This game tells the story of seven long-time friends. How they grew closer or further apart as they got older. The story is presented using a blog-like interface. The protagonist, Atemiya Shinobu, who was raised at a certain facility since young, had no one around him that could be called "friend". Being that way, the first thing he started doing after leaving the facility with his sister - Chidori - was to find and make friends. Benio Azusa, a tomboyish girl who lived nearby. Hondou Sayaka, a quiet yet sharp-tongued girl who was in charge of raising the pets at school just like him. Tsukamoto Youko and Itsuki, a pair of siblings who belong to a prestigious family around the area. Higuchi Shouji, a boy he knew by being attracted to by the similarities they both share. Izuki Fueko, a girl he met by chance. Together with Shinobu, they were a group of seven. Just like that, each and every one of them, who had never experienced the joy of having friends, was able to meet each other and become companions. The story begins in a quiet town colored by dusk. Around the seven friends, there were understanding, empathy, conflict, and what's more, fleeting love of adolescence. It was a friendship that could last forever. Such a simple happiness should have... lasted forever. That was until the "enemy" appeared. The "enemy" had disturbed the peaceful relationship of the seven people. Shinobu could not forgive that. He could not forgive the one that injures his companions, nor could he forgive the one that hurts another one's hearts. And when he realized all that, the world they reside in changed, rather then becoming the new world that it should have... they had arrived at the "sanctuary" instead. This is a story that describes the heart. A story that describes the thing located in the farthest end of a heart.
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As a consequence of being incomplete, the plot of Ima is very cryptic and even after finishing the true ending, a complete replay of the whole game might be necessary to put all the pieces together.
On the surface, this game tells a very moving story about a group of friends who spend the late days of their teenage years together hanging out, falling in love and living life. It is only after the player starts digging into each heroine's route that the game reveals a cruder and more dreadful story with themes about domestic abuse, alienation, violence, grooming, emotional manipulation and betrayal.
Even so, the main plotline that ties all these characters together remains a mystery until the very last stretch, where several pages worth of exposition attempt to explain the most esoteric moments of the story.
All in all, Saihate no Ima comes off as a very pessimistic vision of the world and the malice inside of the human heart. The struggles of the main cast in Cross Channel, a group of social misfits who can barely rely on each other let alone communicate with each other, become more present here, where the main cast can only rely and communicate between themselves and everyone else is an enemy that threatens their fragile sanctuary.
There is way more to say about this game but it's certainly something that must be experienced as blind as possible. It feels like no other eroge ever did or ever will and that's honestly for the better. Saihate no Ima is a tragedy and one can only wonder what it could have been if Tanaka had the time to complete the entire script.