Taisho Alice Episode 1: Red Riding Hood
Mar. 13th, 2021 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrA light-hearted, humourous fantasy Japanese m/f romance game about a cheerfully pushy girl saving male versions of various female fairytale/Alice in Wonderland characters. "Taisho" means 1912-1926, the setting is a Japan-Europe fantasy mish-mash with waistcoats and ruffles.
Each of the episodes has 2 standalone routes, apparently the later episodes build on the earlier ones but you can just buy this one and stop there if you want. I got Episode 1 for 40% off, idk if it's worth the full price of $30AU for just 2 routes, or if I'll buy any others, but I'm glad I bought it.
I've only played Red Riding Hood's route so far, which was a lot of fun, and hands-down the most femdommy otome route I have ever played. It has this whole Bodyguard/Lady dynamic as the uptight, awkward Red tries and fails to assert his prickly boundaries in the face of the protagonist's dogged, somewhat dubcon friendliness. The writing/art/acting are all pretty good. There's no sex but a lot of dirty jokes. It's kinda heteronormative and problematic, but I enjoyed it.
I had no intention of writing a reaction post until I got to the end and went WAIT WTF. It's not inherently bad, but is an intense swerve into fluffy silliness that may not suit everyone.
And so below, the plot.
Content note: emotional parental abuse, iffy treatment of mental and physical illness
The protagonist's name is Arisu Yurika, though we don't know that at first.
The game starts with a prologue where she is in a strange dark place, having lost her memory. She bumps into a pretty, grumpy young man in the same boat, he remembers the name Alice but doesn't know which of them it applies to so calls himself "Alice" (in English) and her "Arisu" (in Japanese). They encounter a mirror showing two men: a man in a red hood (Red Riding Hood), and another with grey eyes (Cinderella). Afaict all the episodes start similarly, except maybe the as-yet-untranslated Episode 4, which is Alice's route.
I played like a minute of Cinderella's route before realising he was a playboy and deciding to do him second. On to Red Riding Hood!
So! Yurika is now a rich 19 year old schoolgirl who lives alone in a large house while her parents and older brother live and work elsewhere. Recently, she's noticed signs of a stalker, and received a blackmail letter telling her to "confess her sin", signed "The Wolf".
Red Riding Hood arrives, saying he's a policeman sent to protect her, and that he'll be living with her from now on. He's very focussed on duty and rationality, pushing her away when she tries to draw him out and then being totally steamrolled. She does respect SOME of his boundaries, especially the fact he refuses to explain or remove his red hood, but mostly he gives up on more than a token protest and is quietly into it.
90% of the route is him being all uptight and awkward and her affectionately no-no-yes mild-dubconning him into chatting, eating her cooking, touching etc. She openly flirts with him and enjoys how intensely flustered he gets.
Yurika: Why are you being so stubborn?!
Red Riding Hood: I should ask you the same.
Yurika: ...sorry. I know I'm being obnoxious.
Red Riding Hood: I'm not bothered by it.
Yurika: Oh cool, so does that mean I can go on being obnoxious?
Red Riding Hood: ... :/
Yurika: :D
Red Riding Hood: Are you not aware that persistence often drives people away?
Yurika: Oh, I'm aware. I'm just choosing to do it anyway ^_^
Yurika tells Red she has no idea who this Wolf could be. Then we meet her male BFF, who 'jokingly' flirts with her then looks kinda sad when she says she thinks Red is hot and she wants to get to know him better. He was apparently sick as a child and is quite short.
His name and appearance feel, uh.... significant:
HMM.
As you can see, the translation is very slangy and modern, which mostly works with the cheerfully anachronistic tone and humour. Like, I'm sure Woolfe didn't say "the D" in Japanese, but he did say the English word "sex" which afaict has a similar vibe.
But then it randomly does clunky translations like "Tasukete (save me)!!!" And not even consistently: it translates "onii-san" as "brother" in every line but one, where it uses "onii-san (brother)". WHY.
There was a lot of discussion of men as "wolves" who take advantage of women etc while I was sitting there wondering why Woolfe is in a fursuit.
We also meet Yurika's older brother Ryouta, a teacher at her school and also a "Hunter" (what a Hunter does is never explained) He is snarkily cold and mean but does seem to care about her deep down.
Red's annoyed her family doesn't come to look after her, especially Ryouta (since he doesn't see them interact at school), and amazed at how she remains calm and cheerful when the letters progress to "CONFESS YOUR SIN OR I WILL KILL SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT". We see a pointy eared silhouette at the window and signs a short man trashed the house. HMM.
