Collar x Malice: Common Route 1
Nov. 24th, 2021 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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An Otomate dating sim (currently on special on the Switch store!) about a Japanese policewoman who gets tangled up in a Strange Mystery about a Weird Terrorist Group.
I was a bit iffy on the premise but got the impression it was so bizarre it wouldn't feel very connected to real police and terrorism, and that's certainly been the case so far (for me as an Australian, at least, I imagine it's different for Japanese players). Also it seems...sort of anti-violence? In a very violent way? I haven't been playing that long, we'll see where it goes. It does involve a quarantine, which is a bit surreal.
I'm enjoying it so far, at least. The title and aesthetic made me think the love interests might be on the Nasty Boys end of Otomate's spectrum but they're not too bad. I was under the mistaken impression it was set in some parallel world but it's just modern day plus Weirdly Philosophical Terrorists (who are Japanese, with no apparent religious/ethnic etc motivation) and some truly ridiculous government decisions.
I was going to add pictures but getting them from the Switch is effort and looking up pictures online gives me spoilery looking stuff, so. None for now! (EDIT: am adding them as I go later on)
Content note: Me speculating on possible upcoming consent issues, but none have actually come up yet.
Spoilery Reactions:
I started out rambling to a friend so let's start with that:
I just opened it up and the opening screen has MATHS EQUATIONS ON IT. Don't tease me like this game unless you plan to follow through. This is the company who had a physicist LI who made the player solve simple maths problems to progress his route.
And now it's all murder and blood and cute cat themed UI so things are looking good.
So the game is about being a member of the police which made me a bit worried about uncomfortable political subtext.
Game: The Japanese government responded to the terrorist violence with unprecedented extralegal measures
Me: Oh no is this going to be all yay torture and removing criminals rights D:
Game: Every citizen of Shinjuku over twenty was given a gun
Me: ...ah?
Can you imagine the chaos of giving guns to a whole city of Japanese people who have never even seen a gun before. There is no mention of training so this will end well. Who needs national healthcare when you have national guncare.
haha omg the narration points out that this happened AFTER the citizens of Shinjuku had started violent riots about being trapped inside the area because of all the terrorism.
"Yes," says the government, "we will give them guns, this will calm things down."
Friend: like, what is this even? america 2?
Me: Yes but everyone is Japanese, you see. Also the terrorists are all about Purifying Japan Into A New Utopia so Otomate gets to do their vague anti-imperialism thing again.
Game starts with protag investigating "reports of a man with a gun" from an old lady the police are very sick of at this point. No shit there is a man with a gun, lady, you live in America 2
Friend: this sounds incredible
Otomate are always incredible. Not always good. But always incredible. Also their most successful game is Hakuoki, RPF about samurai vampire cops in the 19th century, so I think they wanted some of that dynamic but with modern day Japan. I can only hope that means there will be vampires in this one too.
Heroine does shooting practice to ease her otome heroine anxiety, and there was a shooting minigame! She is baffled by the government giving civilians the burden of gun ownership, when it is a heavy responsibility requiring conviction and training to use the gun to protect the people. There is definitely some Tragic Burden of the Samurai with a Duty of Violence vibes and I am here for it.
Wondering which of Nice Sempai and Nice Drinking Buddy From The Academy is going to be the rapey yandere.
And then I decided to put my further rambling in a post, though I have continued to update my friend on the especially weird bits.
So! The terrorist organisation is called Adonis, and every month for the last few months they killed someone in Shinjuka, starting with a bunch of police officers. So the government responded in the obvious way and...cut Shinjuka off from the rest of Japan and gave everyone a gun. Problem solved!
Adonis uses a variety of different computerised voices to talk about Purifying Japan and Corruption and Justice, but they don't seem to have any actual demands. They just kill people and ramble cryptically.
I'm going to use Western name order (given name first) since the game does. The main character's name is customisable but I stuck with the default.
So! The main character is Ichika Hoshino, a 23 year old rookie Shinjuku policewoman assigned to the Special Region Crime Prevention Office (SCRPO) division to keep the peace and deal with the SUDDEN RISE IN GUN VIOLENCE that's happened for SOME REASON.
