Once every blue moon, NITRO CHiRAL (the developer known for DRAMAtical Murder, Slow Damage…) holds a special event in Japan called THE CHiRAL NIGHT. It’s mostly a concert where songs from their videogames catalogue gets a live version. But I think they also have voice actors and cosplayers come up to do some skits. And of course, they sell some exclusive cute merch with the event theme.
Back in April, they announced the THE CHiRAL NIGHT: fall into Slow Damage for August 22nd . Tickets for the live show opened, but you could also pay to watch the livestream version of the show. Tickets were available starting from May 22nd on Eplus for 7,000 yen (if my infos are correct).
For 2026, THE CHiRAL NIGHT was themed around their latest release, Slow Damage, but also featured songs from their past works. In fact, their entire body of work was represented: Lamento, Togainu no Chi, sweet pool and DRAMAtical Murder. As such, the event was quite long and lasted over 4 hours! It took place at Omiya Sonic City, which has a maximum seating capacity of 2,500 people in the Large Hall, which I’m assuming they choose. Can you image that many people getting together for the love of BL VNs?
This event was actually quite a big deal, because it had been almost 10 years since the studio held one. They usually only make these events to celebrate their anniversary, or after a game release. So I guess that makes sense that there was such a large absence. And let’s not forget that COVID-19 happened and probably messed up their plans, both in terms of events and game development.
This got me curious about past events. So here’s the compiled list of previous CHiRAL NIGHTS with their website linked if you want to feel like you use a time-machine. Not sure why these websites are still up, but they’re a work of art so I don’t mind it!
- June 7th 2008: THE CHiRAL NIGHT (Shibuya O-East: capacity for 1,300 people)
- October 31st 2010: THE CHiRAL NIGHT 5th Anniversary (JCB Hall Tokyo Dome City: capacity for 2,500 people)
- July 6th 2013: THE CHiRAL NIGHT -Dive into DMMd- 1.1 (TOKYO DOME CITY HALL: capacity for 3,000 people)
- July 7th 2013: THE CHiRAL NIGHT -Dive into DMMd- V2.0 (TOKYO DOME CITY HALL: capacity for 3,000 people)
- November 5th 2016: THE CHiRAL NIGHT 10th ANNIVERSARY (Maihama Amphitheater: capacity for 2,170 people)
- (and in 2017, they released a rhythm game called THE CHiRAL NIGHT Rhythm Carnival, which, while not a live event, is still worth mentioning)
Looking at this, I guess the BL VN’s lovers/fujoshis fanbase is still as alive as it was 10 years ago, which is a blessing and hopefully means that we’ll still get BL VNs for a looong time. I’m actually surprised they were able to hold a 2-days event for DRAMAtical Murder. Was the DMMd craze that high back in the days?
Cute illustrations of Slow Damage shown in CHiRAL NIGHT Slow Damage
Some illustrations drawn by the original artist of Slow Damage, Yamada Uiro, were shown. These are depictions of what happens in the drama CD for each character. Everything is looking cozy and peaceful… well expect maybe the Madarame artwork since there’s blood everywhere but Towa doesn’t seem to mind it (lol).
You can find the illustrations on the NITRO CHiRAL blog.
A NU:Carnival collab with DRAMAtical Murder
My knowledge from NU:Carnival is pretty spare, since I only know that it’s a 18+ gacha game. And even with this enticing pitch, I never actually tried the game myself. But that may change now that we have this collaboration to look forward to. It’s a fully-fledge Main Story update where Aoba and his crew will be here. And even better, fully voiced by their original VAs. I don’t understand how this will work with the NU:Carnival timeline, and if we play as Aoba or as the MC of the game. But I’m a little curious to find out! There’s no date on the announcement, so I’m assuming we’ll get more info in the upcoming weeks. This is a pretty substantial added content just for it to be temporary, but collaborations are usually time-limited…
A new Slow Damage (PC!!) videogame: Slow Damage another canvas
The highlight of the soirée was definitely the announcement of a new Slow Damage game, just 6 years after the release of the base game in Japan. Just for comparison, the fandisc for DRAMAtical Murder came out just 1 year after the base game and I even think it was a surprise release. So it’s a bit disheartening to see that we only got an announcement. And on top of that, no trailer or screenshot of the actual project, after a 6 years wait…
It’s unclear if Slow Damage another canvas will be a fandisc or a sequel. Since the wait has been so long, and they made this news right after showing the fluffy illustrations, I actually think that this might be a more story-heavy continuation of the base game. Since we see a canvas, I can only assume that we’ll still play as Towa and not some other characters in the same universe.