Through flashbacks, we learn Red's traumatic backstory: his abusive, distant mother told him he must never talk to anyone but her, since he was a precious angel and other people are all evil wolves. But a cheerful sick little boy showed up, insisting on hanging out with Red and introducing Red to his grandma. The boy sometimes resented how much healthier Red was than him, and how close Red was to his grandma, who gave Red the red riding hood he wears to this day, matching the wolf-ear hoodie the sick boy wore. HMM.
Yurika is cheerfully open about liking Red a lot.
Yurika: I want to be closer to you. Both physically and emotionally ;)
"I aimed a finger gun and fired a shot at his heart. Bang! As I smirked up at him, he averted his eyes and fell silent."
:D
Red FREAKS OUT any time they touch or he sees her in a compromising position (calling her a slut at one point which was entirely uncalled for) but it's clearly because he has no ability to deal with sexual or romantic feelings, to the extent of getting dramatic nosebleeds any time he gets turned on. Yurika patiently encourages Red to get closer and more comfortable, until he ends up with his head in her lap talking about his feelings and trauma. He says deep down he's an unlovable coward and she says she's no better.
In the final flashback we learn that one day the boy ran away from home after a fight with his grandma about managing his illness, and said Red had to hang out with him all day even though Red had a bad feeling.
Red is helping the boy reach for something in a lake, but is surprised by the arrival of an adult man and drops him in the water.
The man says to Red "You in the hood, you must be Woolfe. Your grandma is sick in the hospital!" then goes to save the drowning Woolfe. Instead of explaining, Red leaves his sickly drowning friend and pretends to be Woolfe to the deliriously sick grandma, saying he loves her and is sorry for being a bad kid. When he goes home, his mother is so angry to have found Red gone from the house she leaves and never sees him again.
Red becomes so consumed with guilt he never speaks to Woolfe or the grandma again, instead vowing the spend the rest of his life alone. It's all a bit melodramatic but worked for me, poor baby.
Back in the present day, MC and LI go to visit Woolfe...and MC is KIDNAPPED!!
So yeah. At this point I was tensing myself for some ableist reveal about Woolfe being Made Bitter By Illness and Romantic Rejection etc.
But it turns out MC was kidnapped by....HER BROTHER.
And then ALICE shows up, having been missing all route.
And then...A WIZARD I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE showed up and said some cryptic things about Red and Yurika's sins AND THEN THE GAME ENDED.
I spent a moment staring at the screen in angry confusion before remembering that bad ends exist and looking up a walkthrough.
So! The plot is basically the same, except Yurika explicitly tells Red she has feelings for him. He gets embarrassed and changes the subject but is clearly very happy, and says he has something to tell her once they catch the Wolf. In the lap scene, Yurika says that whatever he's done, she'll forgive him and still like him.
Alice: If you think you're some kind of princess in a tower, then you ought to be bound and gagged. I'm sure all the masochist girls would go nuts for that.
Yurika: But I'm not a masochist.
Alice: I know, you're a massive sadist. But if you want to be the heroine, you better start acting like one. Why do you think princesses get kidnapped so often. Because they're frail? Because they have some special power? No. They exist to enable the male character to be the hero.
Yurika: Yes, I know my role in all this.
We see Red searching for Yurika in a panic. And it turns out HE WAS THE ONE WHO SENT THE ORIGINAL BLACKMAIL.
The brother, Ryouta, was the man who thought Red was Woolfe and sent him to the grandma. Red's guilt twisted into anger, and he blamed Ryouta for his problems, and decided to draw him out with the blackmail plot.
Red had no intention of actually hurting Yurika, so was horrified when (a) he fell in love with her and (b) the blackmail continued and got worse even after he stopped.
And then he finds Alice, who says he's a gullible idiot then sends him off to the lake, implying that it's some sort of trap. Red says he doesn't care if he's taken for a fool as long as Yurika is safe.
He finds Woolfe holding a knife to Yurika's throat at the lake. Woolfe talks about everything and demands Red admit to his sins. Red breaks down sobbing in apology and admits everything. Woolfe says "I don't want your apologies!"
There had been ZERO SIGN of this being a furry game until now. ZERO. I mean I did think of it as a possibility for why Red was raised in the forest and covered his head, but still. HE'S A LITERAL WOLF. OK THEN.
Red rushes Woolfe and pushes him and Yurika into the lake, then rescues them both.
Woolfe is all WTF MAN THAT WAS TOO MUCH.
