#BLVN

[zhaleys]

[suzuran777]

Analyzing some of the very first BL visual novels

First of all, I've talked about most of these topics during my Citrus con panel on Augustus 24th, so for those who missed it or who wanted a list of all the visual novels mentioned during the panel, those are also mentioned in this blog post! Japanese BL visual novels have been something I’ve been interested in since 2010-2011, and even these days many people in English speaking fanbases are familiar with games like DRAMAtical Murder and the other Nitro + Chiral titles. I've played many older titles which I've previously reviewed on this blog, and in this post I will be looking at some of the very first BL visual novels and how the industry has changed throughout the years.

Before the very first "official" BL visual novels were released, some visual novels already existed in which a male protagonist had romantic or sexual scenes together with one of the other male characters. Some examples of this are games like Sotsugyou Ryokou (1996) and Ko-Ko-Ro (1998). Most of the other love interests in these games were girls, so they were not promoted as “boys’ love” games.

The oldest visual novel I could find that was promoted as a game which focuses on love between boys, is a game called Sei Valentine Gakuen, released by a company called B.M. in early 1999. This is a game in which you can name the protagonist, and none of the characters are voiced. While checking their old website through Waybackmachine, it seemed like the game had a lot of game-breaking bugs which they attempted to patch out, however the website quickly shut down within what seems like only a year (or maybe a few years) after its release date. Since there's not a lot of information about this game available online, I was surprised that someone bought the game second-hand and made a youtube video about it, so I recommend checking that out! You can watch it here. Despite being promoted as a game that focuses on love between boys it seems like there’s not really romance in the game, so I am curious why they marketed the game in this way.

Next is a game called BOYxBOY, released a few months after Sei Valentine Gakuen in April 1999. This is one of the games I actually got to play myself, and I was surprised to see this game was released by King Records (the record label) as I didn’t know they used to publish games, let alone BL games. The protagonist has a face and a name this time, but even though all the other characters are voiced, they decided to leave the main character unvoiced for some reason. This game does have romance elements, like confession scenes, but it's still quite minimal. There’s only one character who actually gets a kiss scene for example. This game did get a fandisc a year later, but it seems to be more of a collection of extra materials and minigames rather than something that really adds something to the story of the game.

Another BL visual novel that was released around this time in July 1999 is a game called Graduation (or Sotsugyou) by Joinac, which as the title suggests, focuses on the protagonist spending time with people at his school right before his graduation. This one actually got translated, so it's probably the first BL visual novel to ever get an (official) English translation. Unlike most other games from this time, this one can still be easily accessed too, as a digital version is available for purchase on DLsite.

Entering the 2000s, game developer AliceSoft created their own BL game brand called AliceBlue and released their first BL game called Kakurezuki in 2000. Even though AliceSoft released 18+ rated titles in the past, this first BL title was actually also all-ages. Some reviews mentioned that they don’t really consider the game BL at all, pointing out the lack of romance, and I can definitely see where they’re coming from. Pretty much all the other games I mentioned so far take place in a modern-day school setting, however this game is more of a historical fantasy game (although the plot still only focuses on the protagonist and his daily interactions with those around him).

A lot of the games during this time period still highly resembled the typical dating sim-style game, which was quite popular in the mid/late 1990s. This kind of gameplay means that usually, the player decides what the character is going to do that day, for example, what subjects he takes in school, which club he joins and which locations he visits. In games like Kakurezuki, it’s a bit different you decide what magic skills you want to strengthen that day. This kind of gameplay kind of limits what kind of story the writers can explore, as the plot mostly focuses on the main character’s everyday life and their interactions with other characters, and eventually also became something that’s not commonly used in BL visual novels anymore.

Later that year, in August 2000, one of the most well-known early BL visual novels was released. This was Sukisho (short for Suki na Mono wa Suki Dakara Shouganai) by Platinum Label. The company promoted this game as the “first 18+ boys love game” though Graduation also seems to be rated 18+ on DLsite. Sukisho gained a big fanbase, as many fans really liked the art (drawn by Tsutae Yuzu) and the characters. Even though the plot still focused on boys going to school, some characters do have a darker backstory. The company even created official forums where fans could discuss the plot of the game and fan theories. Some other boards also encouraged fan meetups at local conventions in Japan. It ended up getting 3 different sequels, a PlayStation 2 port, an anime adaptation, and various drama CDs and novels. These days a lot of BL visual novels get drama CDs, but back then this game really got a lot of extra content compared to other games. Like many others, I personally discovered this game through the anime many years ago, but I played the visual novel later as it has also been fan translated and was quite accessible back then.

Another visual novel that stood out, and which also got an anime adaptation, is Angel's Feather (2003). Unlike the rather confusing anime plot, which adds a new character that isn’t in the game, I think the plot of the visual novel is actually much better. Initially it does seem like another game about high school boys, but in reality it’s more of an RPG game that focuses on the characters learning more about the world they’re living in, and their own magic abilities. I think just like Sukisho’s artstyle, compared to many other games that were released at the time, the art of this game quite unique. The artist is Yamamoto Kazue, who worked on many visual novels, and is still active nowadays. This game also got a sequel and drama CDs, but sadly the third game they were working on was never released. The studio was also working on a completely new game called White Shadow, however this one also remains unreleased to this day. If you want to read a little bit more information about this game and other unreleased titles, I wrote a blog post about that too here!

The inclusion of RPG elements I briefly mentioned just now in visual novels was not something only Angel’s Feather did. For example, some of these other screenshots are from Ouji-sama Lv1, Teikoku Sensenki, and Apocripha/0. The gameplay varied from a simple battle system to complicated dungeons and hard to beat enemies, depending on the game. One downside of this is that it’s quite a time-consuming process if you want to see all kinds of different endings, as these parts of the game were usually unskippable. Gradually, this is also something that slowly became less common in BL visual novels.

Generally, a lot of older games were quite difficult to replay as most games only had a limited number of save slots, and sometimes there would be no preview images next to the save files either, so it was quite difficult to remember which save file you were supposed to load. Some of the oldest BL visual novels also don’t have a skip button, which means you have to play through all of the dialogue again if you want to see a different ending. The pictures below are my screenshots from Angel's Feather and Kannagi no Tori, a game that was released in 2001. Luckily both of these games do have a skip button, but there were never enough save slots!

Other than changes in gameplay and artstyles, something that has also changed quite a lot are the dynamics between characters in adult scenes. In most BL visual novels, the protagonist is either a top or a bottom, and this doesn’t really change throughout the whole game. For example, if the official website mentions that the protag is a bottom, that means he’s a bottom with every single one of the love interests. Something I noticed while playing older games is that this order wasn’t always fixed. In games like Laughter Land and Kannagi no Tori for example, the game would often let the player decide. A game that was released a bit later which also has this option is PIL/SLASH’s game Shingakkou -Noli me tangere. In every route, no matter what character, you make the decision. I think it’s kind of fun when the game gives you choices like this, although I’m not sure if they will ever bring it back.

Terminology and target audience When I talk about these games I use “BL game” and “BL visual novel” as these are easily understood when communicating with an English-speaking audience. However in Japanese these games are usually only called “BL game” or "AVG" which just stands for adventure game. In the early 2000s some official websites around this time would refer to these BL visual novels as ''boys games'' to distinguish them from a genre called “girl’s games” or galge, which are games that would typically target a male audience. Even though the term “yaoi” was becoming less common, some developers would also call them “yaoi games” on their website, as you can see in some of the screenshots below . It’s not like the term “visual novel” is something completely unknown to them, but it’s also not a term I ever see them using to promote their games.

As for the target audience, similar to a lot of BL manga, the target audience for many of these BL visual novels was also women. A lot of websites stated that these were games “made by girls for girls”. However, it’s better to not generalize the whole genre as something exclusively targeted towards women, as some games like Hotaru (released by Tarutaru in December 2000) and its sequels were specifically advertised as games "made by gay men for gay men". One of the games I mentioned earlier, Graduation, was also made by a doujin group that calls themselves the Gay Artist Support, and like the name suggests, they support gay artists and alleys. Therefore it can be concluded that even during this time period, it wasn't just women creating and reading BL.

Marketing and sales Some might be wondering; how did people discover these games back then? Around the year 2001, multiple websites were created by fans that kept track of new BL game developers, as well as any updates provided by the companies that were already established back then. A lot of these websites also gave fans the option to chat with each other in their forums. Some examples of these websites are BOY'S STREET and Boyslove Kenkyuujo (which translates to BoysLove research institute). They kept track of both commercial and doujin game releases. Companies and doujin creators would both sell their games at events like Comiket, Super Comic City and J-Garden too, where they would promote their games and chat with fans. Their games would also be sold at stores like Animate and Toranoana, which is not too different than how creators sell their BL games nowadays, as both of these stores still exist. A lot of BL game creators in the early 2000s were quite close to each other and collaborated. For example, some doujin groups like Anubis Label, Ritz, Moon Parrot and more created their own magazine called B-GAME, which featured information about their new doujin games, corporate games, survey results, game reviews and more. The picture below (on the right) is a picture I found on the website of doujin group Moon Parrot, promoting and selling their game Kuro no Tsuki at Super Comic City. Of course official BL game magazines also existed, but I think I will make a separate blog post about that (update: you can read it here!).

Well-known developers throughout the years Next I made a list of some BL game creators that established their brands in the early or mid 2000s, and who continue to be active nowadays. I will mention some newer games as well. There's way too many BL visual novels to include all of them, so I apologize if I missed some that were quite influential!

