Continuing the Shinobazu series this disk focuses on Taiga Aoi (who everyone refers to as Taiga.) He’s always running away from home going on his “manly journeys”. When he is home, he often plays basketball with his neighbor and best friend Genki. He wants to sing a song at the school festival but the seito kaicho Fujimaru refuses saying he’ll kill everyone with his awful singing. In order to give him permission to sing, he gives Taiga a list of 100 tasks he must complete.

Wow okay so this whole disk is like a huge difference from Subaru’s and I was not really happy how it turned out but I guess I’ll save that till my final thoughts. Apparently Nanako’s also been secretly in love with Taiga for a while though I almost want to think its one of those “distance makes the heart grow fonder” romances. I also have no idea how the hell Taiga manages to remain the captain of the basketball team when he’s always away somewhere or how he even passes any of his classes. Not only is he always MIA but he’s also extremely DUMB. He’s got more brawn then brain and he’s actually pretty good at survival if thrown on an abandoned island. Aaaand this is exactly what happens. Taiga and the rest of Shinobazu 7 (including Subaru who Taiga picked up on an abandoned island because his song knocked the poor guy out) go on this abandoned island to complete the tasks Fujimaru gave them. They end up playing a survival game while avoiding BL fantasies of Taiga’s younger yaoi fangirl sister J-KO. Yes her name is freaking J-子. J-ko is apparently also thinks Subaru is a sexy beast which is the only reason that Taiga lets him stay at their house throughout the game but we barely ever see the guy and his funny Engrish.  So then Subaru, and Miki disappear with the boat and a few days later come back with Fujimaru who goes BATSHIT and starts playing archery using Taiga as his target.

Nanako does another one of her brilliant stunts and gets in the way so she gets SHOT with the arrow. The only reason she survives is because the arrow hit the shell that was in her pocket, given to her by Taiga earlier that day. Fujimaru feels like a dick, and apologizes (well he should seeing how earlier in the game he wanted Nanako to whore her body out to get him to let Taiga sing… 🙄 ).They return to school after this, and since on the island Nanako and Taiga confessed their love (in midst of Taiga’s bitching about how Genki didn’t tell anyone he was moving to India) they’re supposedly dating now. Nanako feels like their relationship is kinda “stagnant” and no different than when they were friends. That is until one day after studying, Taiga demands Nanako give him a reward kiss and he demands it like over & over. He then says IM GONNA KISS U NOW K and kisses her. Sadly that’s  like as much romance as we’re getting this game because………DRAMA BREAKS WHEN GENKI FINDS OUT TAIGA AND NANAKO ARE DATING! *dramatic music.wav* Suddenly the game goes from being about Taiga and Nanako, to being about Taiga x Nanako x Genki love triangle or perhaps ┌(┌ ^o^)┐ﾎﾓｵ.  Genki tells Nanako in front of Taiga that he’s always loved her and Taiga walks away because he values bros over hoes. Nanako and Genki go to talk in the park where Genki pretty much tells her how he’s loved her ever since they were kids just as much as Taiga. Also he and Taiga made some man-promise to protect Nanako together after her brother passed away.

So oh noes Taiga went and CHEATED and went beyond the FRIENDSHIP line with Nanako how dare he. Though Genki finishes off saying he just wanted to tell Nanako his feelings and he wants her to be happy with Taiga. щ(ಥДಥщ) I suddenly wished I  was doing Genki’s route. (Genki isn’t really genki at all btw his name is a lie.) When Nanako runs to see Taiga he’s like SORRY BROS BEFORE HOES and leaves her crying. （ಠ_ಠ） Genki and Nanako then chase Taiga down to that abandoned island he goes to for his wangsting and  Genki tells him that if he doesn’t want Nanako, Genki will GLADLY take her. Suddenly Taiga’s like NOOOOO and then Genki’s like lol j/k followed by C= C= C= C= C= C= 。・゜゜ヽ| ；∀；|ノウワァァァァァァンッ! I DONT WANNA MOVE TO INDIAAA. Taiga then runs to Genki’s grandma begging her to let Genki stay in Japan but she’s like “lol too bad so sad.” And sooo Taiga ends  up singing at the school festival cause Fujimaru randomly lets him for all his efforts. I have no idea when he had the time to do this but he somehow magically became a good singer and he sang his entire song in Engrish (which apparently Subaru translated his Japanese lyrics into.) He says he wrote the song for Nanako as he brags to Genki about it. In the Best End, Nanako and Taiga go on a trip together to India to visit Genki after graduation. In the Good End, Taiga and Nanako decide to stop dating until Genki moves away and they have their manly bro end. In the Bad End, Taiga’s mom wants Taiga to do an omiai with the daughter of a green grocer in the next town (since he’s the son of a green grocer in this town.) Taiga’s like no thanks mom and decides to run off on a 2 year journey leaving Nanako dazed & confused.

Uhh somehow this game took a wrong turn into BRO-land and gave me unfortunate flashbacks of UtaPri Debut where the heroine becomes air. It’s so strange how much more importance and interaction Nanako had with Subaru in his route but here it was like ..wut? There was multiple homo jokes, we had a yaoi fangirl and her huffing over BL delusions, a lot of BROs BEFORE HOES and BROFISTING and MAN FRIENDSHIPS. Ummm…fujoshi fodder or something? I don’t mind man friendship stuff but when the heroine gets put on the back burner along with the otome game romance I started getting bored/annoyed. I didn’t really like Taiga that much to begin with and when they suddenly focused on his obsession with Genki I was like （ಠ_ಠ）….I guess the only good outcome is that I actually started to like Genki a lot more. Since he has a really cute crush on Nanako, I am hoping that his disk will actually focus on that rather than on his “friendship” with Taiga. (;　´_ゝ`)  Also I feel like the whole thing was a huge waste of Taniyama’s voice. Taniyama CAN sing so why the fuck would you put him in a role of a guy who CAN’T sing and instead screams like a nekketsu idiot most of the game. Also Taniyama  has a lot of talent with uh..using his tongue during kiss scenes so wow how much of a waste is it when you have a dummy head mic game and only like one 30 second kiss scene using it. What the hell? Tachibana gave us like  5 minutes of fanservice in Subaru’s disk  so this was just (|||❛︵❛.). So yea pretty disappointed and unless you love everything Taniyama does, man “friendships”, or nekketsu dudes, I don’t recommend. Hoping Miki’s will be a bit cuter. I’m not into shotas but the promo movie looked like it would at least focus on more romance. Oh and to emphasize my point in my cost comparison post about the segmented game releases…this game just ASSUMED you already knew who Subaru was and ASSUMED you knew everything about Shinobazu7 and how it was formed. There was nothing at all regarding how they were formed, or their friendships or the fact that they were supposed to be SPLIT to begin with. But nope here it just goes “oh yea shinobazu 7 we’re all BFFs!” so if you didn’t play Subaru’s disk you’d be hella confused.