fortissimo EXS//Akkord:nächsten Phase is a visual novel developed by la’cryma… I’ve played la’cryma’s early games! I even own physical copies! I’m talking about this one! But then this company called la’cryma apparently took something weird, because they suddenly cranked out a game absolutely dripping with chuuni energy, and they’ve been milking that one game for years. I looked it up—this studio has ties to Circus… so of course they inherited the fine tradition… First came the all-ages fortissimo//Akkord:Bsusvier Then fortissimoEXA//Akkord:Bsusvier, which added two routes and a final boss fight Then fortissimo EXS//Akkord:nächsten Phase, which took the previous version and added 18+ content And recently there’s the PSV version, Kadenz fermata//Akkord:fortissimo, which throws in artificial science-magic and what’s probably new story content Pit after pit, and I should mention I’m the type who gets suckered in by game OPs. If an OP looks good, it’s love at first sight with a girl. So when I saw fortissimo’s absolutely banger OP, I jumped right into this pit.

A gentle sea breeze blows on this remote little island. Mr. Iori arrives alone and meets a girl. “Sir, this isn’t a place ordinary people visit. So may I ask… what brings you here?” Iori flashes the long sword in his hand. It’s still in its sheath, but it radiates a chill. “Are you… a swordsman, sir?”

What is a nukige? Put simply, nuki = fap. A nukige exists entirely for you to jerk off to. Sure, story-driven 18+ visual novels at least have that thin fig leaf of “I’m here for the plot,” but a nukige is there to stimulate your junk directly, no pretense, no bullshit. Sei ○ Onna ○○ Ikusei Gakuen is exactly that. As the title suggests, the goal is to drag the girls at this school down into a bunch of living sex toys.

Mashiroiro Symphony’s tagline goes: what color are boys? What color are girls? And when a boy and a girl fall in love, what color is love itself? Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki’s tagline goes: a girl who can’t fall in love, and a boy with no interest in it — if the two of them fall in love, what happens to the world? Alright — Palette and 和泉つばす teaming up again. The title still has that high-class, faintly bittersweet ring to it, that pure longing-for-love vibe. That’s what I figured at first too: Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki (恋がさくころ桜どき) is nothing more than a plain… school… boy-slowly-works-his-way-through-the-heroines story. A little sweeter at most, something along the lines of Sena Airi’s and Uryuu Sakuno’s routes. What’s the worst it could do? Drag things out like Kanna Sana’s route? Except that’s not true at all!

I don’t have much of a high opinion of most of what’s on the Japanese light novel market. Forget plot—just the basic flow of the prose is a huge problem. The ones that are actually tolerable to read are few and far between; most sit at a middle-schooler’s level of storytelling: blunt, simple developments, boring-as-hell girls throwing themselves at the protagonist, and a bunch of vague posturing about “allies of justice.” Honestly, not many of them feel fresh. In that respect I prefer Chinese works. Of course, that’s understandable. Light novels as a product rose up hand in hand with their illustrations, so there’s a saying for the ones with bad writing and good art: “You’re buying the illustrations, and the toilet paper comes free.” The most disgusting thing isn’t someone ugly—it’s someone ugly who thinks they’re good-looking. The most idiotic thing isn’t someone who looks like an idiot—it’s an idiot who keeps strutting around like a big shot. That’s more or less how I see most light novels too, but there are exceptions. The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat is one.

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—

My take on whether ghosts exist has gone through several phases… In elementary school, when I heard there might be ghosts in the world, I was terrified. I couldn’t even sleep after watching those cheap Hong Kong and Taiwan horror flicks, and local ghost stories were enough to make me afraid of the dark. Then I saw some behind-the-scenes footage of those Hong Kong/Taiwan horror movies, and I started spreading ghost stories myself, and after that I was never scared again. Humans only fear the unknown and things they can’t control. That’s how I understand it. As for ghosts, humans can’t catch them, but they can’t deny them either. Some even go so far as to say ghosts have magic, supernatural powers, that they can control people and command wind and rain, which makes everyone even more anxious. Later I developed a new understanding of whether ghosts exist or not: if people become ghosts after death and can run rampant in this world… then wouldn’t the world be full of ghosts by now! Humans would’ve been wiped out by ghosts ages ago, right? So after Hatsuyuki Sakura, I played another game about ghosts: Kimi e Okuru, Sora no Hana is Cabbit’s second work — yeah, yeah, the same one as Midori no Umi last time. This time they dropped the artist whose art gave off a strong nukige vibe and had Yukie, the character designer for Chisa, who claims to be female, handle the art solo. From the outside it looks like a thoroughly heartwarming work. So is the story actually heartwarming? Trust me — if it’s not, you can come and fuck me up!

What is a landmine game? It’s the kind that gives you a huge落差—looks great on the surface, but once you’re in, you realize it’s nothing like you imagined. And on top of that, it hurts you bad and doesn’t even give you a rub afterward. A total scam. It’s like you spend ages chasing after a goddess, get ready to fuck her, and then find out she’s actually a man—and he forcefully makes you the bottom, fucks your ass raw till you bleed, then dumps you and sells you to a gay bar as a cum dumpster. A landmine game feels different from being deceived. With deception, you’re just being played with. With a landmine game, you’re not only played with but also tied up and force-fed shit. The first time I heard about Haruka Kanata (はるかかなた), the reviews weren’t great—they called it a landmine. But I thought, how bad can it really be? A plot that drags? Unexplained developments? Shit art? A pile of dead characters? I’ve seen the worst plots. I didn’t believe it could be that bad. My curiosity kicked in, and I wanted to see just how explosive this landmine was… But I was wrong. Haruka Kanata is a proper landmine—it redefines the term, made me relearn what a landmine means. This game fucked me deep and just walked away smiling.

The world is dark. But that’s not enough of a reason to deny that light exists. I know this one guy. Met him online, same as usual. From the moment I met him I thought he was mediocre. Mediocre in the sense that, sure, you can chat with him, but nothing about him stands out. No rebellious streak, never picks a fight, always smiling, doesn’t seem to have much of an opinion of his own. Not that he’s clueless — he knows plenty — but nothing he knows counts as expertise. Sometimes I figured this guy’s life had zero passion in it. But he always seemed happy. I asked him once if there was anything he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a programmer someday. “Like, writing insane software?” He shook his head. “That’d be great if it happens, but just writing stuff that solves people’s problems is fine too.” He paused. “I like writing code. Same way most kids like building with blocks.” So I stopped keeping in touch. Mostly because talking to him was boring — he’d listen to anything you said, then go right back to living his ordinary life, never once wanting to shake things up. Sometimes I think the big shots, the experts, they’re all obsessive, fanatical, one-track-minded. And guys like him? Throw them into a crowd and you’ll never find them again. Then the years went by. Through the internet I watched countless big names pivot and maneuver, watched plenty of experts trace their winding life curves. They ran around chasing all sorts of things, gained some, lost some. And that’s when I realized: the guy with no passion had somehow become the happiest person of all.

SINCLIENT is a visual novel by BOOST5 — ah, actually it’s not really a galgame, more like an 18+ visual novel, since there isn’t a single choice or branch in it. You just plow straight through from start to finish. It’s not a long game, but it’s definitely not short either. It’s split into two parts: a prologue, and a main chapter called Babylon. After finishing it, I came away with one feeling… And that’s that the prologue and the Babylon chapter don’t connect at all. Two different games… two different stories… and even two different levels of rigor.