/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Cleared Oni no Kamen—has a lot of the plot developments you’d expect to see from this circle’s other games, feels a bit short. I’m not sure if I’d recommend it if you’re not into the circle’s usual “exploitative older villainous man x unlucky younger girl”, but the cute romance scenes are very nice while they last and the creepier scenes with Kurokou get very kimoi (despite being R-15). Kurokou himself has a lot of gap moe to him: normally quiet and serious, but is very self-conscious about his age and loves junk food. I love the way this circle draws a character’s more warped expressions, really adds a lot to the experience when you see a CG of the protagonist in absolute despair or a CG of the main guy making an absolutely lewd face while going on about how cute the MC’s tearstained face is. This game has no absence of CGs like that. I wish the game had H scenes, some of those scenes were too lewd to just leave it as being R-15. Highly appreciated the shower scene with Kurokou and all of the creepy faces he makes throughout the game. I didn't self-insert, but I sympathized with Shimeji who is a cute and honest girl who just got stuck in a shitty situation. Overall, enjoyed it for the suspense and cute scenes but I wish it were longer.

The author likes to write a good chunk of her serious games like this: cute, romantic slice of life scenes with hints that something is off turning point where shit goes down, everything starts to go downhill ends with a bittersweet/merry bad end. You come to expect these types of developments after reading their games for a while, but how the author does it hits the exact spot for me. It’s the mix of cute, fluffy elements and gradually escalating darker shit that really pushes the feeling of “why did this have to happen?” onto the reader, culminating in an ending with an unpleasant aftertaste. Also, I enjoy how the guys are drawn: a slightly feminine face with a toned body. The one major point of criticism I have about this circle is that some of their games feel too short and you start to want to see more of the characters interacting.

The most recent game I cleared from the circle, Kokuzai wo Ukerubeki Mono, left a large impression on me, so maybe I just got my hopes too high for a game as short as this one after reading something that good. Kokuzai isn’t very /blog/, but it has a delinquent female protagonist who’s explicitly not a good person, lots of female-oriented rape scenes, and lots of cool old people characters. While it's through and through an utsuge, the ending is refreshing in a bittersweet way (unlike Majo, which mostly left me feeling some mixture of frustration and despair). It’s a very unorthodox and flawed work that I can wholeheartedly recommend for people willing to stomach lots of depressing shit and how clumsy some of the plot developments feel. Out of all the games I’ve played from them so far, this is probably my favorite and something you can feel the author poured their soul into.