Langmaor/Tennenouji: The first game Langmaor released was a game called Enzai in 2002, illustrated by Yura. This game focuses on a boy whose name is Guys, who gets sent to prison as a result of a false accusation. In one interview, Yura mentioned that she was almost afraid that the plot of the game would be “too dark”, as the main character experiences a lot of abuse, but she concluded that at least the game would be unique. In 2004 Langmaor released Teikoku Sensenki, and a year later they released Zettai Fukujuu Meirei (or more well-known as Absolute Obedience). This game had a kind of unique system which focused on not one, but two protagonists. The final game this brand released was a game called Laughter Land (2006. The illustrations of this game were drawn by Yuzuki Ichi who had previously worked on Kannagi no Tori. Yura was also part of doujin group called Tennenouj, which already released their first BL game in 2000 called Sei Crain Gakuen, a BL game that you could play by opening HTML files in your browser. They released their second BL game in 2006, which was Miracle No-ton, a game about a notebook that could grand the protagonist’s wishes (horny wishes only though!). In 2009, Luckydog1 was released, which ended up becoming one of the most popular and well-known games in Japanese speaking BL visual novel fanbases. The game is about the protagonist Giancarlo, who’s a low-ranking member of the mafia and currently in prison, who receives the task to free 4 important members of the mafia from prison. Some BL gamemagazines like Cool-B have an annual popularity poll, and for years, LuckyDog 1 and its characters ended up in first place. On BL information websites like ChilChil it continues to be the highest rated BL visual novel to this day. Two years ago, Tennenouji also released the game Friendly Lab, of which the mobile version is still being updated, so even nowadays they are still very active.

Nitro + CHiRAL: Or just called “NITRO CHiRal” these days. They released their first game, Togainu no Chi, in 2005. In the early interviews the director stated that they wanted to create something different, as a lot of visual novels around this time focused on schoolboys and modern-day settings. So instead, they wrote a story that takes place in a futuristic version of Japan, devastated by a Third World War. Only a year later in 2006, they released their second game, Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID- which also takes place in a fictional world. Even though the characters look similar to humans, they call themselves Ribika and have cat-like characteristics. The characters in this game are struggling to survive, as a mysterious force called “The Void” is slowly destroying their world. Because of their unique stories and beautiful illustrations, Nitro Chiral quickly gained a big fanbase in Japan too. In some articles published in Cool-B magazine, they mentioned that they were taking even bigger risks with their next game, as the plot would be anything but happy. This was about their third game, sweet pool. Despite that, I think fans already expected dark and serious stories from the company, so it was still well-received. Before releasing DRAMAtical Murder, they released two more visual novels called Itsuwari no Alkanet and World’s end Nightmare, though these were only available on Chiral Mobile, an app that could only be downloaded on certain Japanese phones. These days these games are considered lost media, but I wrote a blog post about what I could find about them some years ago. Afterwards they released their more well-known games DRAMAtical Murder in 2012 and Slow Damage in 2021.

Pil/Slash: This is a BL visual novel developer that is well known for writing dark stories, with themes like abuse, noncon, physical and emotional torture. Though of course this is not too uncommon in BL visual novels, as all of the developers I’ve previously mentioned include themes like that in their games too.Their first game, Masquerade ~Jigoku Gakuen SO/DO/MU~, was released in 2006, followed by Koibito Yuugi a year later. In 2011, one of their most well-known titles, Shingakkou –Noli me tangere- was released. This game is about protagonist Michael who’s enrolled in a seminary. However, his school life is anything but peaceful, as his family gets murdered and he also discovers a secret society of devil worshippers in his very own school. At the moment this is the second highest rated BL game on ChilChil, after Luckydog1. After this they released Pigeon Blood in 2014, which was also a horror-themed game, and Paradise a few years later, which was quite popular in Japan too. In 2021 they released their newest game, Dystopia no Ou. This game focuses on protagonist Kiriku who dreams about becoming a rock star. Initially, this seems quite different than PIL/SLASH's previous games, but I promise the story still gets pretty dark. The writer credited for Paradise and Dystopia no Ou is Kyuuyouzawa Lychee, who's also the creator of doujin game group LOVE&DESTROY and games like CAGE OPEN and CAGE CLOSE.

Spray: This company’s first game was Saikyou Darling, released in 2001, but I think they are probably more well-known for their Gakuen Heaven series. The first Gakuen Heaven game was released in 2002, but since then they have released a few newer versions of the game, console versions and a second game. This is another one of these games that people might know because it has an anime and manga series. Spray has released quite a few different games like Soshite Bokura Wa, Piyotan, STEAL! and more recently Tsumi naru Rasen no Ori, but I think other than Gakuen Heaven their most well-known title is probably Kichiku Megane, released in 2007. This game focuses on protagonist Katsuya, a salesman who seems to be failing at everything in life. Just before he’s fired from his job, he receives a mysterious pair of glasses from someone. Whenever he wears these glasses, his personality completely changes. He suddenly becomes very skilled at everything, but also very sadistic. In recent years fans have started organizing fan events for this game at local conventions again, so it’s interesting to see how popular it still is.

Holicworks: Also known as LoveDelivery, as that’s the name they used to release some of their very first games, like Tsukigami (2007) and Beniiro Tenjou Ayakashi (2008). Their most well-known title Taisho Mebiusline, released in 2012. This game is a historical fantasy game which takes place during the end of the Taisho period, in 1923. The protagonist, Kyouichirou, moves to Tokyo in order to go to university. However, he runs into trouble soon after his arrival, as the Imperial Military becomes interested in his ability to see spirits. The writer of this game, Nakajo Rosa, is often praised for the historical research she did in order to write this game. The story covers all kinds of political issues, international affairs and military activity, and combines it with religious themes such as Shintoism. This also means that even for Japanese speakers, the game can be a bit difficult to read, as it tends to use difficult words and kanji. However, I think with a bit of research it’s not impossible. They also released games like Tokyo Onmyouji, Tokyo 24ku, and more recently Tokyo Satsujinki Gakkou no Kaidan, though the only game that has an English translation is Tokyo Onmyouji, which takes place in a more modern-day setting, but still focuses on supernatural themes like ghosts and spirits.

Karin Entertainment: Another developer that has been around for a long time, who released their first BL game series called Bois in 2002. Afterwards in 2004, they released the game Animamundi Owarinaki Yami no Butou~ (Animamundi: Dark Alchemist), which I’m not sure if I should be calling BL game as there are also a few female love interests. The games they released after this aren’t BL games, but instead they created a new branch called Karin Chatnoir Omega, which released the game Omertà ~Chinmoku no Okite~ in 2011. In this game the mafia controls the government, and the protagonist J.J. is a hitman who’s taking all kinds of assassination jobs. In 2016 they also released the game Omega Vampire, which is the first omegaverse BL visual novel.

Parade: This is a game developer known for creating games in which the protagonist is exclusively a top, or seme, which is also something that was not super common in the past. In a lot of other games almost all of the love interests are younger guys, so I think it was interesting to see at least two of the other main characters in NO THANK YOU!!! were over the age of 35. Even though most Parade games have a lot of 18+ content, like NO THANK YOU!!! and their second game Room No. 9, one should not underestimate the plot, as the writing is really good. My favorite game is probably their latest game, which is Lkyt., a historical fantasy game and my personal favorite.

CORE: This is the BL branch of a company called Orbit, and their most well-known game is Messiah, which was released in 2006. Though their first game was a game called Ever Loyalty in 2001, followed by Fanatica in 2004. Most of CORE's games only have 1 or 2 characters the protagonist can end up together with, although sometimes other characters in the game also have their own bad endings. In Fanatica, the protagonist only has one true love interest, but a lot of the other main characters are also paired up with each other, so even if they don't have their own route, you do get to see different scenes with them. Even though CORE released their last game in 2008, which is the Messiah fandisc Messiah ~ Paranoia Paradox. It was announced that they are actually working on a new BL project called Tokyo Gentou/Tokyo Phantasmagoria, under the new name Procyon.

Adelta: Not really 2000s as their first game was released quite some time later, but I think still important because they've gotten quite popular in recent years. This is a doujin game group created by Kurosawa Rinko. The first games this group worked on were Cocoon and Cocoon Black Noise, released in 2014. The game they’re probably most known for is Koshotengai no Hashihime (Hashihime of the old Book Town). This game is quite well known for its references to literature and real writers, and the story also takes place during the Taisho period. Originally it was advertised as a time-loop murder mystery. In 2020 Uuultra C was released, which is a completely different kind of game that takes place during the Showa period and focuses on heroes you’d typically see in a Super Sentai Series, or Tokusatsu movies in which the characters fight kaiju. Adelta is currently working on their newest game, Ooe.

Conclusion Of course there are many more BL visual novels which left a big impact on people, even less serious games like Gakuen Handsome which still get referenced a lot to this day. Another well-known title is Mada Koubou's Hadaka Shitsuji, which was mostly created by artist and writer Togo Mito. It kind of difficult to determine how many BL visual novels currently exist, but BL information website ChilChil currently lists 345 titles in this database. This does however include fandiscs and games that aren't technically BL games, and also doesn't include all doujin games ever released.

The early 2000s was a good time for BL visual novel fans and a lot of developers were making BL games back then, which also meant that there would be many new games to play. These days the number of active developers has significantly decreased, so most of the time you get about 1 or 2 big releases every year. Of course, there are still doujin groups and individual creators who make their own games, but the number of commercial releases is pretty small nowadays.

Some games that were released earlier this year however, are Tokyo Satsujinki Gakkou no Kaidan and Haiiro no Arcadia. I am personally also looking forward to the release of Adelta's new game Ooe, and Procyon's Tokyo Gentou/Tokyo Phantasmagoria, so I recommend checking those out when they're released!

[boys-love-lover]

Sweet Pool banner from Nitro+CHIRAL website (2008)

[tecchan]

If I had a nickel every time I've seen a queer male character called Rei with a high/half ponytail (?) , I'd have three nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened three times.

[liedende]

[Envious]

Redraw of “The Fallen Angel” painting

[iroll20s]

mngh...

[everythingblreview]

Gakuen Heaven Review

Gakuen Heaven is a very iconic BL game from the early 2000s, it received a Fandisk, an anime and a second game with a new MC and new love interest after 10 years of the main game’s release. This time I played the game together with my friends and we decided to play the PSP version with an emulator, because the PC version is not voiced. The PSP version has no H-scenes (they are just hinting at it) but I was willing to scarify that for the voice acting, it made a big difference so no regrets there. (Only the quality was a bit 360p in the PSP version lol)

Spoiler for the whole game below

Description

Ito Keita, an average high school boy, is surprised to receive an acceptance letter from the renowned Bell Liberty Academy, BL school for short (yes this is what they call the school lmoa, the joke never get old). After being involved in an accident, on the day of his transfer, Keita finds himself among a variety of unique people... but what is Keita's "special ability"? Will he truly be accepted into this school full of elite students?