So far we've met her good naturedly rumpled 32 year old sempai Masanobu Mochida, and her friendly 23 year old academy and drinking buddy Yuzuru Saeki. I suspect real Japanese police uniforms aren't this cute.
Mochida:
Saeki:
Ok! On with the game!
Some of these backgrounds are just filtered photos. THIS IS A $60 GAME I EXPECT ACTUAL ART, OTOMATE >:(
Ok I got it on special but it is normally $60, that counts! EDIT: ok there's a mix of filtered photos and digital art that blends well with the filtered photos, I guess it works as an Aesthetic.
Saeki tells her she should keep the passion to catch criminals she had at the academy. At the academy Ichika felt intimidated by the possibility of killing someone, but Saeki told her that with conviction and good marksmanship, a gun is not a weapon to kill, but to protect.
Mochida sends her ahead to investigate a disturbance, while waiting for him she is tazered, and wakes PARALYSED, IN A CHURCH, SURROUNDED WITH FLOWERS RED AS BLOOD, A METAL COLLAR ON HER NECK AND POISON IN HER VEINS!
The voice of Adonis from the collar tells her she will die if she tells the police about the collar, and that she should 'pursue her own idea of justice' until X-day. Also the collar has a little cat on it haha.
A bunch of dudes in a different sort of police jacket show up to save her, saying they got a Mysterious Note. One guy, Aiji Yanagi, is all curtly kind and tells her everything will be alright, and she has a vague memory of those same sad eyes comforting her in the past. FORGOTTEN CHILDHOOD FRIEND UNLOCKED.
The short androgynous guy from the opening credits, Takeru Sasazuka, has a deep voice and is really mean and suspicious, oh well. Though he has a point that all the other targets were killed: why was she chosen, and why is she still alive? The other guy, Mineo Enomoto, is polite and doesn't have much personality yet but has an EYEPATCH. Yanagi claims to be ex police, which she finds surprising, despite his jacket having the words POLICE written on it in large letters. Maybe it's an ironic fashion thing.
Yanagi, Sasazuka, and Enomoto:
Mochida has been ringing her for 2 hours, and says he was late because he lost his car keys. I suspect one of him or Saeki is involved with Adonis: Mochida was perfectly placed to set her up to get captured, but Saeki is the one who cares about her Sense of Justice. Hmm!
I tried telling him the truth just to see if she'd be killed, and YEP SHE WAS. I normally end reaction posts the first time I hit a bad end but I don't think that counts.
I like Ichika so far. She doesn't have a SUPER defined personality, but she's very professionally motivated, hard working, and likes to good naturedly tease her coworkers. She is a little prone to the typical otome heroine Frozen Anxiety but does her best to keep going and deal with things.
Ichika looks up Yanagi in the database, and as he said, he was in the high-level Investigation Section 1, and quit this year. I wonder if she became a police officer because of him and then forgot. He's 28.
SHE HAS A LITTLE BROTHER. Ok maybe HE'S in Adonis, Otomate brothers are always evil.
New love interest! Slightly creepy CSI/Field Ops Support, Kageyuki Shiraishi, 29. Are those...cat ears hairpins...
He calls her a 'captured princess' then says he's come to collect her, silently mouthing the word 'collar'.
He's all "How does it feel to know you could die? I want to lock you up and study you :D" Ichiko is quietly pissed.
Eriko Mukai, 27, is Shiraishi's no nonsense assistant. Why are Otomate's side female characters all so hot /o\
Shiraishi is the director of Field Ops Support, and a criminal profiler who's very good at figuring out people's thoughts. He tells her not to think of her as a superior, I assume there's some untranslated Japanese politeness stuff going on.
Yanagi and co have a rundown 'detective agency' that's just a front so they can investigate X-day/Adonis. Yanagi shows her another note (which I'm including in full because CLUES):
YEAH this is definitely some yandere 'friend' of hers who thinks poisoning is a romantic gesture.
Enomoto is polite and obedient to the others, I am into it. But even though Shiraishi says she's not lying about not being in Adonis, he doesn't trust her.