And then Yurika apologises, tearfully...
BECAUSE
THIS WAS ALL A TRICK
TO GET RED TO DEAL WITH HIS TRAUMA
Woolfe and Ryouta told Yurika about Red, implicitly because Ryouta thought her doggedly friendly personality was just what Red needed to learn that he could be liked and valued.
When Red sent the blackmail, the three of them cooked up the scheme to have Red be her bodyguard as the threats increased to...manipulate him into having better self respect?? All the talk about "admitting your sin" was their way of saying "come to terms with your past and work through it"????
THIS IS NOT HOW YOU HELP PEOPLE PROCESS TRAUMA
Woolfe gets a REALLY EXTENDED section where he talks about how much he valued Red's friendship as a sick lonely child, and how much he cares about Red being happy, and Red talks about how important Woolfe is to him, and it was all very shippy and now I think Woolfe is gay and all the flirting with Yurika was a joke they were both in on. Also it's made very clear Woolfe's ALL BETTER NOW because god forbid he be happy and well adjusted AND chronically ill.
But none of this is as ableist as I thought it would be, so, yay for that!
Red rolls with the reveal pretty well, and says they did help him work through his trauma, so all's well that ends well, I guess.
Yurika tells Red she'll understand if he never forgives her, but he says he's just glad she's safe, then shyly asks if the part about her liking him was a lie too.
Woolfe hits on Yurika one more time for old time's sake, then talks about the porn he and Red used to read together as children?? Yurika says she's fine with her boyfriend reading whatever kinky porn he likes but that boyfriend is going to be Red.
She kisses Red, and he is very embarrassed, because her brother is right there, but into it. There is a really adorable post-credit scene where he stutteringly does his best to tell her he loves her, since she's already expressed her feelings dozens of times. He kisses her and inadvertently implies they should have sex and Yurika gets a nosebleed and collapses.
THE END.
Looking back, from what I remember Yurika's internal monologue was actually pretty consistent with it all being a trick. She wasn't weirdly chipper about being in danger, and stupidly oblivious to Woolfe=Wolf! She knew all along! I am curious to know how well it holds together on a replay.
I'm wondering if the Cinderella route will be at all similar? I'm definitely going to be going in with different expectations!
The walkthrough said the bed ends were fun so I did them all and the other two were the Wizard showing up to good-naturedly berate Yurika for her choices in a very meta-ish way, all "You got a bad end! Try again!".
Each of the episodes has 2 standalone routes, apparently the later episodes build on the earlier ones but you can just buy this one and stop there if you want. I got Episode 1 for 40% off, idk if it's worth the full price of $30AU for just 2 routes, or if I'll buy any others, but I'm glad I bought it.
I've only played Red Riding Hood's route so far, which was a lot of fun, and hands-down the most femdommy otome route I have ever played. It has this whole Bodyguard/Lady dynamic as the uptight, awkward Red tries and fails to assert his prickly boundaries in the face of the protagonist's dogged, somewhat dubcon friendliness. The writing/art/acting are all pretty good. There's no sex but a lot of dirty jokes. It's kinda heteronormative and problematic, but I enjoyed it.
I had no intention of writing a reaction post until I got to the end and went WAIT WTF. It's not inherently bad, but is an intense swerve into fluffy silliness that may not suit everyone.
And so below, the plot.
Content note: emotional parental abuse, iffy treatment of mental and physical illness
The protagonist's name is Arisu Yurika, though we don't know that at first.
The game starts with a prologue where she is in a strange dark place, having lost her memory. She bumps into a pretty, grumpy young man in the same boat, he remembers the name Alice but doesn't know which of them it applies to so calls himself "Alice" (in English) and her "Arisu" (in Japanese). They encounter a mirror showing two men: a man in a red hood (Red Riding Hood), and another with grey eyes (Cinderella). Afaict all the episodes start similarly, except maybe the as-yet-untranslated Episode 4, which is Alice's route.
I played like a minute of Cinderella's route before realising he was a playboy and deciding to do him second. On to Red Riding Hood!
So! Yurika is now a rich 19 year old schoolgirl who lives alone in a large house while her parents and older brother live and work elsewhere. Recently, she's noticed signs of a stalker, and received a blackmail letter telling her to "confess her sin", signed "The Wolf".
Red Riding Hood arrives, saying he's a policeman sent to protect her, and that he'll be living with her from now on. He's very focussed on duty and rationality, pushing her away when she tries to draw him out and then being totally steamrolled. She does respect SOME of his boundaries, especially the fact he refuses to explain or remove his red hood, but mostly he gives up on more than a token protest and is quietly into it.
