yeah, this can be the introductions thread.

[Umihara Kawaiise]

Hello, quite happy to see another UK fansite popup after the last one died ages ago since I didn't get a chance to be a part of it. Hopefully this one goes a little better now that the series has gotten more exposure. (Pffft!)

[KawaseFan]

Hello, quite happy to see another UK fansite popup after the last one died ages ago since I didn't get a chance to be a part of it. Hopefully this one goes a little better now that the series has gotten more exposure. (Pffft!)

I'm not sure how active this forum will end up being, but if the site ever closes down, avenge my death.

[badlose]

Hello all, I'm badlose.

I use to run umihara.org (or umihara.badlose.com) until I dedded it.

I bought a 3DS just for Sayonara (aka Yumi's Odd Odyssey over here). I have problems.

Looking forward to seeing what happens in this forum!

[KawaseFan]

Welcome, badlose!  I saw you had some good times on the North American Yumi's Odd Odyssey rankings!

[mfgreth]

My name is mfgreth. I used to lurk/post on badlose's old imageboard, and I was waxing nostalgic about it in the thread on 4chan's /vr/ board when you told me about this place. I took my sweet time getting around to it but here I finally am!

I'm hoping this place becomes active! I'd love to put together than Fan Zine someone had mentioned.

My only contributed fan labor to Umihara Kawase thus far is some music tracks.

[badlose]

Welcome, badlose!  I saw you had some good times on the North American Yumi's Odd Odyssey rankings!

I'll never beat Xate (or any of the good japanese players). Might be able to take down Hitstun if I really focus though, haha.

I'd love to put together than Fan Zine someone had mentioned.

My only contributed fan labor to Umihara Kawase thus far is some music tracks.

Fanzine could be cool, might be difficult to get enough content though.
I like the music tracks! Someday if I learn to not suck I'd like to do a slower tempo guitar version of an SFC track (probably Hatoba).

[KawaseFan]

My name is mfgreth. I used to lurk/post on badlose's old imageboard, and I was waxing nostalgic about it in the thread on 4chan's /vr/ board when you told me about this place. I took my sweet time getting around to it but here I finally am!

I'm hoping this place becomes active! I'd love to put together than Fan Zine someone had mentioned.

My only contributed fan labor to Umihara Kawase thus far is some music tracks.

Hi!  Cool music tracks!

Yeah, that fanzine was a really interesting idea.  I hope it all goes well.

I'll never beat Xate (or any of the good japanese players). Might be able to take down Hitstun if I really focus though, haha.

I know what you mean, some of those times are amazing.

[Nicole]

Hi, I'm Nicole, aka Kosaku in the Steam group and leaderboards. I don't really have a long history with the Umihara fanbase, having only started checking out the series a year or so ago, so unfortunately I never saw badlose's site while it was still around.

In any case, hopefully this place takes off!

[KawaseFan]

Hi, I'm Nicole, aka Kosaku in the Steam group and leaderboards. I don't really have a long history with the Umihara fanbase, having only started checking out the series a year or so ago, so unfortunately I never saw badlose's site while it was still around.

In any case, hopefully this place takes off!

Hi!  I'll have to check out that Steam group one day soon.

[gori.sh]

hello I'm gori.sh.
I made "Sayonara Umihara Kawase TimeAttack Board"

[badlose]

Horray! <3 gori.sh!

[KawaseFan]

hello I'm gori.sh.
I made "Sayonara Umihara Kawase TimeAttack Board"

Hello!  Thank you for making the Sayonara Umihara Kawase TimeAttack Board!

[dodonpa]

Hello, i'm dodonpa, a long-time Kawase fan. I often come to see what's happening on the forum. I probably won't be able to post much since english is not my native language, but i'm here and i spread the word too.
Thank you gori.sh, you did a great job with the TimeAttack Board (the point ranking is really interesting).

[KawaseFan]

Great to see you here, dodonpa!  Of course, you realise I still have to beat your times!

[the_darai]

Hello! I'm Dar, I've played this game for quite a few years, but I wouldn't have imagined that there was a community for it! (I should know better, seeing that also run another community with an obscure video character) Anyway I decided to join. Seems pretty nice in here.

[KawaseFan]

Hi, welcome!

I guess this would be where I admit I've never played Klonoa.  Sorry!

[Tooro]

Hi! I'm a longtime fan of this game since Shun and now glad to find people all over the world enjoying Sayonara.

I started a Twitter bot (https://twitter.com/kwsrec_en_bot) that periodically checks gori.sh's ranking page (http://gori.sh/chirari/) and tweets new records found there.  I hope it helps motivate your play.

