Nasuverse is a name that turning to the internet, especially going into the anime, video games and visual novels section, can happen to find. Nowadays, talking about a shared narrative universe in the world of entertainment is not strange: with its numerous films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has gradually accustomed the general public to this concept which, until not many years ago, was more familiar to readers than to movie viewers.
The narrative universes often differ from each other in the way they are organized and often interpret the same concept in a radically different way but, among all, one in particular turns out to be quite curious both for its structure and for its particular global success in over the years: the universe known as "Nasuverse".
Nasuverse: The author
The Nasuverse owes its name to the Japanese author who wrote it, Kinoko Nasu, who since the 90s conceived this universe in all its aspects although it did not actually start producing it until 1998, when together with his friend and illustrator Takashi Takeuchi founded the Type-Moon software house, starting a multimedia narrative project that is difficult to consider a shared universe in the classic sense: the Nasuverse is in fact composed of several universes, distinct from each other, united by a common mythology that acts as a junction point between his works, chronologically parallel.
Kinoko Nasu's world is an alternative representation of the Earth in the modern era with some key differences to separate it from reality, first between the vision of the world as a conscious entity with different layers of reality and will that collide, sometimes imperceptible, others more concrete.
The golden age
It has an origin and a past characterized by a mystical nature: the era of the gods, in which the world followed the laws of the Mysteries, making magical and mythological creatures proliferate and allowing the interaction between men and gods, endowed with physical form and representing the manifestation of nature itself.
This balanced situation was put in crisis by an evil god who, after invading the Earth, destroyed part of it and killed the majority of the gods, eventually being defeated by the sacred sword forged by the core of the planet, the legendary Excalibur which became famous thanks to the stories of the Knights of the Round Table.
In a last desperate attempt to maintain control, the Mesopotamian gods entrusted the task of acting as a bridge between human and divine to the first hero and king of human history, the demigod Gilgamesh, King of Heroes who, as we know from the poem epic that bears his name, rebelled against the gods accelerating their fall until the end of their era giving birth to the Age of Men.
A world without gods
The remaining gods and mythological creatures, now weak and subjected to the laws of physics that had taken over the Mysteries, therefore decided to migrate to "the reverse side of the world", a higher layer of reality in which the Mysteries still proliferate, leaving the Earth in the hands of men, who led history as we know it.
However, magic continues to exist, hidden from society in favor of science for the sake of the preservation of mankind, often in danger due to the events it causes, which leave the future of the world indeterminate and at the mercy of probability, proposing more scenarios possible as on the basis of the events that occur: we thus have a completely dead world, a world devoid of magic but full of humanity, a world in which men have suffered decline but magic persists or, even, a future in which men leave the Earth and dedicate themselves to the discovery of the unknown millions of light years away.
These are the parallel worlds of Nasuverse, through which the author often tells the same fragment of time in the history of his world by varying its events drastically.
Nasuverse: All works
The six key works of the whole narrative universe created by Nasu range both in their typology and in their medium: they range from short stories to fighting games, from visual novels to rpgs, from comics to Gacha games and if some of these are real works in their own right, others are real franchises, consisting of prequels, spin-offs and sequels, structured in turn according to their own canons, branching out the entire shared universe in an increasingly complex and elaborate way going to constitute a shared puzzle by the rules, atmospheres and underlying theme.
They are, in chronological order of creation:
The Notes story.
Notes is a short story written by Kinoko Nasu in 1998 and published in the multimedia anthology Dojin Angel Voice, released for the first time during the Comitia 48 festival, on May 4, 1999 and reprinted on September 30 of the same year. Having gone missing for several years, the work returned to prominence towards the beginning of the second decade of 2000, being rediscovered by the general public and translated by amateur channels into the main Western languages, including Italian.
The trilogy of short stories by Kara no Kyōkai
Kara no Kyōkai is one of Nasu's first works, in which narrative elements can be found that will return in the author's later works such as the dark atmosphere and the treatment of mature and disturbing themes such as suicide, rape, incest and assassination, all inserted in a plot based on the supernatural and which draws inspiration from various religious philosophies and psychological concepts such as multiple personalities, soul and animosity, the nature of sin, death and reincarnation, and paradoxical nature of the Taiji.
The Tsukihime multimedia franchise
Tsukihime's fame and success are attributed to the work's incredible narrative depth and the unique and distinctive writing style of its author Kinoko Nasu, here on his first job as a developer.
Shiki Tohno returns to the home of his family of origin after spending eight years with some uncles, from a cadet branch of the Tohno. To welcome him is Akiha, his younger sister and current head of the family and the two faithful waitresses Hisui and Kohaku. The two Tohno are now the only heirs and descendants of the family, which has always been linked to dark mysterious events linked to the paranormal.
The multimedia franchise of Fate / Stay Night
Fate / stay night is a visual novel, conceived by Kinoko Nasu and illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi. It is the cornerstone of the saga Fate and as such the first to present the dynamics of the conflict nicknamed War of the Holy Grail, more precisely by narrating the chronicles of the fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail War.
The Visual Novel Mahotsukai no Yoru
Mahotsukai no Yoru is a visual novel published on PC in 2012. Unlike the previous ones, this is suitable for audiences of all ages.
As the end of the Showa Era approaches, around 1980, there is a mansion in the town of Misaki that is said to be haunted. After moving into the Mansion, Aoko Aozaki begins studying the arcane arts from a young wizard, Alice Kuonji, the chat witch of the place.
The story Tsuki no Sango
Tsuki no Sango is a light novel. The events of Tsuki no Sango they take place around the year 3000, in which humanity has reached the height of civilization, but is losing the will to continue living. In this world, very similar to the Steel Earth of Ratings., the events that occurred in tsukihime they did not occur and it is "a degenerate world where the magic still lingers".
