I first heard about Inverted Angel because I’m a fan of Nakamura Sanso—she sings the theme song (ED) for it. At first I figured it was just a simple little romance piece, or maybe one of those indie things with a bit of meta and philosophy tossed in, the usual slightly-deep-bait template. Then I actually played it, and I couldn’t help but say out loud: “What the hell is this?!”

Thinking back, Sakura no Uta (サクラノ詩) was eight years ago now. I rated it pretty highly at the time, and it resonated with me on a personal level given some of my own experiences. It genuinely taught me a lot too, especially about the relationship between “mathematics” and “art” — the correspondence between the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence had me half-convinced that a “Creator” and “God” might actually exist, and made me instantly understand why so many scientists end up turning to mysticism. Because there’s just too much in this world that’s strange, mysterious, and completely unexplained. All that to say, I got a lot out of Sakura no Uta, and even purely as narrative it’s plenty gripping — honestly it’s that gripping story that kept me reading, and along the way I picked up all sorts of interesting trivia. I figured the story was over, since the ending really didn’t leave any obvious room for a sequel. Then I heard about Sakura no Toki (サクラノ刻). There’s a sequel? What would it even be about? I genuinely had no idea. The female students who barely registered in the original main plot? Or forcing a route onto Ms. Ai, who was already perfectly complete as she was? The protagonist’s relationship with her was lovely precisely because it wasn’t family but might as well have been — were they really going to shoehorn a romance in just so she’d be “routeable”? No way, right? There’s no need to be that tacky… doing that would drag down the whole game’s prestige and even wreck the protagonist’s character. I already thought him getting with Misono Rin was a stretch — that was already a concession to “R18 game sales” — no need to go that far, surely? And then with the release of Totono no Sora Remake (终の空 Remake), I became even more confident about Sakura no Toki. I figured it absolutely wouldn’t be some unnecessary sequel milking the name, nor a rushed product made just to pander to players by forcing a route onto some character. Well, Sakura no Toki came out anyway, and you can probably guess the rest. I was wrong. Spectacularly wrong.

In the eroge circles everyone knows, there’s a legend going around: they say Subarashiki Hibi is a masterpiece. And when you ask what exactly makes Subarashiki Hibi so amazing, the answers you get are a little off-topic. “There’s tons of hardcore CG in Subarashiki Hibi!” “There’s even gender-bent futanari HCG in it!” “All kinds of violence and sexual elements!” Hearing all that, it’s easy to assume the “masterpiece” label here is just because of “overly hardcore porn.” But that doesn’t really seem to be the case for Subarashiki Hibi either. Search online for impressions of the game and you’ll always find all sorts of write-ups that are “very philosophical, but completely incomprehensible.” Why “very philosophical”? Because a lot of people leave huge walls of text after playing Subarashiki Hibi, discussing everything under the sun—from ancient Cthulhu Mythos to every parallel-space theory after it, quoting sources left and right, citing classics, as if the game’s depth were on par with some massive philosophical tome. The “incomprehensible” part is that after reading all that text, I still couldn’t figure out what kind of story the game tells. But it did make me remember the scenario writer: SCA-Di. Later, out of curiosity, I tried Subarashiki Hibi. Since I couldn’t read Japanese at the time (still can’t), I played the translated version. About two hours in, I closed the game. The reason was simple: boring as hell. A lot of the dialogue in this game is just “mindless insertion of forced philosophical arguments.” The two characters are really just chatting, but it’s padded with tons of so-called “philosophical content.” The main axis of the game is just the protagonist wandering around and talking. That’s it. Back then, what I wanted was “crazy twists” and “world-saving-level battles.” Subarashiki Hibi clearly wasn’t my thing. Later I had the chance to play Sakura no Uta, which shares the same writer as Subarashiki Hibi. Maybe by then I’d gotten tired of stupid chuuni edge-fest games, because I rated Sakura no Uta pretty highly. As a story, Sakura no Uta left a deep impression on me—the dialogues between geniuses, the “Shang Zhongyong”-style development, and that slightly melancholy ending. Some of the philosophical discussions in the game also stuck with me, especially the relationship between “art” and “mathematics,” which let me successfully flex in front of my female teacher. Despite my good impression of Sakura no Uta and the decent rating I gave it, when I saw what people online were saying about it, I was dumbfounded, because a familiar scene played out before me again: Online praise for Sakura no Uta was still a mountain of philosophical text, including the game’s slightly chuuni dialogue, the Japanese literary excerpts it quotes, and all that fantastical self-indulgent emotion. Of course, there still wasn’t much introduction to the plot. Some didn’t even have plot. Don’t ask—the answer is “avoid spoilers.” But even avoiding spoilers, you can still say what kind of story the game tells, right? Otherwise I’m just watching you gush about how great the game is without even knowing what it’s about—how am I supposed to know if it suits me? This reminded me of Subarashiki Hibi back then, the same feeling. And I instantly understood: looking at Sakura no Uta, I should be able to understand what kind of game Subarashiki Hibi is too, right? Of course, to this day, I still haven’t played Subarashiki Hibi again.