(It also tweets 3DS records, but requires them to be the world records.  Very hard requirement these days and I'm not sure the feature is properly implemented.  I wish someone watching this post will accomplish it!)

[Nana]

Nice to meet you, Tooro! Thanks for your work, I'm going to follow it on Twitter.

[KawaseFan]

Welcome, Tooro!  Nice work with the Twitter bot!

[Alc]

Wow. After Badlose's imageboard went down I was pretty bummed, UK was my biggest gaming obsession at the time and it always made me sad that there was no real English "scene" for the game. Great to see a fan site up again!

I posted on the imageboard quite a bit (incidentally, for those who missed it, some of it is still viewable on archive.org's Wayback Machine, though the images posted appear to be lost to time). I also put together the "Umihara Kawase Mega Torrent" which was basically the result of me hoovering up everything UK-related from Japanese websites. I spent a lot of time on google translate.

I found a few interesting things over the years - I convinced someone I knew to rip the TECH discs and got them uploaded, and found the IPS patch for the millisecond timer/level select for the SFC game on a Japanese site, both of which were pretty exciting. I also uploaded a few videos to YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/UmiharaKawaseTube

Sadly I haven't had a chance to play the newer games as handhelds cramp my hands pretty badly, but maybe I can get a Vita TV for Chirari... that's probably a topic for elsewhere.

Kawasefan, thanks for putting the site together - hope you keep it up, even if things are quiet. The games are just too good to be forgotten.

[texh]

Just wanted to thank you so much for the mega torrent <3

That was an absolutely amazing starting point for me when I got into Umihara way back in 2011.

[Alc]

That's really nice to hear, I'm glad it was of use. I originally uploaded it to a private retro gaming tracker, now defunct, underground-gamer.com. I think uploading it to a public tracker at the time was almost an afterthought, though that torrent saw far more traffic in the end (seeded hundreds of GBs of it over the years).

I always intended to make a V2, with scans from the various guides/manga, when I tracked them all down... I bought the official guides for the first two games when I was in Japan but never got around to putting the work in, my scanner was/is slow as shit, and anyway with the imageboard (and underground gamer) gone there didn't seem much point; nobody to share it with.

What are the rules here regarding posting links to downloads, anyway?

[badlose]

I also put together the "Umihara Kawase Mega Torrent" which was basically the result of me hoovering up everything UK-related from Japanese websites. I spent a lot of time on google translate.

I found a few interesting things over the years - I convinced someone I knew to rip the TECH discs and got them uploaded, and found the IPS patch for the millisecond timer/level select for the SFC game on a Japanese site, both of which were pretty exciting. I also uploaded a few videos to YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/UmiharaKawaseTube

Thank you for your glorious work. Was great to play the TECH fields.

[KawaseFan]

Welcome, Alc!  The site isn't going anywhere, don't worry about that.

In response to your question regarding posting links to downloads, my host doesn't allow it, sorry.

[Ramtieger]

Nice to meet you. I'm Ramtieger. Japanese name is "らむてが".

I will live play of the game at the following sites. Every Wednesday, from 20:30 JST (11:30 UTC).
Recently, I have to play "Chirari".
Please take a look if you are interested.

http://gae.cavelis.net/user/%E3%82%89%E3%82%80%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8C

[CyanideBlizzard]

Welcome aboard, Ramtieger!  I hope to watch you play sometime, as I'm rather new to the Kawase series.

Speaking of, it's great to meet you all!  I realize I haven't introduced myself yet. 

I'm actually really new to the Umihara Kawase series, as I actually didn't hear of it until it was listed on the PSN network.  However, it was love at first level and I've found myself addicted to the series.  As a collector, I'm also tracking down various Umihara Kawase things and so forth, so you'll most likely find me in that Ebay/Yahoo action thread!

It's a pleasure to meet all of you.

[KawaseFan]

Welcome, Ramtieger!  Sure, I'll have a look at your live play tonight.

Good luck with your collecting, CyanideBlizzard!

[Piku]

Hey, I'm Piku, one of really few fans of UmiharaKawase from Poland. I've discovered the game around 2 years ago, but didn't start playing until it came out on 3DS in Europe.

I like video games, manga and anime. I'm also struggling to get good at drawing/painting, I hope I'll draw some good Umihara Kawase fanarts someday :I

Nice to meet you all!

[KawaseFan]

Welcome, Piku, and good luck with your drawing and painting!

[sol-alpha]

Hi, I'm sol-alpha and I joined this forum because I invested so much time in Sayonara Umihara Kawase.

