Lately the stuff I’ve been playing has been a bit unusual — either hand-chopping, big meat grubs, or hookup — and after wandering the non-traditional aisle for so long, I couldn’t help but miss plain old moe. So when I was grabbing January releases, I figured I’d look for something light and fun. That’s how, among the January titles, while downloading Toukyou NECRO, I stumbled on this thing called Hanikami Clover. Compared to whatever Toukyou NECRO is doing, Hanikami Clover is obviously on the classic cute-girl-game track. So I got hyped, saw it was Ryokucha-soft, figured Ryokucha wouldn’t screw anything up — Minamijuujisei Renka (南十字星恋歌) got decent reviews, so this probably wouldn’t be a disaster either. Then I checked the official site for the cast: the first heroine is obviously Gotou Mai, and Hanikami Clover also has Akinohana, Sendai Eri, all solid voices. The most explosive part, though, was when I later watched the game’s OP. The dere-dere student council president, the sweet senpai, the lewd girlfriend, the little sister who’s a failure-of-a-brother manufacturing machine — all wrapped in a tempting, rhythm-heavy montage. The tagline was “a love story with a slightly H her.” Honestly, that OP makes it look like a moe-nukige, but hey, at least it beats hand-chopping big meat grubs and hookup games, am I right? Going by years of experience, this had to be a cheerful charmer of a moe game — and even if it’s a nukige, it’d be a comedy nukige, a light and fun one with no special effects. Playing it would definitely be a good time. My reaction at the time was: