i legitimately cannot remember the last time a game has made me cry as much as this one. ever
This review contains spoilers
MINAKAMI DIED TO MANY FUCKING TIMES I WAS SO SICK OF HIS ASS
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i saw this story to its end because of how much i loved it but i find myself wondering if i actually should've..? its first two routes are quite possibly one of my favorite stories in fiction, ever... as for its latter three, it almost felt as if Adelta were attempting to destroy the very story they so carefully crafted. i have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this one. kawaminatama forever tho
This review contains spoilers
honestly this is something thats really hard to formulate any thoughts on because the main topic is reality vs fantasy and while i do have a couple minor complaints about the final route i found this to be so captivating and exciting to read.
idk what relating to tamamori says about me but a lot of the portrayal of his passion for creating new stories and characters and getting too sucked into it all really resonated with me....
while reading i did have to search up a few things that i dont know much about since im not japanese nor did i ever live in japan and while i might not completely understand certain metaphors or the whole deal abt dogra magra (altho i was able to at least find a summary in english haha) i really found a lot of the commentary about passion for both reading and writing, fantasy and reality to just be so meaningful.
in a lot of ways i think this vn is kurosawas love letter to the craft of storytelling itself and most especially the creation of it. i was initially wary of the fact its set in the taisho era but i think that was picked carefully as a bit of a perfect in between for when a lot of classics were first published.
i think one thing that can be really off putting about hashihime is the fact that almost everyone here, even the protagonist, is a terrible person. and these people are all incredibly aware of it (if the vn talking about jekyll and hyde nonstop didnt get that point down for you). which is why its really easy to be turned off by the final route especially (adelta vns do love their incest it seems?) but also i feel like i might be missing a bigger commentary about religion (with the use of those beads as well as kaoru wearing a fox mask).
i obviously have a lot of thoughts and feelings im not sorting through very well about this vn but i truly do think thats the beauty of it. i love stories that are left intentionally vauge haha..
and um. honestly... this was a lot stronger than uuultrac.. i find it interesting uuultrac fans tend to dislike this because i personally found uuultrac to be mid
ONE MORE THOUGHT but i find it so fun that each route is based off a specific genre and as someone who has spent half of his life reading BL and has seen literally. all. of these genres in BL i feel like its almost a very perfect way of also encapsulating what makes BL (and this could also start into a long winded explanation of how inspiration from both classic queer literature as well as yuri birthed BL but ill stop here)
idk what relating to tamamori says about me but a lot of the portrayal of his passion for creating new stories and characters and getting too sucked into it all really resonated with me....
while reading i did have to search up a few things that i dont know much about since im not japanese nor did i ever live in japan and while i might not completely understand certain metaphors or the whole deal abt dogra magra (altho i was able to at least find a summary in english haha) i really found a lot of the commentary about passion for both reading and writing, fantasy and reality to just be so meaningful.
in a lot of ways i think this vn is kurosawas love letter to the craft of storytelling itself and most especially the creation of it. i was initially wary of the fact its set in the taisho era but i think that was picked carefully as a bit of a perfect in between for when a lot of classics were first published.
i think one thing that can be really off putting about hashihime is the fact that almost everyone here, even the protagonist, is a terrible person. and these people are all incredibly aware of it (if the vn talking about jekyll and hyde nonstop didnt get that point down for you). which is why its really easy to be turned off by the final route especially (adelta vns do love their incest it seems?) but also i feel like i might be missing a bigger commentary about religion (with the use of those beads as well as kaoru wearing a fox mask).
i obviously have a lot of thoughts and feelings im not sorting through very well about this vn but i truly do think thats the beauty of it. i love stories that are left intentionally vauge haha..
and um. honestly... this was a lot stronger than uuultrac.. i find it interesting uuultrac fans tend to dislike this because i personally found uuultrac to be mid
ONE MORE THOUGHT but i find it so fun that each route is based off a specific genre and as someone who has spent half of his life reading BL and has seen literally. all. of these genres in BL i feel like its almost a very perfect way of also encapsulating what makes BL (and this could also start into a long winded explanation of how inspiration from both classic queer literature as well as yuri birthed BL but ill stop here)
CWs for Hashihime of the Old Book Town: graphic sexual assault, abuse, pedophilia, beheading, graphic violence, body horror.
I've had a really hard time assembling my thoughts on this one! Hashihime of the Old Book Town has some odd edges for being a Taisho period piece with not too much to say about the era in terms of global military movement, but it's often completely secondary to the moment-to-moment. But then I find myself very lost trying to piece together what that moment-to-moment is: something about delusions, having expectations for your life, career aspirations that muddy your connection to reality and your loved ones, or a poisonous obsession with the past. Something really provoking occurs when it's all happening at once, the modest period piece lounge jazz-y score, the anachronistic super flat CGs, and the drab cityscapes in the rain, but I think it still ends up somewhere very simplistic in the way that romance tends to. There's maybe a larger statement being made through the heavy reference to Yumeno's Dogra Magra that I'm completely missing, but that's where I'm at! This is a very fun game with a lot of fantastic revision to the middle era of BL VN where it's just normal about the BL stuff up to a certain point. I wish the routes were a bit more even or maybe in a different order, but I can't wait to hit more from Adelta.
I've had a really hard time assembling my thoughts on this one! Hashihime of the Old Book Town has some odd edges for being a Taisho period piece with not too much to say about the era in terms of global military movement, but it's often completely secondary to the moment-to-moment. But then I find myself very lost trying to piece together what that moment-to-moment is: something about delusions, having expectations for your life, career aspirations that muddy your connection to reality and your loved ones, or a poisonous obsession with the past. Something really provoking occurs when it's all happening at once, the modest period piece lounge jazz-y score, the anachronistic super flat CGs, and the drab cityscapes in the rain, but I think it still ends up somewhere very simplistic in the way that romance tends to. There's maybe a larger statement being made through the heavy reference to Yumeno's Dogra Magra that I'm completely missing, but that's where I'm at! This is a very fun game with a lot of fantastic revision to the middle era of BL VN where it's just normal about the BL stuff up to a certain point. I wish the routes were a bit more even or maybe in a different order, but I can't wait to hit more from Adelta.
sry but i feel like i need to cut my losses when i got thru the first 2 routes and felt bored thru most of it. feel a bit miffed that this is the better regarded adelta vn over uuultrac, generally speaking :/ i need to repeat myself to emphasize how fucking great uuultrac is, and coming off how lightning fast yet consistently slick that was to how glacial this was (tho not bad looking by any means, ie i liked how it does sprites) comes off like a sheer rise improvement on kurosawa's part
this game is my fucking baby, forever obsessed. too bad i only care about the first two routes though the rest are....eh/
the first two routes made me want to get hit by a bus (positive) then the rest of the game made me want to lose the ability to read (negative)
minatama 4ever tho </3
minatama 4ever tho </3
huge congrats for being the only game to have kawase
Great storyline, great art, and GREAT MUSIC. I loved the Taisho Era theme so much. Keep in mind, there is an enforced playing order in the game. Plays similar to a kinetic novel at first.
this game made me read dogra magra in japanese gg
excellent game for pretentious taisho era literature enjoyers, the soundtrack and art is very pleasant
excellent game for pretentious taisho era literature enjoyers, the soundtrack and art is very pleasant
Iām sorry, I really wanted to dig this one more than I actually did. āGay psychedelic time-traveling murder mysteryā is exactly my kind of jam butā¦ well, I think the first two routes are pretty fun. Minakami has a pretty good romantic arc, and I didnāt dig Kawase as a character as much but his route still had some pretty crazy stuff going on that kept me hooked. But then Hanazawaās route happened, and despite his route being considerably shorter, this is where the game really started to drag for me. From here on, the love interests are mostly lacking in charisma and the storyline loses some of the creativity it displayed previously. Itās still pretty bonkers but it feels restrained after basically going all-out at the start. The Professorās route picks up a bit but it still left me with a feeling of disenchantment.
The final route is incredibly controversial, and while Iāve defended big twist finales like it in other VNs, I just canāt bring myself to go to bat for this one. Thereās this interesting idea about escapism that could be explored but the ending is way too short, stops itself before it could actually develop any follow-up on the implication of the twist. Thereās also some stuff thatās pretty āyikesā and is seemingly unaware of it, and that keeps me from having a reparative view on the more āproblematicā elements of this ending. All that being said, I can see and respect how somebody could love Hashihime even with its flaws. Thereās a lot of big ideas at play about the relationship people have with fiction and what it takes to be an artist that donāt feel capitalized on, but I can see someone appreciating nonetheless.
The final route is incredibly controversial, and while Iāve defended big twist finales like it in other VNs, I just canāt bring myself to go to bat for this one. Thereās this interesting idea about escapism that could be explored but the ending is way too short, stops itself before it could actually develop any follow-up on the implication of the twist. Thereās also some stuff thatās pretty āyikesā and is seemingly unaware of it, and that keeps me from having a reparative view on the more āproblematicā elements of this ending. All that being said, I can see and respect how somebody could love Hashihime even with its flaws. Thereās a lot of big ideas at play about the relationship people have with fiction and what it takes to be an artist that donāt feel capitalized on, but I can see someone appreciating nonetheless.
A copypasta that screams Kawase x Tamamori:
you want to fuck him i want to consume him i want to live inside his skin like a beast in the walls of his house i want to be his birth and his death and his beginning and his end and his undoing and his armageddon and his divine creator i want to eat him whole i want him to love me love me love me love me as the worshippers love the temple and as the temple loves the lamb and as the lamb loves the knife i want to be his vampire i want to be his life i want him to tear me apart i want to create worlds out of him and destroy them and destroy him and have him wake up in the morning next to me i want to call him pretty i want to brush his hair i want to crack him up i want to choke him i want to make him bleed i want to kiss the blood from his skin i want him buried deep inside the wound of my desire i want him to be my best friend i want him to loathe me i want to fight him to the death i want to be his favourite girl his favourite villain i want to be his worst fear i want my fingers in his mouth i want my mouth on his jugular i want to be the only thing inbetween him and death eternal i want my teeth in him i want i want i want i want
you want to fuck him i want to consume him i want to live inside his skin like a beast in the walls of his house i want to be his birth and his death and his beginning and his end and his undoing and his armageddon and his divine creator i want to eat him whole i want him to love me love me love me love me as the worshippers love the temple and as the temple loves the lamb and as the lamb loves the knife i want to be his vampire i want to be his life i want him to tear me apart i want to create worlds out of him and destroy them and destroy him and have him wake up in the morning next to me i want to call him pretty i want to brush his hair i want to crack him up i want to choke him i want to make him bleed i want to kiss the blood from his skin i want him buried deep inside the wound of my desire i want him to be my best friend i want him to loathe me i want to fight him to the death i want to be his favourite girl his favourite villain i want to be his worst fear i want my fingers in his mouth i want my mouth on his jugular i want to be the only thing inbetween him and death eternal i want my teeth in him i want i want i want i want
this game is so fun i binged played it...probs the last yaoi vn i binged played and finished all routes !! ive been craving a replay...kawase <3333
i am going to blow us all up
AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I was strongly encouraged by a friend to not play through any of the routes after the initial "main" one and I can already sort of see why, with how that main one ends. I'm not one of those annoying, vaguely misogynist prudes who think cis women have no business being near gay porn, but I would at least ask they learn how the plumbing works before writing about it. One of the most unintentionally goofy sex scenes I've come across in something that's otherwise phenomenally well-written.
And it really is a tremendously written visual novel, or at least the route I played is: strange, funny, eerie, and deeply sad. Its cast of characters is among the kookiest I've come across, with an admirably perverse lack of care given to making its self-involved dipshit protagonist even a little sympathetic. A real good time, at least until the dicks come out.
And it really is a tremendously written visual novel, or at least the route I played is: strange, funny, eerie, and deeply sad. Its cast of characters is among the kookiest I've come across, with an admirably perverse lack of care given to making its self-involved dipshit protagonist even a little sympathetic. A real good time, at least until the dicks come out.
Came for the porn stayed for the plot. i got jumpscared when the porn actually came i forgot its included. (i gotta say i only played the first route n i dont rly have a desire to see the rest, the story was good and feels complete. to me)
This review contains spoilers
first route : boring plot, mid cast, nothing offensive but painfully average
Second route : litteraly useless
third route : ????????????????????????????????????????????????? are you fucking serious rinko kurosawa what's your problem i didn't ask for rape out of nowhere ????????
Fourth route : shut the fuck up professor
Final route (music theme of this route : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNv2RHR62Rs) : ??????????????????????????? GO FUCK YOURSELF RINKO KUROSAWA WHO LET HER COOK THIS GARBAGE CLIMAX ???????????????
imagine putting another incest H scene on top of "It WaS AlL iN hIS hEaD" twist and thinking it was a good idea to conclude your shitty story, no you're not mature rinko kurosawa you just have serious problems seek help ASAP
Second route : litteraly useless
third route : ????????????????????????????????????????????????? are you fucking serious rinko kurosawa what's your problem i didn't ask for rape out of nowhere ????????
Fourth route : shut the fuck up professor
Final route (music theme of this route : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNv2RHR62Rs) : ??????????????????????????? GO FUCK YOURSELF RINKO KUROSAWA WHO LET HER COOK THIS GARBAGE CLIMAX ???????????????
imagine putting another incest H scene on top of "It WaS AlL iN hIS hEaD" twist and thinking it was a good idea to conclude your shitty story, no you're not mature rinko kurosawa you just have serious problems seek help ASAP
liked the first two routes of the game! the rest of them though...
the first route: shocking, upsetting, riveting, well-written, revolutionary, touching, heartbreaking, a narrative tour de force
every other route: "aren't gay guys WEIRD? anyway here's all of those usual BL rape and incest tropes we didn't include in the first route, sorry it took us so long to get it to you"
every other route: "aren't gay guys WEIRD? anyway here's all of those usual BL rape and incest tropes we didn't include in the first route, sorry it took us so long to get it to you"
gay mean girls, no really how are these guys friends
i don't want to talk about it
Inside you there are two people, one is you, the other is also you. you are gay