I remember a few years back, before Google+ shut down, some helpful guy online told me the thing he hated most was when a character in certain anime/game works says one specific line — the moment that line comes out, he instinctively writes the whole thing off as garbage. “Humans, huh~ they’re just that kind of creature” Actually, at first I couldn’t understand this mindset, but as I played more and more visual novels and encountered more and more so-called “masterpieces,” I began to understand more and more. Characters who constantly spout “What is humanity…” like that… I fucking hate this! What I hate isn’t the line this character says, it’s the tone he says it in—all high and mighty, like he’s above it all. He’s still a “human” himself, yet he’s always judging humans from God’s-eye view. You could call it self-mockery, but that air of superiority doesn’t look like it. What annoys me even more is that everything he does fits the mold of the “complainer who never offers a solution” type. For example, this kind of character always rants like a lunatic about how ugly humans are, how selfish humans are, how goddamn stupid humans are—and then goes right on doing ugly, selfish, goddamn stupid things himself, while never once advocating truth, goodness, or beauty. It looks more like he’s making excuses for his own stupid behavior than actually criticizing anything.

When Red: Cherish was announced I wasn’t exactly hyped. My first reaction was “what the hell is this?” The legendary “cyberpunk” premise welded onto “running a restaurant day to day” — that reeks of a planning meeting where nobody had any ideas left and somebody just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Still, I was glad the studio managed to put out something new at all. I’d been convinced they were going to milk the white-haired Tsubaki from the previous game until the lights went out, so credit where it’s due for stepping out of the comfort zone. I played the trial, and it was surprisingly good. Bought the full version too — and then the smile slowly slid off my face. How do I put this. It’s not that the game is bad. It’s that it’s way too different from what I expected.

Like most teenage boys, at the age when “sex” hits hardest, I opened the door to “sex.” The trigger was a little ad I saw on the street, telling the story of a dick pill. It went like this: a “mistress” gets abandoned, then runs into a homeless guy on the street. He’s asleep, but still standing tall, so to speak. So the “mistress,” thirsty as hell, sits right down on him in broad daylight, and the wording that follows—I can’t decide if it’s absurd or inspired. Stuff like “jade stalk slides into jade gate,” “flower branch trembling,淫水 overflowing”—anyway, the ad ends by telling you this homeless guy is so godlike because he took their brand of dick pills. Even as an ad it’s total nonsense and makes no sense. For one, how does a homeless guy afford a box of fake dick pills at 98 RMB? And no woman on the street is gonna get bored and sit on a beggar. Do you people not own vibrators? Later, my more absurd education on “sex” came from a series of jokes called Professor Huang Xialiu. I found them in a pile of old newspapers—no idea which street rag printed them. A lot of the jokes were ridiculous, but sometimes they carried real satire of the era, including some absurdity from the Cultural Revolution. You can still find some traces of “Huang Xialiu” online, though supposedly anyone who’s seen this stuff is already 50.

Early 2022 was a mess, so I never found the time to write anything. The biggest problem I have now is that there’s a ton of stuff in my head but no time to get it out — and we’re already almost a third of the way through 2022 and I still haven’t written up last year’s games. I originally felt kind of guilty about it, but then I realized it doesn’t really matter whether I write it or not. Most people don’t play these games anyway; they just like watching the drama. Still, I figure I owe myself some kind of accounting, so here it is. If it turns out useful to anyone, even better. I played 31 games in 2021, a full 10 fewer than in 2020. Honestly, I don’t think it’s because I had less time — it’s that 2021’s games were just that bad, and quite a few were bad in a “very unique” way. With that in mind, after I cover the ones worth recommending, I’ll also roast some of the year’s hotter titles, so people stop asking me “why isn’t XXX on the list?”

I know who Matsuyama Takeshi is, because I read his novel Kimi Shinitamou Ryuuseigun. I’m still not sure whether that series is actually finished—it stopped at volume five, and I got stuck on volume three. The official line is that it’s complete. The plot of that novel is pretty simple: the protagonist’s childhood friend dies, and he spends the entire book getting over it. One idea from that novel stood out to me as genuinely novel: the heroine isn’t actually a “Earthling” in the usual sense—she’s a “space-born,” born in space to a mother who gave birth to her up there. That’s the bit that stuck with me the most. Honestly, I think that novel should have ended after volume one. The whole first volume is already overflowing with inspirational chicken soup, and the protagonist does manage to move past the heroine’s death. But then—surprise—the story pulls a sudden twist and reveals there might be a way to save her. And that’s where I checked out. If I had to guess, the rest of the story involves the protagonist using some supernatural ability (time travel, space hopping, whatever) to bring the heroine back… Lame. So lame.

When Sonora first launched, I remember they were trying to do something closer to mainstream young-people vibes—the first game’s gacha whale theme, the second’s anime idol theme, that sort of thing. Those are the topics young people love and that are trendy right now. As a visual novel company, creating a new brand to pull in new users with that kind of move is completely normal. Then the third game came along and the direction was already off—suddenly we’re talking about running an eroge shop, which is a super hardcore topic. And by this fourth game, they’ve completely let loose, heading straight into a field that eroge players know all too well but young people couldn’t care less about: eroge development. Uchi wa Mou, Enki Dekinai (We Can’t Delay Any Longer) The title itself reflects part of the current state of eroge development companies—thanks to COVID, staffing shortages, funding shortages, the declining industry taking another hit, development content getting delayed over and over, constant pushbacks. It’s basically the norm. I could already imagine the game’s theme before it came out. Going by Sonora’s previous eroge shop game, it’d be all jokes about the daily work of an eroge production company, with cameos from the previous game’s shop and maybe some idol characters. There might be some tense work descriptions, but problems get resolved quickly, and it all ends in a happy ending… And so this game… is pretty much exactly what I imagined.