Just as they're about to examine the collar, Adonis's voice comes out saying that they're welcome to look at it, but if they try to remove it or inconvenience Adonis, her life will be in jeopardy.
Yanagi calls her "Hoshino" with no honourific with this air of quietly repressed desperation, congrats to the voice actor.
He says it's just sensible to work together and trust her like he isn't internally all YAAAAY TIME WITH BEST GIRL. He tells the others to introduce themselves.
Enomoto: *sad sigh*
Me: Aw, he's shy.
Enomoto: *suddenly shouting and pulling out a brightly coloured fan* Perk up your ears and listen well! Formerly assigned to Field Ops Team 2, before you stands a kabukimono rivalling Keiji Maeda! A shining silver samurai worth 1000 cops!
Lol, Otomate, can never resist a little Japanese history nerdery can you.
Ha! He calls her 'rookie' but is also just 23.
Yanagi: Don't mind him, that's just how he hides his nerves.
Sasazuka is 24 and was in the cybercrimes division.
Ichiko: Is it like the letter said and you left the police to follow your own ideals of righteousness?
Sasazuka and Enomoto: >.>
Yanagi: We all had our own reasons. I... couldn't follow the department's policy. I wouldn't be able to solve the case as a police officer.
And Shiraishi was the one who got sent the first letter, so he is apparently not included in 'the police' to Adonis. The second letter was waiting at the detective office when they came back from rescuing Ichika.
'Notice' is added to my 'Materials'?? DO I GET TO SOLVE MYSTERIES WITH CLUES LIKE FOR REAL?? :D :D
Belatedly looked up Shinjuku, which is a large ward of Tokyo. It contains the red light district, which may come up, and Korean and gay districts, which probably won't. I can't find any local churches with the sort of mandala-like stained glass in the one she woke up in, and they didn't name it, so I'm assuming it's made up.
Haha Ichika hadn't noticed the cat charm on her collar. Great detective work, officer. Adonis also left their calling card at the garden: a coin with a cat, anenome flowers, and the words "Adonis Rebirth of Justice" on one side, and ten pointed star with geometric lines and the words "Men are blind in their own cause" on the other.
Ichika is a little on the dumb side and spends a lot of time looking pleadingly at Ichika so he can explain things and tell her what to think :/ The other three are investigating individual cases while he's in charge of putting it all together, which makes me wonder if he's the Final Boy With Final Answers like Lupin in Code Realise.
Shiraishi says he's not a police employee here, he's just 'one of Ichika's precious team members' and he actually uses the english word 'member' cos I guess they're not nakama.
Just as Yanagi is saying Ichika shouldn't travel alone (I WONDER WHO HE THINKS SHOULD GUARD HER) a guy...comes in through the window?? It's a SECOND pretty white haired man, excellent. He's cheerfully unrepentant at Yanagi's resigned request to stop showing up this way. His name is Kei Okazaki and he's a Security Police officer, the sort that usually guards VIPs etc. He told the detectives he was assigned to cover them while they 'freelance' but they don't trust him or the police in general, and want to keep Ichika's collar a secret from him.
Ooh, first non-obvious choice!
After Ichika says she needs time to decide if she wants to work with them, Sasazuka finds her alone and grabs her by the neck, saying not everyone cares about her little life being in danger and she's too useful to let just walk away. Mean! My choices are 'Do you suspect me' and 'you don't care if I die?'
Hmm...let's go with 'Do you suspect me'.
He says "That too. But you're not cautious enough. Yanagi's soft. Mineo's an idiot. Shiraishi's just amusing himself. So it's left to me to give you some crucial advice...if you want to live, take this seriously. Running away from us is not an option. You can either shut up and help us, or let me watch out for you and use you to help us."
Oh no he's a tiny pretty grumpy tsundere nerd I'm into it. Maybe he'll make her solve maths equations. Also, I do wish this kind of character didn't call the LI an idiot so much, but he calls her bakaneko/idiot cat which is pretty cute as these things go.
