#kikokugai

[kinoglossia]

[c6lumbna]

so let's fly up to the moon and see the stars from high above !! ☆☆ 🪩

[killerthe69]

Kikokugai Analysis

think I never ever saw a media that makes my head hurt and make me question everything. I think this is the work in which we saw a birth of a really really strong monster that is known throughout the world as Urobutcher ..... yes people Kikokugai is a visual novel written by your favourite mindfuckery expert Gen Urobuchi. I think this might be his best work I haven't seen Phantom Of Inferno so I could be wrong but damn boy my head hurt. I think I have never ever encountered a media that makes my head hurt like this like actual head pain from mindfuck I saw like holy shit this is actual mindfuck. This make me feel all kind of emotion sadness ; I cried ; I feel hype ; I feel sympathetic by end I was laughing like a madman god damn Urobuchi you got me.

I think the way I would describe kikokugai is it's a work that show flower can grow in desert. It's a work that you are suppose to not agree with its idea like its pinnacle example of what you're reading is fictional and you should not take that shit seriously because its ideas are something absurd but at same time I find that absurdity beautiful. I think its theme is something filled with mindfuckery but on a ultra special superficial term in layman term so people could understand for me Kikokugai is story about humanity in inhumanity.

I think to describe what Kikokugai truly is I have to have you look at the characters and what make them way they are and how there journey end. I will begin with main character Taoluo I think he is the stereotype of character with his main goal being revenge someone who will put everything he have in line to achieve something. The goal is sympathetic too like his sister is abused and her soul is turn into sex doll he is trying to get revenge for her and collect her soul ??? PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD STUFF RIGHT ?? I think that narrative set up a beautiful stuff that Ruili is pure girl and he is badass brother ..... until we reach the fucking ending. I think the way narrative change everything for him at end was just fucking mind wrecking he in the end did not get satisfaction from revenge he in the end is sympathising with guy he want to take revenge , he is destroyed mentally he realize his journey was for absolutely nothing and everything that happened here is his fault. He in the end isn't asking for revenge he is just wondering why are we even here in first place. If that sound familiar to you because it might be prototype of Kiritsugu emiya.

Ruili is a .... mindfuck like heavy sensitive material alert !! Ruili we are initially told as someone who is raped and her soul is divided into 5 fragments all those 5 fragments are turned into sex dolls and they are owned by the antagonist group who violate her regularly as a sex doll. We see what Ruili mean to Taoluo I think some of the most beautiful moment in the entire visual novel experience was seeing that Taoluo is healing a person who was abused we see what there relationship mean to each other in flashback scene we see beautiful shit that is set up you want Taoluo and Rui to find peace at least I wanted from my reading with there interaction ..... until you realize all this beautiful shit which is set up right now is a facade its just bullshit actually Ruili asked the Antagonist to violate her and she enjoyed it plus it was her plan to transfer her soul to 5 pieces so he can obtain her brother in near death stage so she can live with her in world of soul by uniting with his soul .... does that sound fucked up ?? Is your head melting when you read it I hope it does because it did mine I suffer so you have to suffer too.

Haujun is Antagonist the man with pinnacle of power the man who have everything in the world. He is totally heartless initially someone who kill his father. He is inhuman he is destroying a crime syndicate of asia because of his incompetence .... you see you feel no remorse for him cause he violated the woman who was supposed to be his wife initially there is nothing to like about him until you see finale where we see he is fucked in head because of his wife request of getting violated by 5 people and he want to do what his wife asked her to do destroy every fucking thing and create hell .... most importantly he is power pinnacle of it but there is sadness in him he know he lost he will never ever get place in his wife heart that was meant for his brother.

I think that core idea of Kikokugai for me is inhumane love the love you see in people they aren't human not even one bit but they love each other and for the love they will do anything which will cost them there humanity. Whether be Ruili deciding to do vile things to her so her brother would love her ; Haujun journey to destroy the world so his wife may notice him or Tauluo journey where he killed friend and foe alike for his journey for his revenge. Like the way story first hook you to think its story of healing and revenge to a story that show inhumane love is a one of a kind fictional experience.

[emptysilenthead]

鬼哭街

[nitrokiraru]

masterpost of all the times nitro+chiral has referenced their own games! made bc i was bored and i like epic nitro+chiral references

also includes references to other nitroplus games, if there are any refs i missed please feel free to add to the post or lmk and i will add them!

