Chicchana Hanayome ~Madamada Tsubomi da Mon~ (ちっちゃな花嫁 ～まだまだつぼみだもんっ～) Review

I haven’t played that many eroge, but I’ve played some. A few of them I’d call genuinely worthwhile, and plenty I’d call garbage.

Even in the garbage there’s usually a pattern. Most of it comes from a planner or a writer trying to make a big splash, or forcing some baffling twist that ends up as a botched imitation of something better. The stuff that’s honestly made to cater to a specific taste rarely has these landmines. Siscon games, for instance.

Siscon games are pure in their positioning and simple in their pacing. The protagonist is the older brother, the heroine is the little sister, or “little sisters.” Some flirting, and that’s about it. The occasional darker entry still doesn’t betray the core idea: showing “the little sister’s love for her brother.” However twisted it gets, it’s still love, right? Chopping off your brother’s head, dissecting him—that’s love too, isn’t it? Yandere is still a kind of dere.

So for a long time I figured “playing a siscon game” could never go wrong. At worst it’d be dumb, or look silly, but it wouldn’t disgust you, right? Even if the system is boneheaded and the plot is idiotic, the little sister is innocent. The creator’s intention to give you a cute sister is not wrong, right?

I’m not a siscon, but I can still find some comfort and warmth in these games. Say what you will, they’re honestly handing out sugar. Between siscon fans there’s nothing but resistance to social norms and mutual understanding—nothing like those otaku who spend all day hurting each other. It’s so full of love. To borrow a line from the famous internet personality “Crazy Bull Hermit”:

“Siscon brothers are all friends.”

Of course, there are no eternal friends—until I ran into Chitchana Hanayome.

Chitchana Hanayome Mada Mada Tsubomi da Mon! translates to something like “A Tiny Bride—I’m Still Just a Little Flower Bud.” Even so, when the game starts it tells you all the girls are 18. No matter how small they look, they’re 18…

I paid attention to this game because of the company: Galette. In the siscon world, this company is a veteran driver with several well-known titles, like Onii-chan, Migite no Shiyou o Kinshi Shimasu! and Onii-chan Teacher. The quality used to be decent, but after Onii-chan Teacher the staff all ran off and started a new company making siscon games—the one behind Onii-chan, Kiss no Junbi wa Mada desu ka? and its sequel. I remember the name sounds like “JB” in Japanese…

Probably because the whole staff left, Galette fell apart afterward and even seemed ready to abandon the siscon brand. Only now, two years later, did they put out a new title, Chitchana Hanayome Mada Mada Tsubomi da Mon!. I’m not a siscon, but out of affection for the company I played it anyway.

Verdict first: after playing it, I was completely blown up.

The setup is dead simple. The protagonist delivers flowers for a shop, taking congratulatory bouquets to various venues every day. Around him are a few little girls—one does ballet, one paints, one plays piano, and I forget what else. The protagonist goes to work, flirts with the girls passing by the shop, delivers congratulatory flowers to the artsy girls, gets familiar with them, gets familiar enough to screw them, and then, naturally, commits crimes.

Honestly, the premise is simple, clichéd, formulaic, and fine… but the dumbest thing about this game is how badly it botches something so clichéd.

A siscon game is a character-selling game, and if you’re selling characters, what should you focus on?

The art style, the voice actresses, the performance, and the personality writing are the most important things, right?

So how does this game do? First, the girls’ art is just average, but what’s with all the broken CGs? Why do their heads randomly swell up like dead people’s heads? The piano girl sits down like she’s got hemorrhoids, and the painter’s low-angle shot makes the little sister look almost ten meters tall—what’s up with that?

And the heroines’ voice acting is just… really… terrible.

This is the worst voice work I’ve ever heard in a game. Plenty of doujin games do better—and not by a small margin.

No good art, no good voices, and the heroines are basically dead. But for a siscon game, those flaws would only make you bored, not uncomfortable. Then the game did something truly reckless.

The heroine art is bad, the voices are terrible, but there’s one character in this game who’s drawn with real personality and voiced with real feeling. Who? The manager of the protagonist’s flower shop…

First, take a look—the manager looks like this…

The cat head is a mask he wears. The manager’s voice is that effeminate male type, wearing a cat head and acting horny all day, kind of like the protagonist’s best-friend character in a normal game, the comic relief the protagonist snarks at. That’s fine, actually. The girls are no good, but if the manager can steal the show, at least it’s watchable as a comedy act. Then, midway through the game, the manager’s mask comes off…

Holy shit!

Holy shit!!

Holy shit!!!

What the hell? You’re telling me the cute, effeminate cat-headed manager all this time has a face like Kuso-yarou from Kusoyarou? And his face never changes—it’s stuck in that one expression the whole game. Worse, the manager seems to be a perverted bisexual. One moment he’s offering candy to the little lolis at the flower shop, the next he’s squirming at the protagonist, saying “my little fists will pound your chest” and “I’ll grab your dick.”

And this manager alone steals about 80% of the game’s screen time. For example, one loli says she likes ballet, and the manager starts rambling about how he likes ballet too, how he wanted to learn ballet, but his mother said he wasn’t slender enough and wouldn’t let him…

Later, another loli says she likes painting, and the manager starts rambling about how he likes painting too, how he wanted to learn painting, but his mother said he looked too stupid and wouldn’t let him…

And every time the manager talks about his past, he rubs his inner thighs and coos at the protagonist, saying he wants to have a girls’ talk with the little girls.

Oh my god! I’m dying!

The manager also says he’s afraid to walk at night because he’s worried his cute self will be attacked…

The manager also says in a panic that lately he feels someone’s eyes on him—could he be stalked by a stalker?

If anyone’s watching you, it’s definitely the police!

What is this game even trying to do? A siscon game, and the little sisters are half-assed, but they shove a gay bisexual pervert in there? The sisters get so little screen time, but this gay guy is written so vividly? What’s the point?

I came to see little girls. You keep showing me a gay guy wiggling his ass in front of me—am I supposed to get it up or not?

After I endured half a day of the gay guy’s cooing, I finally got into an individual route, the protagonist screws like crazy, and then the game ends… By the way, this game has no OP, no ED, just one theme song. The ED is black background with white text scrolling upward while the theme song plays. The theme song is even called “Kimi no Sei da!!” which means “It’s all your fault.”

Yes, it’s my fault. All my fault for playing this game with my own hands…

And the flaws don’t stop there. The game only has about four BGM tracks in total, the HCGs are drawn very carelessly, the signature Galette breath-puff effect is gone, and the whole system is boneheaded. You can’t help wondering if even the programmers ran off.

I don’t know what the planner was thinking. Did they think siscon fans would cheer if you gave them a girl, called her a little sister, drew her young, and threw in a piss-play HCG? Did they think siscon fans would shout banzai at that?

That’s insulting siscon fans way too much, isn’t it? That’s an insult to siscon fans! Even though I’m not one.

Thinking you’re so clever, trying to add some fun to a siscon game, you had to throw in a hideous-faced effeminate gay guy—are you trying to take revenge on society? We want screen time for the little sisters, not some gay guy! Are you trying to turn siscon fans gay? Come on, if you’re going to do that, at least pick a handsome guy. A bisexual criminal is just threatening!

People who play games are all friends. People in 2D are all friends. Siscon brothers are all friends.

Sure enough, there’s no absolute in this world, and no eternal friends. Those lines are a bloody sarcastic joke!

This is insane.