To Heart 2: Yuki Kusakabe

Generic disclaimer: Same basic rules apply as in my [To Heart 2->toheart2] project. Please do comment or contact me in case I have mistakes in describing each girl’s scenario.

This is the shortest scenario, but the most confusing so far to me! I really never knew the point of Yuki’s story, except that she is also of the childhood friend/promise type. In any case, I will try my very best in relaying to you whatever little I understood about Yuki.

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Yuki Kusakabe’s scenario doesn’t appear in the game until you finished some other girls. But once you did that, there will be a new decision option in April 14, where Takaki goes back to school at night. That night, Takaki sees Yuki. She seems to know about him already, and also, they seem to get close almost immediately. Takaki offers Yuki a canned drink in the vending machine, and she gladly accepts.

Lonely Girl
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By the way, her scenario seems to require that Takaki should also get close to [Karin Sasamori->toheart2-karin-sasamori]! Yuki is actually a weird girl, she sometimes talks all by herself, hums singing tunes, talks while dreaming (as if she’s Takaki’s wife in the dream), and tells random stories to Takaki. It seems that through Karin and her UMA (Unidentified Mysterious Animal) research, Takaki tries to find out about the mysterious girl. Why does she only appear at late hours, and only at the school? Does she have no home?

Events
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In any case, Yuki shows lots of weirdness, but actually is more normal than any other To Heart 2 girl. To describe, I think she is in the middle of Konomi and Manaka when it comes to cheerfulness. Anyway, she and Takaki do all sorts of stuff, like finding trash items? (she has a trash basket note book) They also do a tea party on an empty science room.

Stories
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More importantly, Yuki tells a lot of contemporary stories to Takaki. I didn’t catch most of the narratives because of my lack of Japanese, but most of them may coincide with legend and classical stories like a typical Princess and a poor man falling in love story, Noah’s Ark, among others. She also told a story about the sea when they had gone in an aquarium.

Childhood
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This is where it all gets confusing. Yuki wants Takaki to remember “something”. Actually, Yuki already knows about Takaki from way back in childhood. But her attempts seem futile, and her time is running out. Yuki offers that they go see a meteor shower one night, because she said this may be the last time they will be together. And so one night, at the roof, they wait for the shooting stars. Yuki surprisingly knows many stuff about the stars and constellations, and even told stories about them. I guess through the stories Yuki is trying to make him remember, but still not. But it doesn’t matter anymore, and they kiss within the shooting stars. Yuki’s departure is about to start, and so she offers a final song to Takaki. The song seems familiar to me. In any case, a faint flashback happens, where we see an empty chair. The memory is still bleak to Takaki though. After that, he sees that Yuki is gone. But she left a diary. After reading the diary, he rushes out to find her. While running though, he is about to be run over by a truck! But Yuki is there to seemingly save him.

“I am someone who’s not supposed to be here”
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This is where the story gets mystical, so get ready for reality bending. Yuki says that the diary seems to be from the future? Trying to warn Yuki about an incoming accident involving Takaki. Okay, maybe Yuki’s story will clear it out more. Based on what I understood, Yuki is a childhood friend and classmate, but was supposed to transfer to another place because the family is moving. On the day of the transfer though, young Yuki seems to realize (through the diary?) that young Takaki is going to have an accident! The end result is that Yuki saved Takaki and was supposed to have died. But then she woke up to the present time. She was very surprised when she met Takaki at present. The reason why she wanted to make him remember the past is that the accident day split Yuki’s destinies. The real Yuki is the one who moved back then, the alternate Yuki is the one Takaki met at present. A lonely alternate Yuki, without any home, that’s why she thinks she isn’t supposed to be. As Yuki had called it destined meetings, Yuki had already met Takaki three times. First is the real meeting when she was supposed to move to another place. Second is the chance meeting in the accident maybe. Third is the present meeting. After hearing this, Takaki finally remembered what he was supposed to remember. I think the alternate Yuki’s role is over, and so she disappeared as Takaki faints.

Separation
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Takaki wakes up at a hospital bed, thinking that Yuki is the one in front of him. It was actually Konomi (they look alike, heh), and was quite worried about him. He was supposed to be run over by a truck right? Actually, the truck had a separate accident not involving Takaki. Takaki was only hospitalized because of fainting! What a weakling. Yuji also paid over to visit, and make a tease out of Takaki’s clumsiness.

