The first time I heard of a dating sim was in elementary school, when I found something called Tokimeki Memorial from a pirate-game dealer. Not a CD version, of course — it was in a folder on a disc with a “Cangjinge” label. After installing it, I saw the name written as “Jun’ai Shuzha” (I even misread it as “Jun’ai Shouli”), and somehow, following the GameZ88 install wizard, I put a shortcut for the thing on my Windows 98 desktop. I played it for a while and found it pretty baffling. Bear in mind I was an elementary schooler then — I was dying to grab a gun and blast monsters, not sit down and hit on girls. The whole business of getting entangled with several women every day made no sense to me. “Why isn’t he fighting?” “When does the fighting start?” were the biggest questions in my head.