H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~

After having lived elsewhere for several years, Sana returns to the town in which he grew up in, and quickly begins to reacquaint himself to his surroundings and new high school. While there, Sana runs into his four childhood friends: Shuu, Shuri, Aoi, and Nanaka; but for some strange reason Nanaka gives him the cold shoulder. As he goes about his new daily life, can Sana rebuild his friendship with Nanaka while trying to deal with a troubling secret from his past?

Tomoya Okazaki is a third-year high school student who is generally bored with life and doesn't take his studies, future, or anything else seriously. One day, however, he meets a lonely-looking girl in the school courtyard, Nagisa Furukawa. She explains to him the source of her loneliness: she had missed a lot of the previous school year and thus is repeating her third year; everybody that she knew has already graduated, and she is lonely. Tomoya is rather indifferent at first, but decides that he has nothing better to do and spends increasingly more time helping Nagisa restore the school drama club. As his relationship with Nagisa grows, Tomoya begins to open up to various other people around the school as well...

The 'girl in the sky' is a legend passed down through the ranks of one special family. Armed with the magical puppet skills he learned from his mother, Kunisaki Yukito follows in her footsteps, traveling from place to place, ever searching for that girl in the sky, ever chasing after that legend. His journeys have led him to a small costal town where he meets a girl that has a peculiar interest in him -- could she be the one? As events slowly start to unfold in front of his very eyes, Kunisaki Yukito finds himself amidst a story that spans a thousand summers...

In a high school setting, there are many people whose stories must be told: Hiro, an aspiring manga artist whose view of the world is "missing a certain color," according to himself; his childhood friend Kei, who is vying for his attention; Kyosuke, a photographer and cameraman who seeks to capture true emotion in his work; the ever-cheerful Miyako, who meets Hiro by chance and immediately becomes attached to him; the gentle Renji, unsure of his aspirations to become a novelist; and Kei's mysterious and quiet sister Chihiro, who seems to be a different person every day. As time passes and they interact with one another more, their paths increasingly intertwine as shades of regrettable pasts emerge.

Shinichiro Nakagami is an everyday high school student, with the exception of having his beautiful and athletic childhood friend Hiromi Yuasa living in his household after the death of her parents. Unfortunately, their relationship is cold at best - Shinichiro can tell that she is suffering, but she acts coldly and distant from her foster family and so he is unable to help ease her sadness. His family is also forcing him to practice a traditional Japanese dance that does not interest him, adding to his frustration. On top of that, he is cursed to misfortune by another girl in school, the eccentric Noe Isurugi. Shinichiro juggles all of these problems on a day-to-day basis as he learns about love and the sadness of those around him.

For Aizawa Yuuichi, returning to the town where he spent his childhood has been an unusual affair. Yuuichi, it seems, has forgotten his memories of the past, including encounters with several young ladies who would love nothing more than to see him again. As the days pass, flickers of the past began to surface, revealing more and more of the dark events that once came to be. As the reuniting continues, Yuuichi soon starts to realize that his past may be far more complex than he once believed it to be...

Alternate titles: When They Cry - Higurashi

Maebara Keiichi, an ordinary high-school boy, has transferred to a new school in Hinamizawa, a small rural village. At the outset everything seems peaceful and Keiichi becomes friends with a nice group of schoolgirls with whom he spends many idle summer afternoons. Suddenly violence encroaches upon the blissful peace of the village and Keiichi becomes entangled in an endless cycle of fear and death. The inconsistent, but inevitable horrors of Hinamizawa are told and retold becoming an endless and inescapable nightmare of insanity. Will it end even if the mystery of Hinamizawa is solved?