Story

If you have watched the anime, you pretty much know what happens in this game. Keita gets accepted to BL school after the school year has already started. He arrives after his bus flies off the bridge, completely unharmed because if there is one thing Keita is good at, it’s being lucky. There he meets the king (the student council president) and the queen (the head of the school accounting department and a beauty) and after it all the other characters, his classmate Kazuki (who is overly too friendly with him), Nakajima the (vice president of student council and basically the king’s mother/wife), Omi (also working for the accounting department and the childhood friend of the queen), Shinomiya (a pro at Kyudo), Shunsuke (a boy from Osaka who is good at riding his bike and loves food), Iwai (a depressed artist), Naruse (the school’s playboy and an amazing tennis player) and Umino-sensei (who teaches biology and looks illegally young). Yes, this game has 10 love interest. In the following weeks Keita gets to hang out and to know all of these people. And that’s basically the common route of the game, it may sound boring, but the characters interactions are really fun and entertaining. Everyone has a distinct personally (even if some of the have very stereotypical one). The games plot mostly revolves around the characters and MC, so if you expect some kind of exiting adventure, you’re at the wrong place. The characters route begin around the 3rd week, when Keita gets suddenly called by the vice director and is told he has to leave school, because his admission to BL school was a mistake, so the board of directors decided to kick him out since he no special talent and therefore doesn’t belong in the school. Keita is of course very sad about it since he started to like the school and its students. So, he seeks for advice from the other character, who tell him to go directly to the director of the school. Keita tries that but the director of the school is a mystery; no one know how he looks like or where you can find him (dude is never in his office). Frustrated Keita speaks with Kazuki who tells him that he could just write a mail to the director, which he does. In the mail he states that he wants to stay at the school and ask if the director could help him with his situation. Well, as it seems the director listened to him, because the next day all students get called for a gathering, where a stuff bear (yes you read that right) who is a substitute for the mysterious director, announces a MVP battle where all students can participate in and the winner will have a wish granted by the director. The battle has 3 rounds, and you have to play in pairs. If you watched the anime, I can already tell you the battles are a bit different in the game. In the first round you have to catch in a mini game hamster (yeah idk). You can either do it by yourself, let your partner do it or do it together (and my god some of these guys suck ass at this game). In the second route you have to do a quiz on the subjects of your choice (usually the one related to your LI) and let me tell you these quizzes are hard af. First of all, they are all in Japanese and second, if you think these are some simple questions like ‘what is 2+2’ you’re greatly mistaken. They ask you really hard question about Japanese history and literature and biology and what not. Once again you can let your partner answer but some if these dudes are idiots and can answer wrong. But if you survive this round, the last round is super easy, since it’s all about Keita’s strongest subject: luck. You just have to choose between two cards, and no matter which you choose you won’t lose. During the MVP battle you basically play your partners (the LI of your choice) route. The content of them all depends on the LI you choose.

I also need to mention that if you watched the anime, the part where the school nurse goes crazy and kidnaps Keita is completely made up by the anime, while the part with his friend being in coma is true, the other part after it was created for drama purposes, I guess? But he did tell Keita about his friend and Keita tried to help him together with Kazuki, so yeah there is that.

Characters

Naruse Yukihiko

Naruse is the first character who’s route we accidently ended up on (wasn’t our first choice but we didn’t want to redo it). Like said Naruse is the playboy of the school, he is also called a “playboy” by the other characters. Beside that he is also an excellent tennis player and the captain of the tennis club. He falls in love with Keita on first sight and kisses him on the first day lmao (or not if you make the right choices). Keita is, of course shocked why another guy just kissed him, and this starts the never-ending circle of “but we are both men”. You see, Keita has a terrible case of internal homophobia (or he just never heard of being gay). Naruse, with his extreme bisexual energy, has no problem and doesn’t care if anyone knows he like Keita (pretty sure the whole school knew after 2 days). He always tells Keita that he loves him and calls him “honey” as a nickname, with Keita always countering it with “but we’re both men” … Naruse tries pretty hard to convey his love, he makes bento for Keita, kisses him constantly (Keita was even into it at some point) always tells him he likes him and also explains why he like Keita. He also mentions that he doesn’t care that Keita is a guy and he takes him on dates to romantic place and yet KEITA ALWAYS ANSWERS WITH “BUT WE’RE BOTH MEN” AAAAHHH- *smashes head against wall* Despite my dislike toward the playboy type I can say Naruse was really nice and voiced by Miki Shinichiro of course, cough sexy voice cough I am biased cough and trying so, so hard and yet Keita never took his love seriously, it’s not like he had to like Naruse back but Keita just never took Naruse seriously. Naruse was a really good boy though, he never went against Keita’s wishes, never took advantage of him and always told Keita he would never touch Keita (in the indecent way) if Keita didn’t want it himself. Man is the biggest green flag, seriously. The route was basically just Naruse trying to woo Keita and Keita rejecting him with “gay is not real”, only in the fucking end Keita realised that Naruse maybe really was serious……. *smashes head against the wall again* and also realises that he is in love with Naruse too so he run to Naruse’s training and screams that he loves Naruse too with the whole club listening (and I’m sure no one gives a shit at a school called “BL school”) . Naruse is overjoyed and picks Keita up and carried him to him room for some sexy times (not shown in the PSP version but me and my friend peaked into the PC game and they only showed the foreplay and skipped the actual sex lol) I’m honestly glad we played Naruse first because his route is my (and all of my friends who joined for his route) personal frustration with Keita as a character. I really love Keita but damn his internal homophobia was so bad in this route that we all we’re just screaming at the screen at some point. Naruse himself was really nice, still not my type but I understand his charm (And I wish they would stop giving Miki Shinichirou the playboy role because his voice is hot, but I just don’t like this stupid character trope). Also, I feel like compared to the anime he was less annoying and just overall better, and I feel like if Keita wasn’t so anti-gay, Naruse would have been even more enjoyable.

Umino Satoshi

Although Umino is 24 years old, he looks like is 12. Even Keita mistook him for an elementary student (Can’t blame him). He also has a really fat cat called Tonosama who always looks like high af. Umino sensei is not only a biology teacher, who is quite popular with the students, but also works as a researcher for the Suzubishi group, that this school belongs to, and that’s what most of his route is about. Keita gets interested into Umino’s research and ask to help him, even if he doesn’t understand what Umino is talking about. Honest his route was boring since it mostly consists of research talk (not a very good topic for a bl game in my opinion) and I found myself zooming out for most of the time. (Nothing against biology but after a hard day of work I imagine something more fun than watching 2D characters talk about cells) The real “fun” of this route is when one day Umino’s research data get stolen. Keita is shocked but Umino tells him that it always happens and that he doesn’t care because he isn’t looking for fame and just want to be helpful. And this is the part that really pissed me off in this route, Keita was really pissed at his attitude, but for this route good end you needed to make choices that immediately throws Keita’s anger out of the window. Once this topic comes up again, Keita gets mad, then you have to make a choice and suddenly Keita is all chill again and always answers with “That’s so you, Umino sensei” Like what???” The “climax” of the route is when Keita walks into the room of Umino after one of the MVP battles and sees that another teacher hat tied him down. He was the one who stole the research data and is now trying to get the password out of him. Keita tries his best to convince Umino not to tell the guy, but he ends up doing it anyway after being beaten (and I think even raped in the PC version). So, the dude escapes and you know what Keita and Umino do? N O T H I N G absolutely NOTHING. Not tell the police or the director or anything at all, like wtf??? After removing Keita’s anger, we also removed all his common sense or what? This made me so pissed because Keita normally doesn’t take anyone’s shit but here he doesn’t even try and say “that’s so you Umino sensei” What was the writer ever thinking? Anyway the route ends with the dude never actually getting the data because he understand the password wrong and Keita being so happy over it that he kisses Umino, who is also like “Oh yeah I totally like you, too”. Strange is that they don’t even mention anything about the student-teacher relationship at all, like it’s totally normal. Can’t even decide who needs to be jailed here, Umino for dating a student or Keita for dating someone who looks like 12. Oh and Keita also tops (didn’t mention yet but Keita can be top/bottom depending on his partner) and they constantly fuck in the biology room…..Umino-sensei himself was annoying, I don’t like the “hehe I’m so cute and clumsy”- type, they make me mad for some reason, and him being weak and just getting stepped on didn’t help either.

Nakajima Hideaki

Nakajima is the classic Megane, and not only that he is a Spray Megane (Spray are the one who made Kichiku Megane who I was totally fan of not). He is always mothering the king who is busy being lazy. Outside his route, his interactions are really fun because he is not taking anyone’s shit (especially the king’s). He is very smart, responsible and mostly how you imagine a Megane to be (except that he doesn’t speak polite). Nakajima’s route start with classic sexual harassment, which Keita really doesn’t take well and gets so upset about, that he doesn’t want to see Nakajima for a while (understandable, poor baby) but you have to interact with him, the game forces you to do it. Keita then starts spending time with Nakajima and is actually surprised to learn that Nakajima is actually a pretty nice guy, who even takes Keita out on dates (to an BDMS show lmao, sadly not show in neither version of the game, but Keita seemed to have liked it in some way). He also willing to help Keita with the MVP battle. During it another sexual harassment scene happened, which again upsets Keita. After the MVP battle, Keita is called by 3 guys who are mad at him because he stopped their confrontation with Nakajima, and he gets beaten up by them. Then Nakajima arrives kicks their asses and save Keita. After it is the whole confession scene, with Nakajima telling Keita that he does like him and viva versa.

