I used to be a kichiku fan too, way back… Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t mean the Japanese kichiku, I’m a normal person, not a pervert. I mean the Chinese-internet redefined “kichiku,” basically those videos where people take footage and make it twitch and spasm. Around 2008 ACFUN was full of kichiku works, plenty of good stuff too, and I watched them happily. Then with the popularity of things like Yori and Chinese dubs, more and more “snark” comedy videos started popping up… Of course I enjoyed it at first, until… that kind of video filled the entire internet. Sorry, I’m the type who gets sick of infinitely repeated content easily. I got sick of this stuff too, I even started finding it boring. I started hating all those messing-around, no-seriousness things, started feeling they were pointless, like current domestic crosstalk, which lost its backbone and left only endless bickering.

I’ve always liked the girls that soft girls draw. Miyasaka Miyu (宮坂みゆ) is a soft girl, so I really like the girls she draws. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that logic. Only a girl knows what expressions and poses a real girl would actually have. Only a girl drawing girls can really capture their essence. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that. So half a year ago, Izayoi no Fortuna (十六夜のフォルトゥーナ) already had me completely floored by Miyasaka Miyu’s art. Those soft, delicate girls hit my strike zone dead-on. You have to understand, I love small, slender girls the most—I just want to hold them and squish them…… So, hand on heart, I played Areas ～空に映すキミとのセカイ～ purely for the art. I’d already seen the reviews on Chuuni Space saying “good opening,” “the ending makes no sense,” and that it barely scraped a passing grade. But who cares? What kind of shit haven’t I eaten by now? However bad your story is, how bad can it really get? Can you do all-in insta-love? Can you do split personalities? Can you do forced harem? Can you do forced flexing? Can you do knockoff light novel? Can you do reincarnated saint? Can you do TowerDefense? Can you do Guo Jingming imitation? Can you do total meltdown? Or can you trick me into screwing boys? No way! I figured I’d already played through every possible way to eat shit — there’s no reason I’d find a brand-new way to eat shit! Shennong tastes a hundred shits, and I no longer fear death. Game Start！

Twin Paradox (双子座のパラドクス) is another Cotton Software title. Why’d I play it? Mostly because its predecessor, Sekai ga Owaru Basho to Birthday, left such a strong impression on me. So even though the character designs are still shit as always, I was willing to give it a go. No other reason — I just wanted to see a story that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Birthday. That’s all. But before I get into the game, I want to talk about something else: the science and pseudoscience elements in stories.

Only after learning Japanese did I realize how many Chinese words actually come from Japan. Setting aside stuff like 暴走 and 违和, 箱庭 is probably one of them. I run into 箱庭 all the time in anime lyrics — はこにわのせかい (箱庭の世界), that kind of thing. It’s not a hard word to figure out: a garden in a box, or a box garden. Describe it with a Western term and you get sandbox or sand table. There’s even a more Chinese-flavored word for it, like 盆景 (bonsai/penjing). The concept itself actually originated in the West; Japan just imported it and called it 箱庭. And honestly, I’m deeply grateful to whoever did that — that they didn’t write it as サンドボックス or some other mess already has me weeping tears of joy. Of course, the thing most closely tied to the word 箱庭 is 箱庭療法 (sandplay therapy). It’s a form of therapy related to psychological diagnosis: you give the patient a “box garden” and let them build their ideal little world, then infer their mental state from the elements in that world. Basically a fancy psychological test. So the first time I saw 箱庭ロジック (Hakoniwa Logic) and its detective/suspense branding, I figured there had to be more going on under the surface.

I haven’t played many Alcot games, but most of them follow the same path: fairly lowbrow (no offense) snark and slice-of-life, cute moe character designs, and music that’s better than it has any right to be. I’d say it wasn’t like this back in Clover Heart, but by the time Clover Days rolled around it had quietly become this way, so my feelings about Clover Days carry over: no matter how you look at it, this stuff is “not especially clever,” but it’s also “not bad.” The plot beats are a bit clichéd, but it never force-feeds you shit. When LoveRec. was being promoted I took a look at the character designs… “Oh fuck, isn’t this just Anzu?” Yes, the heroine named Hitomi looks almost identical to Takakura Anzu from Clover Days, just with a different hair color and eye color. You could chalk it up to Jinmura Yuji’s art style, but the feeling that they “literally just took an old character, tweaked her, and put her on sale” is a weird one. Incidentally, the other two heroines weren’t drawn by Jinmura Yuji, but they’re also a bit off, and overall not as cute as Clover Days. Given Alcot’s usual style, I assumed this game was at most a moe showcase, and from the designs and the rough blurb that’s exactly what it looked like. But after finishing it, I came away feeling something different.

