Hanahime Absolute! (ハナヒメ＊アブソリュート!) Review

I’m a loser. Loser on every level. But even I have my own thoughts, my own opinions, my own ideas.

Still, there are always people in this world who can’t mind their own business, and their main method is forcing their own wishes onto you.

You want to resist, but you’re the loser and they’re the winner. When a winner lectures a loser on life experience, can you really say they’re wrong?

The feeling of being held down and fucked against your will — after the raw thrill wears off, all that’s left is despair.

“I think you should lower your standards.” Duan Dashi, sitting across from me in the café, had started doling out his precious relationship wisdom again. “You know, finding a partner and getting married isn’t just about looks.”

“But she’s way too ugly.” I lifted my chin off the table with no strength left. “A partner is someone you live with long-term. I swear if I married that thing I’d shrivel into a stick in no time.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“And then I’d starve to death soon after.”

“Why?”

“Because looking at her makes me want to puke and I can’t eat!!” I buried my head in the table, my right palm slapping the surface.

“Actually I heard that girl’s not bad.” Duan Dashi said, softening. “And I heard her father’s a high-ranking official.”

“Do you know shit about anything?!” This time I couldn’t even be bothered to lift my head; I just lay my forehead on the table. “The qualifications in a blind date introduction always need a discount. Like how this time she said she’s a university thermodynamics teacher, but actually she’s a lecturer on train power supply maintenance at a technical school. She says her dad’s a high-ranking official — take the optimistic estimate, maybe he’s the high-ranking official’s driver.”

“Ugh… you can’t keep going on like this…” Duan Dashi sighed.

“I fucking know I can’t! You know how rare it is these days to find someone as honest as me in a blind date, no bragging, no padding?”

“You don’t brag?”

“Holy shit!” My head shot up off the table, bloodshot eyes fixed on Duan Dashi. “Go ask the women who’ve been set up with me what they felt! Every single one of them looked at me with a look of surprise, and even if they’d seen my photo beforehand and knew my info, they still looked surprised when they met me. They’d already discounted me from the profile in their heads, and on top of that I look worse in photos — I actually look a bit better in person…”

“Okay, okay, I get it…” Duan Dashi got impatient. “So what’s wrong with this one? Especially ugly?”

“You ever play Overwatch?”

“Huh? No, I’ve seen other people play it. What about it?” Duan Dashi looked confused.

“There’s a character in Overwatch, a Chinese one, named Mei.”

“And?”

“That woman… in her photo she’s got Widowmaker’s face. In person she’s got Mei’s face.”

“Pfft…”

“Don’t you fucking laugh!” I flipped Duan Dashi off. He forced it down and drank several gulps of water.

“Actually Mei’s not bad… really.” Duan Dashi said, wiping his mouth.

“If she were Mei that’d be great.” My head dropped back to the table. “Mei’s face shape. Mai Goto’s face.”

“Who’s Mai Goto?”

“Fuck you, can’t you Google it?!”

“Oh… oh…” Duan Dashi started fiddling with his phone… “She’s not bad, is she… look…”

I took one look, decided I didn’t want to talk, and handed him my phone.

“Oh…” Duan Dashi stopped talking and put the phone back by my hand. “So what’s your type, then? I heard you’re in contact a lot with that lawyer, Miss Mu, from before?”

“You mean this one?” I handed him my phone again.

“Huh…” Duan Dashi looked. “It really is Miss Mu, but why’d she go to Japan…”

“She’s married!” I muttered. “The guy owns a wrestling gym.”

“Miss Mu got married?” Duan Dashi looked blank. “Never heard that.”

“That’s not Miss Mu either, she just looks and sounds like her.”

“If she’s not Miss Mu why the hell are you showing me this? What’s your type?”

“Skinny. Small. The skinnier the better, the smaller the better.”

“You don’t get it. Let an old hand tell you.” Duan Dashi lowered his voice, glanced around, and said to me, “Skinny little ones have small tits.”