And now let’s get to my commentary of this route. First, I like to say that I HATE the writer for this route (so does my friend who played with me) and not for the reason you think. I hate the writer because Nakajima’s route was actually good, but they had to ruin it through unnecessary sexual harassment, which ended up feeling completely ooc in the end. Yes, Nakajima is clearly a sadist and loves to tease Keita, but he was genius nice and helpful to Keita 95% of the route, only these random ass scenes mad the route really bitter. The worst part is that Nakajima explained in the end that he first sexual harassed Keita because he wanted Keita to be interested in him (worst excuse ever writer-san) since it turns out the director actually asked him to be basically Keita’s bodyguard. Man is out there working his ass off protecting Keita and writer though “hmm needs more sexual abuse” AJDAKKAJD I’m seriously so mad. “How to mess up a good route 101”. Keita and Nakajima had more than enough time to develop a good relationship and they did. But noooo need more sexual harassment *spits on writer*. The second scenes felt even more ooc because this was already far into the route where Keita already start liking Nakajima and was thanking him for helping him with the MVP battle and out of nowhere Nakajima pushed him in a closet and told him, how Keita seriously thinks he doesn’t need to repay the favour for helping him with the MVP battle and sexually harasses him right there.(Not shown in the PSP version but I saw what you did with the pencil Nakajima) It was just so stupid and out of nowhere. Later he tells Keita that he pushed him into the closet because the three guys, who later beat him up were looking for him and, okay that’s a decent reason, BUT NOT A VALID REASON FOR SEXUAL HARRASEMNT, WRITER *spits on them again*. Worst part is that Keita noticed his love for Nakajima not by getting reminded of all the good times they spent together, nooo he needed to think back to the sexual harassment. Ugh, I know I shouldn’t get mad over a 2002 game but this a serious problem that still happens in modern game, where the writers think forcing random sex/sexual assault is a good idea, which just ends up ruining the character and the route. And I don’t care, twitter kiddies can cry, scream and call my all names in the universe, but I’ll still say it again: Forced sexual scenes only ruin the character and story and I want them gone from BL games.

Despite my deeply rooted anger, if I close my eyes and pretend those scenes never happened, I can say that I enjoyed the route and Nakajima more than I thought even if he was sadist he was really kind to Keita and their relationship development felt more or less natural. I just go and continue to curse the writer.

Kazuki Endo

If you have watched the anime, you know pretty much all of Kazuki’s route because his route was the one that was animated. His route is or can be considered the “true route”, but personally I don’t consider it to be. Kazuki is the first-person Keita makes friends with since they are classmates. Kazuki is a rather friendly person who sticks a little too close to Keita and always follows him everywhere, which I thought was annoying. Personally, I’m not a fan of Kazuki, he is just not my type of character, and I thought the romance development wasn’t done that well in his route (you can guess why). You have to play Kazuki’s route two times; the first time you’ll only get the normal end and the second time you get the happy end. Most of his normal route consisted of Kazuki hanging around with Keita, him fighting with Naruse over Keita (with Naruse beating his ass with sass) and going on a date with Keita (they had no chemistry at all, and I felt like they were talking past each other). Only in the end we (or rather Keita) learn Kazuki’s true intentions after he kisses Keita on the cheek. Keita is so shocked to learn that Kazuki was actually trying to woo Keita all this time, just like Naruse (Keita actually thought about the possibility before when Kazuki and Naruse had their sass fight but had thrown the idea to the side after his internal homophobia striking again). And this is basically where the route ends. The second time you play the route there will be more scenes with them together as well as Keita starting to have some déjà vu’s and dreams of his past. Well, turns out Kazuki is the classic childhood friend character (*sarcastic* wuhu) and that Keita used to play with Kazuki when he was a small child, but later Kazuki had to move away, which saddened Keita so Kazuki promising that they would go to school together one day. Keita suspects that Kazuki is the oniichan he used to play with but isn’t fully sure. After MVP battel, Keita is invites to the director’s office to make his wish, Kazuki is nowhere to be found so Keita goes alone. Well, turns out Kazuki has been the fucking director all along lmaooo and he invited Keita to the school so he could fulfil his promise to go to the same school together and to live his gay dream (even Keita thinks that this is a bit ridiculous). Keita is so shocked that the poor guy can’t even get a full sentence out. Because not only has Kazuki has told him that he is the director but also his oniichan from the past. Also, btw Kazuki is actually older (even if we have never found his age and he was just pretending to be a student.) Anyway, after a bit of talk, Kazuki confesses and Keita decides he is gay as hell suddenly and they confess to each other like 7 times (seriously the confession took way too long), before finally kissing and fuck right there in the director’s office in the PC version and that’s basically the whole route. The romance was rather meh, since there wasn’t a moment Keita actually realised his feeling himself which he did in most of the route. Also, I have question why Kazuki has the hots for Keita, who he only met when Keita was like 5 years old or something. But despites few complains the route was enjoyable to play, it had many funny scenes and Keita’s reaction to director Kazuki was hilarious. I have to say that despite me not being into Kazuki I though he was a great director, really cared about the students and let them have their own freedom. Also, Idk how this man can be a student + director + the research lab chef AND still have time to be a part in the handicraft club (granny hobby) while stalking Keita. Does he even sleep? We will never know. Compared to the anime the games doesn’t tell you that Kazuki is the director until he reveals it himself or until you recognise his voice in another route lol, it’s sad that they revealed it so fast in the anime since its just a big secret in the game.

Iwai Takuto

Iwai’s route had the most induvial plot of the game. The route starts with Keita seeing him burn his painting after meeting Iwai at the artist club. And the next day he walks in on Iwai trying to kill himself by cutting his wrist (like wtf). Luckily the cut is small and no danger to his life. Shinomiya who is friends with Iwai takes care of him while he heals (Keita is also there to help) and there we find out from Shinomiya that this wasn’t the first time Iwai did this (jesus) and then he starts to victim blame Iwai (I will come back to this bitch Shinomiya later). So, Keita being the good boy he is decided to help Iwai and find out why he is so depressed (enough to try to kill himself several times??). Well, turns out it has to do with Iwai’s family, who is just garbage. Iwai’s mother is the mistress of some famous artist who taught Iwai how to paint, but Iwai got really good at oil painting, so his trash father just took credit for Iwai paintings himself and got a bunch of praise and prices for it. But not only that it gets worse, his mother is a total hoe who forces Iwai to make more paintings because if not Iwai’s father will leave her and go back to his other family. This whole situation really sits on Iwai because he doesn’t want to create more oil painting for his shitty father, but he genuinely loves to paint. He was even once rejected from a competition for “copying” the art of his garbage dad. Also, the reason he burned the paintings in the beginning was because his mother was visiting him, and he didn’t want to hand her anymore of his. Keita as a character shines the strongest in the route because he isn’t having any of this shit and tries his best for Iwai to confront his family, even if Iwai is always trying to give up. Luckily an art gallery guy noticed that Iwai’s father paintings are actually Iwai’s and ask him for cooperation to reveal the whole thing to the public, Iwai first rejects it but with Keita’s positive influence he finally accepts it. The development of their relationship was also good, though it mostly consisted of Keita (friendly) kicking Iwai’s ass to stop being a puppet for his shitty family (we love that). Also, Iwai made a painting of Keita, which he later used as the main theme for his exhibition, after the whole situation was revealed and he finally got the praise he deserved.

He also confessed first to Keita by kissing him, but good thing is that the gay in Keita has already started to bloom, so he doesn’t think much about the fact that they are both men and happily gets laid. Generally speaking, Iwai had the best route story-wise, and Keita showed the strongest part of his characters here, despites that I can say Iwai is just not my type, I can appreciate the route by I don’t really have any interest in Iwai or the pairing.

Shinomiya Kouji

Shinomiya’s route was the second one we played, and after no homo Naruse’s air it felt like a breath of fresh air. Because this time Keita is the one who is falling first for the LI. His route is a bit different from others in that way that he agrees to be Keita’s MVP battle partner only for to fulfil his own dream. Which is to save his little brother, who has heart problems and can’t get a heart transplant immediately because in Japan you need to be older to get one. And since Suzubishi also has a medical research department he knows they can help him. Keita agrees to help him even if it means that he won’t be able to stay at the school. Along the way Keita falls for Shinomiya and can’t hide his feeling anymore, so he confesses to Shinomiya and Shinomiya is like “souka” (“I see”) like bitch what kind of answer is that???? The scene just ends without him actually saying anything back lmaooo. Later Keita confesses again and to get his feelings across he kisses Shinomiya (hell yeah Keita lets go full gay, Naruse probably crying in the background, wishing he had gotten this treatment.) and Shinomiya kisses him back, so they are happy clappy gay together now. Which also starts a long back and forth between “I want you to stay at the school so we can be together” and “I want to save your little brother” but at some point, they agree that saving Shinomiya’s brother is more important than dick battles. So after Keita wins the MVP battle they go to the director office, where they of course don’t meet the director because Kazuki is hiding but they can talk to him through speakers (I seriously want to know how Keita doesn’t recognize Kazuki’s voice) but they tell him that their wish is for Shinomiya’s brother to get the medical treatment he needs and director Kazuki tells them that he will make their wish come true, but also because Kazuki’s gay ass he let Keita stay in school. So, they get both the things they wanted, happy end~ And now let’s get to the part where I drag Shinomiya through dirt because he is a victim shaming asshole. I have to say he is already flat, but the fact that he wants to be a doctor is even funnier because I hate the doctor characters who have like no other personality than being a doctor (I talked about this in another review before) Anyway the part where he shames Iwai for trying to commit fucking suicide made me really dislike him. If there is one thing that gets my blood really boiling, its people who blame victims for their situation instead of helping them doesn’t that remind you of another doctor character who victim blamed the MC for his situation? Yeah, congrats Shinomiya now get your ugly ass out of my face.

Continued in Part 2

[w1namp-v1s]

[tatanukichi]

I finished Paradise (for a second time, with understanding this time!!)

So heres a celebratory art!! Thoughts below under the cut! And a bonus art meme :3

I'll try to stay as far away from spoilers as possible.

Pil/slash is known for their disturbing premise and insane characters. And I think paradise does it pretty well. But im kinda dissapointed at how they reveal and resolve things.

The buildups are very good imo. I feel the tension, in the characters attempting to work together and stay cooperative but falling apart. Problem is when it reaches ending of a route and is wrapping things, it starts EXPOSITION(TM) and tell-dont-show-ing

This is especially visible in the final route. That route is supposed to be the golden route that tells everything behind the island, but everything during the reveal feels so casual? Like everyone dgaf about the heavy things happening 😭😭

I think "the best written route" is Mitsugi but only because his route has the least twist? What you see is what you get in that route. Classic enemies to lovers. Mitsugi is the only well adjusted human being in that group of characters.