Back at the start of 2021, while I was playing visual novels, I couldn’t help but sigh: “Everything coming out early this year is so mid. Guess only the big second-half releases can save this year’s reputation.” So I waited for the second half, and at last the legendary “big release” showed up: Sakuhin Kanojo no Ren’ai Koushiki (創作彼女の恋愛公式) When this one was announced it was stacked with buffs: the artist behind “G-Senjou,” Nii Shuu’s go-to producer, a Campus scenario writer who supposedly understands love better than anyone and who’d kept Light alive for a whole year off a pile of small titles, plus the best support resources Akabesoft2 had to offer. Everything about it made this game the closer that had to finish the year off. Then the trial version dropped. Honestly, the trial had its affected and janky bits, but overall I thought it had real merit. The big one: the secondary heroine, Kiriha, genuinely stood out. Earlier in the year I’d been snarking that she was a painter who’d also done debug work on the game, and then in the second half she turns around and becomes a heroine who spends the whole route PUA-ing the protagonist, and she’s the one who brings the story’s highlight moments. So I was looking forward to release. End of the year came, the full version arrived. When I saw the walkthrough mention a story lock, something felt off. Add the OP title they revealed later, “Kiseki nante, iranai” (“I don’t need miracles”), and I had a bad feeling. “Don’t tell me this game is about to pull some shit again.” Unfortunately, my hunch was right. Again.

Alright, so it’s been at least ten years since I last played a game with a “crossdressing infiltration” premise. What? You mean that “Monkeys?” thing? No, that one doesn’t count. That game is unhinged. The company that’s been cranking out “crossdressing infiltration” titles year after year is probably ensemble, the one everyone knows. Their games give me a feeling I can’t quite put into words. The company keeps putting out visual novels at Intel-like tick-tock cadence, churning out titles that mix the “crossdressing infiltration” and “rich young lady” elements, but after all these years, they’ve left barely any impression. A lot of the time people just skip right over the brand. The reason is simple: it’s way too samey. The so-called “young lady” games are gorgeous art paired with a plot straight out of a gender-swapped Tiny Times—players drop their pants, fap to the story, and move on. The “crossdressing infiltration” ones are also gorgeous art paired with a yuri Tiny Times plot—players drop their pants, fap to the story, and move on. Over time, people just assume this brand’s games have no story. The main draw is the beautiful girls, some scenes are fappable, and you grab it for the eye candy as material. OP and ED are always Duca, the titles always have “otome” or “hanasaku” in them. And that’s how ensemble keeps surviving—lukewarm, neither dead nor alive. But lately, they seem to have decided to change something. They’ve started improving the story and narrative, and their last release was a ninja-themed game. This time, with their “crossdressing infiltration” title, they’ve gone full transformation—and it hit me weirdly… hard. Hoshi no Otome to Rikka no Shimai (星の乙女と六華の姉妹) The title is cliché, the setup is cliché, but anyone who’s been following ensemble will spot the difference immediately. “The art quality in this game has visibly dropped.” That drop in visual quality brought about a change in the whole game. After playing it out of curiosity, I have to say this is genuinely ensemble’s most daring “crossdressing infiltration”… no, actually their boldest and strangest work in the entire lineup. The plot is simple to describe, but not that simple.

So here’s the thing: I didn’t even want to play this game. I’ve given up on Hook. The way they develop their scenarios like some high-cohesion, low-coupling assembly line pisses me off just looking at it, and paired with that eternal 720p max resolution, my blood pressure went straight through the roof… But I heard there was a “landmine,” so I dove in. You know how it is. I really love playing “landmines.” No idea if that counts as a symptom of being a total M. And here’s the awkward part: I’d barely finished the game when I got a commission request. So yeah, I already busted my ass writing a not-exactly-short commercial piece on this game, and now being asked to talk about it again is exhausting. Plus there’s honestly not that much to discuss story-wise. If I had to say something, let’s talk about the game’s “concept” and where it crashes and burns.

There was a time when I was really into an artist named 白もち桜. Chinese fans render her name as “白餅桜” — I followed her Twitter account almost as soon as she opened it, and the funny thing is, she followed me back. That makes her the second artist to follow me, after 茉宮祈芹. I still think fondly of her characters. The one I liked most was probably ナツイロココロロッグ — the heroine genuinely moved me — and the character she handled in 魔女こいにっき felt like a step up in how the cast was written. Her characters are mostly faces paired with fangs and gorgeous outfits, and they really do feel girlish. The weakness is obvious too, though: same-face syndrome. Whatever she draws, it’s always the same face. She went on to work on some newer titles and drew plenty of illustrations, but honestly, I don’t see any real progress. Her characters always end up in the same handful of poses, always flashing their panties, always wearing that same smile… Gradually I stopped reacting to her characters. 茉宮祈芹, by comparison, spends most of her time drawing high-exposure lewds too, but she can still deliver genuinely appealing characters in actual games — TamaYura Mirai or whatever it was called. And more importantly, 白もち桜 hasn’t done original art for a visual novel in ages. She even streamed once, playing Super Mario — and watching that was enough to spike my blood pressure. Then recently, out of nowhere, she came back. Partnered with Whirlpool, no less, on a little throwaway title whose name I literally cannot remember. It was something like… けもの道☆ガーリッシュスクエア