Sorairo Innocent (空色イノセント) Review

During a matchmaking session with a music teacher, she asked me a question:

“What was your youth like?”

I have to say, there aren’t many questions in this world that can completely leave me speechless, but this one definitely counts.

I was silent for a long time, unable to say a word…

“What’s wrong? Did you think of something bad?” The music teacher saw my troubled expression and looked a bit puzzled.

“Uh… I don’t really get it. What is ‘youth’?”

“………………”

The music teacher sighed after a long pause, glanced at me, seemed to understand something, slowly stirred the coffee cup in front of her, and without looking up asked:

“I mean, when you were young, or… when you were in school, was there anything you wanted to do? For example… you’re so tall… did you play basketball?”

“No.”

“…………”

I answered too quickly, and the music teacher couldn’t react in time.

“Then… did you play games?”

“Yeah.”

“You must have met a lot of people through games.”

“No…”

“Then what did you play?”

“Warcraft, World of Warcraft, Dota…”

“Then you should know a lot of people to play with. I see boys always going off in groups to play.”

“No… I always just played against the computer by myself.”

“……………………”

The music teacher’s head, which had just lifted, sank again… She continued asking questions in that mechanical voice without looking up.

“So… did you ever date anyone when you were in school?”

“No.”

“Was there a girl you liked?”

“No.”

“Was there a boy you liked?”

“????”

“Yes?”

“No! No no no no no!”

“Did you join any clubs?”

“No.”

“You said you like listening to music—have you ever been to a concert of a singer you like?”

“No.”

“Did you like sports when you were in school?”

“No, I was pretty fat back then.”

“Did you have any good buddies you hung out with in school?”

“Not rea…lly… I guess?”

“Either you did or you didn’t. What do you mean ‘I guess’?”

“Maybe… it doesn’t count as hanging out?”

“Then what was it?”

The music teacher got a little interested.

“Watching… adult animation?”

“………………”

The music teacher sighed and said, half-seriously:

“I think every man does that. It’s nothing special.”

“Hehehe… I think so too.”

“So…” The music teacher clasped her hands together, slowly placed them on the table, tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, and with a weird smile at the corner of her mouth, said slowly…

“So… your youth got eaten by a dog?”

………………

As I left that coffee shop, that voice kept echoing in my head…

“Has my youth really… been eaten by a dog?”

Honestly, I don’t even have a clear concept of what “youth” is, let alone whether I ever really had one. In my eyes, my younger days were pretty routine—school every day, smooth progression to the next grade, smooth graduation, then into work. Every day was just home and work, back and forth. I can’t say I lost anything or missed out on anything. Sometimes I even feel like almost everyone should be like this…

It was only when I saw other people reminiscing about their youth that I realized my youth really did seem to have been eaten by a dog…

Some people’s youth might be soccer, or basketball, or World of Warcraft, or a clumsy romance, or all-nighters with teammates in an internet cafe. Maybe this, maybe that. The only thing I can remotely claim is that I played World of Warcraft, but only dabbled—I muddled through a year of guild activities, neither here nor there, and then it fizzled out.

No friends left behind, nothing precious left behind…

Maybe that’s why whenever I talk about the past with others, I always feel I have nothing to talk about and no common topics.

So setting aside me, the guy with absolutely no youth to speak of—what should a perfect youth look like? There’s no chance in reality anymore, but maybe a game can tell me the answer.

Sorairo Innocent is exactly such a story about youth.

Sorairo Innocent was announced quite a while ago—around September, just after my birthday. After playing the trial version, I was very, very impressed, even though Chuuni Kuukan didn’t rate it highly.

The game takes the advertised “youth” route: boys and girls striving to accomplish something great.

I never expected it to be delayed so many times that I’d start worrying about its quality, but after finishing it, I realized those worries were completely unnecessary.

The story begins with the protagonist transferring schools after failing to become a pilot. Now an ordinary student, he discovers the “Flight Club” at his new school and joins as a member. At the same time, he meets Tsukigase Mahiru, the president of the “Biology Club.” Coincidentally, Mahiru’s younger sister found some Canada goose eggs in a pond near the school with no one managing them—they were likely to be destroyed—so the Biology Club takes on the responsibility of raising these wild birds. Meanwhile, while trying to borrow some bird-related movies from Nifutani Hanako, the president of the “Film Appreciation Club,” he sees a scene in a movie where the protagonist flies a plane alongside birds.

So the protagonist and the Biology Club members hit on a shared idea: they want to raise these Canada geese and fly alongside them in a plane. That’s where the story begins.

