Exactly, one needs to be very careful when making prequels and there just didn't seem to be enough planning ahead when they decided to make Days. So I'm totally in compliance with Amano getting it out of the way first. Although, it does make me more curious as to what he'll do with BbS. He does take his own route with the story sometimes so I'm sure he'll find a way to work with it. From what I recall, Xion was Nomura's idea, Kanemaki fell in love with the concept of her and pretty much made Xion her own, and Nomura just rolled with it because for better or for worse he's very open to other's ideas. e.g., if I recall right Xion was originally intended to be a personal antagonist to Roxas who followed him around, akin to Vanitas onto Ven I think, but Kanemaki insisted that she be a protagonist instead who was friends with Roxas.
That's the benefit of working on a story after the fact. While Amano's take on KH can be weird sometimes, he at least can look back at the games, try to recognize flaws or areas that need work, and try to fix them. e.g., I actually like the manga iteration of Kairi better than the game version. Although, that's a bit of a double edged sword because it's partly due to Kairi having even less character in the KH1 manga, but Amano has been trying fix that in the KH2 manga. And being more successful at it imo.
What Sephy said~
Although, Yen Press has expressed interest in the KH novels if there's enough interest in it.
The planning for Days itself was sort of half-baked, as the final scene
really was a good transition to KH and there were some clever throwbacks to KH 2 in general, but on the other hand much of the new stuff didn't fly with things established before and was pretty easily handwaved with the amnesia-card. The main issue was really that it came too late in order to be properly weaved into KH 2 itself. BBS was already in early planning stages during KH 2's development and thus did get some subtle foreshadowing in-game (like Xigbar's hints and his rambling with Zexion over the chambers in FM) and through the secret ending.
For BBS I'm truly interested as well what Amano will cook up, I wonder if he will go at that one a little more serious with less comedic antics as both MX and Vanitas are not really some goofy villains unlike some Organisation members and if he can give the actual deep sibling-like friendship between TAV that is proposed, but not properly shown in-game, some more depth and appreciation.
Like said, I'm hazy on these things so the way you remember it may actually be the correct one, I won't press this issue and right now I actually have not enough time to search through hoards of interviews to look for that passage.
And with that insistence Kanemaki actually brought upon the game an one-person spotlight-stealing squad. I'm certainly not an anti-Xion person, I like her as a character, but I do find her overpresence in the story of Days as overbearing.
This makes one wonder though, if scripts and dialogue made by the scenario writers need to be approved by Nomura, one would think he gets the scripts before implementing them into the games, so the possibility of noticing (and correcting) flaws should be there as well and actually be easier for Nomura who claimed once that only he alone knows the kinks and answers to all mysteries.
But I guess that goes often down the drain because schedules have to be met and unlike Amano who "only" has to work on drawing and texting, Nomura has several other areas to pay attention to as director (and he likes too much to play around with new gameplay gimmicks and contemplates what can be done to make it "more surprising" each time).
Full agreement, I love the more active, spunky KH 2 manga Kairi who actually gets to notice that something is off with the "Nobodies don't deserve to exist"-preaching that is thrown around. Her scenes with Axel are very powerful and unlike the games where the POV is always on Sora doing his antics with the duck and dog, you actually get to
see what happens when Axel takes Kairi from Twilight Town and the events following. The manga gives quite a bit more fair share of the spotlight for important characters in contrast to the games.
It's not that I'm saying KH2 is boring, it's more that Amano had been working on KH2 for a couple of years at that point. The KH2 manga is the longest out of all of the KH manga, so he probably needed to step away from Sora & co. for a little while.
Roxas and Xion were most likely a breathe of fresh air for him and Amano reinvigorate his interest in the KH2 manga.
Okay, lol, I also just realized recently after having replayed KH 1 in 1.5 HD just how easily I get bored with KH 2. Sometimes, I have more fun designing some wacky Gummi ships in KH 2 (like Star Wars Star Destroyers) than actually battling or playing Disney world plots.
So far I have five volumes of KH 2 in german, so it may be certainly the longest of the Kh mangas, although in comparison I'd say for a manga that is still rather short, as most mangas I know have between at least 16 or even more volumes.
Of course I don't know much about Amano's way of working so him getting bored is pretty possible as well.
I guess switching to a different manga is then still better than entering very long hiatus like Sadamoto (NGE) or Yoshihiro Togashi (HxH) are often doing.
In retrospect, the Disney Worlds were what attracted me to the series in the first place.
Getting to relieve the movies of my childhood and take part in their events just seemed so great.
Then I really warmed up to the great story.
I'm the opposite as I originally came over from being a Final Fantasy fan, but the Disney worlds themselves are not the problem in the first place but how they are handled.
KH without the Disney worlds wouldn't be KH anymore, that's clear.
Just plainly rattling down the events of the movies does not do anything to help the games story though and is all in all a waste of screentime because it has no impact on the overaching narrative.
In KH 1 (and partly in BBS and DDD) the Disney worlds do actually
not follow the movie plot to a T and have the original characters thrown in but alter the events to include connections to the overaching plot which does not only make the whole point of visiting that world more interesting, it also weaves that world into the bigger universe and portrays it as actually a part of it rather than just jumping into a detached stand-alone performance of the movie plot.
Take Space Paranoids in KH 2 for an example.
It followed the plot of the movie only on broad terms but had truly important connections to the overaching plot.