Boku no Natsuyasumi 2: Umi no Bouken-hen

The childhood nostalgia angle hits well as a thumbnail teaser or a loopable GIF of warm glow dusk, but Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 is less concerned with portraying the ideal child’s summer and more with letting the disarming naivete of your avatar Boku open up the reality around him. “Stark” may not be the right word here, because for all of the pain and intrigue that worms its way into his surroundings, just as many of his days are filled with genuine joy or tame ennui. But for all the words that get filtered into question marks in his brain, culminating in exaggerated nods or head scratches, they additionally get transmitted directly to the player, almost as if Boku’s role functions less as a living being and more as a probe to move around the world and direct into people’s hearts. When he actually intervenes in the plot, it’s a rarity, and almost always initiated by him alone without the explicit intention of the player.

Boku is also a vector of memory, with key moments throughout punctuated by an unseen adult narrator speaking from his perspective.¹ When he probes into those around him, often what spills out are unclosed elements from their past, traumatic or otherwise, that seem to consume every conversation with him. This is amplified by the transient nature of the locale: a small hamlet located on an island, partially populated by tourists seeking seclusion at Boku’s aunt and uncle’s bed and breakfast. Yoshika and Shizue do little to bide the time, primarily lounging in between letting you (or Simon²) pick their brains on their life beforehand; old flames, the thoughts in the smell of the ocean air, the meaning of old songs. Your uncle, the Wolfman, and Taniguchi reflect on their prior occupations, roaming, building, exploring, applying their youthful vigor much as you explore the area around you, before settling down into less romantic work. The transience of their movement through the place draws out the language to describe all of these, reinvigorating their recall from the unique sensory notes of the island and your probe. Your uncle contradicts this the most, having put his roots down, but he still gets to live vicariously through his spitting image, your cousin Takeshi, while Takeshi yearns to let his father return to his old way of life without the shackles of the island.

Yasuko, the richest character in the first half, embodies this as a high school student boarding in Tokyo for the majority of the year. Each return to her hometown triggers a rush of emotion for her, where her deceased father seemingly plays second fiddle to a narcissistic mother, who more or less abandoned the family, and a childhood friend that she’s iced for the last half decade. Visiting her in her “bedroom” (a dual record collection suite and stylish observatory office; does she even have a bed?) has her unleash her inner monologue out of context, driven forward by light questions from Boku and the passing of time in an uncomfortable place. For her friend Yoh, she’s wracked by nostalgia, agonizing over the thought that their past dynamic may be forever shattered, while for her mother, her memory is full of holes. Innocuous stray comments from other characters help fill the gaps; Yasuko’s sister mentions “her other family” off the island while gleefully praising her mom for being tall, while Shizue herself, the mother in question, stays briefly in your aunt’s lodge while scarcely interacting with her own children, staring out at the water while mentioning that she would’ve have patched things up had she known how soon her ex-husband would pass. She leaves behind the key separating Yasuko’s room from the rest of the house,³ and when the door is finally unlocked, Yasuko breaks down, running out into the street and curling into a ball, for once not revealing everything; Boku’s conclusion in his end-of-day diary entry is that the whole thing wasn’t as cool as he thought it would be.

The key is an important exception to the overarching push-and-pull of your control of the game; one of Boku no Natsuyasumi 2’s most exceptional depictions of childhood is the lack of agency. The plot ebbs at its own pace throughout each in-game day, gently pushing you towards the most interesting facets while letting them dissolve in the background if you don’t engage with them. Attempt to stick your nose in on the gold bars case while Yoshida or Yoshika are around, and Boku will end up dragging them down to his level, playing them into an unseen romance plotline that becomes quaint in the aftermath of their arrest of the suspect.⁴ Characters move on their own schedules, make plans for you, and disappear at will. With the key playing out just as you would hope, putting your time investment towards something that can actively “fix” someone’s life and giving you the ability to handle it yourself, you would expect in a normal game that moment of repair. And yet, your expected outcome from taking charge in the situation lands with a thud, Yasuko crying in the bright sun, leaving Boku to wander off to catch bugs or buy ice cream.

One of the few places where you can actually stretch your legs and move on your own is in the swimming sections, which drop the fixed, pre-rendered world and let you actually control your own perspective, move in any direction at your leisure, and spend as much time as you would like. When Boku wants to explore new parts of the mountain or the forest, he has to let his cousins lead; when he wants to dive in the water, suddenly the world is his oyster, and every other character melts away. Among the many bits and bobbles you can find underwater (collectable bottle caps, a rocket valve, a sunken ship), an unmarked tunnel will lead you to a small cove with a waterfall, which scarcely registered while I was getting my bearings on the layout of the bay. It’s only when Boku reaches his bed that he lets you know in his diary that, out of all of the things that happened that day, finding his little cove was the most important one, a fact that he’ll never share with anyone else.