Garasu Hime to Kagami no Juusha (ガラス姫と鏡の従者) Review

Last year, when I was writing “My Favorite Eroge of 2019”, I gave the number one spot to a work by Tōta-sensei.

I think Tōta-sensei sometimes writes preachy plots, and he has this weird obsession with random trivia that makes reading painful, but his storytelling is structurally sound, and most importantly, he always delivers something memorable. Whether it’s the moral encouragement in Floral Flowlove (フローラル・フローラブ), or the exploration of Japanese folklore, the hiyoku bird, and immortality in Tamayura Mirai (タマユラミライ), both are thought-provoking. To borrow the words of that Osaka Black Shark normie who’s always got a JK under his arm: “He can tell a good big-picture story.”

But soon enough, Tōta slapped me in the face. That’s what today’s topic is about: Garasu Hime to Kagami no Juusha — Glass Princess and the Mirror Servant.

I don’t think there’s much point in going over the plot, because I barely remember it. Honestly, I forgot it as soon as I finished.

Basically, the protagonist is a student at some noble academy that could be in Japan or Northern Europe — who knows. The school is full of “princesses” from various noble families, and “servants” who are training to become their attendants. After going through the school’s program, the servants can graduate and get paired up with the princesses…

What a dumbass setting. It sounds like a karaoke box with special services, and the school is basically a big pimping company.

Our protagonist studies at this school, and through his own efforts, he ends up becoming the servant of the princess he’s into, and gets a few rounds in with her along the way.

There are several princess candidates: a blonde he’s known since childhood, a blue-haired girl crossdressing to find her brother, a slutty purple-haired Japanese girl from who-knows-where, and a pink-haired girl with huge tits who wants to be a maid. From the overall setup, the game’s designated main heroine is clearly the blonde, because the opening flashback already announces that she and the protagonist share a childhood memory and promised to be together in the future, so her ending is naturally the obvious one.

And even the designated heroine’s route has no highlights. The protagonist wants to become her servant and also date her, but it drags in a whole bunch of “political marriage” nonsense within the “noble circle.” Basically, the protagonist is fundamentally a “servant,” and the class difference means he can’t stand on equal footing with a “princess,” let alone become her lover. To emphasize the class gap, the game even introduces a “suspected gay” character, saying that this “gay” is a noble who might marry the blonde for political reasons, and the protagonist is about to be NTR’d by a gay guy.

I don’t see the problem. They could totally have the gay guy and the blonde in a sham marriage while the protagonist continues his affair with the princess in private. The gay guy even says he likes the protagonist, so the protagonist could just go “both sides” and have a “happy threesome ending.” That’s obviously an open “Happy Ending,” so why make it so grim and dramatic? History is full of this kind of thing. Does the ending have to have the “commoner” protagonist earn upper-class recognition through positive platitudes and effort? Is that necessary? Is it even possible?

And surprisingly, this game has no route locks or narrative connections that make you think the blonde is the protagonist’s final choice. It just lists all the characters and lets you pick freely, and the stories between different characters are almost unrelated, like different worldlines… This is completely different from Tōta-sensei’s previous style! Tōta even went out of his way to post a recommended route order, but even that couldn’t save the game’s score on ErogameScape.

This game has way too many flaws, so let me just list them bluntly:

1. The dumbass GIGA engine

Anyone who’s played it knows how dumb the GIGA engine is. Remember the black screen nightmare when launching Aonatsu Line (アオナツライン)? Remember that stupid “battery authentication”? Even if you don’t remember those, the incredibly dumb, thin, long font will still drive you crazy. GIGA claims to be a software development company, and someone on Weibo said their development process is advanced, but an advanced process can’t hide that shitty art direction. Plus, this game is still only 720p — it’s 2021, for crying out loud! A company that calls itself tech-driven should at least have some ambition for its visuals, right? Stop making that shitty rip-off Blade & Soul-style combat system in garbage action games and actually improve your system’s graphics and aesthetics. Stop churning out shitty ports to scam money — and if you do port to Switch, remember to support the D-pad and touchscreen, thanks!

2. The god-awful OP

Garasu Hime to Kagami no Juusha brought in two VTubers to sing the OP, and the performance is a total car crash. Oh wait, it’s not a live performance — it’s a studio recording. I swear nayuta singing would sound 100 times better than those two, but the game probably thought VTubers are popular now, so getting them to sing would bring in viewers. And indeed, plenty of dumbass otaku with their brains raped by VTubers are praising it on ErogameScape: “It sounds awful at first, but it grows on you.” That’s Stockholm syndrome, right there.

3. Misunderstanding the correct use of “nobles”

Since this game is about high society, the moment Tōta sees “high society,” his mental illness kicks in — the screen is filled with honorifics and endless polite platitudes, which feels extremely uncomfortable. And I can guarantee that it’s not just me, a non-Japanese, who feels uncomfortable; Japanese people would feel it too. I remember many Japanese think that honorifics and class hierarchy are cultural garbage, and they’re suffocating under them in Japanese society. And you’re playing that card in a game? In an eroge, no less? Are you asking for death?

Moreover, this game fundamentally misunderstands the correct use of “nobles.” Why do “noble young lady” elements keep popping up in eroge? Why are “ojou-sama” and “noblewoman” always the most popular characters in nukige? Why do so many otaku love the “unreachable flower”? It’s absolutely not because they like the honorifics in dialogue, nor because they like the “upper-class feel,” and certainly not because they yearn for a “high-class” lifestyle. It’s simply because they want to pin that “noble” down and enjoy the contrasting thrill of release. Don’t forget, this is an eroge!

Look at the corresponding brand, Note, which often does noble routes — are their final HCGs anything but实用 (practical) as hell? Did they ever discuss the social issue of whether class boundaries should be crossed? Look at the popular noble girls in past galgames — which one doesn’t have a mountain of doujinshi and lewd art? And nobles come with garter belts and black stockings, which is pure fap material for horny otaku.

So the only character who gets any praise in this game is the Japanese purple-haired princess — not because of the story, but because she’s slutty. Even that Osaka Black Shark normie would drop his JK and jerk off to her. That’s the correct use of “nobles” in a galgame.

Anyway, for Garasu Hime to Kagami no Juusha, aside from the incredibly dumb system, the atrocious OP, the sleep-inducing common route, and the story being completely out of touch with reality (it’s 2021 — where are you going to find princesses and servants? In a karaoke booth?), the most important thing is that the game’s theme and direction are wrong. If you can’t tell a memorable story, Tōta-sensei, you might as well have written this as a nukige. This half-nukige piece of crap is best enjoyed by just looking at the CGs and jerking off.

Of course, if you were actually trolling, Tōta-sensei, and you want GIGA to go bankrupt just like I do, and you deliberately made this game to lose money — then say no more. Based. Take my like.