Otome Game Review: Renai Bancho 2 -Midnight Lesson!!!-

So following the first game, we now have a different heroine (who I’ve named Hiro In because Mary Sue was last game 😆 ) that’s got love problems. Her friends tell her about the renai banchos but she’s already well aware of it because she’s heard of the “Legendary Angel!” aka the first game’s Mary Sue. One day a flying chibi girl named Katherine gives Hiro a rainbow handkerchief saying to throw it up near a tree in the courtyard, rather than off the school rooftop like before. As she walks around confused a bunch of random guys, who she thinks are transfer students, ask her about the handkerchief but she lies saying she doesn’t have it. When she gets home she runs into Koakuma Bancho who tells her to stop lying and that throwing the handkerchief during a full moon will make something good happen to her. She goes back to the school courtyard at night and throws the handkerchief and immediately gets 8 hot men at her service. As like with Mary Sue, Hiro can now pick one of them to be her boyfriend for a year to teach her the ways of love.

Otome Bancho – Otome is the resident trap. Unlike Pretty Bancho who just “looked like one” Otome takes it to the next level by going shopping for girly things, doing his hair and chasing ikemans. Frankly I coudn’t tell half the time if he was trying to be a crossdresser, or gay, or both. His best scenario was when he and Hiro were Romeo & Juliet in the school play which he was probably at his manliest in the whole route. For Christmas he decides to go on a date with her as a man as well but he comes wearing a pink frilly suit -_-. I mean he gets manly when needed but for the most part he just wants to be Hiro’s BFF. In February he even kisses her cause he gets upset realizing that their 1 year time period is up. So in the Dream End, we get friendzoned when after Hiro confesses her feelings to Otome, he just tells her he only sees her as his BFF.  And so yay best friends forever crap ヽ(　￣д￣;)ノ. In the Perfect End, he says he can’t be a bancho anymore because he’s in love with Hiro. Hiro says she loves him too and Otome bawws and hugs  her and then they kiss but it still looks like yuri. Why the fuck couldn’t they just make him MANLIER in the end （ಠ_ಠ）. Bleh I was hoping Rejet would do to him like they did with Goro but yea  trap until the very end -_-. He did have his cute moments at first but that was all because in my head he was GUY not because I wanted to see 2 chicks getting it on blah.

Iyashi Bancho – Iyashi may as well be Sekuhara Bancho because at every moment he can, he’s groping the heroine. The hilarity is supposed to be that he does it thinking he “relieves stress” and maybe that’s true in Western countries but in Japan that’s a nono! On top of that he’s also a closet yandere how sweet! He like randomly shows up at her place one night during a rainstorm, uses her shower and then decides to “relieve her stress” by hugging her half naked lolol. The heroine does get a bit more awesome in this route because when his jealous yanyan side begins to come out, she pats him on the head and gives him some of her own “iyashi. ” So then he complains that Do-S and Otome are loud and obnoxious (which they are) and he can’t study so of course Hiro’s mom is like WHY DON’T U STAY AT OUR PLACE FOR LIKE 2 MONTHS LAWL. And so he stays at her place but things get worse when she gets tired of his sekuhara and slaps his hand away! He’s so upset he tells them to stay apart until they both can’t be away from each other so they run back and grope and make up.

So then if that wasn’t enough, during xmas she gets cake in her hair and so he decides he’s gonna wash her hair while she’s sittin’ in the tub in her swimsuit 😆 What the hell and I guess he’s so good at massaging her scalp she falls asleep in the dub lol. Then the randyness continues into Valentine’s Day where she drops some melted chocolate on her leg and he promptly licks it off (●　ﾉﾉ).　In the Dream End, Hiro grows a pair and kisses him saying she loves him and after a massive shock, he says he likes her too and says he won’t hold back anymore. What is there to hold back? At this point he may as well shove his hand down her skirt.  As they both go to college, they continue their gropy relationship. In the Perfect End, Iyashi promises to only give his sexual healing to Hiro from now on and then kisses her but there’s no CG (　´_ゝ`). But they  then go in the classroom and say they wanna “touch each other” so they have some hard core making out (／ρ＼)いやーん. Afterwards they go back to her room and he gives her some massaging that practically makes her fall asleep. Tells her that he wants to live with her in the future and that Hiro’s mom told him to marry her daughter xDD. Ahh Iyashi was such a ray of light in between all the other crappy endings I had to put up with honestly.