Okazaki approaches her later and she pretends to have been hiring the detectives for a case, but he knows the agency is a front for investigating X-Day so she's all "I begged and they made an exception for me...OH LOOK, LIGHT WENT GREEN, TIME TO CROSS, BYE"
Okazaki: I will walk you home ^_^
Ichiko: I'm fine D:
Okazaki, taking her hand: It's no trouble :) And don't worry, those guys are great, I'm sure they'll solve your problem!
He has red tips to his white hair does that mean he's secretly twins with Enomoto.
Ooh, the brother has showed up! He's Kazuki, 18. She seems to take care of him herself. He's quietly sullen, and looks rumpled and punkish and not very Evil Little Brother.
All this stuff about the difficulties of living under quarantine sure hits different in 2021 than it would have when this game was written in 2016. Also I'm sure there's a lot of stuff to do with the specific Japanese context regarding guns, terrorism, the police etc (especially in 2016!) that's going over my head. I feel pretty confident on the 'giving guns to everyone over 20' thing being objectively ridiculous, though.
And that seems to be all the main characters introduced so I'll stop there for now.
An Otomate dating sim (currently on special on the Switch store!) about a Japanese policewoman who gets tangled up in a Strange Mystery about a Weird Terrorist Group.
I was a bit iffy on the premise but got the impression it was so bizarre it wouldn't feel very connected to real police and terrorism, and that's certainly been the case so far (for me as an Australian, at least, I imagine it's different for Japanese players). Also it seems...sort of anti-violence? In a very violent way? I haven't been playing that long, we'll see where it goes. It does involve a quarantine, which is a bit surreal.
I'm enjoying it so far, at least. The title and aesthetic made me think the love interests might be on the Nasty Boys end of Otomate's spectrum but they're not too bad. I was under the mistaken impression it was set in some parallel world but it's just modern day plus Weirdly Philosophical Terrorists (who are Japanese, with no apparent religious/ethnic etc motivation) and some truly ridiculous government decisions.
I was going to add pictures but getting them from the Switch is effort and looking up pictures online gives me spoilery looking stuff, so. None for now! (EDIT: am adding them as I go later on)
Content note: Me speculating on possible upcoming consent issues, but none have actually come up yet.
Spoilery Reactions:
I started out rambling to a friend so let's start with that:
I just opened it up and the opening screen has MATHS EQUATIONS ON IT. Don't tease me like this game unless you plan to follow through. This is the company who had a physicist LI who made the player solve simple maths problems to progress his route.
And now it's all murder and blood and cute cat themed UI so things are looking good.
So the game is about being a member of the police which made me a bit worried about uncomfortable political subtext.
Game: The Japanese government responded to the terrorist violence with unprecedented extralegal measures
Me: Oh no is this going to be all yay torture and removing criminals rights D:
Game: Every citizen of Shinjuku over twenty was given a gun
Me: ...ah?
Can you imagine the chaos of giving guns to a whole city of Japanese people who have never even seen a gun before. There is no mention of training so this will end well. Who needs national healthcare when you have national guncare.
haha omg the narration points out that this happened AFTER the citizens of Shinjuku had started violent riots about being trapped inside the area because of all the terrorism.
"Yes," says the government, "we will give them guns, this will calm things down."
Friend: like, what is this even? america 2?
Me: Yes but everyone is Japanese, you see. Also the terrorists are all about Purifying Japan Into A New Utopia so Otomate gets to do their vague anti-imperialism thing again.
Game starts with protag investigating "reports of a man with a gun" from an old lady the police are very sick of at this point. No shit there is a man with a gun, lady, you live in America 2
Friend: this sounds incredible
Otomate are always incredible. Not always good. But always incredible. Also their most successful game is Hakuoki, RPF about samurai vampire cops in the 19th century, so I think they wanted some of that dynamic but with modern day Japan. I can only hope that means there will be vampires in this one too.
Heroine does shooting practice to ease her otome heroine anxiety, and there was a shooting minigame! She is baffled by the government giving civilians the burden of gun ownership, when it is a heavy responsibility requiring conviction and training to use the gun to protect the people. There is definitely some Tragic Burden of the Samurai with a Duty of Violence vibes and I am here for it.