90% of the route is him being all uptight and awkward and her affectionately no-no-yes mild-dubconning him into chatting, eating her cooking, touching etc. She openly flirts with him and enjoys how intensely flustered he gets.
Yurika: Why are you being so stubborn?!
Red Riding Hood: I should ask you the same.
Yurika: ...sorry. I know I'm being obnoxious.
Red Riding Hood: I'm not bothered by it.
Yurika: Oh cool, so does that mean I can go on being obnoxious?
Red Riding Hood: ... :/
Yurika: :D
Red Riding Hood: Are you not aware that persistence often drives people away?
Yurika: Oh, I'm aware. I'm just choosing to do it anyway ^_^
Yurika tells Red she has no idea who this Wolf could be. Then we meet her male BFF, who 'jokingly' flirts with her then looks kinda sad when she says she thinks Red is hot and she wants to get to know him better. He was apparently sick as a child and is quite short.
His name and appearance feel, uh.... significant:
HMM.
As you can see, the translation is very slangy and modern, which mostly works with the cheerfully anachronistic tone and humour. Like, I'm sure Woolfe didn't say "the D" in Japanese, but he did say the English word "sex" which afaict has a similar vibe.
But then it randomly does clunky translations like "Tasukete (save me)!!!" And not even consistently: it translates "onii-san" as "brother" in every line but one, where it uses "onii-san (brother)". WHY.
There was a lot of discussion of men as "wolves" who take advantage of women etc while I was sitting there wondering why Woolfe is in a fursuit.
We also meet Yurika's older brother Ryouta, a teacher at her school and also a "Hunter" (what a Hunter does is never explained) He is snarkily cold and mean but does seem to care about her deep down.
Red's annoyed her family doesn't come to look after her, especially Ryouta (since he doesn't see them interact at school), and amazed at how she remains calm and cheerful when the letters progress to "CONFESS YOUR SIN OR I WILL KILL SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT". We see a pointy eared silhouette at the window and signs a short man trashed the house. HMM.
Through flashbacks, we learn Red's traumatic backstory: his abusive, distant mother told him he must never talk to anyone but her, since he was a precious angel and other people are all evil wolves. But a cheerful sick little boy showed up, insisting on hanging out with Red and introducing Red to his grandma. The boy sometimes resented how much healthier Red was than him, and how close Red was to his grandma, who gave Red the red riding hood he wears to this day, matching the wolf-ear hoodie the sick boy wore. HMM.
Yurika is cheerfully open about liking Red a lot.
Yurika: I want to be closer to you. Both physically and emotionally ;)
"I aimed a finger gun and fired a shot at his heart. Bang! As I smirked up at him, he averted his eyes and fell silent."
:D
Red FREAKS OUT any time they touch or he sees her in a compromising position (calling her a slut at one point which was entirely uncalled for) but it's clearly because he has no ability to deal with sexual or romantic feelings, to the extent of getting dramatic nosebleeds any time he gets turned on. Yurika patiently encourages Red to get closer and more comfortable, until he ends up with his head in her lap talking about his feelings and trauma. He says deep down he's an unlovable coward and she says she's no better.
In the final flashback we learn that one day the boy ran away from home after a fight with his grandma about managing his illness, and said Red had to hang out with him all day even though Red had a bad feeling.
Red is helping the boy reach for something in a lake, but is surprised by the arrival of an adult man and drops him in the water.
The man says to Red "You in the hood, you must be Woolfe. Your grandma is sick in the hospital!" then goes to save the drowning Woolfe. Instead of explaining, Red leaves his sickly drowning friend and pretends to be Woolfe to the deliriously sick grandma, saying he loves her and is sorry for being a bad kid. When he goes home, his mother is so angry to have found Red gone from the house she leaves and never sees him again.
Red becomes so consumed with guilt he never speaks to Woolfe or the grandma again, instead vowing the spend the rest of his life alone. It's all a bit melodramatic but worked for me, poor baby.
Back in the present day, MC and LI go to visit Woolfe...and MC is KIDNAPPED!!
So yeah. At this point I was tensing myself for some ableist reveal about Woolfe being Made Bitter By Illness and Romantic Rejection etc.
But it turns out MC was kidnapped by....HER BROTHER.
And then ALICE shows up, having been missing all route.
And then...A WIZARD I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE showed up and said some cryptic things about Red and Yurika's sins AND THEN THE GAME ENDED.