“What fucking use are big tits?!” I swung my arm out without lowering my voice at all, drawing stares from everyone around, and a few girls started whispering.

“So what kind do you think is best?”

“This kind’s pretty good.” I handed him my phone again.

“Oh… not bad…” Duan Dashi looked. “But she seems Japanese.”

“I’m just giving an example…”

“What app is this, it’s not X…” Duan Dashi started scrolling through my phone — normally I don’t mind people looking at my phone, unless it’s a time I don’t want you to look. “You follow a lot of girls on here… though they all seem Japanese, oh and there’s quite a few dirty pictures too.”

The words “dirty pictures” drew more stares from the surroundings, and those whispering girls from before started whispering again.

“Fuck, keep it down.”

“Oh, oh…” Duan Dashi stared at the phone without blinking. “Doesn’t this one fit your requirements too?”

I glanced over…

“What you’re seeing is an illusion.” I pulled up another picture and handed it back. “This is the truth.”

“Holy shit…” Duan Dashi was shocked.

“And this one’s daughter is already over three years old.”

“Why the fuck are you following a middle-aged lady?”

“She’s a game voice actress.”

“A what?”

“She voices characters in games.”

“Oh… why didn’t you just say so!” Duan Dashi slapped his thigh, excitedly and loudly. “So she’s the voice of those dirty games you play every day!”

I had already chosen to ignore the stares from the women at the surrounding tables.

“What? She have a nice voice?”

“No, it’s godawful.” I buried my head in the table again. “Or rather I don’t want to hear her voice ever again, I’ve been listening to it for almost four months.”

“Then why the fuck are you following her? You a masochist?”

“You’re the fucking masochist, your whole family’s masochists!”

“I was just giving an example…” Duan Dashi had unknowingly taken my phone again and kept scrolling through the Twitter on it. “You’ve got so many dirty pics and cute girls on here… oh wait, middle-aged ladies. Doesn’t looking at this get boring?”

“I’m bored too!”

“Oh right, you still haven’t said — what’s your type?” Duan Dashi put the phone down. “Or out of all these cute girls, which one do you like best? I can recommend some along those lines.”

“Hmm…” I scrolled around and handed the phone to Duan Dashi.

“………………” Duan Dashi looked for a moment… “Isn’t she a middle-aged lady too?”

“Holy shit!” My head bounced off the table again. “What the hell do you know? This one’s got a huge voice bonus.”

“A voice actress too?”

I nodded.

“But she really is a middle-aged lady, isn’t she?” Duan Dashi tilted his head. “Didn’t you say her daughter’s already three?”

“That was the other middle-aged lady!”

“Oh… not this middle-aged lady?”

“This one’s not a fucking middle-aged lady!”

“But she doesn’t really look skinny.” Duan Dashi was confused. “Didn’t you say you like them skinny and small?”

“You can’t judge by appearances.”

“Holy shit!” Duan Dashi slapped the table. “Didn’t you start this whole thing by judging people by their appearances?!”

“………………”

My eyes went blank and I buried my face in the table again.

“I’m telling you…” Duan Dashi’s tone turned serious. “It’s time to accept reality. Stop living in the dream world of Japanese middle-aged ladies.”

“………………”

“Plenty of girls look better than these voice actresses anyway. Even if you judge by appearances you could look at those girls more. Hey! Last time I saw a girl who looked a lot like this person you follow on your phone!” Duan Dashi handed me the phone.

I glanced at it and handed the phone back to Duan Dashi.

“Holy shit!” Duan Dashi was shocked. “That’s a pretty big gap…”

“The real gap’s probably even bigger.” My forehead never left the table. “And this one’s already been skin-smoothing filtered, don’t know if the face-slimming’s on too.”

“Huh?” Duan Dashi looked blank.

“It’s! All! That! Fucking! Face! Slimming! Beauty! Filter! App’s! Fault!” I said, one word at a time, slapping the table with my palm. I figure I drew the stares of the girls at the surrounding tables again. “Every single blind date I’ve met has used this thing! In the photo they’re acceptable, in person it scared me to death aaaaaaah!!!”