Do-S Bancho – Do-S is the oldest of the Suzuki brothers (herp derp) and he’s pretty much Mr. My way or the Highway. I LIKE his thinking! In addition to constantly wanting to make Hiro his slave, he’s also in a popular band whose fans consist of mostly Do-M fangirls. He does whatever he wants and if he wants to kiss her, he’ll grab her and make out with her in front of everyone, including his fans. When they go on a date to the aquarium, they go to the place where you can see the seals and so instead of watching seals, he makes her go into the water and fetch the ball LIKE A SEAL to him 😆  He also tends to get VERY jealous (like his otoutou kun Iyashi) and so when some guy confesses to her, he blames it on her and TIES HER TO THE FREAKING BED in the nurse’s office. Not only that he then LEAVES her there for like 6 hours until Renai & Yasu show up….act like morons and leave until OTOME shows up and unties her. ಠ_ಠ They go on a date at the pool hall and some random idiot starts hitting on her but for obvious reasons, Hiro’s brains have flown out the window in this route so she truly thinks the guy is asking her directions. When Do-S comes over and tells the ass to GTFO she gets all pissy saying he was just asking directions. Do-S is like what the fuck and so he puts her on a LEASH to keep her in line (　ﾟｪﾟ)・;’.、ｺﾞﾌｯ.

She was acting so fucking annoying though, I feel NO PITY for this girl. So then she takes Katherine’s advice trying to overpower him, grabs him by the tie but fails to even move him, and so as a punishment, he makes her wear cat ears & gloves while he tickles her with a cat  toy lolol. She must be a huge ass do-M cause she falls in love with him and when she gives him a Christmas present with no reaction she gets extremely upset. Do-S actually must be falling for her too cause he feels bad so he bed intrudes (as appropriate to him) into her room on Xmas eve and sleeps in bed with her saying that her present is “him for the night.”  In the Dream End, he forces her to confess her feelings to him and then says she needs a bit more “training”. He then puts her on a leash once more saying he’s gonna “explore her body” more and not hold back and tells him to call him Master. Hiro admits that maybe this kind of thing is good for her 😆 In  the Perfect End, some stupid bitches tell her to let him go cause they wanna date him for a year too. She talks to him on the rooftop asking if she’s good enough, and he says that as a slave she’s awful but she’s perfect as his lover. He gets all dere and hugs her saying that he loves her and he belongs to her. She asks him to kiss her and he…KISSES HER HAND FUUUCKKK this shiat ┻━┻ ︵╰(ಠ益ಠ)╯︵ ┻━┻. Great he fucking became do-M for her lol WHY DOES THE DREAM END FEEL LIKE THE TRUE ONE. Sigh I’ll just pretend the perfect end doesn’t exist and think of the Dream one as his true end =_=.

Data Bancho – Data Bancho started out kinda sweet but quickly the route spiraled into HATE because they made the heroine a despicable cockblocking bitch. Data is always on his laptop collecting all sorts of data and he’s collected a ton of it from all the girls he’s dated in the past. He feels like he knows everything about how to be with a girl, but all his methods come to a halt when he meets with Hiro who’s  romantically challenged. So then shit pretty much hits the fan when at the September masquerade this stupid bitch suddenly says “I can’t dance with you because it would be unfair to everyone else.” Umm what the fuck? (；☉_☉) This makes him incredibly pissed off and jealous thinking she likes another bancho, rather than because she’s fucking stupid. Things get worse because it’s obvious from then that Data’s really fallen in love with her but she’s as dumb as a brick. He hints to her that he can’t stop thinking about her but she doesn’t get it through her thick skull. For Christmas they go to a freaking HOTEL and like he’s got her pinned down on the bed but then…..he cockblocks himself saying “fake lovers shouldn’t do this.” ┻━┻ ︵ ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

