Gakkou no Seiiki (学校のセイイキ) Review

When I was a kid, I loved watching Disney animated films—stuff like Mulan, Tarzan, Aladdin. Those movies weren’t just well-made; they were fun to watch, and sometimes they’d break into song-and-dance numbers.

So when the teacher asked us to write a review of a film we’d seen, I wrote about those. My feelings were pretty genuine—about as genuine as the game impressions I write now.

And unsurprisingly, the teacher tore me a new one.

She said I was shallow, criticized a bunch of things I’ve long since forgotten (this was primary school), but one line stuck with me.

“American movies are all about commercialization. They have zero artistic value. What’s there to even write a review about?”

Of course, I wasn’t the only one dumb enough to try. One class monitor wrote about Flirting Scholar and got roasted too—for reasons that were probably even worse.

Over the years I gradually forgot about it, but that teacher came back to mind a few years ago when I said on Reddit that I didn’t think Pacific Rim was good. The fights were a mess, the effects were overused, one minute you’re in the cockpit, the next it’s all dark outside—you can’t tell who’s hitting who. Cool premise, but the plot was a mess. Tons of characters, but they exist purely to sell the whole “aping Japanese mecha anime” angle. In other words, the film delivered the giant robots every mecha fan wanted to see, but the fights were a chaotic blur. In anime terms, you’d say… “the storyboarding sucks”? A dumb fun movie that wasn’t fun to watch. I couldn’t wrap my head around why people called it a masterpiece. Probably most of them just had a hard-on for the robot designs.

But man, that movie has a lot of fans… A lot of people worship it the same way they worship Your Name. now—neck-deep in their own little world, can’t stand hearing a single negative word. I got flamed fast.

Someone said, “You say Pacific Rim has messy fights and overused effects? Then tell me what movie has clean fights and well-used effects? What counts as a satisfying fight?”

“Transformers,” I said. That was the first thing that came to mind. Honestly, I really like the effects in Transformers. Sure, the third one or whatever the hell it was started getting melodramatic, but the fights were genuinely hype. And since Pacific Rim is a mecha film, Transformers felt like a fair comparison.

So of course, I got flamed again.

The guy was pretty nasty about it—basically “I thought you were gonna name some highbrow film and you come out with Transformers,” that kind of contempt. Then he went on about how much Michael Bay sucks, how all he knows is explosions, no substance, that’s the real “overused effects, messy fights.” He also made sure to stress that “Pacific Rim is one of the few genuinely anti-mainstream, anti-American-blockbuster-effects badass mecha films in recent years… blah blah blah…”

I was honestly confused and a bit insecure hearing that. I mean, for American blockbuster effects films, what you’re there for is the cool visuals and fights. Transformers has maybe a few too many explosions, but the fights are fine—at least I can tell who’s fighting who and how. That’s better than Pacific Rim’s dark-as-hell, rapid-fire cuts where the Chinese mecha shows up for five seconds and dies before you even see how. And honestly, I don’t think lots of explosions is a bad thing. Isn’t that the point—nonstop explosions for the thrill? You’re not going to the theater to watch Transformers turn into The King’s Speech or some gay drama, are you?

Finally I tried to verify something with the guy: “Is it because Pacific Rim has giant robots you like that you’re so hyped?” I personally don’t care much for giant robots, so maybe I just can’t empathize. I was trying to find common ground.

He kept up the contempt: “The homages and romance and depth in this film are things people like you could never understand.”

I wanted to ask him to explain where exactly the fights and romantic depth in Pacific Rim were…

“You’re only fit to watch mainstream popcorn flicks. You wouldn’t get it.” And with that, he dropped the mic.

What I really don’t get is this: different people have different takes on different works, that’s normal. But there’s always someone who thinks anything slightly mainstream is “vulgar,” and they won’t even bother to explain their view to a wider audience—just leave a cold “you don’t get it.” Maybe they’re too lazy to explain? Or maybe they never wanted to in the first place?

As I spent more time online, I pretty much figured it out. Between “the market” and “critical acclaim,” there’s a demand for “flexing.”

The flex need is basically extreme worship of some niche work, forming a pattern: you name your “favorite,” the other person probably hasn’t heard of it, and you get to play the expert, or act dismissive—the whole routine is “this work is excellent but very niche, and it’s niche because most ordinary people can’t grasp its brilliance, but I do, so I’ve transcended the masses.”

And honestly, that’s not wrong. Niche works are niche because they’re inherently not accepted by most people—they serve a specific small audience. If a niche work wants to expand its market, it has to choose content that’s easier for others to accept. But then it’s not niche anymore… it might even become sellout trash and lose its soul.

But here’s the thing… I don’t think every creator, company, or director wants to keep making “niche” products forever. Niche means fewer customers and less profit.

People gotta eat. So sooner or later, companies try to expand. Pacific Rim was probably a somewhat niche film aimed at “Japanese mecha vs. kaiju” fans, while its counterpart Transformers is a popcorn blockbuster adaptation of a cartoon basically everyone knows at least a little. Even if Pacific Rim used the mainland market, forced screenings, and hype from Quora big-shots to push its box office (kinda like Warcraft), it still can’t touch what Transformers raked in… I heard Pacific Rim is getting a sequel. I figure it’s riding the wave of mainland box office. But anyway, if the sequel can fix the fight scenes—make them less murky, stop the rapid cuts—I think I’d like that kind of movie. I’m a fan of dumb fun too. Though… I wouldn’t rule out Pacific Rim 2 compromising more for the audience, like becoming the explosion-filled Transformers that those fans despise… After all, nobody says no to money, right?

