Kanon (visual novel)
Most of "Kanon"s development staff originally worked for the visual novel publisher Nexton under the brand Tactics. After the release of the brand's third game "", most of Tactics' staff left Nexton to pursue work in another publishing company where they could have the freedom to produce their next game. Itaru Hinoue, who had previously worked at VisualArt's once before, introduced Key's founding members to the president of VisualArt's, Takahiro Baba. Baba gave the developers the freedom they desired, and they officially transferred to VisualArt's where they formed Key on July 21, 1998 and started production on "Kanon". The planning for the visual novel was headed by Naoki Hisaya who was also one of two scenario writers with Jun Maeda. Hisaya wrote the scenarios for Ayu, Nayuki and Shiori, while Maeda wrote the routes for Makoto and Mai. Art direction was headed by Key's artist Itaru Hinoue who worked on the character design and computer graphics. Further computer graphics were split between three people—Dinn, Miracle Mikipon, Shinory—and background art was provided by Torino. The music in the game was composed by OdiakeS, Shinji Orito and Jun Maeda. "Kanon" was the first and last visual novel developed by Key that two of the main staff—Naoki Hisaya, and OdiakeS—worked on before pursuing a similar line of work in other visual novel studios.
List of Kanon episodes
The second anime adaptation also under the title "Kanon" is produced by the Japanese animation studio Kyoto Animation, directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, written by Fumihiko Shimo, and features character design by Kazumi Ikeda who based the designs on Itaru Hinoue's original concept. On August 25, 2006, a teaser DVD named "Kanon Prelude" was produced as a limited edition containing interviews with the cast, clean opening and ending sequences, and promotional footage of the anime itself. Twenty-four episodes were produced which aired between October 5, 2006 and March 15, 2007 on the Japanese television broadcasting station BS-i. While the plot does not differ from the first anime, the greater number of episodes allows the inclusion of more detail from the visual novel on which the series is based. The episodes were released to Region 2 DVD between January 1 and August 1, 2007 by Pony Canyon in limited and regular editions containing three episodes per volume. Pony Canyon released a Blu-ray Disc box set on December 16, 2009 in Japan.