It gets even more painful when apparently for once a bancho has a backstory and Data tells us he became a bancho to support his brother Fuuki. Additionally, he used to like some girl back in the day but when he asked her out the bitch said he don’t understand women and so from that day on Data began collecting woman data to try to understand them better. Shoulda just dumped the ho honestly but anyway for Valentine’s Day, stupid bitch Hiro makes things worse by NOT giving him the chocolates and instead RUNNING AWAY oh my god ┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻ So then in the Dream End our faceless side character YOSHITSUGU, confesses to Hiro even though we haven’t spoken to him more than like 2 times all year. Data gets pissed and says that she’s his woman and then confesses to her saying he will now collect data as her “lover” rather than a fake boyfriend. We get a pathetic kiss on the forehead ending blah. In the Perfect End, he says that he’s gonna delete all the data he collected on her saying that he wants to keep all memories of her in his heart not on some disk drive. He then kisses her and apologizes for his data incompetence, saying from now on he’s not gonna hold back his feelings anymore. The kiss CG was awkward so meh honestly 😕

Fuuki Bancho – I had kind of high hopes for Fuuki but his route kinda flew by for me with the exception of a few cute scenarios. He starts out rather annoying with his “We must write letter and exchange diaries” bullcrap. He’s also irritating with his whole “you skirt is too short, your bangs are too long” shit over & over. So then finally things get interesting when Sexy Bancho shows up to try to get these two “going”. They go to the pool in August where her swimsuit makes him extremely embarrassed and also shows a bit of his jealous side. He drags her into the pool with him and then realizes what he’s done and freaks out xDDD. At the Skii resort scenario everyone teams up and pretends that they wanna sleep in Hiro’s room so that Fuuki starts bitching and then forces himself to sleep in her room instead. However when they’re in the same room together he huddles into the corner like a loser until she falls asleep and he gets brave enough to pat her head =_=;.  For Xmas they go on their derpy prude date but in the end he asks to hug her, chickens out but then hugs her anyway ^ω^.

Hiro gives him Valentine’s day choco but for reasons unknown to me he’s like like I cant accept it cause its against the rules or some dumb shit goddamnit ┻━┻ ︵╰(ಠ益ಠ)╯︵ ┻━┻. And so in the Dream End, she confesses to Fuuki but then runs off. Yoshitsugu shows up and invisibly confesses to her again, but then Fuuki comes up to them saying that he will not allow it saying that he loves Hiro. He then gives her that band thing he wears around himself, but the one she gets is a pink one that he made JUST FOR HER DAWW. ಠ_ಠ However I guess Hiro is tired of his prude shit (as am I) so while he’s adjusting the band, she reaches up and kisses him. In the Perfect End, at the graduation ceremony he gives the final speech and says he wants to be true to his feelings in regards to a girl he’s loved, saying that he loves that girl and  doesn’t want to give her to anyone. After graduation he kisses her and then goes to meet her parents cause its the “appropriate thing to do”.  Meh I thought I would like Fuuki a lot more but not even his perfect ending really changed my mind. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I didn’t have to play like 3 characters between his Dream & Perfect ends. This “play other characters first than do true ends” system isn’t really working too well for me.

Yankee Bancho – I never thought I would like Yankee Bancho so much but he was just the most adorable thing ever. (๑´ლ`๑)♡ He seems kinda lame at first with their first date being the convenience store and then arcade. However you can tell that he really REALLY tries hard for Hiro and he even goes and blows all his money just to win her a UFO catcher doll that she wanted. You can totally tell this guy is perfect when we find out that despite being a gang leader, he reads shoujo manga in his spare time. 😆 He brings Hiro to his “gang hideout” on the beach but all his gang bros are a lot of fun and I seriously wish they all got sprites. Even though Yankee hates shellfish, he still eats Hiro’s entire bento that she made for him to the point that he chokes & passes out. He then claims that he could never leave any food behind in a bento that his woman made for him. (๑´ლ`๑)♡ He’s so gentle that he even secretly takes care of an abandoned puppy who he then brings back to his hideout and names him Herb xDDD. When they go to the beach together, Hiro runs into the water like an idiot and drowns so he gives her some CPR (๑￫ܫ￩๑).  During the skii lodge scenario I don’t know how the hell she ended up in a blizzard on her own or why the hell “Masked Renai” showed up only to tell her that Yankee is coming for her (instead of ..saving her rofl)…but the 2 of them get stuck together in an abandoned log cabin for the night and they cuddle by the fireplace to keep warm (●　ﾉﾉ).