This all happened a few years ago, but recently I played a game that somehow brought it all back.

A lot of you probably know Gakkou no Seiiki. It’s the third entry in feng’s Seiiki series, and to put it bluntly, it’s a nukige. Even the official promo calls it “feng’s most pornographic work ever.” And this game… it’s a series. The first one: protagonist meets a rich girl and bangs her. The second: protagonist bangs his little sister. The third—this one—protagonist meets a runaway loli… and bangs her… Oh, and also his live-in older sister who’s also his homeroom teacher… bangs her too.

So previous games had one heroine each, but this one gives you two—double the portion—so feng proudly declares it their most pornographic game ever…

So how is the game? Well, compared to your average nukige, it’s got a few One More Things.

The “more” is the dialogue skits. Your typical nukige is just a few lines and then straight to boning, but the Seiiki series gives you some slice-of-life first…

Not that the daily stuff is anything special. You chat and joke around with your heroines: one is your sister (and homeroom teacher), the other is a rich girl who ran away after fighting with her mom (she’s part Russian, and her mom looks just like her). Your sister is all serious in class but comes home a total slob who drinks nonstop, living like Asami Tōi’s Twitter avatar. The runaway rich girl moves into your house, replacing the sister you banged in the previous game, doing the cooking and chores. So you chat through these daily skits, and when the writer figures it’s about time, you get a choice of who to bang…

The choice is simple and crude, and yeah, it really is simple and crude. Pick who you want. Choose the sister, bang the sister. Choose the rich girl, bang the rich girl.

The sister tells you she never got a boyfriend because she had feelings for you, you confess to each other, then bang like rabbits at school.

The rich girl tells you she ran away because she fell in love with you, you confess to each other, then bang like rabbits at school.

There’s also a drunk 3P ending, but surprisingly the game is positive and wholesome: after the 3P, the rich girl feels guilty and goes home… and that’s it. It’s considered a Normal End.

In both the sister ending and the rich girl ending, your sister from the previous game shows up and says, “Bro, I don’t care who you bang, but the key thing is don’t forget to include me.”

So it’s fundamentally a nukige. But the daily dialogue at the front is actually pretty fun. Not much of it, but you can tell they threw in some jokes.

Just a little bit of jokes, though.

As a nukige, I’d say it doesn’t quite cut it on the “fap” scale. Sure, there’s a lot of HCG, but most are just one image with a few simple variations. The music is just a couple tracks, the OP and ED are slapped on with a single song each—it’s a disgrace to the Seiiki series’ annual pass.

Yes, the Seiiki series is feng’s annual pass, one game a year. This is the third. The quality doesn’t live up to an annual pass, but then again the game is dirt cheap… so I guess it’s fine. Makes sense.

Still, this is the third time they’ve pulled this routine. The first game, Kanojo no Seiiki, and the second, Imouto no Seiiki, already used it. Doing it a third time gets old. I’m tired of it, and plenty of Japanese players are too.

Thinking back, feng used to be a decent eroge company releasing one game a year—stuff like Hoshi Ori and the loli serenade game. Reactions were lukewarm, but at least the previous game got an anime. As moe games they were “okay.” I don’t know what got into them a few years back, switching to annual passes—nukige annual passes, cheap nukige annual passes…

And the funny thing is, this “cheap nukige annual pass” model seems to have made them happier. Games are cheap, content is easy to make, the script doesn’t need to be long, the artist is someone popular like Ryouka, music is two tracks, BGM can be recycled from previous games. Standard edition sells for under 2000 yen, bundle it with a pillow and it’s 10000 yen, and people still buy it. The game is short, but there’s no shortage of buyers—and the hardcore pillow buyers are easy marks. Honestly, these days even if a galge has a great script and top-tier production, the audience is tiny. Most otaku are into anime and ero content. The artist has become the main factor deciding whether a galge sells at first glance. The only real draw of feng’s Seiiki series is Ryouka’s art—a lot of people came for Ryouka. “If otaku buy eroge for the artist, then I’ll just hire a kickass artist and cut corners everywhere else.” That’s how the Seiiki series was born, and it seems to have worked pretty well.

This successful model has attracted copycats. This year light put out a seasonal pass for Four Seasons Lie, Frontwing has a monthly pass for Blossom, and even Kusoge-sha followed suit with low-cost small releases. Most of these are nukige too—Frontwing’s is more of a moe game, but the style is basically the same.

That is, “not focused on telling a story.”

The main thing is selling art style, characters, ero, merch, etc., etc…

If good art and good fap material sell, then you put the steel where it matters…

So we learned that the 2016 Japanese eroge market apparently grew… Meaning a lot of companies gave up on high-quality works and switched to scattering small nukige, and ended up making more money. It’s like a film director giving up on theatrical releases and going to shoot internet ads to rake it in.

So I can’t help but think back to what my primary school teacher said—that commercial stuff has no substance. And those niche elitists who looked down on me. Last year Sakura no Uta was hyped to hell as the year’s best, but in the end it still didn’t outsell Yuzusoft, right? And combined sales probably don’t even match what the nukige annual-pass companies are making this year.

People who just want to fap can’t be bothered to check out Sakura no Uta. They don’t want to waste time. And the hardcore Sakura no Uta fans look down on the fap crowd, just like the Pacific Rim fans looked down on me, calling them shallow. But it’s the fap crowd that keeps eroge companies alive. And don’t forget: compared to Sakura no Uta, a nukige annual pass might get the fap crowd to open their wallets multiple times…

Eating or flexing, that is the question.

But when you can barely survive, you don’t have the luxury to flex…