#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

[sekaides]

Ita bags 🩸🤖

[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

[iroll20s]

mngh...

[w1namp-v1s]

[shr0uds]

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

[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

[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!!

[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]

this visual novel is taking over my life it’s literally all i can think about

[michiruze]

Lkyt. - Thoughts

In times of despair, we seek light. But when the light exposes the rotten core of destiny, where does your heart go?

After a year of "I bought the game, and left it there", I finally gave the much-anticipated Lkyt. (2020) a go. I went into this game knowing nearly nothing except the fact that I shouldn't expect another No, Thank You!!! (2013)

And it worked. This game is nothing like I've expected, and I was left with the feeling of both fullness and emptiness. The kind of feelings that comes from witnessing a profound piece of fiction that tells so much.

And so much it tells. Lkyt. (2020) ended up piercing my heart, going straight to the jugular and consumes it.

This is not a story of heroic warriors. This is a story of betrayal by nature.

What happens when you are born in a rotten world, destined to be hollowed out?

(Music to listen to while reading)

The concept of a story that focuses on letting the audience experience what living in a war-torn reality feels like isn't new. In a sense, there's nothing new about Lkyt. (2020). What this game brings to the table, however, is the characters, and how the setting interacts with the horrors plaguing it.

The first thing you see in the game is that it's set in a fictional medieval Japanese setting with a twist --- there's a cosmic horror thing as their common (and only) enemy. And this thing unites the people, mobilizing themselves to face it, with willingness to die for the safety of others. You are seeing the story of unity against a force of death. 'Till death do they part.

This gives the game an opportunity to explore the values of 'heroism' and 'warriors' without overstuffing it with real-world signifiers, and without the risk of turning into a soapbox for the game's writer(s) to be 'right' about their opinions on serious topics. Not only there are cosmic horrors inbound, there's a lot of political intrigue in the story that is guaranteed to keep the audience glued and frustrated over how relevant all of it is.

The setting also allows the game to explore certain topics such as grief, nihilism, loyalty through the eyes of war-torn people.

It certainly reminds me of 28 Days Later (2002) and Annihilation (2018) where the science fiction setting allows the movie to explore themes of familial bond, survival, love, and the dark side of militarism through the eyes of survivors of dark times.

The gist of this is that the setting allows the themes to emerge by itself and let the readers draw their conclusions.

And it's certainly stuffed with interesting topics to think about. Betrayed by history, belief, and destiny. Betrayed by the nation.

When all you know is "war" and "the enemy" and nothing else....what happens when both are gone, and defeated? Do we stay in unity?

When the values of the world you live in was built by darkness, what happens when light shines through it?

Lkyt. (2020) in a sense, is about the fragility of our reality. Through the horrifying reality that the characters live in, it exposes fragilities that we face in real life.

Having the game written around this dark fantasy setting also gives the game the chance to actually provoke powerful messages of hope as well. Darkness can be overcome, it's how we decide to shine the light that matters.

Lkyt. (2020) tells said tragedy in heartbreaking ways. It is not an exaggeration that this is one of the heaviest BL games to ever come out.

But this being an utsuge obviously means that it's not all rainbows and sunshine. What happens when you decide to shine a light in a world overrun by darkness to the core? Lkyt. (2020) also tells the tragedy of what happens when innate darkness resists light. In this case, the determination to end suffering, in a world where the concept of 'light' seemingly does not exist. What if the darkness has penetrated the world so deeply that an attempt to end suffering is seen as a disgrace to the existing values and beliefs built by fear, violence, and hatred against darkness? What if light suddenly penetrates darkness? What if people who had never seen what 'hope' is, suddenly sees it?

All that this world knows is violence, fear, and darkness. And light becomes a force of threat as a result.

Make no mistake, it's not only heartbreaking, but also depressing and disturbing. This game is written by Tatsuya Kurashiki, who wrote chunks of NTY!!!.....but before he wrote Lkyt. (2020), he also wrote the infamously gory and extremely disturbing Maggot Baits (2015). In fact, this game shared the same writing team as the latter.

You can tell that there are remnants of Maggot Baits (2015) left in his writing for Lkyt. (2020), and several parts (especially the goriest parts of the game) seems to be a callback to his time writing it. (You can turn off gory CGs but NOT gory texts)

However, the hopelessness and darkness is not without reason, nor it's done as shock value. They have a concrete reason to be written that way, and it's ultimately not for nothing. The game's title (it's an acronym for an English sentence!) even supports this.

