I often regret some of my past articles. The main reason isn’t anything else—it’s that when I was younger I went on huge rants, trashing a lot of games I thought were terrible at the time. First and foremost among them: Lump of Sugar. I still remember that Unmei Senjou de Suika wo Kiru—I called its plot retarded. And Rensou Kankei—I said its system was dumb as shit. And yet, faced with Lump of Sugar’s new game Nekotsuku, Sakura. (ねこツク、さくら。)… I couldn’t help but shed tears. I deeply realized I was wrong.

Lump of Sugar. Yes, Lump of Sugar again — the sugar-cube studio. Its new game is here once more. 这次彻底踢掉了其他所有的傻逼画师，只留下了唯一能打的萌木原ふみたけ，而且萌木原作为唯一的画师还进化了画风，简单来说就是看起来更好看了。 I have to say, the game’s promotion came with some big surprises. Beyond what I mentioned earlier about the girls being drawn even better-looking, another surprise was the worldview setting and the game’s overall atmosphere. The game’s marketing leaned heavily on “Momiji,” and combined with the title itself, Enrite Kono Ha wa Kurenai ni, it finally managed to scrape together a bit of literary flair. It’s genuinely hard for an eroge to have a title with any literary flair. Everyone knows that these days, dumbass Japanese ACG titles have all turned into the structure of “kanji noun/adjective” + “katakana foreign-word fragment,” and it’s been going on for way too many years. Like “Hoshifuru Yoru no Farnese,” “Shojo Sprinkle,” “Apeiria of the Sea of Views,” “Haruoto Alice * Gram,” “Aokana: Four Rhythms Across the Blue,” “Istoria of the Water-Burial Silver Coin,” “Simulacrum of the Moon Shadow"—and besides that kind, there are even more dumbass game titles written entirely in katakana or hiragana with no kanji at all, so many I don’t even know what to say. So I’m honestly puzzled: aren’t Japanese people always calling for their own native culture? You can’t pull that off if everything’s in katakana, right? Are you all going to write exclusively in katakana from now on? Even Mimorin tweeted that she was taking a walk, and she wrote ウォーキング instead of 散歩. I don’t know if Japanese people just find typing katakana more convenient than kanji, which is why they’re so hooked on it. All that said, I really like the title “縁りて此の葉は紅に”. I also really like the autumn-leaves mood and the setting. And you can roughly work out what the title means: because of a “connection / fate” premise, “the leaves here have begun to turn red.” Honestly, I thought January’s lineup was pretty mid all around, and this game ended up being my last hope. After playing it, I’d say it’s a decent step up — though there’s still room to grow.