Your Diary is a game by CUBE, and about… two years ago, I played the Chinese-patched version… Holy shit, it’s already been two years!!! I swear it felt like no time at all!!! Of course the impression that game left on me was still pretty good. Whenever someone who’s just getting into Galgame asks me for recommendations, I recommend this one. Reason’s simple: good art, good music, the story is a bit clichéd but not toxic, and it’s still a very orthodox, wholesome story — isn’t that perfect to hand to a newbie trying to get into Galgame! Back then I didn’t really look at what Japanese players thought of the game. Later, while reading up on CUBE, I checked it out, and found Your Diary doesn’t rate that high in Japan. I originally thought a story like this should get an 80, but it barely held onto a 70. What’s funny is some Japanese players called the game “boring.” Boring… that’s a hard one to call. My thinking at the time was that Japanese otaku probably love those “wild twists” and see Your Diary’s story as all formula, so they’d find it boring. Of course, if you asked me to look back on Japanese opinions now, I’d say they actually have a point…

Every adult who’s never been in a relationship has, more or less, gone through a phase of wallowing in “2D delusions.” Don’t rush to deny it. Either you’ve dated someone, or you won’t admit it. Otherwise… why would a life winner like you be reading my blog? I had that phase too. Back then I thought way too highly of myself, carrying a bit of detachment and aloofness, full of imagination about the world. Seeing other people in relationships always made my chest tighten: why can even that kind of person get a partner? Why do those couples always look kind of dopey? There are so many girls in this world—how come none of them notice me? Maybe my “her” just hasn’t shown up yet? I once firmly believed: I should have a childhood friend who’s been by my side since we were kids and messages me first every day; in school, I’d always run into one or two girls in my club who blush when they talk; or maybe, by some chance, I’d learn a mysterious girl’s unspeakable secret and we’d forge a bond that belongs only to us… Just like girls get hooked on Qiong Yao novels and teen romance, the harem works guys consume build us a dreamlike ideal world too. “Why doesn’t this stuff ever happen to me? Why aren’t there girls like that around me?” As they say, people grow by gradually coming to understand themselves. When one day you look in the mirror and think, “Who even is this, who’d want to get close to you,” you probably get why the so-called “protagonist halo” never once favored you. Growing up teaches you that without enough resources and charm, no miracle’s going to drop out of the sky. Those old dreams, looking back, feel more like the real world’s little contrast-and-mockery routine aimed at you. Fiction is fiction; no matter how pretty something unrealistic is, it can’t stand in reality. The more you sink into it, the bigger the gap and the more exhausted you get. I eventually climbed out. But there are always people still soaking in the rose-colored dream, unwilling to wake up. Real-life frustration needs some fantasy to cushion it—and the brief thrill those dreams give might just be the start of another kind of addiction. So today’s subject is exactly this kind of fantasy-projection work—