Wondering which of Nice Sempai and Nice Drinking Buddy From The Academy is going to be the rapey yandere.
And then I decided to put my further rambling in a post, though I have continued to update my friend on the especially weird bits.
So! The terrorist organisation is called Adonis, and every month for the last few months they killed someone in Shinjuka, starting with a bunch of police officers. So the government responded in the obvious way and...cut Shinjuka off from the rest of Japan and gave everyone a gun. Problem solved!
Adonis uses a variety of different computerised voices to talk about Purifying Japan and Corruption and Justice, but they don't seem to have any actual demands. They just kill people and ramble cryptically.
I'm going to use Western name order (given name first) since the game does. The main character's name is customisable but I stuck with the default.
So! The main character is Ichika Hoshino, a 23 year old rookie Shinjuku policewoman assigned to the Special Region Crime Prevention Office (SCRPO) division to keep the peace and deal with the SUDDEN RISE IN GUN VIOLENCE that's happened for SOME REASON.
So far we've met her good naturedly rumpled 32 year old sempai Masanobu Mochida, and her friendly 23 year old academy and drinking buddy Yuzuru Saeki. I suspect real Japanese police uniforms aren't this cute.
Mochida:
Saeki:
Ok! On with the game!
Some of these backgrounds are just filtered photos. THIS IS A $60 GAME I EXPECT ACTUAL ART, OTOMATE >:(
Ok I got it on special but it is normally $60, that counts! EDIT: ok there's a mix of filtered photos and digital art that blends well with the filtered photos, I guess it works as an Aesthetic.
Saeki tells her she should keep the passion to catch criminals she had at the academy. At the academy Ichika felt intimidated by the possibility of killing someone, but Saeki told her that with conviction and good marksmanship, a gun is not a weapon to kill, but to protect.
Mochida sends her ahead to investigate a disturbance, while waiting for him she is tazered, and wakes PARALYSED, IN A CHURCH, SURROUNDED WITH FLOWERS RED AS BLOOD, A METAL COLLAR ON HER NECK AND POISON IN HER VEINS!
The voice of Adonis from the collar tells her she will die if she tells the police about the collar, and that she should 'pursue her own idea of justice' until X-day. Also the collar has a little cat on it haha.
A bunch of dudes in a different sort of police jacket show up to save her, saying they got a Mysterious Note. One guy, Aiji Yanagi, is all curtly kind and tells her everything will be alright, and she has a vague memory of those same sad eyes comforting her in the past. FORGOTTEN CHILDHOOD FRIEND UNLOCKED.
The short androgynous guy from the opening credits, Takeru Sasazuka, has a deep voice and is really mean and suspicious, oh well. Though he has a point that all the other targets were killed: why was she chosen, and why is she still alive? The other guy, Mineo Enomoto, is polite and doesn't have much personality yet but has an EYEPATCH. Yanagi claims to be ex police, which she finds surprising, despite his jacket having the words POLICE written on it in large letters. Maybe it's an ironic fashion thing.
Yanagi, Sasazuka, and Enomoto:
Mochida has been ringing her for 2 hours, and says he was late because he lost his car keys. I suspect one of him or Saeki is involved with Adonis: Mochida was perfectly placed to set her up to get captured, but Saeki is the one who cares about her Sense of Justice. Hmm!
I tried telling him the truth just to see if she'd be killed, and YEP SHE WAS. I normally end reaction posts the first time I hit a bad end but I don't think that counts.
I like Ichika so far. She doesn't have a SUPER defined personality, but she's very professionally motivated, hard working, and likes to good naturedly tease her coworkers. She is a little prone to the typical otome heroine Frozen Anxiety but does her best to keep going and deal with things.
Ichika looks up Yanagi in the database, and as he said, he was in the high-level Investigation Section 1, and quit this year. I wonder if she became a police officer because of him and then forgot. He's 28.
SHE HAS A LITTLE BROTHER. Ok maybe HE'S in Adonis, Otomate brothers are always evil.
New love interest! Slightly creepy CSI/Field Ops Support, Kageyuki Shiraishi, 29. Are those...cat ears hairpins...