Togainu No Chi references

to start out is the bgm playing in slow damage! credits to this channel called L on youtube for the recording, they also uploaded other vids of n+c bgm being in surodame so shoutout to a real one bc im about to use all of their vids for this post

haunt, shifty, and tactics play in the restaurant!

this next one is not exactly confirmed to be a reference but I always felt like the re:code virus and trip ending cg was a homage to Kau

like??? THE OUTFITS LOOK KINDA SIMILAR IDK!!! i like to think that it is! and considering the fact that honyarara (dmmd artist) was a togainu no chi fan, i wouldnt be surprised if the similarities were intentional

Lamento references

to my knowledge there is not a lot of lamento refs in the other games, but like togainu no chi, lamento's bgm is also in slow damage!

kowaku, kaze ga huku machikado, and ketsui (? the last one is a lil hard to hear but it sounds like ketsui) play in the cafe!

Sweet Pool references

this reference is one i was NOT aware of at all until very recently, so credit to @/slybluehologhost for pointing it out! and for the screenshots if they are yours! their post was the one i found this out from lmao

the CG of one of the first rhyme fights in dramatical murder, is a corrupted version of the Okinaga household cg from sweet pool!

here is the original CG. if you notice it's using 3d resources, something that dmmd didn't actually have a lot of as backgrounds. the reason is because it's leftovers from the previous game!

if you look at the CG flipped, you can see clearly that it is the Okinaga household living room/kitchen!

in my opinion this is one of the coolest refs on this post. bc i played dmmd before every other n+c game, i genuinely didn't notice this when i first played. its something that only people who played sweet pool would notice, and i just find that so nice! just a lil easter egg for people who know

sweet pool bgm is also present in slow damage!

scene [warp02], chills02, and calm01 play in the bar!

another ref in slow damage is the billboard with youji official art on it

prolly my fav official art of youji ever

Dramatical Murder references

dmmd's bgm is featured in slow damage!

track 10, 12, and the video says bgm 22 but i cant rly hear anything? idk regardless the bgm plays when you go to beat up that guy who likes to get beat up by his brother for some reason LOL

another very very small reference that is extremely easy to miss is the fact that clear's nendoroid is in Mayu's room

if you zoom in on the parts i circled, you can see that the nendoroid box says 597. and nendoroid 597 just so happens to be the clear nendo!

under the cut are other nitroplus title refs! (also didnt wanna make this post look too long fndskgjn)

Other Nitroplus title references

Mayu's room is FULL of Nitroplus title references. so much that some of them I didn't really recognize besides the obvious, so i literally had to just go through the character lists on nitroplus games to find what characters they were. ur welcome for this incoming information that you may or may not have known

probably one of the most recognizable nitroplus characters in this room is saya from saya no uta, mayu has a figure of her in the middle! (theres more boxes of her but this was the most noticeable imo)

his figure display has many nitroplus characters on it

to start from the top, the one in the long maid like dress is Petrushka from Kikokugai - The Cyber Slayer

Next to her is Franco il Nero from Zoku Satsuriku no Django

i couldnt find anything for who's next to this chara, so i assume its just swimsuit versions of the character Mayu's obsessed with

Going to the 2nd row, though you can just barely see her, i found this character to be Echika from Tokyo Necro

Next (disregarding the obvious figures in between) to her are the two main characters from You and Me and Her, Aoi Mukou and Sone Miyuki!

i find it a little funny that they would put these references in because the audience for the people playing nitroplus games vs the audience playing n+c games are like VERY different but nonetheless, pretty cool!

while not a "reference" per se, sweet pool is heavily inspired by saya no uta!

this is something thats just a generally agreed fact, but i felt compelled to include it anyway because i rly love both of these vns and i love rambling abt them. theyre very similar in the ways that they both got meat n gore, and the main characters dealing with the meat n gore, and the general theme of just isolating yourself from people because of it and not exactly having a happy end. fuminori completely giving up his outside life for saya, destroying friendships n whatnot, and youji locking himself in his room and shutting out people who aren't dealing w his lil problem (makoto). the ending where saya wins and the red road ending shares some vibes imo. its all very similar even down to the soundtrack that had some of the same people working on it, and even gen urobuchi himself (writer of saya) worked on sweet pool as an advisor. so in my head its canon that these two games r brother and sister

thats pretty much it! (unless i decide to add more i swear theres probably so much im missing LMAO) thank you if you read this far ^_^

edit: check notes for other references people have added!

[dreamyinquis1tor]

Визуальная новелла:

Kikokugai-The Cyber Slayer.

