You can now read my translation of Case of Nanaki up on my other website FFVII Novels. Before anyone criticises my translations, I'd just like to point out that I'm simply sticking to as close to the original text as possible.

Despite it's been almost 4 years since Kazushige Nojima wrote the last two stories of On the Way to a Smile, his writing style continues to be simplistic reading very much like a script than a novel. In my opinion, I think he uses too many short sentences and doesn't spend much time building up the scenes. He jumps between the character's thoughts and narration text too often and too suddenly. You can see the difference just by taking a look at the two excerpt translations I done from his stories and the Beast Player Erin novel.

In other words, if you really want his stories to read like a novel, you will have to spend quite some time re-wording.

Still, for an FFVII fan it's great reading these stories with the familiar characters back again, re-visiting those locations from the game.

If you would like to point out mistakes or points requiring clarification, please drop me an email with the following:

• A reference to the page number from the book.
• Be constructive and explain why something is wrong.
• Your name should I decide to make the correction and give you credits.

With that aside... The fourth story tells of how Nanaki faces a new foe named, "Gilligan" after separating with the other members of the party and travels to witness life around the world after the events of the original FFVII. Along the way he tries to discern his feelings as a human or a beast.

Some thoughts (i.e. massive spoilers) ahead.

And the highlights for me were...

Vincent shot Nanaki! Never saw that coming. Other than that I think the ending was class reading about the cold Vincent laughing and it fairly much leads neatly into explaining what that opening scene in Advent Children was all about.

What do you know... Nanaki did have children after all! Two too! Wonder if he named them "Pazu" and "Rin" after those Nibel bears?

I quite like the perspective on life Nojima uses in this story - Looking at how "small" the world is from a plane and how Nanaki is worrying himself over what he should have done in the past. I think it's clear the message he wants to convey from this story is that it's important to live a busy and fulfilling life so that one doesn't let those occasional hardships get to you.

So far (off the top of my head) we've had...

• Case of Denzel
  How one takes simple things in life for granted.
• Case of Tifa
  The importance of family.
• Case of Barret
  Repenting on one's sins.
• Case of Nanaki
  Living a fulfilling and busy life so you don't let the hardships burden you.

"On the Way to a Smile" huh... Right. I'm going to close my eyes and try and find out what my "Gilligan" is... ∑(￣口￣;

I wonder what message Case of Yuffie will bring...?