Love 365: After School Affairs- Shinichi
Jan. 7th, 2020 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrThis is another Voltage romance game on the Love365 phone app.
The premise of After School Affairs is that the protagonist's sports-focussed boys school has merged with an academics-focused girls school, and two of the conditions of the merger are (a) Teachers from her school have to work with the "better" teachers to raise the boy's grades (b) DATING IS FORBIDDEN.
And of course all the potential teaching partners are HOT DUDES.
The uptight, cold maths teacher Shinichi was free for January, and looked like my sort of thing, so I gave him a go.
And it was sort of my sort of thing? But I got bored three chapters in and skipped to the end. I didn't like the "Climactic" ending that much, but the "Amorous" one was cute. EDIT: I went back and played all the scenes, and enjoyed it!
Also it hit a squick of mine, which I'll go into under the cut.
I'll definitely keep the app in mind for when I want a cheesy romance, and might even give this one another go later in January if the mood hits me. But I'm not sure I'll ever pay for a route, unless it jumps out at me way more than any of the ones I've seen.
Below: Spoilers, mention of sexualisation of teenaged characters.
It kept my ridiculous name from the previous game which was an amusing susprise.
The guys are enjoyably varied in terms of personality.
I was immediately charmed by the history teacher Kiyonori. When she meets him, introducing herself as a new neighbour with a gift of soba, he nearly hits her with the bamboo sword he's practicing with. And instead of apologising he just starts talking about the history of soba noodles until she makes her escape.
But I tried his preview and his autistic-coded otaku-ness leaned a bit too much towards asshole, and she was a bit too conventional in her reactions to his weirdness. Also, he's not free!
So I moved onto Shinichi.
I could quickly see hints of the not-asshole under his cold, assholeish exterior. But these sorts of characters are aimed at people who don't like maths but find strict maths teachers hot, rather than people like me who like maths and cold characters but have strong opinions about real life maths teaching. It means I always have very mixed feelings!
For Reasons she had to pass the same maths test as her students (she's an English teacher), which was an amusingly effective way to play with teacher/student tropes within a teacher/teacher romance, though it took a while for the actual maths teaching to kick in and I was getting a bit bored.
Unfortunately at around this point that a love triangle kicked in...with one of her students D:
The protagonist never seemed to see him as a potential love interest, but the game seemed to, which nope nope nope squick.
So I took a break, then skipped to the final scene. There's a "Amorous" version and a "Climactic" version, I chose the latter. It looks like the plot was:
Episodes 3-12
Shinichi and the protagonist grow closer and gain respect for each other as people as teachers.
He kisses her, and she falls for him.
He suddenly gets distant and fires her as his assistant!
The student does Something to hit on her, and she doesn't reciprocate, but isn't as cautious as she should be and is seen in a compromising position by another teacher, who reports it.
She is suspended, and miserable.
Ending:
She comes back to school for her judgement.
She's about to get fired when Shinichi stands up for her as an upstanding and talented teacher. She keeps her job.
Afterwards he says he loves her and they agree to a Sexy Forbidden Affair.
The student appears! Turns out he saw the first kiss, and blackmailed Shinichi into distancing himself from her so she wouldn't get fired. But now the student realises she loves Shinichi, and apologises for making things difficult. UNTIL HE GRADUATES WHEN HE'LL BE BACK. Mmm, not selling yourself as a boyfriend there, dude, even asides from the student thing.
Shinichi and the protagonist have a brief moment of YAY WE ARE DATING.
THE END
So not the worst romance narrative, my student/teacher squick aside, but idk the ending felt a bit understated, like I'd be left wanting more, and I don't like the idea of feeling the need to buy more stories.
But I am not in a great mood right now, so maybe I'd enjoy it another time.
OH OK SO I played the "Amorous" ending and it was better! Basically the same plot but cuter and more romantic, and with almost entirely new dialogue. I thought that would be the sexy one but I guess the names are more accurate than I thought: Amorous is more romancey, Climactic is more melodramatic.
(Also, not all the games are this chaste, Episode 3 of Irresistible Mistakes had a fade to black sex scene rather than a maths lesson lol)
Edit: WAIT I JUST REALISED THE STUDENT IS AN ACTUAL LI?? They haven't written his route yet though which is why I didn't realise. I guess he was popular with players, and I can see that intellectually but also NOPE.
WAIT. "He then started renting himself out as a boyfriend to older women because the pay was good and needed the money to help his mother out." ?????
I.
Uh.
Also I looked up Kiyonori and apparently they made a thing where he gives history lessons in advance of a game coming out about the Shinsengumi, that's cute.
As I said in my other post:
The last time I tried the Shinichi route I was SUPER depressed, so I decided to give it another go now I'm feeling more cheery, and enjoyed it quite a lot. While he's mostly pretty uptight and strict he's compassionate and open to negotiation or admitting he's wrong just enough to be likeable. He and the MC have a cute dynamic where they tease each other for being too emotional/strict but respect each other and learn from each other. Also her friendly dynamic with the other teachers was really nice, everyone supports each other and cares about the students. It's nothing ground-breaking, just workman-like tropey Japanese het romance, including some mild consent issues and sexist dynamics. But I still had fun and am pondering maybe even paying money for one of the other routes. "Working together to be better teachers" appeals to my id.
Also the scene where the student hits on the MC wasn't as dubconny or romantic as I worried it would be: she's depressed about being suspended, and he comes to her apartment with cake and gives her a hug, then tells her he loves her and she turns him down, both because he's a student and because she's in love with Shinichi. Someone sees him leaving her apartment, which is what causes the scandal.
The premise of After School Affairs is that the protagonist's sports-focussed boys school has merged with an academics-focused girls school, and two of the conditions of the merger are (a) Teachers from her school have to work with the "better" teachers to raise the boy's grades (b) DATING IS FORBIDDEN.
And of course all the potential teaching partners are HOT DUDES.
The uptight, cold maths teacher Shinichi was free for January, and looked like my sort of thing, so I gave him a go.
And it was sort of my sort of thing? But I got bored three chapters in and skipped to the end. I didn't like the "Climactic" ending that much, but the "Amorous" one was cute. EDIT: I went back and played all the scenes, and enjoyed it!
Also it hit a squick of mine, which I'll go into under the cut.
I'll definitely keep the app in mind for when I want a cheesy romance, and might even give this one another go later in January if the mood hits me. But I'm not sure I'll ever pay for a route, unless it jumps out at me way more than any of the ones I've seen.
Below: Spoilers, mention of sexualisation of teenaged characters.
It kept my ridiculous name from the previous game which was an amusing susprise.
The guys are enjoyably varied in terms of personality.
I was immediately charmed by the history teacher Kiyonori. When she meets him, introducing herself as a new neighbour with a gift of soba, he nearly hits her with the bamboo sword he's practicing with. And instead of apologising he just starts talking about the history of soba noodles until she makes her escape.
But I tried his preview and his autistic-coded otaku-ness leaned a bit too much towards asshole, and she was a bit too conventional in her reactions to his weirdness. Also, he's not free!
So I moved onto Shinichi.
I could quickly see hints of the not-asshole under his cold, assholeish exterior. But these sorts of characters are aimed at people who don't like maths but find strict maths teachers hot, rather than people like me who like maths and cold characters but have strong opinions about real life maths teaching. It means I always have very mixed feelings!
For Reasons she had to pass the same maths test as her students (she's an English teacher), which was an amusingly effective way to play with teacher/student tropes within a teacher/teacher romance, though it took a while for the actual maths teaching to kick in and I was getting a bit bored.
Unfortunately at around this point that a love triangle kicked in...with one of her students D:
The protagonist never seemed to see him as a potential love interest, but the game seemed to, which nope nope nope squick.
So I took a break, then skipped to the final scene. There's a "Amorous" version and a "Climactic" version, I chose the latter. It looks like the plot was:
Episodes 3-12
Shinichi and the protagonist grow closer and gain respect for each other as people as teachers.
He kisses her, and she falls for him.
He suddenly gets distant and fires her as his assistant!
The student does Something to hit on her, and she doesn't reciprocate, but isn't as cautious as she should be and is seen in a compromising position by another teacher, who reports it.
She is suspended, and miserable.
Ending:
She comes back to school for her judgement.
She's about to get fired when Shinichi stands up for her as an upstanding and talented teacher. She keeps her job.
Afterwards he says he loves her and they agree to a Sexy Forbidden Affair.
The student appears! Turns out he saw the first kiss, and blackmailed Shinichi into distancing himself from her so she wouldn't get fired. But now the student realises she loves Shinichi, and apologises for making things difficult. UNTIL HE GRADUATES WHEN HE'LL BE BACK. Mmm, not selling yourself as a boyfriend there, dude, even asides from the student thing.
Shinichi and the protagonist have a brief moment of YAY WE ARE DATING.
THE END
So not the worst romance narrative, my student/teacher squick aside, but idk the ending felt a bit understated, like I'd be left wanting more, and I don't like the idea of feeling the need to buy more stories.
But I am not in a great mood right now, so maybe I'd enjoy it another time.
OH OK SO I played the "Amorous" ending and it was better! Basically the same plot but cuter and more romantic, and with almost entirely new dialogue. I thought that would be the sexy one but I guess the names are more accurate than I thought: Amorous is more romancey, Climactic is more melodramatic.
(Also, not all the games are this chaste, Episode 3 of Irresistible Mistakes had a fade to black sex scene rather than a maths lesson lol)
Edit: WAIT I JUST REALISED THE STUDENT IS AN ACTUAL LI?? They haven't written his route yet though which is why I didn't realise. I guess he was popular with players, and I can see that intellectually but also NOPE.
WAIT. "He then started renting himself out as a boyfriend to older women because the pay was good and needed the money to help his mother out." ?????
I.
Uh.
Also I looked up Kiyonori and apparently they made a thing where he gives history lessons in advance of a game coming out about the Shinsengumi, that's cute.
As I said in my other post:
The last time I tried the Shinichi route I was SUPER depressed, so I decided to give it another go now I'm feeling more cheery, and enjoyed it quite a lot. While he's mostly pretty uptight and strict he's compassionate and open to negotiation or admitting he's wrong just enough to be likeable. He and the MC have a cute dynamic where they tease each other for being too emotional/strict but respect each other and learn from each other. Also her friendly dynamic with the other teachers was really nice, everyone supports each other and cares about the students. It's nothing ground-breaking, just workman-like tropey Japanese het romance, including some mild consent issues and sexist dynamics. But I still had fun and am pondering maybe even paying money for one of the other routes. "Working together to be better teachers" appeals to my id.
Also the scene where the student hits on the MC wasn't as dubconny or romantic as I worried it would be: she's depressed about being suspended, and he comes to her apartment with cake and gives her a hug, then tells her he loves her and she turns him down, both because he's a student and because she's in love with Shinichi. Someone sees him leaving her apartment, which is what causes the scandal.