However, the bad ends are verrrryyyy good and intense! My fav bad end is the yandere azuma route hehehe, i mean who doesnt love yandere netoru :'3

Despite my complaints, the characters are lovable enough that i would draw this fanart and make memes to myself about them :) <3

So heres the bonus art: netoru's character meeting each other xD!!

[suzuran777]

Ooe part 1 Spoiler Review: Literature & Theories

Ever since posting my spoiler-free review, I've received some questions about my theories for part 2, so in this review I will be talking about that! I will warn that it might be a bit long, and of course that also means that this review will discuss topics that many would consider a spoiler, so make sure to play part 1 first. According to the latest update from the official account, we will probably get part 2 in January or early February next year, therefore there's still plenty of time to play part 1. If you're waiting for the English version, it will be released eventually, but I'm not sure when!

Ever since playing Hashihime, I've become really interested in all of the novels referenced in Adelta's games, and I love analyzing the similarities between them. I'm not sure how interesting this is to others, but I tried to add some short summaries of what each novel that's possibly referenced in the game is about. Of course these are just theories and we don't have an official list or anything. I might update this in the future when part 2 is released, though the official website mentions that it's only allowed to post part 1 spoilers, so I will see how much I can add to this later.

When this game was announced, it was mentioned that all 9 main characters are named after train stations on the Yurikamome line in Tokyo (the train line most people take if you go to events like Comiket). Other names Oosaki, Shinagawa and Shinkiba are train stations on the Rinkai line, which was not officially confirmed, but very easy to find because both train lines are located in the same area. So far the names of all of the side characters in the game also followed this pattern, so there's not much I can add to this. However, their first names is where things start getting a bit more interesting. When the first names of Funeno and Shiodome were released, fans immediately recognized that their names were references to characters in existing novels. Then while playing part 1, this theory proved to be correct, as some of the other first names could also be linked to existing literature. I created this list while playing the game, but I've seen similar theories on social media such as Twitter (or well, X now) and Weibo too, therefore I think a lot of these could be correct. Right now we don't know the first names of Oosaki and Hinode, so I will be leaving these out. I will also include the Japanese titles of these works to make it a bit easier to look them up yourself. Of course I don't always remember every detail that happened in these novels, and some I only read very recently, so please correct me if anything is wrong! I'm always happy to learn more.

Ariake Shoutarou (有明 勝太郎) Ariake's first name "Shoutarou" is most likely a reference to Junichiro Tanizaki's "Tojo" (途上). The protagonist is actually called "Katsutarou", which is another way of reading the kanji used to write Ariake's first name. This character has an ex-wife and a current wife, whose names are Fudeko and Kumako. This is only briefly mentioned at the end of Ariake's route, but his wives have the same names. In this novel, Katsutarou tries to kill his first wife Fudeko by purposely exposing her to dangerous situations that negatively impact her health, but he won't directly harm her to make her death look like an accident. The motive and the way he tries to kill her is different than what happens in Ooe, but I think it's definitely the inspiration behind this route. Another connection to Junichiro Tanizaki's works is the name of Ariake’s sister, who's called Naomi (奈緒美) which is a name that appears in “Chijin no Ai” (痴人の愛). Around this time the concept of “Naomiism” was born, which was used to describe a free-spirited devilish, beautiful girl. Sometimes it looks like this term was also used for girls who manipulate men, but it wasn't always used in a negative context. I'm curious if this concept was also used to create Ariake's character, as in of the official blog posts he's described as a "male femme fatale". I'm not sure if this is plot-related or not, but Ariake's ending song also has an audio clip from the play "Cyrano de Bergerac", which doesn't exactly have a happy ending either and both of the characters lose their lives.

Shimbashi Mei (新橋 冥) When I looked for novels which focused on a character called "Mei", I couldn't find much initially, until I realized the kanji used to write his name is also the first kanji in the Japanese word for Pluto (冥王星), which is also the name of the theater company he works for. In his ending, Shinagawa even tells Oosaki that Shimbashi is Pluto, so it might also be his pseudonym. Pluto is also the cat that appears in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" and even though the story isn't identical to what happened in his past, there are similar elements. For example, the cat in this story Pluto only has one eye, and while Shimbashi does have another eye, he usually hides it with an eyepatch. The unnamed protagonist also ends up killing the cat by hanging it, which is similar to how Shimbashi's brother used to kill animals. Later in the story, the protagonist adopts another cat who resembles Pluto, but because the new cat keeps reminding him of how he killed Pluto, he eventually loses his sanity and tries to kill the new cat as well, but ends up killing his own wife instead who tried to protect the cat. Despite the protagonist trying to hide her body, the police eventually finds her because the cat was trapped in the same wall where the protagonist tried to hide her body, and the sound of the animal scratching the wall gained their attention. Even though the story is a bit different, Shimbashi also got his revenge by murdering his brother, which he doesn't seem to regret much. Shimbashi's ending song is called ルドン (rudon) which is how you would write the name of French painter Odilon Redon in Japanese. The song also mentions his mentor Armand Clavaud, who was a botanist. Clavaud taught Redon many things about flowers, but also introduced him to Buddhism, which shows in Redon's later paintings too. The flowers are an important element in this route as Shimbashi's the person who was leaving flowers on the grave of Oosaki's grandmother, so maybe all of that is also intentional.

Aomi Kaede (青海 楓) This is not necessarily about the name Kaede, but about Takuichi (卓一), Aomi's father who he's impersonating on the island. Takuichi is also the name of the protagonist of Koga Saburo's "Aofuku no Otoko" (青服の男) and his cousin is called Shinzo, who shares the same name as the student who committed suicide in the game, Shinonome Shinzo. In the novel the two of them schedule a meet-up to discuss money Takuichi wanted to borrow, but when he doesn't show up to the meeting, Shinzo later confronts him. In the middle of the confrontation however, Shinzo suffers from a heart attack and passes away. In Ooe their relationship is a bit different, as Takuichi and Shinzo are teacher and student, and Aomi's father passed away shortly after receiving the invitation letter. In the novel Takuichi is alive and impersonates Shinzo in order to get his own inheritance money, though the theme of impersonation is relevant in Ooe too as Aomi pretends to be his father. There's nobody called Kaede in this story, but in the game Aomi mentions his father called him Kaede because he thought his hands resembled a frog's webbed feet (kaeru = frog) so currently I'm unsure if there's any further connections. Aomi's ending song is called Taichourou (対潮楼) which is actually the name of a temple in Fukuyama, a city located in Hiroshima prefecture. I'm not sure if there's any specific reason for this, but it's not too far away from Ookunoshima (also known as bunny island because of its many rabbits), which is one of the locations that was used as inspiration for some of the background art in-game.

Funeno Kureichirou (船野呉一郎) Hashihime fans might recognize this one as Kureichirou is also the name of one of the most important characters in Yumeno Kyuusaku's "Dogra Magra". Dogra Magra is not one of the easiest stories to understand, as the protagonist's memory is hazy and you never know if the researchers are telling him the truth either, but generally we know that Kureichirou seems to have murdered his cousin (who was also his fiancé). Funeno's crime is revealed at the end of the trial version of Ooe and he killed his sister. So far we haven't really seen much of Funeno in part 1 because he immediately acts strange when he sees Oosaki, probably because he has Daiba's letter and Oosaki introduced himself as "Daiba", so it's a bit hard to analyze his character yet or compare him to Dogra Magra's Kureichirou in my opinion.

Shiodome Michio (汐留 道雄) Just like Funeno, Shiodome's first name was also revealed a long time before the trial version and part 1 of Ooe were released. It references Edogawa Ranpo's "Kotou no Oni" (孤島の鬼) which is not really a secret as it's one of the novels that was mentioned in one of the first blog posts about Ooe and its inspirations. Michio is one of the main characters, who's a gay man who falls in love with the main character Minoura. So far their personalities do not seem that similar, but Kotou no Oni's Michio is adopted by a man called Jogoro, which is also the first name of Shiodome's professor (Tsukishima Jogoro).

Takeshiba Yozo (竹芝 葉蔵) This is one of the new names we learned about in part 1, but since Yozo isn't the most common name ever it's probably referencing Dazai Osamu's "No Longer Human/Ningen Shikkaku” (人間失格). Yozo (or ''Youzou'', it's hard to keep romanization consistent...) is the name of the protagonist. He's a troubled individual who can't relate to other human beings and doesn't understand them. At first he tries to hide these emotions by playing the clown so people laugh at him, but eventually he turns to alcohol and drugs. Takeshiba is a magician who quickly tries to change the topic when things get serious, which matches the theme of playing the clown, but we also know he gets nervous fast and he's also the character who committed some of the most brutal murders in the game so far. I think the story won't be exactly the same, but he definitely seems to share certain personality traits with the main character. He's accused of murdering his family by setting their family home on fire, though in the first part of the game he makes it seem like someone else did it, or if it was some kind of accident.

Shijoumae Yoshiichirou (市場前 義一郎) Maybe a bit of a wild guess because we don't really know the names of side characters that are related to Shijoumae's story yet, but his first name could be a reference to Akutagawa Ryunosuke's "Kaika no Satsujin" (開化の殺人). This is a rather strange short story that focuses on a number of suicide notes, written by a doctor who's called Kitabatake Yoshiichirou. He's often described as a man with a rather 'western' appearance because of his beard/moustache, which matches Shijoumae's character design. He was in love with his cousin (which I guess was not uncommon during this time period) and wanted to marry her, but she married another man. Kitabatake was incredibly jealous of him and poisoned him. However, even after this first murder, his cousin started getting close to another man called Honda, who Yoshiichiro was also jealous of. Initially, he planned to poison him too, but in the end he decided against this and took his own life instead. We know that Shijoumae has a wife, but as we've seen in these previous novel references, the connections between the characters in the original novels often aren't identical to what happens in Ooe's story, which also makes it hard to predict what will happen in this route.

