Visual Arts Company Unveils New Visual Novel Brand With 3 Games

The company Visual Arts announced on Tuesday its new visual novel brand VISUAL ARTS Scripts, and also announced the new brand's first game titled Sayagatari -Promise of the Cursed Blade- (Sayagatari -Yōtō no Yakusoku-), slated for release this year. The game will first get a physical release, followed by a Steam version at a later date.

Image via VISUAL ARTS Scripts brand's website

©VISUAL ARTS/VISUAL ARTS Scripts

The game's Steam page describes the story:

"At this rate, you will die in seven days."
Ex-Kendo practitioner Kanemori Tōya has dispelled the seal on the forbidden shrine,
leading to his meeting with Saya, a girl carrying a sword.
Being obssessed with swords, he unconciously reached out for the blade but...
it was a cursed blade that awakened in him an urge to murder.
What ended up saving him was a kiss from Saya!?
"Please work with me to destroy the demonic blades"
Saya's kiss had the special power to undo the curse.
The two deepen their bond as they lived together under one roof,
using the demonic blade to battle the demons in their path.
However, slowly the meaning behind the kiss seemed to be slowly changing?
Getting plenty of kisses from a beauty while becoming a demonic blade wielder,
an unforgettable romantic experience is about to begin.

Mii Yamaya is credited for the game's scenario, Taisuke Takanashi composes the music, Riichu draws the original illustrations, and Pero draws the SD (Super Deformed) illustrations.

VISUAL ARTS Scripts also teased two other game projects in development: Tekkai Jōsai no Haika (The Ash-Gray Flower of the Iron Rebar Fortresses, center in image below) from artist chibi and scenario writer Kōji Dōgu, and Honjō Renyoku to Ushinawareta Naharas (right in image below) from artist Yōko.

Image via VISUAL ARTS Scripts brand's website

©VISUAL ARTS/VISUAL ARTS Scripts

Tekkai Jōsai no Haika is set a century after a disastrous fire, when burn-out, abandoned hulls of illegally constructed buildings are called "Iron Rebar Fortresses." Yūma Kuze, an archeologist dispatched on an expedition, encounters a mysterious girl named Haika in these "fortresses." She tells Yūma, "I'm searching here for a treasure worth dying for."

Honjō Renyoku to Ushinawareta Naharas is set in Showa 44 or 1969, when the Apollo 11 mission had just landed on the moon that July. The protagonist encountered a girl in Kanda-Jinbōchō, the neighborhood in Tokyo's Chiyoda ward famed for secondhand books with traces of yesteryear. While the entire world is brimming with excitement over the Space Age, this girl never uttered word about it. Instead of gazing at the night sky, she scoured the neighborhood below for a single book like a hungry cormorant. That book is Nietzsche's Wahnsinn, a rare tome that may not even exist.

Visual Arts describes the new brand as a visual novel brand that enables "emotional experiences that change the everyday world." 

Visual Arts' Key brand launched the Summer Pockets game for PC in June 2018 in Japan. Visual Arts/Key and Prototype launched the game's Nintendo Switch version digitally and physically in Japan in June 2019. Summer Pockets REFLECTION BLUE, an updated version of the game, launched for PC in Japan in June 2020. The new version has since launched on mobile devices, Switch, and PlayStation 4. The game's English version launched for PC via Steam in February 2020. The game's television anime adaptation premiered in April 2025, and aired for 26 episodes.

Visual Arts/Key announced the anemoi romantic adventure game in 2024, and was initially slated for a 2025 release. The game will release in Japan on April 24. 

Visual Arts' Key brand's popular franchises include Kanon, Air, Clannad, Little Busters!, and Rewrite.

Source: VISUAL ARTS Scripts brand's website and X/Twitter account via Otakomu