Кинетическая, но всё равно захватывает. Достаточно трогательная история в сеттинге киберпанка в Китае. Вторая работа Гена Уробучи с которой я ознакамливаюсь. Первой была Saya no Uta и она мне очень понравилась: душевная, романтичная. Ею я очень проникся, она стала одной из моих первых визуальных новелл. Нравятся мне такие трогательные истории, содержащие в себе примеси жанра гуро, какую-то черезмерную жестокость, давление на читателя. Проходить песнь Саи определённо стоит, меня очень растрогало, и пускай может смутить наличие сцен сексуального характера, они только больше заставляют погрузиться в историю(по крайней мере некоторые, как по мне пара сцен вообще не несут никакого смысла).

[hinugundam]

the kikokugai ost was there for me when no one else was

[moksh4]

hiii welcome to my sideblog!!! (i follow and like from @ru-ili)

icon drawn by my gorgeous girlfriend, @tarteaumiel 💗

candy ⛦ 23y ⛦ lesbian ⛦ she/her ⛦ brazilian (more below)

byf: i don't like interacting with people who enjoy incest, lolishota/underage or talk a lot about proship/fandom discourse. if you're very vocal about such things it's very likely that i'll block you. also, please don't follow me if you hate trans headcanons! or if you're a radfem, transmed or right-wing, but that goes without saying. thank you!

my name is candy, im a 23y lesbian, from rio de janeiro, brazil; i got into vns during the pandemic and i haven't stopped since. usually i take a few breaks from this blog when im not actively reading something, so im usually active mostly on my main blog (or currently, my yugioh blog)

favorite vns: dramatical murder, slow damage, sweet pool, kikokugai (i know its bad), saya no uta,

currently reading: subahibi, lamento, lkyt

other stuff i reblog here: super sonico, twisted wonderland (its technically a vn), nu carnival, hashihime of the old book town

my website (kikokugai themed) 🧠

[bungerc0re]

is kikokugai a good nitroplus

[witchofcustom]

Why can't she be real

[slashtri]

[kinoglossia]

[c6lumbna]

hiiia may i ask if u could do kikokugai layouts plz ? >_< ur layouts r so pretty especially the headers /pos

hiii ofc you may cutie !! thank you 🥺🥺🥺 i appreciate it <333 i put a lot of effort into them hehe

[theinternetaccordingtokori]

I dunno, I thought Kikokugai really benefited from the scene where the loli sexbot with 3/5's of the protagonist's sister's soul in it fucks the other sexbot with the remaining 2/5's of the protagonist's sister's soul in it while they're watching said brother get brutally beaten to death by their husband/the brother's rival. It was a really classy and deep moment.

I had no idea that existed nor I would ever want to witness it again... What the fuck?

And yes, that is literally 100% what happens in that story. Which is basically why I can never take Gen Urobuchi seriously any more.

There’s was a point you took him seriously?

[xenosagaepisodeone]

Kikokugai, or: How Urobuchi Leaned So Far Into the Misogyny Allegations That He Kinda Beats It Almost Depending on How You Look At It

this is it. the Kikokugai longpost about the only component of this game’s story that I find interesting enough to post about, with pictures and everything. hit ‘keep reading’ if you dare.

for a general background: Kikokugai is a revenge story. Taoluo is seeking to kill 5 assassins who raped and murdered his sister, Ruili. Among the assailants is Ruili's husband, Haojun, who orchestrated the event. After her death, Ruili's soul was split up into 5 gynoids that were given to those who partook in her murder (the initial in-game explanation for this is that there is an underground market for gynoids that are able to experience unscripted fear, pleasure, etc, of which fragments of human souls are able to facilitate with authenticity). Should Taoluo retrieve the fragments of Ruili's soul located inside of each gynoid, it is possible that he may be able to resurrect her.

(Taoluo and a gynoid he’s given to host her soul)

What I refer to when I mention the misogyny in this game (title is a joke btw I don’t think Urobuchi is sexist LOL) is that the progression of the plot is entirely measured in how much physical or psychological abuse Taoluo witnesses the Ruili gynoids endure-- to the point were actually introduced to the abuse of a Ruili gynoid before we get to see Ruili herself. While there are b-plots, Taoluo only gets closer to his goal by meeting both one of Ruili’s killers and their respective gynoid, and the condition of the latter is used to characterize the former (the game actually uses the abuse of the Ruili gynoids as a framing device to explain details about the abuser, their motives and their life). the Ruili gynoids are the only other female characters in the game, they are also passive recepticles for abuse; they are regularly raped, mutilated, threatened and broken by their owners. They are only minimally receptive to the world around them, only knowing how to take orders, make animal-like noises and exhibit human fear. The version of this game I played was the 15+ rating remake released in 2011, so the descriptions and visuals that accompany this aren’t long or gratuitous (they’re actually depicted quite matter-of-factly before we see the next scene), the plot does however depend on their existence. Taoluo only on one instance expresses concern for the state that he finds a Ruili gynoid in (this is less due to any apathy he has towards his sister enduring abuse and moreso because he believes that he can literally fix her by saving her soul), so the weight that all this abuse should have in a rape-revenge story just isn’t there. Ruili’s pain (at least, at the beginning) is a plot device intended to drive the emotional core of the story forward, without really having the momentum to do so. To be clear as well, I’m not deeply offended by this (its not even the worst offender I’ve seen in this genre), I merely find it pronounced enough that it sticks out oddly.

