Notes.

by Kinoko Nasu

The story in Notes takes place on Earth in the distant future. After mankind killed the planet on which it lived with pollution and warfare, all natural life died with it. Only one surviving were the humans, as they were able to use technology to artificially sustain themselves. They eventually created enhanced humans, which were able to live on the ruined planet, and A-rays, creatures created with genetic engineering by combining humans and various other extinct life forms.

A war breaks out between enhanced humans and A-rays, resulting in complete devastation of what was left of Earth, as well as the near extinction of enhanced humans. The war was interrupted by the arrival of 8 Aristoteles, who only seek to indiscriminately destroy all remaining life on the dead planet.

Note: Commonly referred to as Angel Notes.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories

Unknown Binding

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

奈須 きのこ, Nasu Kinoko, born 28 November 1973 is a Japanese author, best known for writing the light novel The Garden of Sinners and visual novels Tsukihime and Fate/stay night, and a co-founder of Type-Moon. Renowned for a unique style of storytelling and prose, Nasu is amongst the most prominent visual novelists in Japan. He graduated from Hosei University with a major in human science.

Reviews

[Benji · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is no official English translation available so I used the Evospace translation.
Poorly translated and sentence structure is very confusing. I suspect the most literal translation from Japanese was chosen.
The story is very nonsensical and at the end I feel like nothing has become clearer or has even been partially explained.
The story also suffers from the fact that it tries to establish a world and a conflict in just a few pages while also giving the impression the most interesting parts of the story are not shown.

[Vladimir (mecha_yota) Altukhov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Notes. by Kinoko Nasu

Read with a short story club.

From what we were told, nowadays Notes. is read by Type-Moon fans in the context of being the originator of concepts found in Nasu's later works. Thus, the person who chose the story wanted to recreate the initial reaction, when readers were introduced to Notes. with no backup knowledge, and I guess it pretty much worked, considering most of us in the club haven't read a single work by Type-Moon.

I wasn't a huge fan of it. For such a short story it was packed with an immense amount of lore. Instead of gradually introducing the readers to foreign concepts and realities, Nasu thought it’d be a good idea to bombard them with a pack of glossary entries. Made it seem as if he didn't have a proper understanding on the preferred amount of information included: he either wasn't confident the readers would understand the lore by themselves or did realize he hadn't provided a coherent way of immersion and had to fill the gap somehow.

I find it weird that so much time was dedicated to lore and not the characters. The fragmented narration did not provide a bare minimum of emotional connection for me to feel anything when Godot apparently changed. Same can be applied to his love for the angel girl–not enough scenes to make it even slightly believable. Like the reviewer Benji said, Notes. leave all important bits behind, presenting a bare skeleton of ideas. It didn't help that it'd introduced various types of angels without proper distinction, which spread lots of confusion among us.

No recommend.

[Talion Al'Thor · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was amazing and horrifying in a way I can't describe, it was amazing

[Lannie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and derivative. Imagine every cliche of an amateur wannabe anime and this has it.