I spent a moment staring at the screen in angry confusion before remembering that bad ends exist and looking up a walkthrough.
So! The plot is basically the same, except Yurika explicitly tells Red she has feelings for him. He gets embarrassed and changes the subject but is clearly very happy, and says he has something to tell her once they catch the Wolf. In the lap scene, Yurika says that whatever he's done, she'll forgive him and still like him.
Alice: If you think you're some kind of princess in a tower, then you ought to be bound and gagged. I'm sure all the masochist girls would go nuts for that.
Yurika: But I'm not a masochist.
Alice: I know, you're a massive sadist. But if you want to be the heroine, you better start acting like one. Why do you think princesses get kidnapped so often. Because they're frail? Because they have some special power? No. They exist to enable the male character to be the hero.
Yurika: Yes, I know my role in all this.
We see Red searching for Yurika in a panic. And it turns out HE WAS THE ONE WHO SENT THE ORIGINAL BLACKMAIL.
The brother, Ryouta, was the man who thought Red was Woolfe and sent him to the grandma. Red's guilt twisted into anger, and he blamed Ryouta for his problems, and decided to draw him out with the blackmail plot.
Red had no intention of actually hurting Yurika, so was horrified when (a) he fell in love with her and (b) the blackmail continued and got worse even after he stopped.
And then he finds Alice, who says he's a gullible idiot then sends him off to the lake, implying that it's some sort of trap. Red says he doesn't care if he's taken for a fool as long as Yurika is safe.
He finds Woolfe holding a knife to Yurika's throat at the lake. Woolfe talks about everything and demands Red admit to his sins. Red breaks down sobbing in apology and admits everything. Woolfe says "I don't want your apologies!"
There had been ZERO SIGN of this being a furry game until now. ZERO. I mean I did think of it as a possibility for why Red was raised in the forest and covered his head, but still. HE'S A LITERAL WOLF. OK THEN.
Red rushes Woolfe and pushes him and Yurika into the lake, then rescues them both.
Woolfe is all WTF MAN THAT WAS TOO MUCH.
And then Yurika apologises, tearfully...
BECAUSE
THIS WAS ALL A TRICK
TO GET RED TO DEAL WITH HIS TRAUMA
Woolfe and Ryouta told Yurika about Red, implicitly because Ryouta thought her doggedly friendly personality was just what Red needed to learn that he could be liked and valued.
When Red sent the blackmail, the three of them cooked up the scheme to have Red be her bodyguard as the threats increased to...manipulate him into having better self respect?? All the talk about "admitting your sin" was their way of saying "come to terms with your past and work through it"????
THIS IS NOT HOW YOU HELP PEOPLE PROCESS TRAUMA
Woolfe gets a REALLY EXTENDED section where he talks about how much he valued Red's friendship as a sick lonely child, and how much he cares about Red being happy, and Red talks about how important Woolfe is to him, and it was all very shippy and now I think Woolfe is gay and all the flirting with Yurika was a joke they were both in on. Also it's made very clear Woolfe's ALL BETTER NOW because god forbid he be happy and well adjusted AND chronically ill.
But none of this is as ableist as I thought it would be, so, yay for that!
Red rolls with the reveal pretty well, and says they did help him work through his trauma, so all's well that ends well, I guess.
Yurika tells Red she'll understand if he never forgives her, but he says he's just glad she's safe, then shyly asks if the part about her liking him was a lie too.
Woolfe hits on Yurika one more time for old time's sake, then talks about the porn he and Red used to read together as children?? Yurika says she's fine with her boyfriend reading whatever kinky porn he likes but that boyfriend is going to be Red.
She kisses Red, and he is very embarrassed, because her brother is right there, but into it. There is a really adorable post-credit scene where he stutteringly does his best to tell her he loves her, since she's already expressed her feelings dozens of times. He kisses her and inadvertently implies they should have sex and Yurika gets a nosebleed and collapses.
THE END.
Looking back, from what I remember Yurika's internal monologue was actually pretty consistent with it all being a trick. She wasn't weirdly chipper about being in danger, and stupidly oblivious to Woolfe=Wolf! She knew all along! I am curious to know how well it holds together on a replay.
I'm wondering if the Cinderella route will be at all similar? I'm definitely going to be going in with different expectations!
The walkthrough said the bed ends were fun so I did them all and the other two were the Wizard showing up to good-naturedly berate Yurika for her choices in a very meta-ish way, all "You got a bad end! Try again!".