He calls her a 'captured princess' then says he's come to collect her, silently mouthing the word 'collar'.
He's all "How does it feel to know you could die? I want to lock you up and study you :D" Ichiko is quietly pissed.
Eriko Mukai, 27, is Shiraishi's no nonsense assistant. Why are Otomate's side female characters all so hot /o\
Shiraishi is the director of Field Ops Support, and a criminal profiler who's very good at figuring out people's thoughts. He tells her not to think of her as a superior, I assume there's some untranslated Japanese politeness stuff going on.
Yanagi and co have a rundown 'detective agency' that's just a front so they can investigate X-day/Adonis. Yanagi shows her another note (which I'm including in full because CLUES):
We have seen that you possess the skill to assist Ichika Hoshino. She is one of our sympathisers, and a woman with the potential to inherit our will, so treat her carefully. Should any harm come to her we will have no choice but to kill you all. Nonetheless, we bear no ill will to your group. On the contrary, we would prefer to join hands. You, who question the form of righteousness the police cling to, would surely find our concept of justice more agreeable. Of course, we do not expect you to be persuaded my mere words. So, please try to grasp the truth of the X-Day incidents. Discover our true intentions. You have until midnight on January first. We will be watching you via Ichika Hoshino.
YEAH this is definitely some yandere 'friend' of hers who thinks poisoning is a romantic gesture.
Enomoto is polite and obedient to the others, I am into it. But even though Shiraishi says she's not lying about not being in Adonis, he doesn't trust her.
Just as they're about to examine the collar, Adonis's voice comes out saying that they're welcome to look at it, but if they try to remove it or inconvenience Adonis, her life will be in jeopardy.
Yanagi calls her "Hoshino" with no honourific with this air of quietly repressed desperation, congrats to the voice actor.
He says it's just sensible to work together and trust her like he isn't internally all YAAAAY TIME WITH BEST GIRL. He tells the others to introduce themselves.
Enomoto: *sad sigh*
Me: Aw, he's shy.
Enomoto: *suddenly shouting and pulling out a brightly coloured fan* Perk up your ears and listen well! Formerly assigned to Field Ops Team 2, before you stands a kabukimono rivalling Keiji Maeda! A shining silver samurai worth 1000 cops!
Lol, Otomate, can never resist a little Japanese history nerdery can you.
Ha! He calls her 'rookie' but is also just 23.
Yanagi: Don't mind him, that's just how he hides his nerves.
Sasazuka is 24 and was in the cybercrimes division.
Ichiko: Is it like the letter said and you left the police to follow your own ideals of righteousness?
Sasazuka and Enomoto: >.>
Yanagi: We all had our own reasons. I... couldn't follow the department's policy. I wouldn't be able to solve the case as a police officer.
And Shiraishi was the one who got sent the first letter, so he is apparently not included in 'the police' to Adonis. The second letter was waiting at the detective office when they came back from rescuing Ichika.
'Notice' is added to my 'Materials'?? DO I GET TO SOLVE MYSTERIES WITH CLUES LIKE FOR REAL?? :D :D
Belatedly looked up Shinjuku, which is a large ward of Tokyo. It contains the red light district, which may come up, and Korean and gay districts, which probably won't. I can't find any local churches with the sort of mandala-like stained glass in the one she woke up in, and they didn't name it, so I'm assuming it's made up.
Haha Ichika hadn't noticed the cat charm on her collar. Great detective work, officer. Adonis also left their calling card at the garden: a coin with a cat, anenome flowers, and the words "Adonis Rebirth of Justice" on one side, and ten pointed star with geometric lines and the words "Men are blind in their own cause" on the other.
Ichika is a little on the dumb side and spends a lot of time looking pleadingly at Ichika so he can explain things and tell her what to think :/ The other three are investigating individual cases while he's in charge of putting it all together, which makes me wonder if he's the Final Boy With Final Answers like Lupin in Code Realise.
Shiraishi says he's not a police employee here, he's just 'one of Ichika's precious team members' and he actually uses the english word 'member' cos I guess they're not nakama.