(the Ruili gynoids, the last 2 are absolutely serving I wish they were in better games)

While Taoluo cares about his sister deeply and possesses a poise that his enemies do not, an important facet to remember about him is that he is a morally grey character. Prior to Ruili's death, he was an assassin himself who was celebrated for the brutal efficiency of his work. He sees his life with Ruili as refuge from the reality of his profession, and consequently places her on a pedestal. Ruili, as Taoluo knows her, is pure, kind, charming, intelligent and ladylike. He lives with her in a bubble far away from the maligned conflicts of the hypermodern society that Taoluo is forced to participate in. The equilibrium he needs to maintain his character is based in the happiness of Ruili and her marriage. Resurrecting Ruili is therefore not simply a matter of getting his sister back, but also retrieving his only beacon of peace and hope. Their flashbacks are even filtered in a sickeningly sweet pink glow that contrasts the damp darkness consisting the main story.

(it’s so gooey that I didn’t realize her hair was actually black and not brown)

Where the game becomes interesting emerges a little over the midway point. Taoluo has done an untold amount of damage to his body in pursuit of Ruili's killers, has slaughtered allies, turned entire industries upside down and has discarded his morals. Only at this point, is he confronted with the thought that the Ruili he resurrects may not be the same as the one he remembers. Besides the trauma that was inflicted upon her prior to her murder, by the start of the story, it has already been a year since her death. The gynoids containing fragments of her soul have been abused continuously by their owners, and there's no guarantee that their pain will dissipate once Ruili is whole again. Will Ruili be traumatized? Will Ruili adopt some of the more lascivious habits of the machines she was inhabiting? Most importantly, this is the only point in the story in which Taoluo acknowledges that he was never truly able to read his sister, despite always being with her. How much does he know her heart, really? Taoluo ruminates about this until his Ruili gynoid (posessing 3/5ths of her soul), attempts to come on to him. He shuts her down immediately (I really want to stress that there aren't any actual H-scenes in this VN in spite of how otherwise explicit it is) and cries, believing that his Ruili may have been defiled to her very core by abuse. Another important piece of context for this scene is that it comes right after a fight where Taoluo is forced to cut down an enemy that symbolically represents both who he was prior to Ruili's death, and the simplicity of his past relationship with his sister.

(comparison of how Taoluo cherishes a docile fragment of Ruili’s soul vs his discomfort with 3/5ths of her person acting autonomously)

(Taoluo stating that shutting down gynoid Ruili would feel akin to killing her.....before he does when she starts acting un-Ruili like)

When Taoluo hobbles into his confrontation with Haojun, the latter curbstomps him upfront with 0 issue. Taoluo has more or less exhausted himself over the course of the game, but is willing to risk complete destruction to see Ruili. With Taoluo downed emotionally and physically, Haojun reveals the plot twist: Ruili was the one who orchestrated her own rape, murder and the splitting of her soul. Haojun explains that Ruili was in love with Taoluo, and that it crushed her to the point of absolute despair to continue to pretend to be his perfect platonic sister while he seemed to only be drifting away from her. The details around the rape are a bit convoluted as the rapists seem to view what they did as straightforwardly nonconsensual, while Ruili views it more as a humiliation of the saddened proper ladylike person she was(??they emphasize she was smiling? I think it’s to imply that there’s more to her than Taoluo assumed). She would rather experience destruction than have him not reciprocate her feelings. Haojun states that Ruili wanted to split her soul over many bodies so Taoluo would need to go to great lengths, pushing himself physically to the brink, forgoing all he valued and feeling the utmost despair, just to save her. She wanted to see her pained longing for him reflected in his pursuit of her. The narrative absolutely whips Taoluo for not just failing to reciprocate her feelings or for letting her fall into despair, but also for failing to know her beyond her polite superficialities. Haojun agreed to go along with Ruili's plan because he loved her, and only wanted to see her happy (I will completely vouch that he is a full on wife guy to his core, all of his interactions with the Ruili gynoids are dripping with nothing but kindness and I think it’s kind of sweet). Haojun does acknowledge that he has gone insane, but it's not framed as Ruili corrupting him with her feelings as it is instead used to punctuate the the extent of her despair (and consequently his, as he expresses anger at Taoluo for not taking responsibility and reciprocating his sister's feelings. yes this is the actual text. thanks nitroplus.). Haojun and Taoluo kill eachother (Haojun cursing Taoluo with his last breath while Taoluo states that he’s exhausted and just wants to be with his sister), Ruili collects the last of her soul, and is effectively revived.

