The Midnight Sanctuary Review
“Um, so. Are you… maybe one of the Dead, too?” A story of strange doings in the town of Daiusu, with surrealist
visuals and a team of professional voice artists to immerse you in the story. An occult horror visual novel by the
creators of This Starry Midnight We Make and Forget-Me-Not Organ.
The Midnight Sanctuary focuses its occult visual-novel mystery. Researcher Hamomoru Tachibana is invited to
the secluded Daiusu Village—founded during the Edo-period persecution of Christians—by village leader Jyuan Daisun.
What begins as slow ethnography gradually pivots to the supernatural by the end of the first chapter.
The headline feature is its surreal presentation: a translucent diorama world laid over a single vivid artwork that’s
always visible through character models and scenery. It can be polarising—initially off-putting, later intriguing, yet
often distracting. Unfortunately, the animation and audio mixing don’t match the ambition: arm movements twist
awkwardly, and music cuts in and out at emotional peaks. The Japanese voice acting fares better, even if some nuance
may be lost for non-speakers.
A promised VR update could be the most compelling way to experience this art style; the layered, see-through aesthetic
might feel more cohesive in-headset. At roughly four hours, the story is compact—slow to start, stronger once its
religious-history backbone fully intersects with occult twists.
