Back in school I liked to show off when writing essays. I always wanted to pull off something big — start off plain as hell, then hit the reader with a sudden turn at the end. A surprise, you know? Problem was, the teachers never gave me the chance. The prompts were always stuff like “A Meaningful Day,” “A Meaningful Event,” “The Wall Clock at Home.” All of them had to be wholesome and uplifting. I couldn’t write about how I helped an old lady cross the street and then, once we got to the other side, she flashed a lecherous grin, dropped her pants, and revealed a giant cock — turns out she was an old man all along. Nor could I write about the wall clock at home and then, at the very end, twist it around and reveal the clock was actually a vibrator. Then one day, on an exam, they gave us a topic essay: “How to Express the Hypocrisy Between People.” I was thrilled. I started plotting out the perfect essay — a seemingly upstanding gentleman who, right at the end, gets unmasked as a scheming, vicious little shit — when I hit a problem: The answer sheet was running out of space! I had less than half a page of grid paper left, and the plot was just about to kick off… There was no extra space on the exam, either. After weighing my options, I started compressing the ending. Compress, compress, compress, until it was down to a couple of lines and a hasty wrap-up. The final essay read like total nonsense: this straight-laced guy suddenly turns into an absolute bastard, and the only explanation between the two is a single sentence… The teacher looked at me with a mocking expression and consoled me by saying that next time I shouldn’t go off on my own and write this kind of boring garbage — stick to argumentative essays, those are more reliable. Her wording was very tactful and encouraging, but that look in her eyes was clearly the look you give someone who just failed spectacularly at showing off. Of course, years later I don’t need to worry about page limits when I write. But I never imagined I’d get to experience that same look and attitude from my old teacher again.

Having played a fair number of visual novels, I end up talking about plot, and when it comes to scenario structure there are basically two directions. One is the suspenseful gamble-and-court-death kind, where you manufacture some huge news, some big twist, build up a ridiculously hype mystery at the start, then line up some hype developments and one hell of a reveal at the end. The other is the utterly ordinary school romance slice-of-life, maybe with a little friction over life, studies, and club activities, which gets resolved on the way to the ending. Personally I like the first one, but not everyone can pull off big news, and running faster than everyone else won’t get it done either. Suspense and crazy twists demand a seriously strong scenario writer to handle—pacing, laying the mystery, arranging the different routes, all of it is interconnected, and one wrong step leads to every step being wrong. Plenty of people crash on the first type, drawing a tiger and ending up with a dog, or the story is passable but the writing can’t carry it, so the mystery lands with no impact, or is outright incomprehensible, and a good premise and story go to waste. The second type is way simpler—at least you won’t cause a disaster just by writing it casually. It can produce great stories too, provided you’re a gag writer good at digging up the fun in everyday life; Yukikoi Melt and The Shepherd of the Great Library are pretty solid examples of the latter. Still, it’s actually hard to completely botch the second type. Compared to walking the tightrope of suspense, everyday content is safer. Or rather, slice-of-life games don’t ask much of the plot anymore—a lot of people are probably more into the character designs and the CV performances. It’s not just games; anime mostly runs on the same rhythm. Some live on plot, some live on slice-of-life, and you can see how hard it is to nail the former. Kantai Collection went for a crazy twist and got called “shit-feeding,” while Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? does daily moe and gets called “healing”—the difference in their setups isn’t even that big, they just chose different scenario routes. Of course, for some studios, botching a twist-heavy scenario naturally makes them think, once bitten twice shy, might as well fall back on slice-of-life for safety. Like Parasol’s QUINTUPLE☆SPLASH!.

Oniichan Teacher ~Himitsu no Jugyou o Kibou Shimasu! is the latest entry in the Oniichan, Use of Your Right Hand Is Forbidden! line. Still one brother and a pile of sisters, but the cast is completely different this time. At best it’s a spiritual sequel…

Miagete Goran, Yozora no Hoshi o is PullTop’s release from the end of this year. Honestly I hadn’t really touched this company’s games before — well, that’s not quite right either. What I’d played were mostly works from its sub-brands, like Natsu Iro Recipe, like Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort… The company did have that one pretty impressive game, Kono Oozora ni, Tsubasa o Hirogete, but I never got around to playing it. The marketing angle from the start was “same staff as Kono Oozora ni, Tsubasa o Hirogete,” with the theme being staring up at the stars and astronomical observation. Unlike the earlier plane-building game, this one locks its season to winter, around Christmas, which fit nicely with a December release. Ah — actually I wrote a big long intro for this and then realized I’d accidentally turned it into smut again, so let me just get straight to impressions. Keep going like this and there’s no turning back from the road of filth. Put simply: as a visual novel, this game is very good. But as a game “about astronomical observation,” it falls a bit short.

