I’ve always figured I don’t really go for that whole “character design” thing. Which is to say, whether a character is cute doesn’t hinge solely on her looks, or on the artist—building the actual person still takes a CV and a story with some meat on it. So I’m generally not the type to see a girl in a picture and start shouting “I’d bang that” like some kind of animal. And I’ve never really gotten the “moe-otaku” crowd, for the reasons above—whether a girl in a game is cute isn’t just about appearance; it’s her experiences, her way of talking, all of it added up that makes her feel like a real flesh-and-blood girl. It’s a shallow world, but looks alone won’t cut it… That’s what I thought.

I first heard about Midori no Umi (翠の海) two years ago. I saw a CG of the heroine standing in the moonlight and she looked so goddamn pretty that I went digging for more, and while I was digging I noticed something off about the CGs — same pose, except in this one she’s holding a bloody knife. Oh. Okay. I know what this is. Yandere heroine setup, dime a dozen. A fan translation seemed to be in the works, so I figured I’d wait for the Chinese release. And I waited. And waited. I waited until even a scrub like me had started reading raw Japanese, and the translation still hadn’t shown up. So I just went and got the game itself. I didn’t know much about it going in. I skimmed some impressions beforehand — mostly positive, but nobody talked about the plot. All they said was that picking the wrong choice gets you killed. “The protagonist dying is no big deal.” So the game began again.