Me, You, and the Apple of Eden... A Pure White Symphony

The people of Japan love their premises, love their weird kinks — and no, I don’t mean porn, though there’s plenty of that too. It’s more about what shows up in ACG works. That wild imagination keeps handing you something fresh, satisfying everyone’s fantasies and all those “what if” hypotheticals.

Which is exactly it: the world is full of “what ifs,” and a lot of novel stories come straight out of them. What if the protagonist is the last man on earth… What if the protagonist is a guy who dies if he tells a lie… What if… the protagonist is a crossdresser who sneaks into an all-girls school… Ah. Now that’s a good one. And that’s the “what if” behind Me, You, and the Apple of Eden (你与我与伊甸园的苹果)…

At some point the idea that “the male lead must crossdress, and crossdressing must be cute” became completely ubiquitous in ACG plots. Honestly, I’ve never once gotten excited over a guy in a dress. Long legs, sexy outfit, whatever — the moment you tell me you’re a man, my interest is gone. I also can’t tell whether the people who get off on crossdressing are genuinely into it or just excited because everyone else is excited. Point is, maybe it’s just not my thing. But crossdressing has undeniably become a hot topic, and so Me, You, and the Apple of Eden rode that topic into the visual novel market and launched ALMA.

As ALMA’s first title, Me, You, and the Apple of Eden looks like it had effort put into it. It’s got buzz, and it’s got a genuinely interesting premise. Shame that after finishing it, all you’re left with is regret.

If I could give Secret Game: Killer Queen a 3, then Me, You, and the Apple of Eden gets about a 4 — and 1 of those points is for Kiritani Hana.

So this game had every opportunity, and how did it get fumbled this badly? There are quite a few problems. The story, the characters, the structure — plenty of hard flaws.

Let’s start with the visuals. The character designs have this gorgeous, ornate feel. I honestly don’t know whether CUBE is a man or a woman, but the art clearly has that feminine, flowery style — the same kind of thing you see in Izumi-sensei’s Mashiroiro Symphony. Which is exactly what I’m complaining about, because several characters in Me, You, and the Apple of Eden look way too much like people from Mashiroiro Symphony… Hoyou Yukino in particular is straight-up Amahane Miu. Nanami looks like a shrunken-down Kurou Sakuno. And Makura Karen is basically Inui Sana. Hell, even the protagonist’s sister Luna is just a short-haired Senna Airi. Which is where my title comes from. Whether the designs are intentional imitation or just how it is, I can’t say. But the depiction of the women is very delicate — Kagamiin Kotone’s sprites in particular are benchmark-tier…

But! But! The protagonist’s sprite is a huge problem!

The protagonist’s sprite doesn’t read as a crossdresser at all! It’s the classic “drew a girl and called it a boy.” And to emphasize how much the protagonist resembles his sister, the story makes it impossible to tell any difference between him and her. Meanwhile, his initial bespectacled uke look is just gross… Gross! Genuinely gross!

The OP has no insertion timing at all — it just plays from the start. And the OP content is very “generous.” So “generous” that nearly every viewable CG in the game flashes by in it. If your dynamic vision is good enough, the OP spoils the whole thing clean. Those kiss scenes in particular spell it out directly, and even the later H scenes, censored as they are, make clear what’s happening… The song itself isn’t bad, and Sakakibara Yui actually doesn’t do the forced high-pitched voice she does for Yuzusoft OPs, which is rare. But an OP this “generous” dulls the game’s fun — that’s a problem. It also tells you from the side that the game has far too few CGs.

The system and effects have their bright spots. The portrait in the bottom left, the wipe transitions, the apple pop-up on the menu — all of it gives a premium feel. Shame… a pretty exterior with nothing inside still doesn’t cut it.

The game’s biggest problem is the story. A visual novel’s story should at minimum be the skeleton, but Me, You, and the Apple of Eden handles its plot with extreme carelessness. First, the scenario writer seems to have been trying to be clever and set up tons of choices — some of them outright malicious. You pick getting close to Nanami, and it dumps you on Yukino’s route. You choose to be with Nanami, but because Yukino shows up, you skip an H scene… None of that is the main point. The main point is that the story is full of contradictions.

On Yukino’s route, she’s written as a complete airhead. On Nanami’s route, she’s written as someone who seems like an airhead but is actually sharp. Makura Karen’s route is fine in the first half — it’s about a rich girl who won’t be preached at or forced into things. In the second half, the protagonist has already won her over, and after the closing sex scene it could have ended on a happy note. Instead they slam you with a supernatural twist that genuinely scared the piss out of me. I don’t know whether to say the writer’s imagination is too big, or that the writer is in elementary school. The sister route, by comparison, is flatter — it just sort of ends without saying anything. And the craziest part is that after it ends, they seem to remember they didn’t have enough H scenes, so they hastily add some kink, pad out the CGs, and the ED drops like the game got axed. Oh, and the ED has no content at all — just a logo and the OP song. After the ED there’s no epilogue, it just returns to the title screen. Combined with the game’s opening, it leaves you with a head-on-a-dragon-tail feeling.

And the even crazier part: across Makura Karen, Hoyou Yukino, and Nanami’s three routes, none of them is remotely surprised that the protagonist is a guy in girls’ clothes. From the start he’s interacting with them as a girl, even going out with them, and it plays like dates and romance the whole way. I don’t know whether an all-girls school really has that thick a yuri atmosphere, but if the story goes that way, the protagonist’s crossdressing premise becomes meaningless from the start. Then right before the push, when he whips it out, the girl finally learns he’s a boy. Logically there should be a strong reaction and resistance — she came into this with a yuri mindset, after all. And what happens? Both Nanami and Hoyou go, “Oh~ so you’re a boy~ that’s great.” Great my ass! What is going on in your heads?

Makura Karen’s route drifts so far into fantasy it’s like two kids arguing about the sun — whatever happens, happens. Curses, fireball casting, out-of-body experiences, all fine. What’s worse, the protagonist on this route starts out as a total uke — pushed around by women, then pushed around by men. You’re supposed to be a kendo practitioner, and you’re this much of a wimp? Does your kendo teacher know?

Compared to the other routes, Kagamiin Kotone’s is almost absurdly normal. There’s an engagement setup from the start, she knows the protagonist is crossdressing, everything proceeds naturally. Fewest complaints, warmest feeling, and with Kiritani Hana’s voice it’s perfect (applause).

The game’s title has “apple” in it, and the story seems to mention a magical apple tree on campus… then it shows up on Kagamiin Kotone’s route and is never mentioned again… Sure, “the apple of Eden” refers to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, but the game never clearly makes that its theme. The sister route tosses it off in passing at the end… and it’s completely incomprehensible. It feels like the title exists purely to look cool…

Fresh premise never properly used, gorgeous art with too few CGs, music that’s merely okay with no ED, a story that seems to want to satisfy every demand but ends up a contradictory mishmash. So a game that clearly could have been fun became a pretty piece of garbage…

If you’re interested in this game, just play Kagamiin Kotone’s route, collect the CGs, watch the OP, and call it a day. Not worth wasting your time.

ALMA’s first game turned out like this, so I’d guess sales weren’t exactly optimistic. I poked around their homepage out of curiosity and found the company’s operations have stopped. They said until 2013, but there’s still no sign of activity. Looks like the company really died from this failure…