For Xmas he picks her up telling her to jump out the window and then he catches her. When he takes her out he almost kisses her but because he takes so long all the other banchos show up & cockblock making fun of him. Apparently he has a backstory as well when he tells us that his parents argued every single day, and he only thought of his sister as his family. However, his mom took her with her when his parents got divorced. So then because Hiro’s like “noo you can’t get into fights anymore” some delinquents attack him and beat him up because he doesn’t fight back.  Fortunately all the other banchos show up and the stupid delinquents run away. Yankee then asks Hiro to feed him his valentine’s day choco cause he’s too tired to bother himself. In the Dream End, he says he wants to be by her side forever, and they both hug each other as she says she wants to be with him too. In the Perfect End, he says he’ll quit being a yankee to be by Hiro’s side and says he’ll only fight on the side of justice from now on. All his bros yell at them to kiss so he grabs and kisses her 3 times (*^ω^*). They both confess their love to each other and then ride off into the sunset on his motorbike. Daww seriously Yankee was just so adorable, and that blush of his when he was awkwardly trying to do something for the heroine….きゃー （/▽＼）

Host Bancho – I honestly wish I had done this route first because it is possibly the worst route in the game. Being a host of course, he’s not only a manwhore Bancho, but he’s also a manwhore at his club where he’s known as the “Emperor”. He sure knows how to woo the ladies (and their mothers (；☉_☉)). While wooing Hiro, very well may I add, he would then whisper from time to time things like “stupid bitch falls for it every time.” Ok I realize she’s stupid and she don’t hear this shit, but hey as a player I hear it and pretty much by the 2nd month this guy was already on my last nerve. He’s irritating with his bootleg spanish phrases too like BUENOS DIAS MY ANGEL and ADIOS and shit and he’s also the manthong wearer in this game. I pretty much glazed over his route cause anything he would do or say felt fake and revolting to me. Shit gets real in October when Hiro’s at his host club for his birthday night. Some host shit calls her a cheapass for not buying him a drink (but lol shes underage anyway) so Host beats him up telling the guy to stop being a douchebag. That was probably like the most redeeming thing he did the whole route. So then I don’t even know how she bought him WHISKEY for Christmas. How the fuck do they let a 17 year old in Japan buy alcohol?

Even if she’s not drinking it, seriously the hell. So then he tells us his sob story that his mom was a whore who went from man to man and then abandoned her son. Because of this he hates nights because last time he saw his mom was the night she brought  a man home and then disappeared. Ok seriously, since your mom was an obvious prostitute, and then “disappeared” it’s pretty obvious what happened to her! I doubt she just “randomly abandoned” you! Sigh 🙄 So then if this guy didn’t irritate me enough, on Valentine’s Day when Hiro decides to confess her feelings, he asks Katherine to pretend to be his “real lover” and tells Hiro that their “boyfriend play” is almost over. Apparently he did this because he chickened out and was afraid to get close to any woman. ┻━┻ ︵ ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)　In the Dream end he admits that that other girlfriend was a lie and asks her to make him her “permanent host request” because he wants to be with her forever (the CG was so cheap in this ending…) In the Perfect End, he says he can’t live without her and apologizes for being a dick. They furiously make out and Hiro tells him she loves him the end.  Blah whatever seriously this route felt (and I think was) longer than all the other routes and I would have rather gotten with GiriGiri Bancho or Yankee’s bros instead ヽ(　￣д￣;)ノ. Why do they keep casting Morikawa as characters that get on my nerves lol.

Koakuma Bancho – I saved the best for last and indeed my baby was the best!! The funniest part is how he mentioned all these things about him which are pretty much a mirror of his VA Kakihara Tetsuya. For example he said how he was born in Germany and that his bday is on Xmas eve just like Kakki xDDD. As a Koakuma character he’s very adorable and teasing and the moment the heroine mentions the word 好き he goes into his koakuma naught mode. For some stupid reason Hiro in this route is all like “OH NOES WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER GIRLS HE USED TO DATE”. Why the fuck do you suddenly care. You didn’t seem to give a shit in HOST BANCHO’S ROUTE when he was fucking wooing milfs at his god damn host club. ( ಠ益ಠ ) She then avoids him when he tries to touch her so they get into a fight but they make up when he takes her to the beach for some private fireworks together.  As he starts falling seriously in love with her, he starts being nicer to her and less “naughty” which Hiro finds incredibly disappointing! For Xmas she gives him a scarf she made and he kisses her on the lips saying that’s what he’s taking as his birthday present (๑￫ܫ￩๑) . In January he wins tickets for a vacation to Hawaii or something and they go and kyakyaufufu on the beach together. By now Hiro’s gotten pretty awesome and she’s the one who starts making him blush saying that if he were to drown, she’d grab his hand and hold on to him tightly.  He tells her the trip is to be a celebration of her “graduating” from their fake relationship but she’s like NOO BBY I STILL LOVE U and so she grows a pair and kisses him on the cheek.