Once the goal is set, the rest proceeds step by step: feeding the birds, raising them, helping them withstand the cold, and then flight training as they grow. Meanwhile, the protagonist starts teaching Mahiru to fly, and Mahiru gamely gets her license. However, the first test flight ends with the plane damaged due to a forced takeoff in bad weather. Because of safety concerns, the Flight Club gets a warning, but the teacher and everyone around them don’t give up—they quietly help the protagonist and his friends. In the final week before the school festival, they finally complete the takeoff. At the same time, the protagonist realizes that he doesn’t want to fly with the birds—he wants to lead them to experience the beauty of the sky.

So, led by a small glider, a line of Canada geese follows into the pure blue sky. The feat accomplished by the protagonist’s Flight Club and Biology Club is filmed by the Film Appreciation Club and gets rave reviews at the school festival. The protagonist also ends up with Mahiru as his girlfriend. After graduation, this story of “wanting to fly with birds” will surely become a wonderful memory for the rest of his life. The main story is Mahiru’s route; you can pursue other heroines, but their routes are purely service for players—freebies. This game is more like a single-route story, and as long as the main story is good, that’s fine.

This game feels completely different from other visual novels to me. It feels more like an anime… like some youth ensemble drama made by P.A. Works. Beautiful music, cute heroines, a quietly supportive protagonist, and various beautiful scenery elements—that’s the strong impression I get. Generally, stories about “a group of young people getting together to build something” aren’t rare, and most follow a similar path: a seemingly unreachable goal, a heroine obsessed with that goal, a junior who clumsily but persistently helps out, a side character who seems lazy but quietly supports the protagonists, and a protagonist who always acts indifferent but is constantly assisting the heroine, plus a romance that grows between the protagonist and heroine over time… These elements are basically all here, and it doesn’t have some ridiculous grand conspiracy like Robotics Notes, nor does it pull a sudden melodramatic twist like most other visual novels. Everything is steady—raising the animals, the difficulties with flying—giving you a great sense of realism. That realism makes you feel as if you’re really one of them.

As for the music, I have nothing to complain about: beautiful, fitting the mood, and that main theme with the bagpipes couldn’t be better. The OP is upbeat, the ED is moving, and the art needs no elaboration—everyone looks flawless. Of course, as an R18 visual novel, the H scenes are well done too, not too abrupt or out of place. All in all, it’s really impeccable.

The choices in the game don’t give you a hard time—just pick who you like once. But even so, people still call this game boring…

I guess that’s expected. In a circle where everyone’s used to spicy hot pot and the standard for greatness is “whose hot pot is the spiciest, most intense, weirdest,” if you serve a bowl of Yangzhou fried rice, it’ll naturally be torn to shreds. Frankly, most visual novel players have become twisted, blindly worshipping twisted scenario writers and other twisted things…

As for whether the story is good, I think if P.A. Works actually made it into an anime, it would at least be TARI TARI level…

After experiencing the game, my understanding of “youth” seems to have deepened. Everyone has some unforgettable things from their younger days—those happy times sunk in the corners of memory that always come back—maybe that’s my youth.

I remember it was 2002–2003, before graduating middle school. My classmates and friends and I would tirelessly discuss every page of that month’s Popular Software magazine, talk about the progress of the latest pirated RPGs, or hang out at a friend’s house on weekends. There were also days we skipped class to play LAN games at an internet cafe. We didn’t really accomplish anything, but that was truly the happiest time.

After middle school graduation, everyone scattered to their own high schools. We only met up again in college, and then it suddenly hit me that many things could never go back.

Maybe it’s not that I had no youth—I just didn’t notice it. It’s just that youth can never be found again. That year in middle school, I was 14.

“Some things only a fourteen-year-old understands, some dreams only a fourteen-year-old dreams. The grown-up self can never return to being fourteen, but can never forget that dream.”

Feeling sentimental, I changed my Discord status. Honestly, I hadn’t used Discord in ages.

Not long after, the avatar of a middle school friend I hadn’t contacted in a long time started flashing. Could he have understood my signature?

“You there?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know my real name?”

That was a weird question… but I could only answer honestly.

“Oh.” After getting my answer, my friend seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “So it’s really you. I fucking thought your account got hacked.”

“Huh?”

“If it wasn’t hacked, what’s with that signature? It’s like those chicken-soup posts from a hacked Sina Weibo account selling slimming socks.”

“Just feeling inspired.”

“Inspired?”

“Yeah, reminiscing about youth.”

“Youth?”

“Yeah, don’t you ever reminisce about your youth?”

“……………………”

After a long while, my classmate replied with one line:

“Youth this, youth that—youth my fucking ass. You’ve only lived a few days and you’re already reminiscing?”

……………………

Well, thinking about it, that’s about right. People say a person has a physical age and a mental age. Maybe mentally, I’ve never grown old.