Reunion
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Some days later, I guess he misses Yuki, but then… Yuki appears near the vending machine! This is the real Yuki who has moved from way back. Now she transferred back into their school. Yay, they’re happy to be together again!

The end. I saw no epilogue, maybe because she’s the bonus character. In any case, it was short and sweet. Confusing too, but that’s fine with me. Now I have to prepare for Lucy though, I think she will be the one to test my pretentious Japanese skills to the fullest. Until next time.

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This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

7 thoughts on “To Heart 2: Yuki Kusakabe”

  1. OK, well, this is really the most confusing scenario (even more than Lucy) but I’ll try to explain the story here:

    As you know, Takaki and Yuki actually knew each other since childhood. Back then, Yuki’s surname was actually Takashiro. They used to play each other a lot, but Yuki’s parents gets divorced, and because she had to follow her mother side, she had to transfer school and drop her surname Takashiro. Yuki gets worried because Takaki might not be able to recognize her with all the changes she will go through. Then well, with Takaki being a kid after all, he offers his surname(…)for her to use if she doesn’t like her new surname.

    OK this is the most important point of the story cause this pretty much means proposed marriage in Japan (since wife follows the husband’s surname). I don’t think Takaki was aware of this, but because of that, Yuki was touched and all, and she never forgets this and Takaki after that. Well too bad cause Takaki forgets this from his memory as time goes on (bastard XD)

    Back to the present, now named Yuki Kusakabe, she was about to transfer to the high school where Takaki attends. But the day when she was going to transfer (April 24th), she reads the newspaper and finds out that Takaki gets killed in the accident. Refusing to believe, she rushes outside with the newspaper and suddenly got blinded by light (Apprently, she mistakenly ran into the incoming truck) Then suddenly she just found herself lying on the grass and with Takaki looking over her who was at school picking up his half-finished report that he forgot to bring it with him (This is April 14th, and you have to select the first option to go to school). And this is where the story goes on.

    So to sum it up, Yuki is a future person. Who is from only a few days on the future. I know, this is really surprising and confusing and all (to quote you: reality bending XD) but this is how the story is. The fact that the game NEVER explains how the f–k she was able to go back a few days of her time (she doesn’t know either) or how she came back at the end of the story doesn’t help matters either. But since Yuki found herself in the past, I think she tried to prevent the accident that was going to happen in the future, despite not knowing what the f–k just happened, and in the end she ended up saving him when he was almost about to get runned down by the truck. Some hints are shown during their trip to aquarim, when Yuki stops Takaki trying to cross the road when it was still red-light, even though there was no incoming car. She only allows him to go when it turns green light. She was afraid of the accident that will happen.

    So in a way, this scenario leaves a lot of questions. I don’t know if I was able to explain well (sorry for my messy english) but that’s the story there.

  2. Hmm, thanks for making it a bit more clear, but (sarcasm) I guess we’ll have to resort to good ol’ Professor Farnsworth…

  3. In the ending (of the Chinese translation at least), Yuki actually remembers everything that happened, for no apparent reasons whatsoever.

  4. From the description about the present Yuki that Takaaki met, it sounds more like an “IKIRYO”. Yuki, the seemingly mysterious girl who appears only at night at school is the Ikiryo of the real Yuki. In the old Japanese folk lore there were two types of ghosts one of the dead called a ‘Yuurei’ the other ‘Ikiryo’. An Ikiryo is the ghost of a living person. It only appears when the person is unconscious, that is probably the reason why she only appears at night. It is a sort of astral projection, the strange thing is that the body of the ikiryo has no memory of what the ikiryo did while it was out. It’s the same circumstance as Ayu from Kanon, Yuuichi meets a girl named Ayu almost everyday on the market area, but she doesn’t seem to have a place to stay or any recollection of where she lives or what school she goes to. In the end the real Ayu was in the hospital and was under a coma for a very long time. And when she awoke she has no recollection of what had happened after all the time she spent with Yuuichi.

  5. Well, not all cases of the Ikiryo has memory loses, there are some who faintly recollect memories of their endeavor outside the body, and often people dismiss those memories as dreams ^_^

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