(Taoluo speedrunning the madonna-whore complex while Haojun is a hater)

To most people, the above paragraph would read as profoundly stupid (understandably so, not just for the bizarrely flippant approach to sexual assault, the incest and the unnecessarily complex way of dealing with potential rejection, but also for the fact it's two men that spell out a female character's dimensionality). What rehabilitates this scene for me a bit, however, is how the final chapter proceeds.

(Ruili, revived, talking about her brother)

Ruili, now fully herself, returns to the scientist, Xie, that she had tasked with splitting her soul. They banter for a bit on the nature of identity, and we see Ruili for the mature and mysterious person she is. Xie comments that she is the only person to have undergone a full soul transfer operation, and that she is now functionally immortal. He goes on to insist that it's possible that you can't even categorize her as human anymore, considering how he's not sure how dying, being split up and recombined may have effected her. In an earlier scene, Taoluo compares agreeing to collect pieces of Ruili's soul to revive her using Xie's science as a Faustian arrangement (as he views Xie negatively for agreeing to split up her mind at all), a similar unease is elicited but not -outright- stated as Ruili discusses how she approached Xie with the offer to allow him to continue his highly revered, deeply illegal research on the nature of souls using her body in exchange for him going along with her grim plot (Ruili playing the role of the devil in this case, of course). It’s implied that nobody, not even Haojun who furiously advocated for her right down to the last moments of his life, truly knew her. This epilogue makes Ruili look less emotionally driven and more cunning and insightful than previously thought. If she is the mastermind behind everything, it makes her actually pretty interesting.

Ruili convinces Xie to upload the soul of Taoluo into her own. Taoluo awakens, curious and semi-amnesiatic (not wholly unlike the Ruili gynoids) in a beautifully nostalgic landscape. His mind has been affected just enough by grief and trauma that he's become open and tender, as she wanted him. Ruili and Taoluo's roles have now reversed: She's the one who lives in the outside world and keeps him safe in their idyllic paradise. She is the caregiver, while he is the one who brings her tranquility. He does not need to fight anymore. They embrace, and regardless of what happens next, Ruili has won. I was initially peeved that the first half of the game had very little of Ruili in it despite her being the core of the plot, and while I understand why this was the case now, I still say that I wish this game truncated the revenge aspect and expanded on Taoluo's fragmented relationship with his sister.

While I don't consider Kikokugai to be particularly good (some of it is just straight up not for me), I think it's interesting how this is unambiguously treated as a happy end as opposed to a bittersweet or even sad one. You're not supposed to think of it as grim that Ruili is willing to go through such lengths to get her brother to notice her. She's not vilified for not being the lovely passive woman that her brother assumed she was. The narrative rewards for utilizing the same kind of amoral means that the other characters do to see the romance she wants realized. Throughout the game, you're served scenes of the Ruili gynoids being abused or destroyed by their owners until Tauluo comes in and saves their soul- a process which the game also describes as morbid due to it's visceral destruction of the gynoid's body. while Taoluo was not cruel to his sister in any sense, I liked that both sides invoked different forms of debilitating objectification in order to dictate what Ruili is, and how Ruili taking control of her identity involved the complete and utter obliteration of everything that could possibly imprint expectations upon her. The game does not lean into discussion of gender at all, but the traditional gender roles and expectations embedded in the life Ruili lived are what’s most prominent in how both Taoluo and Haojun thought of her, right down to how they both perceived her betrayal. And both of them are played for fools in the end due to it. the Ruili gynoids being molded into extensions of their masters lines up fascinatingly with this reading as well. I don’t think the full extent of these implications were even considered during the writing process, but the ending is executed in a way that I don’t dislike.

 As Xie said himself: she's no longer human, she's not bound by conventional laws anymore. As someone who exists outside of society, she's free to pursue happiness as she envisions it.

(the last Taoluo sees of the Ruili gynoid as he dies vs what he sees of Ruili when his soul fuses with her resurrected)

evil women swag

[fallenparty]

Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel