Hatsukoi Sankai Me (初恋サンカイメ) Review

I was already suspicious of Hatsukoi Sankai-me from the moment I saw the promo material. The title literally means “third-time first love.”

First love is supposed to emphasize the first, right? Once you’re past the first time, the second one can’t be called a first love anymore. So how the hell do you get three of them?

I wasn’t interested in the game to begin with. The promo looked whatever, the lead heroine was voiced by Sendai-baasan, and I didn’t recognize anyone else in the cast. The only reason I wanted to play it was the little sister voiced by Uehara Aoi…

And no, I’m not a siscon. I need to make that clear.

What I didn’t expect was that after playing it, it actually exceeded my expectations. Hell, it might be the first game this year I’ve seen that “gets its story completely straightened out.” At the very least it’s at the level of a good title, right?

The only real mystery for me was why the protagonist’s romance is called a “third first love.” Honestly, I went in expecting the game to give me a proper explanation.

The game opens with the protagonist transferring to a school on a small island developed on its own. I forget whether it’s a college or a high school, but he came here to continue his education, and he makes a point of saying he applied here specifically to escape his old city and his old environment.

Why is he running away? Because back at his old school, he met a girl he cared about named Kusunoha Misaki. Before he’d even figured out whether he liked her, he hastily asked her out, hastily confessed, and the girl looked so spooked she turned and ran — and the very next day her whole family moved away and she transferred schools. The protagonist figured his recklessness had hurt her, and at the same time he confirmed that he really did like this girl. She never gave him an answer and just moved away, which was obviously her rejecting him. He got dumped.

Wanting to escape his old environment after getting dumped is understandable, right?

So the protagonist starts school on this island, and on his very first day he meets his upperclassman Hikami Yurino, a pretty girl with big eyes. Big-eyes-senpai enthusiastically invites him to join her “Film Appreciation Club,” and after thinking it over he agrees. Later his little sister transfers to the school too, joins the Film Appreciation Club, and a few other classmates join as well — a foreign exchange student, a senpai a year above, and so on.

The Film Appreciation Club is planning an event for the summer: they’re going to shoot a movie themselves. The club president — big-eyes-senpai — trusts the protagonist enough to let him decide what it’s about.

“Then let’s do a love story… A boy who isn’t sure whether he likes a girl, confesses to her recklessly, and gets rejected…”

That’s basically the protagonist’s own first-love story. Big-eyes-senpai can tell something’s off about it, and she has a rough idea that he’s been hurt before, but she accepts the proposal — and volunteers herself to play the female lead.

Then one day, while the protagonist is walking around the island, a tiny little girl suddenly falls out of the sky. He’s startled, because she looks exactly like his first love, Kusunoha Misaki. But when he asks the girl if she knows Misaki, she says she doesn’t know anything, doesn’t know anyone, doesn’t even know where she came from…

The protagonist is completely lost, and ends up naming the girl Rin, because she has a little bell on her head. At first only he can see her, but as time goes on the people around him — the whole Film Appreciation Club — can see her too, and they all get to know her.

The protagonist assumes the girl is a ghost, since she can float around freely. At the very least she’s not human.

After that, as the protagonist spends more time with big-eyes-senpai, more and more people get involved in the movie, including the little girl, who can’t really help and just tags along to play — but the group has fun anyway.

Spending enough time together breeds feelings, and soon the protagonist realizes he seems to have fallen for big-eyes-senpai without noticing. Everyone around him says they’re a great match and pushes him to confess, and big-eyes-senpai herself seems to understand he likes her, quietly waiting for him to say it.

Eventually even Rin can’t watch anymore and pushes him: “Go confess already!”

What’s interesting is that when Rin asks why he won’t confess, she says something loaded.

“Confessing… is telling the person you like that you like them, right?”

“Then I like you the most too. Can I confess to you too?” The little girl smiles at him.

The protagonist thinks it over and decides to go confess to big-eyes-senpai anyway…

And right when he gets to the crucial line of his confession… “About senpai… I’m…”

He never gets the word “like” out. Instead, the image of the little girl flashes through his head. And after the little girl comes the image of his first love Misaki, who looks just like her…

That’s when the protagonist realizes he still hasn’t gotten over his first love…

The confession never happens. He fumbles his way out of it. Big-eyes-senpai doesn’t say anything much — she just says she’ll always be waiting for him.

After the failed confession, Rin finds out too, and her expression is complicated. Soon after, Rin disappears… leaving without a word, suddenly just gone.

The protagonist tries to find the little girl. Two weeks of searching and nothing. He also realizes he seems to have developed feelings for this little girl, and he can’t figure out whether he likes Rin or Misaki, who looks so much like her.

Just as he’s frantic about finding her, he suddenly receives a letter from the little girl. She says she’s made it home safely, tells him not to worry, and says they’ll definitely meet again someday.

The protagonist is a little puzzled, though — the handwriting looks absolutely nothing like a little girl’s.

“Maybe her parents wrote it for her.”

Then things turn fast. A new transfer student arrives at school, and the protagonist about shits himself — it’s his first love, Kusunoha Misaki.

Misaki spots him right away… The protagonist is mortified, but Misaki seems to know a lot, including things about the Film Appreciation Club members and their names and nicknames. She seems to know all of it.

With no way out, the protagonist finds Misaki and apologizes first — tells her he was reckless confessing to her back then, that he hurt her, and that he’s sorry.

Misaki says it’s fine, it’s fine, her family moving away afterward wasn’t because she hated him, it was just a coincidence, and so on.

Eventually Misaki hears the club is making a movie and goes to watch. She sees the film’s content — the story is literally about a boy who confesses to a girl and she runs away and rejects him…

Misaki knows the story is about her, and her feelings are a mess.

The protagonist is mortified too… Big-eyes-senpai is still in the dark, but she starts to pick up on something.

After that the protagonist notices more odd things. Misaki’s hobbies are almost identical to the little girl from a month ago — she loves matcha ice cream, loves dolphins, and so on… But when he asks Misaki if she has a little sister or any small-girl relative, she says no.

The protagonist asks Misaki whether she was sick before transferring here (wondering if it’s a case of soul leaving the body or something), and she says no, she’s always been healthy, she was studying for exams.

Now he’s lost. Who the hell was that little girl? Even if she was a ghost, why does she look so much like Misaki and share almost all her hobbies? A hallucination? A vision?

Then it gets weirder. Misaki keeps pushing the protagonist to go confess to big-eyes-senpai, saying he definitely likes her…

And the protagonist, stubborn as hell, keeps trying to confess to Misaki instead, telling her he can’t forget her, that it’s been her from the start…

In the end Misaki agrees… and big-eyes-senpai is left reeling…

“You… didn’t you like me? Why are you suddenly with her…”

The protagonist explains that Misaki is the first love who dumped him back then…

“Huh?” Big-eyes-senpai is still reeling. “Then… were you using me as a rebound because you were lonely?”

And the protagonist says the most scumbag line imaginable: “I did like senpai, and I’m glad senpai liked me when I was emotionally empty, but my true love is still Kusunoha Misaki.”

Anyway, big-eyes-senpai gives up completely…

And the final mystery still isn’t solved. Who the hell was that little girl Rin?

The protagonist still feels guilty around Misaki, still thinks of Rin.

So at the end of the story, Misaki finally tells him: she was Rin.

The protagonist can’t believe it. Why would she be Rin?

Misaki explains: when she was little, seven years ago, she was on a plane when it crashed. She was in a coma for half a year… During the coma she had a dream where she became a little girl who could fly. The little girl met a big brother — and the brother had the protagonist’s name. In the dream the little girl fell for this big brother, but she noticed he liked a big-eyed older girl who was making a movie with him, and the little girl figured she was too young to say anything, so she just helped the brother chase the older girl. In the end the brother failed anyway… and the little girl couldn’t say she liked him either, so one day she found her body growing lighter and lighter, and finally she disappeared…

That’s when Misaki woke up… in the hospital bed…

Afterward Misaki kept wondering who that big brother in the dream was… and who the big-eyed older girl was, and where that place even was… (sounds a lot like Your Name.).

Then in middle school, Misaki saw the big brother from her dream… the protagonist…

But oddly, the protagonist didn’t recognize her. Misaki wondered if he’d forgotten her…

Because Misaki kept staring at him, the protagonist noticed her too, and eventually, one day, he asked her out. Misaki was nervous — but at the date, the protagonist confessed…

“Why is he confessing to me? Wasn’t he in love with the big-eyed older girl?” Panicked, Misaki ran away — and her family happened to be moving, so she never saw him again.

Later, when picking schools, Misaki saw in the list of options the place from her childhood dream, and after looking into it she understood: the things in that childhood dream… were actually things from the future. During the coma her soul had left her body, traveled to the future, and met the future protagonist.

Misaki then understood where the future protagonist’s path led… She timed it so that right when her soul was disappearing, she sent a letter saying she was safe… to put his mind at ease.

And later she appeared before the protagonist again, and fell in love with him again.

That’s the setup, and the story reaches its ending — and my initial question finally gets an answer.

The heroine was in a coma from an accident as a child, her soul traveled to the future and had a romance with the future protagonist (though as a little girl, does it even count?), and after a series of ups and downs she grew up and came to the future again, and ended up with the protagonist after all. The protagonist is the heroine’s first love — only across time, having a first love in the future.

Add the protagonist’s first failed confession, his second set of feelings for big-eyes-senpai, and this one — and yeah, it really is a “third first love.”

In Hatsukoi Sankai-me, the True End is the core of the whole story and the only mainline. The one thing that pissed me off is that the protagonist is a total scumbag. And not just in the True End — on the other routes too, he’s a guy who “sees someone and decides he likes them.” Worth noting: you can’t reach the True End on the first playthrough, and if you go down the little sister’s route, you’ll find it absolutely infuriating…

The protagonist comes to the island after getting dumped, hits it off with big-eyes-senpai, and when he’s about to confess, his first love pops into his head… so he keeps thinking about her and keeps putting off the confession. Big-eyes-senpai can tell he’s wavering and rejects him outright. He gets dumped by his first love and then dumped by big-eyes-senpai. The little sister, being a brocon, comes to comfort him, saying she’ll always be with her brother no matter what, and then… the protagonist bangs his little sister…

And what’s even more fucking ironic is that not long after he bangs her, his first love Kusunoha Misaki transfers in, and the protagonist wants to take it back — but the little sister keeps him on a tight leash and he gives up, basically going along with his mistake…

Goddammit… the little sister is literally the second-string rebound…

Also, big-eyes-senpai is the game’s biggest rebound of all. The protagonist never gets over his first love, uses her to fill his emotional void… and when the first love comes back, he dumps big-eyes-senpai.

Scumbag or not? Is this protagonist a scumbag or what!

Aside from the protagonist being a scumbag, the game’s overall framework is fine. It’s just a shame about big-eyes-senpai — the entire common route is her home turf, she’s flirting with the protagonist the whole time, and then at the ending she gets flipped into the rebound role, without even a proper confession from him… (thankfully she still has her own route).

The rest is middling. The art, thanks to the coloring, gives Narumi Yuu’s inconsistent faces a new look, and Sendai-baasan’s voice acting here was unexpectedly lewd — it got a few reactions out of me… oh, I mean, it made it hard to stay composed. The music… is average. No real highlights, no real flaws.

At the end of the day, the story is good. The premise is solid — nobody expects the time-travel-to-the-future thing at first, and with a good writer to polish the framework, this could’ve been a seriously insane story. Unfortunately the scenario writer doesn’t seem to have put much care in — the pacing is there, but the details lack polish, so it only reaches “good” territory. And a lot of the characters in the slice-of-life scenes are too one-note, which drags it down a bit — so it’s about at the level of a “nice moe-ge” title.

Honestly though, even so, it was way better than I expected. At least a 70. The idiots on ErogameScape are shitting on this game for no reason again — I don’t get it.

Playing this made me think of two things. One is Your Name. — both have the heroine meeting the protagonist in a dream, on a different timeline, then meeting him again in reality where he doesn’t recognize her.

The other is a song by Will Pan called “爱上未来的你” (Falling for the Future You). I never really understood the lyrics even back in middle school — what does it even mean to “fall in love with the future you”? Later, after reading some novels and ACG stuff, I sort of got an idea of what kind of story that might be. But after seeing this story…

The lyrics really do fit this game’s plot perfectly.