Koakuma’s like (／ρ＼)いやーん but then they get into a stupid fight cause he gets jealous of her talking about Sawayaka bancho (who btw has been more irritating than all hell in this route.) Hiro decides to be awesome again and not go down without a fight, so she makes  him some German chocolate cake or something for Valentine’s day. In the Dream End, he comes to visit her after graduation to end their relationship but she’s like ITS NOT OVER YET BBY and drags him on the track field confessing her feelings. She asks him to go out with her and he says that her love level’s not quite up to par yet so he’s gonna stick around to help her improve. However, he says that it may take his entire life so that they can be together forever. (*´꒳`*) In the Perfect End he busts in during her graduation and takes her out on the track field while all her friends hold the sensei back. He then tells her he became a bancho hoping someone would change his ways of thinking love is all fake and stupid shit. He says that he’s changed thanks to Hiro cause he fell in love with her for real. He concludes by telling Hiro that he has no more reason to be a bancho now that he has her (*´ω｀*). Suddenly Sawyaka & co. cockblock but Koakuma’s like “lol whatever screw you guys” and makes out with Hiro in front of everyone saying he wants to be together forever. 萌━ﾟ☆;｡+(*pq′ー｀)+｡;☆ﾟ━萌  Gah Koakuma was just the most preciously adorable thing ever. Everything about him was so sweet, koakuma? How about マジ天使ｗｗ He defintely got my vote in the character poll. My only regret is his route just FLEW BY. It was so short compared to fucking Host. Seriously all that time with host I would have rather it be spent on Koakuma. I just wish Koakuma’s route would never end (´；ω；｀). Seriously he’s now not only my favorite in RB2 but probably in the entire Bancho series.

I’ll be honest that during the routes/intro I didn’t really DISLIKE any of the characters (except choi Eroi UGH) but by the time I fully finished everyone’s Dream & Perfect ends  a lot of characters just left a bad aftertaste. My top 3 are Koakuma, Yankee and Iyashi. I liked Do-S Bancho until I saw his Dream Ending, Fuuki & Data were both self-cockblockers (or the heroine was a fucking whiny twerp) and Host can just go diaf honestly. Otome led my hopes up thinking we’d get to see him “become” manly but he stayed a trap until the very end which left me bitterly disappointed. The entire reason I even like traps is with the glowing hope that they get manly in the end (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ 彡┻━┻.  I also regret that GiriGiri Bancho doesn’t have a route. I seriously hope Rejet considers making another Bancho game, they got plenty of male seiyuus to work with! Do it and give GiriGiri a route!  But hm don’t give Choi Eroi a route cause I want to kick him in the face anytime he shows on screen. This time around our HIRO IN made me want to punch her in the face multiple times. She was SUCH A STUPID IMMATURE BRAT 80% of the time. The only routes she was acceptable in was Yankee and Koakuma. Every other route she was either a doormat  rug or a fucking irritating prude. It annoyed me how in one Bancho’s route doing ABC was ok, but in another’s NO NO NO THAT’S SHAMEFUL. STFU HO. ( ಠ益ಠ ) I also wish that they gave the previous game’s heroine a sprite when she showed up in Host’s route. They gave her a voice, give her a sprite just reuse the one from the first game and like change the clothes god! Anyway enraging ends aside, I think the game overall was charming and still worth a play. For play order I’d probably just play Host first cause he sucks and leave Iyashi, Yankee & Koakuma as the last 3. Everyone else you can mix in between however you want. My only other disappointment is that Do-S Bancho was the only one that didn’t get a kiss CG despite him getting multiple kiss scenes off screen. (ㆀ˘･_･˘)