Idol Mahou Shoujo Chiruchiru Michiru (アイドル魔法少女ちるちるみちる) is a spin-off of The Fruit of Grisaia and The Labyrinth / Eden of Grisaia. The name says it all — it’s just a magical girl moe-fest set in the same world with the same characters. If you still don’t get it, think of it like the relationship between Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya and the main Fate stuff. Online reception for this one isn’t great. The complaints mostly fall into a few camps: The plot is too cliché, the sense of déjà vu is overwhelming, and you can’t fuck anyone. The game is too short, it’s split into two parts, and you can’t fuck anyone. There are too many repeated OP and ED sequences — obvious cost-cutting — and you can’t fuck anyone. It’s sold in two parts, it’s too expensive, and you can’t fuck anyone. You can’t fuck anyone. So let me clarify: this game is good. It’s fun. If you want to fuck, please turn right to Professor Dave’s fap channel.

Renai Relation (恋想リレーション) is the latest release from Lump of Sugar. I already roasted their previous game, Unmei-sen jou no φ, on account of the plot being flat-out retarded. So does Renai Relation do any better on the story front? Naturally not. Still retarded. Only this time, they’ve gone and built the premise itself as an excuse for it.

Honestly, Natsuiro Recipe (なついろレシピ) wasn’t the game I was most looking forward to this month. I’d originally planned to play Pure X Connect and Sumire first, but Natsuiro Recipe leaked early, so I had no choice but to play it first—and what a surprise it turned out to be.

It’s been years since I played Love, Election and Chocolate (恋愛と選挙とチョコレート). I actually got into it through the anime — the anime itself is okay, nothing great, nothing terrible. What’s worth mentioning is that while the anime was airing, it went all out to advertise a certain game, and that game was Ima Sugu Oniichan ni Imouto da tte Iitai (いますぐお兄ちゃんに妹だっていいたい — “I Want to Tell My Brother I’m His Little Sister Right Now”). I’d had my eye on this one for a long time. Back when I couldn’t read Japanese at all, and then when I could read a little, all I knew was: it’s all-ages, the voice cast is stacked, the music is good, and the art is… decent. So when I got around to it before playing Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm, I thought… “might as well clear this one first, at least it’s got Ai-chan.” Honestly, I didn’t finish it. I cleared the main sister route and Ai’s Mao route, and the rest I just couldn’t push through… Not for any other reason — the story is just too… flat… The plot can be summed up in one sentence: the protagonist’s mother dies, his father remarries, and he falls in love with his stepsister, who’s been pretending to be a boy. And the whole game reeks of what I’d call “all-ages galgame inferiority complex.” Everyone knows 18+ is where the money is in the galgame market. Plenty of companies have tried all-ages and died horribly; at best most of them release the 18+ version first and then port to consoles for an all-ages cash grab. So as a game trying to move units in the 18+ field while being all-ages, Ima Sugu Oniichan ni Imouto da tte Iitai had to show its sincerity some other way. In a nutshell: if you can’t fuck, you’d better bring something that can compete with fucking.

There’s a certain writing style I’ve always hated, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on what to call it. Put simply, it’s when someone can’t just say a thing directly — they have to wrap it up first, so you have to squint at it for a second. Like the cafeteria lady serving your rice: she doesn’t just scoop it onto your plate, she digs the ladle in, does a little fairy pose in front of you, and then flings it into your bowl. If the lady happens to look younger than you and is wearing a sexy black-stocking getup, or if the rice is free and comes with three big pork chops, fine. Otherwise you just think the lady in front of you is sick in the head, and after a while you start to find her downright disgusting… …even if she gives you five pork chops. So when a story dresses up its wording or its pacing, if the payoff turns out to be worth the dressing-up, whatever. But if it’s some trivial bullshit dressed up like the apocalypse and a blood feud… that just pisses me off.