Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition-

Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- is a standalone expansion for Palette’s visual novel Mashiroiro Symphony -Love is Pure White-. This release lets readers experience a romance with the notorious man-hater, Sana Inui.

Sana’s route was originally added in the PSP release of “Mashiro Iro Symphony: *mutsu no hana” after she won a character popularity poll. The 2023 Japanese release of -Sana Edition- adds new scenes and CGs not originally available on the PSP version, which are now available in Shiravune’s English release.

Some Same Story

As a standalone expansion, Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- includes a lot of the same content as Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Love Is Pure White-. The prologue and common route are completely the same, and the game gives you a prompt to skip the common route.

I expect that most readers of -Sana Edition- will have already bought -Love is Pure White-. For those not familiar with it, please check out our review for wider thoughts on the setting, common route, and the visual novel as a whole.

Perhaps because Sana was not originally made to be a heroine, she doesn’t get highlighted much in the common route. Instead, she has significant screentime during Miu’s route, which introduces her as more than just a comedic device. Between this and certain events that either make more sense or work better after playing Miu’s route, it’s hard to recommend buying -Sana Edition- alone, despite working as a standalone expansion.

Sana’s route starts with the same story as Miu’s route. There are a couple of hours of reading of what’s mostly the same content, but it has occasional added scenes focusing on Sana inserted throughout.

All of this shared content may make people question the price, and this is a fair complaint. That said, the Sana route in Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- is about 1.6x as long as one of the heroine routes in -Love is Pure White-, and it includes an After Story unlike the others. That said, a significant amount of that route isn’t unique. With those considerations, one route for about 60% of the price of -Love is Pure White- (or less with the Steam bundle) isn’t as bad as it sounds, but it still isn’t the best deal.

Sana or Miu?

As mentioned, Sana’s route mostly starts with the same content as Miu’s. This makes sense as Sana is more heavily featured in the earlier part of Miu’s route than Miu herself is. It does cause some issues though.

Miu is a very charming heroine. The protagonist Shingo starts to notice this too and there are a few moments that seem like they might involve romantic feelings. This then gets abruptly dropped when we leave the part shared with Miu’s route.

Some infrequent additional scenes for Sana are inserted here, which work well to lay the groundwork for a relationship between Shingo and Sana. It even adds in some small pieces for other characters that were nice to see. What doesn’t work so well is a very early scene where we get introduced to Sana (dressed as a boy) and her younger brother, which isn’t referenced again for several hours. This left me feeling like I was pushing through the parts of the story I’d already read to get somewhere new. It could have included a few more added Sana scenes with extra hints here.

Sana’s Story

The part where the story switches over to the unique Sana content is where I feel it’s at its strongest. An event happens that begins a friendship with (and adds more information about) Sana’s younger brother Rio. Scenes with Rio are often hilarious with him acting as harsh toward Sana as she is towards men. Despite being a young child and acting like it at times, he often acts like he’s weary of dealing with people. A lot of his scenes have great timing where he just ‘ruins the moment’ for comedic effect.

A lot of this route focuses on the problems between Sana and Rio. There’s a rather complex relationship to explore there, with some great touching moments. Shingo gets involved by developing a relationship of his own with Rio, and the rest of the friend group ends up meeting him too.

Sana is developed much more as a heroine in her route. On top of this route delving into her family issues, she goes beyond a character that just acts harshly (though there’s certainly plenty of that), becoming more complex with her own motivations and anxieties.

On the downside, while there are many great moments with Sana, I felt like her route isn’t as great as some of the others at involving the whole group of friends. They appear often enough, but often more for the jokes than as part of the plot or any deeper involvement.

In terms of relationship development, it’s extremely slow. The standard tsundere pattern of being harsh and then turning sweet over time is followed here, but Sana isn’t easy to win over at all. The insults flow for a long time and even her kindness can be tough. This slow transition was the highlight for me, seeing her barriers slowly coming down.

The latter part of the route wasn’t as good as I expected, sadly. It seemed somewhat dragged out after the romance started in full. The ending wasn’t particularly impactful either.

In the end, Sana’s route had highs and lows. It was a good read overall with some real highlights, but certainly had its weaknesses.

Adult Content

The Steam version of Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- cuts out more than just the adult content if you don’t install the 18+ patch. It is strongly recommended to buy on a storefront supporting adult content or to install the patch as explained in our guide/walkthrough.

There are only two adult scenes within the story of -Sana Edition-, plus a third in the After Story. The first didn’t feel as integrated into the plot as some of those in -Love is Pure White- but the second was more involved. Considering this was originally an all-ages PSP port, them not being as connected isn’t too surprising.

The scenes are fairly vanilla and include partial animation. Mosaic censorship is retained as normal for this publisher.

Inconsistent Art

Overall, the art in Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- is as amazing as it is in the main visual novel. Art is absolutely a positive overall, but one thing did stand out as somewhat disconcerting.

Many of the CGs are presented in a charming older style, while others (which I imagine were added for the -Sana Edition- release) are drawn in a more modern style. One element that particularly stands out is Sana’s eyes which seemingly constantly reflect a starry sky in the new CGs.

While they’re only in the After Story, some new sprites are also added with this new starry-eyed style (and oddly with one eye always closed).

Even if I prefer the older style, both look amazing. It just feels odd to have CGs switch between the two styles throughout the story.

Verdict

Mashiroiro Symphony HD -Sana Edition- is a nice addition to -Love is Pure White- and I can certainly see why Sana won a popularity poll. Sana’s route had a lot to measure up to, and while it falls short of some of the -Love is Pure White- routes, it was still a great read.