It's not all darkness, though. Of course, there are obligatory comedic elements you'd find in parade titles, as well as horny jokes and light-hearted lines referring to having gay relationships for diplomatic reasons. That alone makes me want to recommend this game to everyone. That said, let's talk about the characters.

Tasuku is markedly different from previous parade protagonists. For a horny top, he is a purely selfless human being with devotion to his belief to protect the powerless. The game obviously puts him into situations where his views gets challenged and rejected, and part of the 'fun' of Lkyt. (2020) comes from how Tasuku overcomes it. By the third part of the story you really want him to prevail, survive, and win.

Tasuku's selflessness gets complemented real well with the assortment of love interests who has their own beliefs and are challenged by Tasuku's selflessness. Takeru's unconditional loyalty, Yael's numbing nihilism, Ango's despair, and Towa's extreme responsibilities in shouldering pain....all of them complements their bond with Tasuku, where their bond becomes the beacon of light.

One thing to know about their bonds is that it is not 'romantic' in a traditional sense. Their bonds, while sexual and leads to loving bonds, are more of 'necessary bonds in order to survive the apocalypse'. The kind of bonds you form to accept the apocalypse.

There's a persistent feeling of "the end is near and all I want to experience intimacy before we all die" in each route, with these bonds forming a resistance against darkness.

That's all I can say about the game's substance. On the 'style' front, Lkyt. (2020) is absolutely made with love, even when you can spot signs of small budget (reminding everybody that parade is CLOCKUP --- not known for big budget story games!)

The art by CLOCKUP's Norizane is the biggest winner of the game. She draws characters in a way that lets their features shine and be different. Her character designs are very memorable and you can tell that she's giving something for everyone from how each love interest's bodies are drawn (skinny bishies, burly men, hot priest). I hope she continues to make art for parade's games.

The game's color palette, whilst limited to greys, reds, and browns to give it a barren, desolate feel, does not feel 'bland' at all through the integration of the memorable character designs to the background details, like a movie with a cinematography that elevates the 'bland' setting. At times it feels reminiscent of director Alex Garland's work, especially Annihilation (2018).

One thing I have to praise this game for is the option to turn off gore. It's very helpful even though there are only 4 gory CGs (but BY GOD they're GORY as fuck!). The completion status feature also rules, as does the game listing all scenes and completion indicators, allowing readers to find out parts they have not read yet!

While the music feels pretty okay (especially if you've played parade's other games --- even moreso if you played CLOCKUP games too) since the budget probably only allows few songs, the opening theme is absolutely amazing, sets the tone properly for the game and is appropriately emotional.

However, the small budget attributed to this game makes it that there's simply not enough CGs for the story (possibly due to Norizane's commitments to couple of CLOCKUP titles at the same time of Lkyt's development). Some parts of the game feels that it needed CGs to explain things, and for readers who finds overly descriptive texts confusing, it could make them feel lost.

Seeing the liner notes reveals that the game could've benefitted from having a longer development time for story and character writing and I agree. Some parts of the routes felt repetitive and the decision to cram the love interests' backstories near the end feels like a rushed attempt to wrap up stuff.

So, how's this game, overall? For people expecting another No, Thank You!!! (2013), this game isn't it. It's a completely different experience, a story-heavy experience much closer to Nitro+Chiral than anything else, that can be attributed to the fact that it's written by Tatsuya Kurashiki, a writer cut from the same mold as Takashi Masada, whose CV consists of mostly long, story-heavy chuuni games

Lkyt. (2020) is great, but in the end, it's an acquired taste thing. It's certainly not for everyone. It's heavy, touching, disturbing, and depressing. You really need to be in the right mood to engage.

Though, Lkyt. (2020) is a very profound experience full of meaning and journeys through the darkness to find light. If you go the might....please do experience it!

As a small P.S, describing Lkyt. (2020) as "Sekiro if it was made by Alex Garland" means that I had to watch Civil War (2024) right as I had finished the game to write my thoughts clearer and.....Lkyt. (2020) is what this film tried to be, so there's that.

Lkyt. (2020) certainly is the movie that Alex Garland desperately tried to make. The "story where it's about how war feels like" thing that he wanted to make.