Toyosu Rouren (豊洲 浪蓮) I was a bit confused when I heard the pronunciation of his name in-game, as it sounded a bit unusual to me, though many fans so far have pointed out that the name sounds similar to ''Lawrence/ローレンス'' who's the antagonist in Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" which is the novel that gets mentioned in-game too. In the novel Lawrence fakes his own death, which reminds me of the boat scene in Ariake's route in which Toyosu drowned, but the whole scene seemed rather sudden to me. For example, he tries to convince the others that nobody else should join him, and the food at the inn also disappeared around this time. After finishing Aomi's route, we know he's lying about his real identity too because no matter what temple they visit, there's no monk with his name, and other characters also suspect him of being the client. In the common route he's also the character who the client supposedly sent to the island to hold the ceremony on their behalf, if I remember correctly.

Daiba Shizuma (台場 静馬) Another name we've known for a long time is Daiba's first name Shizuma, which is a reference to Yokomizo Seishi's "The Inugami Family/Inugami-ke no Ichizoku" (犬神家の一族). This is another story about impersonation which fits the main theme of Oosaki pretending to be Daiba on the island. There are actually multiple characters in this novel who share the same names as some of the Ooe characters, such as Sukekiyo (佐清) the name of Daiba’s brother who passed away in the boat accident, and Sahei (佐兵衛), Daiba's father Oosaki meets in the common route. The connections between characters in this story get very complicated, but Sahei is the head of the Inugami family who has an illegitimate son called Shizuma, who went missing. He also has a grandson called Sukekiyo, who was disfigured on the battlefield. Similar to Ooe, the story starts with Sahei's death, though in the novel he leaves a suicide note and in Ooe he seems to die rather suddenly after talking to Oosaki (if he wasn't dead already, that whole scene is strange…). In the novel, it's revealed that Sukekiyo actually passed away some time ago and Shizuma has been pretending to be him. There are also some other shared elements, such as the Shizuma in the novel trying to take revenge for what happened to his mother, and in the game Daiba takes his mother's last name "Hama", and expresses that he doesn't like the Daiba family.

Side characters I haven't looked much into the side characters, but I assume their first names are also references to something. The names of Shinkiba and Shinagawa (Jinza 甚三 and Zakuro 柘榴 ) could be referring to some of the side characters from some of Edogawa Ranpo's works, as there's a short story called ''Zakuro'' (石榴) and there's also a "Jinza" in the novel Ghost Tower (幽霊塔), but I can't exactly find any connections between them and the Ooe characters. For Oosaki I'm guessing his name could also be something related to the Inugami Family too because it is a bit suspicious that he looks almost identical to Daiba, I think they have to be related to each other in some way.

Other literature references In a previous blog post I wrote in 2022, I mentioned that when Ooe was announced, one of the official blog posts also mentioned works that inspired them to create Ooe. I will include those in this blog post again as the previous one is a bit outdated now.

Of course the main inspiration is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, as it follows a similar closed-circle murder mystery story on an island. In Ariake's first ending, Oosaki even compares some of the characters in the novel to characters in the game, calling himself Vera for example who murdered for love. Another important connection is that the owner of the island in this novel calls themselves "U.N. Owen", a fake name which basically just stands for ''unknown''. This of course sounds very similar to "Ooe" and the game's official alias is also "Owen" according to the official website. The actress who passed away is called "An Ooe", which also sounds a bit similar to "unknown".

Previously, I mentioned that Shiodome's first name Michio is a reference to Edogawa Ranpo's "Kotou no Oni", another novel that focuses on a murder mystery story, this time about the death of the protagonist's fiancé. As the title of the novel suggests (which translates to "Demon of the Lonely Isle") they also travel to an island, though this one is inhabited by people who all have some kind of deformity. Of course most of the characters in Ooe look pretty normal, but if you've played part 1 you've probably noticed how many characters either suffer from an illness or were born with some kind of physical abnormality, although sometimes it's not really severe. Ariake's has a thyroid disease (Grave's Disease according to his character profile in-game), Shimbashi has strabismus (misalignment of his eyes) and Aomi has webbed fingers which his father made fun of. If we look at the other characters, there is of course Hinode who won't talk and also seems to have difficulty walking, though the reason for this has not been explained yet in-detail. In the full body art, Shijoumae is also drawn with a cane, which might also be linked to something related to his health, but I'm not completely sure about some of the other characters yet.

The same blog post also mentions three incidents which happened in real life, but which all have novel adaptations as well, with the first one being the "Anatahan Incident", or also called the "Queen of Anatahan Incident" (アナタハンの女王事件). This incident focuses on a number of deaths that happened on Anatahan Island, located in the Pacific Ocean. The island became Japanese territory after the First World War and Japanese settlers began living on the island together with natives. Years later near the end of the Second World War, most locals fled after the American military called for Japan's surrender during the war. During this time, some refused to surrender and stayed on the island. Initially, the Japanese people who refused to leave the island were left alone, but things changed when a U.S. Boeing crashed into the island and guns were found inside of the wreckage. Afterwards, these guns became a symbol of power among men on the island, and some of them would kill each over the only woman on the island, Kazuko. After this, it was reported that more men died under "mysterious circumstances", and eventually Kazuko surrendered herself to the U.S. military, as she felt like she was the root of all the problems on the island. Writer Iwasaki Sakae also released a novel based on these incidents, which is just called "Anatahan".

The second incident mentioned is the "Hikarigoke Incident" (ひかりごけ事件), and translates to "Luminous Moss Incident", though the name comes from Takeda Taijun's short story which is based on this incident. The short story is actually just based on rumors rather than factual reports, so there are some differences. The real incident is rather graphic and took place in 1944 in Hokkaido. It was reported that after ending up in a shipwreck, the captain of the ship survived by eating the corpses of his own crew. The captain was later arrested on charges of corpse mutilation, corpse abandonment and murder. Even though he said he didn't kill them, he did admit eating them. This case stood out back then because even though cannibalism had undoubtedly happened before in Japanese history, it was the first time such a case was reported by the newspapers. If we want to link this to what happened in the game, there's of course Shiodome who was also accused of corpse mutilation. He also took Funeno's head in the first route, and in this case the captain admitted that he ate the brains of one of the crew members (... as well as their genitalia, so do with that information what you want).

The final incident mentioned in this blog post was the "Mount Hakkoda Disaster" or "Mount Hakkoda Snow Disaster" (八甲田雪中行軍遭難事件) which happened in 1902 when a group of Japanese Imperial Army soldiers got lost in a blizzard on Hakkoda Mountain, located in Aomori. This incident is considered one of the most lethal disasters in history and 199 people lost their lives. After getting stuck in the blizzard, during the next days many soldiers would freeze to death, while others fell down the cliffs during their ascent. This incident also has a novel which translates to "Death Wanderings on Mt. Hakkoda" (八甲田山死の彷徨) by Nitta Jiro, which was also made into a movie "Hakkoda Mountain". Of course, Ooe's story is about an island and not a mountain, but I do understand the similarities about getting stuck somewhere and being unable to leave.

Final theories and thoughts Right now I am mostly curious about Daiba because I want to know why exactly he made Oosaki travel to the island. At the end of the game, you also unlock a teaser for part 2 which includes a preview of Daiba, so he has to be the final route right? There's of course some other things I'm curious about, like how many characters have the same blood type, share similar physical traits, and how many of them have family members who are originally from Ooejima, so I think there's definitely some shared past they have yet to discover. I've also been wondering why the side characters all have black eyes and the main characters have red eyes, as eye color was a pretty important theme in Hashihime and Uuultra C. Maybe it has something to do with their connections to Ooejima? I think they definitely have some shared past we don't know much about.

At some point BL game magazine Cool-B also published a so called "madness scale" which ranked the characters from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the worst) which could give us some hints about what these characters will be like in their own routes. Aomi and Toyosu are ranked 1, Shimbashi and Funeno 2, Hinode is the only one who's a 3, Takeshiba is 4, and Ariake, Shiodome and Shijoumae all got a 5. If Toyosu really is the mastermind then maybe he didn't ''technically'' kill anyone like Aomi, but I'm not sure if that's the real plot twist because maybe it would be too easy to guess. I also wonder how Takeshiba is a 4 and not a 5, because we know he committed most of the murders in the game so far, and they were pretty brutal. Oosaki and Daiba both aren't included in this list, so I can't say much about them.

Lastly, the letters you unlock in-game are also really interesting to me, I wonder if it was Ooe An who wrote some of these? One of the letters mentions a sister, a lake villa and a boat, so could it be that her sister married into the Daiba family? I think there will definitely be some kind of connection between the characters, though we know so little about her there's not much else I can think of right now. I'm really looking forward to part 2, and it's also interesting to read everyone else's theories about the game so far! I can't believe I've been writing about this game for about 3 years now and slowly we're finally learning more about the story and its characters.

Here's a list of my previous blog posts about Ooe! Though I haven't looked at these for some time now so some might be outdated... Old blog post with general information -> X Trial version review -> X Part 1 review -> X

[shr0uds]

I got a tablet and of course I had to draw towa :33

[tecchan]

Rin -> Rai -> Ren -> Rei

Can't wait for future N+C love interests Ron and Roy

[liedende]

Hello!

I’m doing a quick interest check for my new and old slow damage acrylic charms! If you’re interested in getting them, please check out the gform below!

[nxcromantik]

i like him i like him

[reinaka42]

Ooe spoilers - Shinbashi route done

I liked it! Shinbashi is so cute. Pathetic little cat man.

Predicting he might have the most wholesome route/ending in the whole game

Since I can't stop thinking about Ariake, I find it astounding that the outcome would have been somewhat better for Oosaki had he just... not allowed Ariake to get to him lol. Like yes Ariake guarantees his safety but-

Look what happens when you attach yourself to someone who's not a manipulative toxic uke with chronic saboteurism (no suicidal thoughts, no loss of self, you got out of the island with all of your brain cells intact. the toxic uke is also ok)

These three would've been an iconic trio

[everythingblreview]

Laughter Land Review

Long time no see, dear readers.

I feel quite ashamed for sharing this so late, but I was sick and then busy with real life and couldn’t finish this review. (I even had to replay some parts to write this) But I still hope you enjoy reading my review of Laughter Land. This game was recommended by my friend, and first, I didn’t want to play it because, let’s say I don’t like shota much, but she promised me its good and that it doesn’t have much sexual content. She was right with both, so here we are.