Just as Yanagi is saying Ichika shouldn't travel alone (I WONDER WHO HE THINKS SHOULD GUARD HER) a guy...comes in through the window?? It's a SECOND pretty white haired man, excellent. He's cheerfully unrepentant at Yanagi's resigned request to stop showing up this way. His name is Kei Okazaki and he's a Security Police officer, the sort that usually guards VIPs etc. He told the detectives he was assigned to cover them while they 'freelance' but they don't trust him or the police in general, and want to keep Ichika's collar a secret from him.
Ooh, first non-obvious choice!
After Ichika says she needs time to decide if she wants to work with them, Sasazuka finds her alone and grabs her by the neck, saying not everyone cares about her little life being in danger and she's too useful to let just walk away. Mean! My choices are 'Do you suspect me' and 'you don't care if I die?'
Hmm...let's go with 'Do you suspect me'.
He says "That too. But you're not cautious enough. Yanagi's soft. Mineo's an idiot. Shiraishi's just amusing himself. So it's left to me to give you some crucial advice...if you want to live, take this seriously. Running away from us is not an option. You can either shut up and help us, or let me watch out for you and use you to help us."
Oh no he's a tiny pretty grumpy tsundere nerd I'm into it. Maybe he'll make her solve maths equations. Also, I do wish this kind of character didn't call the LI an idiot so much, but he calls her bakaneko/idiot cat which is pretty cute as these things go.
Okazaki approaches her later and she pretends to have been hiring the detectives for a case, but he knows the agency is a front for investigating X-Day so she's all "I begged and they made an exception for me...OH LOOK, LIGHT WENT GREEN, TIME TO CROSS, BYE"
Okazaki: I will walk you home ^_^
Ichiko: I'm fine D:
Okazaki, taking her hand: It's no trouble :) And don't worry, those guys are great, I'm sure they'll solve your problem!
He has red tips to his white hair does that mean he's secretly twins with Enomoto.
Ooh, the brother has showed up! He's Kazuki, 18. She seems to take care of him herself. He's quietly sullen, and looks rumpled and punkish and not very Evil Little Brother.
All this stuff about the difficulties of living under quarantine sure hits different in 2021 than it would have when this game was written in 2016. Also I'm sure there's a lot of stuff to do with the specific Japanese context regarding guns, terrorism, the police etc (especially in 2016!) that's going over my head. I feel pretty confident on the 'giving guns to everyone over 20' thing being objectively ridiculous, though.
And that seems to be all the main characters introduced so I'll stop there for now.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-25 05:11 am (UTC)I need to get back to this game at some point; I started it but found the intro too stressful, with the death and animatronic animal head...stuff.
Otomate brothers are always evil.
That's not true! Sometimes they're love interests instead! Or childhood friends who the heroine thinks of as older brothers, and who are
..evil...
Or...woobie little brothers who need to be protected? I can't think of any, but I'm surprised Otomate hasn't picked up that trope yet.
He has red tips to his white hair does that mean he's secretly twins with Enomoto.
I don't know if you are right or not, but you are very good at this.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 07:53 am (UTC)Thanks!
My response was more "AW YES VIOLENCE" but that is entirely understandable! I was going to say "the violence has started to get a bit much for me" but I think it's more the associated trauma. Lotta very sad people in this game!
Are there are NON evil brother LIs in Otomate? I can't remember any but haven't played all their games.
And yeah I don't remember any cute little brothers (Kazuki's role is still up in the air), just cute little sisters.
I'm good at coming up with possible twists, but they're not always the ones that actually happen haha
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 12:31 am (UTC)I am not at all surprised that everything is sad in an Otomate game!
Are there are NON evil brother LIs in Otomate?
I don't think I've played any games you haven't, so! Maybe Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk? I think Jed is raised with the Wolf Clan. From osmosis...Brothers Conflict? I mean, surely if she has so many brothers, at least ONE of them must be non-evil.
Are all the cute little sisters for LIs? The only one I can think of is Usagi.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-11 02:24 pm (UTC)Ai has a cute little sister in Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly! On further thought that's the only one I can think of though.
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Date: 2021-12-12 12:57 am (UTC)