No release date has been announced and the game seems to still be in preparation… But I doubt that we’ll have to wait another 6 years for it to see the light. I also noticed that some old figures of Towa like the Nendoroid are getting restocked. This may have nothing to do with their upcoming project, but it still hints that the IP is doing well and there’s still a high demand for it! If it is the studio which can push for these restocks, maybe they are planning on releasing the new game soon?
A new IP teaseed in CHiRAL NIGHT Slow Damage?!
And lastly, we got a teaser of series of sketches depicting random things like tentacles doing some lewd things, weird-looking monsters, a dude with a helmet… and some school uniforms? Since they were confident enough to show us this, I think they are not in the early stages of the development. Some of the sketches look like they were made before a CGI. There’s also a lot of lewd illustrations for some reason. And I don’t think they would do that kind of things to brainstorm ideas for the game?
But I have a hard time putting together the fantasy/supernatural elements to the modern school uniform… Most of NITRO CHiRAL games took place in a modern setting, with the exception of Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID-. Could this be a return to their Lamento style, or a new mashup of genres?
Either way ,this got me curious about the timeline for Slow Damage release, so here it is:
- February 24th 2016: an announcement with a basic visual and the names of the writer and the character designer. A website was also launched.
- January 4th 2017: one PV gets released where we see sketches of the love interests and Towa. It was previously shown during THE CHiRAL NIGHT 10th ANNIVERSARY which took place in November 2016.
- December 29th 2018: the game is set to release for 2020!
- simultaneously, JAST BLUE states they’ll be localizing the game
- September 11th 2020: the game is delayed from December 2020 to February 2021
- February 25th 2021: the game is out!
I certainly hope that we won’t have to wait until 2030 to have the game lol. But looking at how it worked out for Slow Damage, I do feel like they are at a more advanced point in the development than they were when they first made their announcement for Slow Damage. An interesting difference is that we didn’t get any names for the project. They announced Slow Damage just 3 years after releasing DRAMAtical Murder re:connect, while there has been 6 years since Slow Damage release. So maybe they’ve already been working on it for some time already.
Unless they are making a statement in the next days, I actually think that there might be a new writer for this new project and not the in-house scenarist who has worked on every game so far, Fuchii Kabura. From the look of the sketches, the artist is almost certainly the same as Slow Damage.
This is all assuming that there is just one PC game in development, but it was actually written “他、企画進行中!” which translates as “Other projects in progress!”. Maybe they meant to say projects on any platform, including mobile games. If so, this may imply that the sketches shown aren’t actually from the same project. Then again, with the speed of development, I doubt their team can handle working on multiple games all at once… Or it could simply be a hopeful message left here to reassure fans that the studio is active and wants to continue making games. The fantasy sketches may be their most advanced “work in progress”, but they have other ideas brewing for the next years or so.
Conclusion
This is really positive news! It makes me excited for the future, and it warms my heart to see such excitement over BL VNs of all things lol. I surprised myself by being so happy over the news of the upcoming Slow Damage game. I assumed that I didn’t like it that much when I finished it last year. But the reality is that even one year after completing it, I still think about it a lot and listen to the OST (well, just arlequin and after all). I’m also just happy to see news from NITRO CHiRAL, because even though their games have some shortcomings, they are still THE reference in their niche.