Warning for 18 content (spoiler are seperated)

Description:

Dick is a young boy living in a village who is bored with schoolwork and his everyday life. One day, he attends the village fair and meets a mysterious boy dressed like a court jester called Guillered who offers to bring him to a world called Laughter Land where one’s every wish is granted and there is no work, only play and no one ever grows up. Dick agrees and is brought to Laughter Land.

Story:

For a game that came out in 2006 I was honestly impressed how good the game was, not to say older games always have to be bad, but they usually not as well developed and lack in pacing and writing, so it’s hard to compare them with newer games, but this one stands the test of time quite well. I finished it in one week and the game is not near as short as one might think. The story kept me glued to the screen because once you finished a route you would unlock new parts that continued the story. I really liked the pacing in the game, it didn’t feel rushed at all, and everything felt well developed. Despite most of the characters being very young, it didn’t feel like you were playing a game aimed at children, it still had a good share of mature and serious content. The game felt like a modern Peter Pan story and revolves around the topic of growing up, which is why in that context it makes sense for the characters to be as young as they are. As for the routes, the game has normal routes (which continue the story) and character routes (where the romance parts take place). You need to finish the normal routes to unlock new routes. Once you finish the first normal route you start the game at a different place. There is a also true route in the game. The quality of the routes depends on the one you play, some are really good some are not so good. The normal routes are better in comparison to the character routes but this is to be expected.

Characters

Dick

We have the main character “Dick” (yes that’s his name) who is taken to Laughter Land (by force btw, Guillered didn’t bother asking much). Dick is funny, cheeky and despite his young age rather mature. He has his childish moments but is quite smart and I had a good time with him. Oh, and he tops 90% of the times.

Roddy

The free spirit boy, who lives in the forest in Laughter Land. He loves to go on adventure, is very kind and a good boy and he loves to fly. He was the first route I played and the one I liked the most.

Ioan

He is the apprentice of the greatest wizard of Laughter land, Mater Northbrook. Ioan is very childish, very clumsy, and way too criminal looking for my taste. I didn’t like neither his route nor his character (he sounds kind of annoying, too).

Sergi

He lives in the Forbidden Zone, a place where children who lose their permission to stay in Laughter Land have to live, which is basically just a slum. He is looking for his family that is still in Laughter Land. Sergi is rather calm but can have his sassy moments and he’s slightly tsundere. His route is connected to the plot of the game and therefore was interesting to play.

Cornel

He and his older brother are living together in a mansion in Laughter Land and hunt the “blue” people (the one who lost their permission to stay in Laughter Land, like Sergi), and bring them to the Forbidden Zone. His route was something…. Truly something… not bad just something.

Greg

Greg also lives in the Forbidden Zone and is friends with Sergi, he is the “womanizer” in the game and his other hobby is to pick up poor children off the street and animals (He had a crocodile names “Stephanie” living in his bathroom. Despite his womanizer ways, I actually really like Greg a lot. He is very motherly and very funny.

Dag

The criminal ossan of the game. His route was terrible and honestly, I didn’t expect anything to be worse than Ioan and no I’m not saying that only because of the FBI worth calling- age gap. Despite that I thought his personality was actually quite nice. He works as an inventor and Dicks works for him in every route where he lives in the Forbidden Zone. He also likes alcohol, a LOT, so Dick has to go full mother mode on him sometimes.

Guillered

The “mastermind” behind Laughter Land, he brings all the children to laughter land. To be honest, this shota needs 3000h of therapy before he is ready to be released at humanity again. Although he has his reason to be the way he is, I just thought that he was absolutely bonkers. And he is also one of the more criminal looking characters.

Music &Art

The art is really cute and has this soft childlike feature (which makes sense in the setting of course) and no yaoi face syndrome because you know shotas and all. Music was also really good, I really loved the ending song.

Conclusion

My personal order from best to worst was Roddy/Greg/Sergi/Cornel/Guillered/Ioan/Dag. I didn’t want to go far into spoiler here because I want to engage people to play it because this game is too good to not to play so I fully recommend it, please try even if you aren’t into Shota.

Spoiler Part

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Now let’s talk about the spoilery part about the game. Like said the game is a Modern peter Pan story. Laughter Land is completely controlled by children. And for it to stay that way the characters have to remain a child inside their mind (well and outside too because they don’t age), meaning any mature behaviour can lead to you being kicked out and put into the Forbidden Zone, where you have to live in poverty (and grow old) Children sent to the forbidden Zone can grow up to adults because the rules in Laughter Land don’t apply there, but how do they know that a character is too mature and needs to be send to the forbidden Zone, well when children are taken to Laughter Land, they all get a red gems implanted inside their bodies by Guillered, this gem can grand any wish. If they characters begin to make mature choices, their gem slowly begins to turn purple until it’s blue, once its blue it’s impossible to turn it back to red (apparently). That’s why the people from the forbidden Zone are often called “the blue”. Blue crystal can’t grant wishes anymore and are practically useless. And that’s how the choice system in this game works, you basically make childish/mature choices, which lead to Dick either staying in Laughter Land and ending up with one of its residence or him being put in the Forbidden Zone where he ends up with one of its characters. Since growing up is a part of live, it’s only to be expected that the Forbidden Zone is full of people.

And now let’s go through the different route.

Normal Route

The first route I played was the normal route, which has no romantic partner for Dick but needs to be played to unlock more routes and is important for the plot. It begin with Dick going to the village fair where he meets Guillered who brings him to Laughter Lan. There he gets his gem an meets Roddy and Ioan (and Ioan fucking Onee-san broom who can speak and makes really weird sexual comments, A FUCKING BROOM jesus I’m not over that broom…. Oh and also a speaking plush toy dog who also can speak. Both of these are made for Ioan by his Master Northbrook). Ioan agrees to let Dick stay with him until he builds his own house. So, the next few days/weeks (idk how long it took) are spent with Dick building his home and meeting people in Laughter Land. Once he finishes his house, he meets Cornel and his big bro who are looking for “the blue” with an army of iron soldiers, who are made specifically to hunt for “blue”. Following an adventure with Roddy in the forest at night, Dick actually gets to meet one of the “blues”, Sergi. This encounter leads him to wonder why blues are even being hunted, despite them being the same as the people from Laugher Land. But sadly, Dick doesn’t have much time to think about it, because his own gem has turned blue after making too many mature choices. This is soon discovered by Ioan and Dick is brought to the Forbidden Zone. (Boys barely had time to life in the house he spent weeks on building)

There he gets immediately robbed by a young boy named Aby, and is picked up by (Mother) Greg, he also gets to meet with Sergi again and gets to know Dag. Greg also picks up Aby up after the poor boy’s brother is killed and he is sold into prostitution by a fucking asshole name Zachariah who also drugs him (god I want to stab this man so bad). Dick later gets a job at Dag who helps him with his inventor job and plays the mother role because Dag is a mess. One day Dag asks him if he want to return home and Dick says he does, so Dag gets the crazy idea to build a machine to bring him back to the real world. This plan has to stay secret because if the organization name Serpent, who basically controls the area finds out about it they will be in big trouble. Like you expect they do find out because a girl name Leesha, tricks Aby into telling her about his plan, by promising him to let him take revenge for his brother’s death, which only leads to Aby dying by fucking Zachariah (who killed his brother btw). While Aby is having a not great time, Dick is put in the machine and before they can use the magic of their gems (yes, I know in normal case it shouldn’t work but Dag promised it will work) they are killed by fucking Zachariah soldier army. With Dick still stuck in the machine, he can only hear how his friends get murdered, but for some reason their gems actually manage to work, and Dick is brought back to the real world again. His first goal back at home, is to give the letter, to the person Dag asked him to deliver it. And here is where the first part of the story ends.

Important to note is also that when you get your gem in the beginning you also get a list with people’s name on it. These names get crossed out with every wish you make because they represent people in the real world, who forgot about you. Oh, and Dag also mentions that Laughter Land is actually call “Slaughter Land” (yeah fun times)

Being the first route, I played, I was really glued to my scream especially when a “to be continued” appeared on the screen after the route ended.

Roddy

Now let’s talk about the character’s routes. Roddy’s route hurt me on a physical and emotional level. Like I mentioned Roddy is a good boy who lives in the forest and loves to go on adventure where he takes his friends with. He also loves to fly (which he can do because of his gem and all) and take Dick (by force) with him on his flying adventure. If Dick stays a good (childish) boy he can continue living in his house in Laughter Land and becomes friends with Roddy and together they go on adventure like in the forest, where time stands still. There they find a random machine and are curious what it’s for, but can’t figure it out, so they decide to ask around. They look in the library at Ioans place and ask people, but just can’t to find the answer, so they come up with the idea for Ioan to ask his Master to make the machine talk by itself.

While this is all happening it also becomes really clear that Dick and Roddy both developing romantic feeling for each other, but Roddy is very pure so he doesn’t understand his feelings. At some point he also tells Dick that he likes him, with Dick questioning what kind of “like” his like is and tells Roddy to figure it out.

Meanwhile Ioan calls Dick to have a private conversation with him over this machine. Ioan then tells him that he should not tell Roddy about it because the machine is actually something from the real world and was inside Roddy to help keep his heart beating.

So, while all of this is happening Roddy begins to have weird dream in which he sees a boy in a hospital. Well as you can guess, Roddy was actually heart sick in the real world and the machine was there to keep him alive, but it turns out that he was supposed to die, which is why he was brought to Laughter Land, where he could finally fulfil his dream of living a normal life and flying in the sky. But Roddy doesn’t remember his life at this point yet.

At some point he urges Dick to continue searching for answers about the machine, but Dick tell him he wants him to stop. After some arguing, Roddy then promised him not to look for it anymore. Then they have the whole conversation about liking each other with Dick showing him what kind of like he has for Roddy (yes, I mean they have sex).

To be honest I was a little scared of the H-scene in this game and wanted to skip them in the beginning, but it wasn’t too bad actually and more bearable because they are around the same age. Generally, the H-scene in this game fall into 3 categories: Criminal underage, young but bearable and criminal age gap (aka Dag).

