Ichizuna (Shojo→) Kanojo to Koi Shitai (一途な（処女→）彼女と恋したい) Review

The eroge market has been shrinking hard these past few years. Plenty of studios can’t be bothered making “story games” anymore and have all pivoted to short, punchy fanservice nukige, dressed up as “the pursuit of sweet romance.” In reality it’s just low-cost nukige to recoup money. Everyone knows these games have no substance — you’re here for the CGs — and the devs know it too, so they stuff more CGs in. And since a budget title needs more than one volume, they draw a bunch of heroines up front and sell them off in pieces. Small margin, high volume. Why not?

Today’s subject is Itchokusen (Shojo→) Kanojo to Koi Shitai, from COSMOS, a small label under Windmill. If you ask me, the game has exactly two highlights. One is the artist Tsukimoto Jin — the art is genuinely good, and the heroine is genuinely beautiful. The other is the original concept by Houmori Kei. Because Houmori Kei may be an old pervert, but he’s decent at writing “sweet romance” stuff. His old light novel Ore mo Omae mo Choro Suginai ka was pretty good: the male lead desperately wants a girlfriend but is kind of flippant, confesses to anyone he sees, and then by some mix-up ends up confessing to our heroine, who — get this — earnestly and seriously accepts. And so the two begin a relationship where they put the cart before the horse…

So I started Itchokusen (Shojo→) Kanojo to Koi Shitai. The opening is simple too: our male lead really wants a girlfriend, a classmate needles him about being single his whole life, and by some mix-up he confesses to our heroine, who — get this — earnestly and seriously accepts. And so the two begin a relationship where…

Wait!

While I was playing I didn’t think about it — I just felt all the lovey-dovey routines were familiar: a mix-up confession, then dating, then hooking up, then fucking. But looking back, the game’s whole framework is basically Ore mo Omae mo Choro Suginai ka. The only change is the heroine’s “earnest” part, rewritten so she “happens to have some feelings for him too” — a coincidental mutual attraction. If you ask me, that change is less interesting than the light novel. That’s when I noticed the game’s original concept is by Houmori Kei, but the scenario isn’t his. Which makes me think Houmori Kei just tossed out an idea from his old work and handed it to another writer to fill in. As for the plot after that, I can only say it’s about half dates and half sex. I honestly can’t tell you what specifically happens, since I’m not a normie and have never lived a normie life. Maybe a certain dark-skinned otaku living in Osaka who works and dates JK every day would have more experience than me.

Put simply, the game throws out a “prologue to romance” (possibly borrowed) and the rest is all romance. Given the art is genuinely nice and the engine handles high resolutions well, it’s worth a try if you just want CGs and pretty girls. The game also tells you there are two more heroines to pursue — no word on when the next volume drops, though.

Plenty in the game is worth snarking at, of course. Besides the initial setup being extremely similar to Houmori Kei’s light novel, there’s the absolutely moronic title: Itchokusen (Shojo→) Kanojo to Koi Shitai. I don’t even know how to translate it. “Itchokusen” means devoted to one person — basically “I want to date a devoted girl.” But what’s this “virgin” doing in there? So all of us honest fatties playing an eroge not only need the girl we like to be devoted to us, she also has to be a virgin? Sure, the “never marry a non-virgin” Antonio guy is a legend nobody on Reddit even remembers anymore, but this game really looks down on us honest fatties. As a fat otaku, having a girl talk to me at all is enough to make me spam X (Twitter); having a JK smile at me is enough to make me tweet about being in love. What right do I have to demand she be a “virgin”? For a loser otaku no girl will even talk to, getting cucked into raising another man’s kid would be a blessing!

I suggest the sequel drop “virgin.” It’s an eyesore, it’ll get the game canceled by the wokescolds, and more importantly it makes us honest fatties look way too picky.