As a proud LASS hater, I’ve played almost every game this company (aka “Rass” — short for “shit company”) has put out, except for the early Nanako series. I’m talking 3Days, 11eyes, Shoujo Shinki, Mayoeru Futari, plus their fandiscs and all the different versions and whatnot. Honestly, ever since Shoujo Shinki took a massive dump and turned a great setting into an utterly self-indulgent landmine, I’ve been thinking: when the hell is this shit company gonna go under? So I waited and waited, until Mayoeru Futari was announced, then delay after delay after delay. And what did I get? The game wasn’t the landmine I expected — just dumb and bland as tap water, with art that was straight-up weak. Every girl’s tits bigger than the last, each with a more seductive look in her eyes, moaning louder and louder during H scenes. I was overjoyed… practically trembling with glee, dripping wet with excitement. Not because big tits do it for me, but because I finally saw it: this shit company is done for.

Boku wa Kimi dake wo Mitsumeru I gaze at only you isn’t a new game — it’s a remake, to be precise. What’s a remake? Think of it like a TV drama or movie getting redone. There’s a pretty solid reason Innre (インレ) remade this one: the original was from 2006, and both the art and production were pretty rough. Look it up if you don’t believe me. This 2015 remake is a whole different beast — the art, coloring, and soundtrack have all been completely overhauled. The same artist did the original art, but you can really see how much they’ve improved. The coloring actually gives me the same vibe as SAGA PLANETS. They brought in Elements Garden for the music, Ayane (彩音) sings the OP, and the ED is performed by the main heroine herself, Mishiro Mashiro (三代眞子). If you don’t know who that is, go look up Yonezawa Madoka (米澤円). Most importantly, the original game had no voice acting — the remake naturally has full voice. At first I figured remakes were just cash grabs, but this one feels like too big a leap. The devs even said this remake goes way beyond a simple “visual upgrade” — they heavily reworked the story too. Definitely doesn’t feel like a cash grab. So I dove in. Not for any other reason than the premise grabbed me: the protagonist gets hired to protect a girl targeted by an assassination syndicate. That’s it. I’m honestly sick of boring school romance plots.

Generally speaking, Japanese doujin games come in all shapes and sizes, but apart from the ones with no story that you just play, most of the story-driven ones are short, have mediocre artists, so-so music, and amateur voice acting. Story is usually the only thing they can win on, since it’s relatively easy to throw together. Good artists, good voice actors, and good composers don’t exactly grow on trees. Put simply, most doujin game circles don’t have much money, so they can only afford small-scale projects. If they actually had cash, they’d just set up a proper company and sell real games instead of operating as some awkward in-between doujin circle. But there are exceptions to everything. I’ve played some genuinely impressive doujin games, and even doujin galge can be surprisingly luxurious—like Unmanto’s Hakoniwa no Gakuen. First off, the character art for Hakoniwa no Gakuen is by Kuwabara Riko. That alone is enough to sell it, and on top of that there’s an absurdly stacked voice cast: Hidaka Rina, Tokui Sora, Kakihara Tetsuya, Numakura Manami… Everything’s in place—all it needs is a halfway decent script and this game could stand alongside proper company releases. But… reality is cruel, and the story ruins the whole thing.

During a matchmaking session with a music teacher, she asked me a question: “What was your youth like?” I have to say, there aren’t many questions in this world that can completely leave me speechless, but this one definitely counts.

Let’s talk about Lump of Sugar for a second. Back when I didn’t know any Japanese (still don’t, for the record), I figured this studio was hot shit. Mostly because the name sounded nice and because everyone and their dog kept holding forth about it. And whenever someone says “Lump of Sugar,” I picture an elegant girl sitting on a street corner in the afternoon, watching the crowd drift past under the awning, dropping a sugar cube into her coffee with pale fingers. Very atmospheric, very mood. But mood is mood, and in reality Lump of Sugar is just a company that makes porn games. Yeah — the kind that otaku love to gab about, big tits bracketed by mosaic, flesh-colored straws spraying white gunk. The feeling is like that elegant girl I just described taking a sip of her coffee, then suddenly shuddering, cheeks flushing, all because the black uncle running the shop next door has a remote-controlled vibrator stuffed inside her. The whole thing changes in an instant…

When I first started out as a web editor, I thought it was a sacred job. After all, so many people are reading what you write. What you write has to be responsible to others—no garbage content, no stupid opinions, no vague phrasing. I don’t remember what the article was about, probably browsers, let’s say Chrome. That day there was a foreign news report saying that some version of Chrome had a lower security rating than IE9. So I compiled a news piece: “Chrome Version XX Less Secure Than IE9.” The news went up and was quickly taken down by the editor-in-chief, followed by a private talk. “The news is fine, but it has zero impact. Your headline is too bland.”