The next day, after their love play Roddy falls asleep and doesn’t wake up anymore, so Dick calls Guillered, seeking for help. Guillered tells him that normally children don’t dream in Laughter Land and that Roddy does because of Dick’s special power he has in his hand that makes people remember their forgotten memories, which is currently happening to Roddy. The only way to save him is either to delete all memory of Dick and for Dick not get close to Roddy anymore or to let Roddy die, because as it turns out Roddy is already supposed to be dead, the only reason he is alive in Laughter Land is because his special power. With his power he can stop time, like in the forest he lives in and in himself.

Dick has a hard time deciding and ask for more time, which he does but after a few days it’s already too late and Roddy wakes up with all his memories restored. He thanks Dick for all the time they spent together AND FUCKING DIES *credit role*…… I was sobbing in my pillow at this point wtf this is so sad TT_TT

But luckily, we get an after-credit scene and as it turns out Dick actually erased all his memories, so Roddy is alive and doing well but Dick can’t be with him anymore, and yet Roddy wants to get to know him and take him on adventure (more crying into my pillow)

The route was so good but so terrible sad TT_TT and the worst part is that it’s the only pairing in the game, that has no happy end like WHY. My friend also told me there is a drama CD and apparently, they keep falling in love, with Roddy having his memories erased every time…. My heart is hurting. 10/10 tears for that route.

Ioan

So if you get to know not very legal Ioan you learn that he’s struggling with something. And that something is trauma of killing a child (like wtf?). Apparently like 20 years ago (how old are these shota again?) Laughter Land fell in disaster with monster like things attacking the residence and the only way to stop it was to kill a child, which Ioan dropped from a building or something. And that must have been very disturbing for him because he now takes fucking drugs to deal with his trauma and he is pretty addicted to it (ah yes, the classic drug bl plot that I so much can’t stand. At least it’s with a character I dislike)

At this point, I don’t even remember how the route played out, that’s how uninteresting it was. But yeah, Dick wants of course to help Ioan but Guillered asks him if he is ready to accept the truth Ioan is hiding, which Dick says he does. The truth is that his Master Northbrook is actually he himself (I don’t know why it’s even such a big deal? Probably the lying part but still) so yeah Northbrook, who is said to be the only adult in Laughter Land isn’t actually an adult, but adults don’t actually exist in Laughter Land, and that’s how Dick found out that something was must be wrong.

So Dick accepts Ioan and Ioan is like yay let’s get close which Dicks, for some reason sees as an invitation for sex (yeah I don’t know either) so they do it, which probably has to be the most illegal and uncomfortable H-scene I have ever seen and I ended up skipping most of it *shudders*. And they live happy ever after. Coming fresh from Roddy’s route I was pissed why this shitty shota gets a happy end and Roddy not????? Fuck him.

Also, I need to talk about Ioan’s fucking broom, so like mentioned his Master aka he himself made him some friends by giving life to a fucking broom and a dog stuff animal but this beside. The fucking broom is not only an onee san (aka a feminine gay man) but also in love with basically every boy who gives him attention, with his favourite being Ioan of course…I just couldn’t deal with this broom.

Sergi

For Sergi you have to finish the normal end because this route starts in the Forbidden Zone, which is interesting because according to the others Dick came to the forbidden Zone 10 years ago, so when he was a small child, but Dick remembers all what happened in the route before (the normal one when everyone died, and he returned to the real world).

Like before Dick is living with Greg and Aby and working for Dag. So, one time they decide to visit the casino because Greg wants to spend (Dick’s) money (lmao) which they end up doing, they also take Sergi and Aby with them. Dick tried poker for the first time while Greg cheats on some games, with Aby getting some drinks for him. At the end of the day, they can’t find Aby anymore and decide to return home. Few days later Aby is still missing because as it turns out fucking Zachariah took him (again) and his bitch of a helper (the only girl you ever see in the game) and made him their play toy to sell to customers (and I warn here if you don’t want to see 5-7 year old be raped on screen better not play this, even I had to skip it)

After few weeks they throw Aby out on the street like trash after he got addicted to drugs (AGAIN, oh yeah this is the same drug Ioan is taking, which is apparently popular). The others luckily find Aby and take him home. Greg the good mother he is angry and wants to take revenge. Sergi say he is crazy, and they have a small fight with Greg running out of the house. Sergi tells Dick that he will probably leave the city to go over to Laughter Land to find the family he has been looking for, which is still living there, or so he has heard and if Dick wants, he can come with him.

This is where the routes start to separate. If you decided to go with Sergi you can play either his or Cornel’s route, if you stay, you’ll be playing Greg or Dag. But since this is about Sergi we’re going with him.

Dick meets with Sergi at night where the latter had gotten them a carriage to pass the border. After being chased by enemies and some shooting, they reach it, but unfortunate for them as they’re about to pass the bother they met Cornel and his big bro. Cornel says he wants to see if their gems are red, which of course they aren’t but at he is about to check, their gems suddenly shine in red so they are allowed to pass. Dick’s gem turned red again and we learn later that Sergi can actually change the colour of his gem himself.

The first day they just wander around Laughter Land trying to find some clues. They go meet Ioan, where Sergi gets sexually harassed by the gaze of the onee san broom, but they don’t find anything. Later they meet Cornel (and his bro) again, who lets them stay at his super fancy mansion.  Cornel says they can stay there while looking for Sergi’s mother (is who Sergi is actually looking for). Dick asks Guillered for help, who tells him that Laughter Land doesn’t have many girls so it should be easy to find her. They manage to steal a book from Ioan with the help of their gem, that has notes about a girl and take turns reading it over the following days. In short, the notebook is about a girl and her friend who live in laughter land and are told by Guillered to get along with a newbie named Zach. The girl starts taking an interest in the new guy, who seems to be a little weird and apparently it leads to a romantic relationship because she later gets pregnant from him and gives birth a child which throws the world into a chaos. The Zach guy gets than banned to the Forbidden Zone as well as the friend who also like the girl. But since they took the baby away from the girl, she gets depressed and tries to commit suicide, so Guillered erases her memory and put her into a room, that she can’t leave. And that girl is name Leesha, who was actually shown before in the route because Dick visited her before with Roddy. And the child is actually Sergi himself but not only that, it’s also the child Ioan supposedly killed. The friend is Greg and Zach is the fucking Zachariah (but this part is never really explained because he is such a douche suddenly?) So, after they find out who Segi’s mother is they visit her and spent some time with her (of couse she doesn’t recognise Sergi) before Sergi decided to go back to the Forbidden Zone where he lived all his life. Dick goes with him. After return they start dating basically and also Sergi is the bottom (nice). They also learn that Greg, Dag and Aby are missing but in the very end its hinted on that they are still alive. The lore reveal was really good here and how it connected to the previous routes. You can tell the writer put a lot of thoughts in this.

Cornel

Cornel’s route basically starts the same as Sergi’s and separates after Sergi and Dick start chilling at his mention. One night at the mansion Dick hears some weird sounds and it turns out its coming from Cornel because HE IS FUCKING HIS OWN BROTHER WHAT. So, brother-fucker Cornel has some kind of onii-san kink (should have seen this coming) and it all goes back to his life in the real world where he apparently really loved his brother and always wanted to spend time with him. But with Dicks magic hand (why does that sounds so weird?) abilities Cornel remembers at some point that his real brother was actual an asshole who abused him and the “perfect” brother of his was only living in his fantasies. (forget daddy issues, here we have onii-san issues) and his brother in laughter land is basically a personification of that fantasy, also the brother is actually one of the iron soldiers. The route ends with the brother gets destroyed in the end and cornel can live happy together with Dick after they start their relationship and Sergi returns back home. Yeah…. The brother thing was weird.

Normal route 2.0

Same as with Cornel and Sergi it follows the same start and basically almost goes up to the end of Cornels route, only difference is that Guillered shows up and STABS dick before Dick can help Cornel, saying that he fucked up, so yeah Guillered is responsible for these time travel things. Honestly, I recommend playing Cornel first before doing this route because it basically almost spoils everything of his route and I was just skipping most of it when I finally reached it.

Greg

Gregs route has the same start as Sergi’s, so everything with the Casino and the abuse of Aby happens and it goes until the part Greg wants to take revenge and runs away, with Dick following and talking to him, this time. Dick also talks with Dag who gives him a special weapon to kill the iron soldiers. Before Dick and Greg set their plan into action they have a last talk, which end up with Greg almost sneaking out at night and Dick is (of course) not happy with that, so Dick gets Greg to  take him with him, but before they leave Greg kisses him as vow of this promise (he also says that this kind of kiss you can only give a true man xD). They sneak into the organisation, take out a bunch of enemies and reach the room where fucking Zachariah is. Once they enter it and Greg confronts him, his bitch of a helper girl (who btw is Leesha or should I rather say looks like her) is all like “wah don’t kill him” but of course it’s only to trick Greg, which she manages, steals the gun from him and uses against him. Greg is confused why she would do that because, as said before, they were friends once. Then Dick goes all hero mode on him and first shoots the girl who turns out to be an iron soldier and then fucking Zachariah. Oh yeah Greg also gets shot and then died dramatically on the floor- as if lol he is just a drama queen, he survives of course. A while later when we actually get confirmed that Greg is really just dramatic and still alive, Dick asks him why he is not playing around with woman anymore and Greg says that he has someone he like and lets Dick guess. Dick then asks him if he likes him which Greg confirms. Then he says that he fell in love with Dick because Dick had been so cool during their attack on fucking Zachariah that he couldn’t help himself not to fall in love (awww that’s so sweets), then he asks if Dicks feels the same and Dick says he doesn’t mind, which Gregs basically takes as mutual feeling and happily screams how Dick likes him too, after he kisses Dick and they have happy sexy times (with Dick being bottom for the first time, how exiting). But that’s not all, once they start dating the apparently fuck every night and Dick is sick of it and decides to take revenge while Greg is asleep and gives him a blowjob first and then decides he is daddy now and goes top mode on him AHAHAHAHAHA. The CGs looks so stupid, because despite Greg’s face looking young, his body is clearly one of an adult, while Dick is still baby, and it just looks ridiculous. I had some serious fangirl moments in this route, Greg is such a good boy and a very caring mother, him falling for Dick because of how cool he was, is so funny but also so cute. I really enjoyed this route.

.... Part 2