One snowy winter's day...

I sit on a bench near the station, waiting to meet my cousin Nayuki Minase; it's seven years since I last saw her.

This place is far from the town where I was born and lived until yesterday. This is where Nayuki lives with her mother, who has offered to take me in, now that I am forced to move so suddenly.

And this is the town in which my faintest, cloudiest childhood memories are set...

Kanon is a romantic visual novel from Key. The reader takes the role of Yuuichi Aizawa, a Japanese high-school student, as he moves north to live with the aunt he used to spend the winter holidays with. From this low-key beginning, the plot branches into a number of alternative paths, each of which uses the school romance framework to explore the work's themes — memories, miracles, and the everyday supernatural — from the perspective of a different character.

The game's popularity is derived entirely from its story and characters. As the term "novel" in the genre's name might suggest, gameplay is limited to clicking through reams of text and occasionally making a decision as to what to do or say. The script is huge (about six times the length of the average Shakespeare play), so this is not a game for those who dislike reading.

Seven editions of Kanon exist:

• Kanon (PC/CD, 1999)
• Kanon 全年齢対象版 (PC/CD, 2000)
• Kanon (Dreamcast, 2001)
• Kanon (PS2, 2002)
• Kanon ~best edition~ (PS2, 2004)
• Kanon Standard Edition (PC/DVD, 2004)
• Kanon Standard Edition 全年齢対象版 (PC/DVD, 2005)

The project is currently on hold. It is unlikely to be resumed unless permission is obtained to release a translation.

Problems with patches — when and which, hearing voices

Problems with Windows — installation, fonts, music woes, Japanese text

Other operating systems — Unix and MacOS users rejoice (ish)

Versions of the game — which to buy, from where?

Other Kanon-related sites — finding out more about the game

What happened to the patch?

It has been withdrawn.

Where can I get the voice patch?

The voice patches are nothing to do with me. I can tell you where to find the patch easily enough — try vAVG32 — but in order to use it you'll need a copy of the voice files from the Dreamcast version. There are no simple legal methods of acquiring those; you'd need a Dreamcast, a copy of the game, and some way of transferring data from Dreamcast to PC.

The voice patch is in Japanese, how do I use it?

JudicatorOmega has written a guide which covers that. It still doesn't have any details on how to get the voice files, though. I'm afraid you really are on your own there.

I can't read Japanese, how do I install the game?

I've written an English version of the installation utility, which you can get here. Pop your Kanon CD in the drive, click the bottom right button to get rid of the Japanese one, run the English installer, and you should be able to figure it out from there.

Note that this program does not currently support Kanon Standard Edition.

Why can't I use (insert name of font)?

AVG32 and RealLive, the engines on which Kanon runs, only allow you to select fonts which identify themselves as both Japanese. Since they use hardcoded spacings, they also only look good with fonts where the characters are exactly half as wide as they are tall; that's a very unusual shape for an English font.

An English site dedicated to free Japanese fonts can be found here.

How do I get the music to work in Windows 2000/XP?

Ideally, acquire a copy of Kanon Standard Edition, which does not have this issue.

The version of AVG32 used in the older versions of the game has issues with music playback on some computers that can cause the music not to change properly. So far as I can tell the problem affects all NT-based operating systems. To fix it, run the SETFADE.EXE program on your Kanon CD. It's in Japanese, but you don't need to be able to read the text; just click on the second option and then the left-hand button.

This fix still produces imperfect results — the music will cut out abruptly when the track changes, instead of fading smoothly. Iincho has suggested a better solution, using a program called _inmm.dll, which routes sound output from the game through other programs such as WinAmp and appears to solve the problem rather neatly. All the documentation for it is in Japanese, but there's a step-by-step English guide to setting it up with Kanon here.

With the all-age CD version, sometimes the music doesn't play when I load a saved game.

This is a known bug; Key have released a patch to the Japanese version, which you can get here.

Does Kanon need Japanese Windows?

Fortunately not. However, it works best in Windows XP, for which you can use AppLocale to get a Japanese interface. You may also need to set your system codepage to Japanese.

What about Linux?

The older PC versions of Kanon are fully playable on Linux and FreeBSD, using the native AVG32 clone xkanon. There are two versions of this. If you're playing Kanon in Japanese, you need Jagarl's original version. If you're playing in English, you need Arkazam's English version, a fork which adds support for various features used in my patch which Jagarl didn't implement, or my version.

It's also possible to play the Windows version under VMware (but that requires Windows, obviously). I've had reports that the Standard Editions work very well in recent versions of Wine, but the AVG32 versions are not well supported.

Note that emulation is the only option for running Kanon Standard Edition under Unix-type operating systems; xkanon does not emulate the RealLive system, and Jagarl's RealLive clone xclannad does not support everything Kanon needs yet.

What about Macs?

It might be possible to run xkanon on OS X, but there's a native option called Kurokoge. A version of this, modified to support English games properly, can be found here.

As with other Unix-type operating systems, there is no way to play Kanon Standard Edition under MacOS without using a commercial emulator like Virtual PC.

Where can I buy the game?

Himeya is where I buy most of my Japanese software; they stock Kanon, and they ship to most parts of the world. Their reputation for being expensive is not really deserved: their prices are lower than Amazon's would be if they shipped the game outside Japan (which they don't).

Should I get the original version or the all-age version?

Neither; go for one of the DVD versions. These are half the price of the CD versions, and noticably superior to the original.

The only sensible reason not to buy Kanon Standard Edition is if you wish to use Kurokoge or xkanon to play the game outside Windows.

Will you translate the DC or PS2 version?

I have no plans to do so.

Official sites —

Key's site is here; the Kanon page is here. Unlike most bishoujo game publishers, Key's site contains no adult material, so it's quite safe to follow those links at work.

Unofficial sites —

There seem to be hundreds of fan-sites out there, but these are the ones I have bookmarked:

A very comprehensive commentary site is Oomichi's Kanonsense; spoilers abound, but there's a lot of useful material there. A disclaimer warns visitors that the site is dead, but this sort of thing doesn't really go out of date.

A more lively community can be found at the Key Fan Service, which leads to the (unofficial) KEYな大辞典, a "collaborative dictionary of the people, places, sayings, and songs of the games published by Key and Visualarts". It's basically a primitive Wiki filled with information, speculation, and a good helping of downright silliness.

Another interesting set of essays in response to Key's games can be found here; some of the content has spoilers for ONE and AIR as well, so read with caution.

Those are all in Japanese! Aren't there any good English sites?

There's nothing as in-depth in English, but you might try Uguu. It's mainly focused on the anime at the moment, but I'm sure they'd love to add more on the game if anyone feels inspired to send them contributions!