“Okay, okay…” Duan Dashi patted my back to comfort me.

“AAAAAAAH!!” I hadn’t stopped screaming. “This is a basic trust issue aaaaaaah!”

“At this rate you’ll end up going gay.”

“I’m! Not! A! Fucking! Homo! AAAAAAAAAH!” I got ready to slap the table again, but Duan Dashi pinned my right hand.

“You seem pretty worked up today… did you drink?”

“No!” I swung my arm free. “I don’t drink, I just ate a few pieces of chocolate aaaaaaah!”

“You can’t keep going like this…” Duan Dashi was serious… “You can’t just look at faces. And think about it — would someone good-looking even be doing blind dates? They’d have been snapped up already. The good-looking ones left doing blind dates probably have mental issues.”

I thought that made a lot of sense and calmed down a bit, though my face was still on the table.

“Let’s go, let’s go, time to go home and sleep…” Duan Dashi patted me, signaling to leave together.

I don’t know how I got home. I just know I woke up at 9 a.m.

Checked my messages and there was one from Duan Dashi:

“Face-slimming apps really are a scam, but as long as you believe in true love, you’ll find the right one. Hang in there, Li Dashi!”

I have to admit Duan Dashi can be pretty solid sometimes.

I’m off work today. What should I do? Play a game, I guess.

Saw that last month’s Hanahime＊Absolute! got a Kyoko route APPEND released, so I hurried to download, install, and start playing.

The patch is 230 MB — it does include a character route, after all…

But the moment I launched it I was dumbfounded:

Holy shit, you can’t even be bothered to give non-route characters voice lines anymore?

So I kept playing, bracing myself for battle the whole time…

But not even an hour later, the route was over…

No battle!

Holy shit, is this APPEND just one story segment?

And what even is this story…

The ojou-sama Kyoko has been arranged by her family to marry some young gentleman.

And Kyoko, with the protagonist’s help, undergoes “bride training” — basically, the protagonist teaches Kyoko how to do housework and how to be a wife.

Kyoko’s maid even stresses that the two must not fool around, and that she must come home on time at night.

And so the “bride training” begins… as expected, the two get it on, and do it several times.

Kyoko comes home late, past the time limit, gets chewed out by the maid, and then the two continue this secret relationship — while Kyoko is still, in the future, going to marry some young gentleman. That engagement was never called off.

After finishing the story I was kind of stunned…

What kind of story is this?

The protagonist sleeps with someone else’s fiancée… and takes her first time…

Meaning.

The protagonist cuckolds the other guy.

Holy shit! Is this an NTR story?

I instantly got that “I fucked a dog” feeling, but I checked the Japanese reviews and they all said the HCGs weren’t enough, that the “bride training” wasn’t sweet enough… and so on. Nobody mentioned this story being packed with NTR elements.

Am I the only one seeing the NTR here?

But then again, I’ve been seeing more and more NTR lately.

At work, when someone’s getting close to a married female coworker, I think about whether her husband’s been cuckolded. When I see a classmate’s wife replying a bit too much to others in her feed, I think my poor classmate. ………………

My field of vision is practically turning green already. Probably because I’ve been reading too much related content… ACFUN article section / X / Reddit / Tea House chat room / Daguerre’s Flag / Yahoo! Chiebukuro… etc.

But this is wrong! I, with such upright values, who can recite the Three Pieces on Toad and the Scientific Outlook on Development by heart — how could my eyeballs get turned green so easily?

But there’s no helping it.

I no longer believe a woman can fall for a man out of emotion. It’s either money or sex, either power or betrayal…

I picked up my phone and replied to Duan Dashi: “What if I don’t even believe in true love anymore?”

A reply came quickly.

“Remember that suggestion I made yesterday? Think it over.”

What suggestion? I don’t remember…

Whatever. Forget it, so be it…