I first found about this game back in 2014 after watching a gameplay video on the Nintendo 3DS eShop, I was interested in the game because of the platforming and physics involved so I bought the game but, I wasn't that good at playing it because I only beat the stage 9 boss and stopped playing after getting to around stage 20/21. (Due to other commitments)

Fast forward to New years day 2016 at 3am and I read that the Umihara Kawase games got delisted from steam, I was planning to get the games but I didn't have much money and the currency exchange rates are a pain so after reading this I got up and bought a steam key for the original game from Green Man Gaming.

A couple of days later after comparing the 3ds version of Sayonara Umihara Kawase to the vita/pc version, I end up buying a steam key from Playism which was lucky because they removed the steam keys from sale the following day.

I ended up not being able to get Umihara Kawase: Shun - Steam edition unfortunately, so I'd probably have to import the DS version in the future if I am able to.

So now, I started playing the steam version of Sayonara Umihara Kawase. Although I looked up KawaseFan's vids for the stage 9 boss fight because I forgot how to do it and how to get to the stage 55 door with the backpack in stage 24, I've been completing stages without looking up any videos first and even trying to get into the in-game top 20 rankings for each stage possible without looking up any videos as well.

Since I have played so much of this game and got better at it and have been uploading to Youtube videos of my runs that I decided to join this forum since this games series is pretty niche.

I'm pleased to be here.

[KawaseFan]

Hi sol-alpha, welcome.  Sorry to hear that you weren't able to get Shun on Steam, hopefully another publisher re-releases the games and you can get it.  The DS version is great, though, if you decide to get that.

[rainwarrior]

Hi, I'm rainwarrior. I'm a game developer from Canada.

I had played the SNES ROM over the years, so I knew about the game, but I found out about the PC releases basically the last day it was still available through the humble store, so I just barely managed to get them on Steam. Have been playing a lot of Sayonara since, though I think they're all great.

[KawaseFan]

Welcome, rainwarrior, glad to hear you were able to get the PC versions in time.

[EL]

Sup. I got the trilogy on Steam (literally like a week before they were taken down, though they're back up now) because I watched Arino play the first game on GameCenter CX ages ago and thought it looked PRETTY COOL. Now I've become slightly obsessed with the series.

[KawaseFan]

Hi EL, welcome.

Now I've become slightly obsessed with the series.

Ha, yeah, it can have that effect!

[sol-alpha]

Just an update from my last post in this thread. I finally got the Umihara Kawase Shun Steam edition. Just couldn't do it as soon as it got re-released. (Needed money for other things.) It's not on a discounted price on steam or anything, just used Green Man Gaming with a 20% off voucher at best.

[Princess Rescuer]

Hi, my name is Princess Rescuer, and I am one of KawaseFan's most active members. I have started several interesting discussions and challenges, including All Unlocks, the 100% category in Sayonara, which has at least 5 runners on the leaderboard and has surpassed my expectations, proving the effectiveness of my suggested route. I am an avid fan and evangelist ofthe Umihara Kawase series, and am happy to find such a supportive and discourse-heavy fan site for it.

[Cyrene]

Hallo, I'm Cyrene, and I just broke 4 minutes in Sayonara route 1-9 today  . I'm honestly surprised I'm here, I'd never thought I'd seriously like Umihara kawase, because I only bought Yumi's on a whim and had never heard of the games before at all. But I really do like Sayonara so far. Now I'm just looking for friends to compete and talk about the games with, and eventually discover the series' secrets.

Hopefully I'll see you all around, it's going to be a good year.

[KawaseFan]

I see you're in the top 20 for that route, nice!

[Cyrene]

Thanks!

[Zera]

Greetings, KawaseFan (and other Kawase fans). Stumbling upon YouTube footage of Umihara Kawase Fresh reminded me that I beat Yumi's Odd Odyssey 3 years ago, and upon replaying it I was able to reach all 5 endings in Survival Mode. Now I have a sense of closure (and never have to play Stage 33 again).

I always like unique, polished indie games, and Umihara Kawase fits the bill. Is this the only Kawase community on the internet? Have you considered creating a Discord server?

[KawaseFan]

Hi Zera, welcome!

Besides the Steam Community boards for the PC releases and the Umihara Steam group, I'm not sure if other dedicated English-language Umihara Kawase communities exist (though, to be fair, I've not looked around much since I started this site).  I was aware of a Discord server a couple of years ago, but I didn't use Discord at the time and I don't think that server still exists.

If no other Discord server exists, I personally wouldn't consider creating one.  I've nothing against the idea, but I'd feel like I was actively hogging the moderation of the community, which doesn't sit well with me.