Our heroine Kokoro gets taken to the Netherworld by some grandpa owl who tells her she will now be enrolling in a school to become a shinigami. Netherworld is a place that souls go to if they have regrets from their past lives and cannot transcend into the afterlife. Unfortunately Kokoro isn’t the brightest bulb on the tree and she ends up getting a 2 on her exam – successfully FAILING to get a shinigami partner. Because of this she’s placed into a “special” learning group for all the other failures. Unlike most shinigami there, Kokoro has no memories of her past life, how she died, and what regrets brought her to the Netherworld.

**Mini spoiler – The reason I refer to Kokoro as Kokoro rather than Cocoro is because her name in her past lives is always written as 心 which is obviously the Japanese kanji for Kokoro and it just makes it easier on my brain :P. This is an exception to Nami’s route but I’ll talk about that when I get there.

Kairi – Kairi’s route made me cry so much and I expected to cry in every route after this. Unfortunately due to a lot of repetitive cut & paste story elements, Kairi’s route ended up feeling “better” than most others.  Kairi is the resident trouble maker and he knows how to make fireworks, explosions etc. because his grandpa taught him in his past life. He often pulls pranks together with Yuyu, Nami sensei’s tsukaima nuko (who I’ve coined Orion-cat cause they have the same voice actress XD). After his grandpa died Kairi was hoping he’d find him in this world as well but his grandpa had no unfinished business so he went right to heaven. His parents always fought and then his mother divorced his father and found another lover. After this his dad lost all his marbles and abused poor Kairi. Gramps noticed this and adopted Kairi to take care of him instead. For the school festival Kairi decides to have Kokoro enter into the beauty contest.  All the guys then try to train her to be more feminine so she can win lol. She gets some spartan training from Ame and Yoru until she’s waving the white flag to give up 😆 One day after the grueling practice she sees Kairi flirting with some other girl in the hallway. She gets pissed and is like I’m working my ass off and you’re having fun with other girls wtf. She then runs back to train with Yoru & Ame and when Kairi tries to stop her, she slaps his hand away. She then loses motivation to continue training for the contest but then she finds out Kairi entered her so that she’d become more confident of herself.  Kairi then rushes to talk to her alone and he says he didn’t enter her because he likes pranks….he says he did it because he wanted her to be confident of herself…because he loves her. (*´ｪ｀*)ｷｭﾝ♡　Kokoro is so happy she says she’ll do her best to win.  Turns out that girl he was talking to was because he was learning how to do girl’s make up so he could do it for Kokoro. Kokoro’s makeover and training is a success and the 2 finalists are her and Luna. Unfortunately one of Luna’s bitch groupies finds Kokoro in the class room and rips her dress saying Luna has to win so she can confess to Kairi.

When all the guys find her torn dress she lies and says she tripped because she doesn’t know how to explain it. At the competition she goes with her dress the way it is and sings her song “Rebirthday Song”.  She then gets all teary eyed and not wanting anyone to see her she runs away in tears. Kairi runs after her and hugs her from behind asking her to tell him what happened. She tells her that Luna’s groupie ripped her dress but keeps the confession part a secret. Unfortunately for Luna, Kokoro ends up winning the beauty contest. At the end Kairi gives Kokoro a music box he made himself as a congratulatory present. After this Kokoro talks to Luna who’s like “you like Kairi too right cause he won’t notice me at all.” It finally hits our heroine that well she got confessed to and she’s got feelings for Kairi as well ^^.  She starts avoiding him because of her embarrassment until he catches up to her one day and demands to know why she’s avoiding him. She makes up some excuse and apologizes because the 2 of them have to work on their test so they’re able to go back to the real world for their first shinigami jobs. And so everyone passes the exam and gets to go back to the human world. Zen, a highly experienced Shinigami is the one who’s targeting someone and Kokoro and Kairi are coming along to watch him on the job. Zen’s target is som loli and he tells the other 2 not to come too close to her because humans that are about to die soon are able to see them. Zen says the loli will die in an accident and they basically stand there watching her get hit by a car. Kokoro can’t stand to see this and asks if they can do anything but Zen’s like “um no we just come to take souls and if we break this rule we will be punished.” While Zen is singing the song to get her soul out Kokoro can’t take it and she interrupts his awesome beats. The loli’s soul returns to its body and she’s able to be saved. Before Kokoro can explain herself to an angry Zen, she passes out. When Kokoro wakes up she has no memories of what happened. They tell her she interrupted a Shinigami’s work and changed the life span of a human which is a huge punishment. Due to this any of their future on the job training is cancelled until further notice.

Everyone tells her that a shinigami’s job is to take people’s souls no matter the situation.  She ends up staying at home for a bit crying in her room but Kairi takes care of her until she returns to class.  When Nami sensei asks if she’s ready to do this kind of job she says she really doesn’t know because the horror of the screaming child still haunts her.  Kokoro then finds out that Kairi’s soul was taken by Rikka & Zen. His former name was Amari Takumi and he was pretty much waiting to die. After Kokoro passing out, Kairi becomes very cold and aloof spending time sometimes being alone in his room with the lights completely off. Kairi tells her how when he first enrolled in the school he had a partner and their first job target was his partner’s sister.  His partner’s unfinished business was seeing his sister and when she died Kairi felt like an asshole because he was very calm about it. It’s like he didn’t really care much for death anymore once he entered Netherland.  His sister saw him and thanked him for picking her up, and because of this his partner Mitsugu went to heaven. Kairi also tells her that some people quit the Shinigami school because they just couldn’t take it and that not everyone graduates. He said that he actually received a graduation permit and that a lot of others typically will end up satisfying their regrets and going to heaven. He wanted to leave the school as well but they didn’t want him to quit because he was a good Shinigami. They convinced him to stay in the “special” class instead so in fact he was not a failure at all.  He was hoping after this whole thing, Kokoro would be despaired and give up trying to be a Shinigami. He would then use the excuse that his partner quit to then quit himself. Kokoro says ain’t no thang and gives him a hug while singing him one of her songs (*´ω｀*)  And so for the Shinigami festival everyone pushes her to go “on a date” with Kairi cause they be shippin’ those two now since it’s so obvious xD.  At the festival she gives him a choice if he wants to continue to be her partner or quit. He says what if I quit? But she says she’d accept his choice and try to find another partner next year. He says lol jk I don’t want you being taken by anyone else so I won’t quit!  After this Kairi helps her out on her Shinigami real world practice missions and gives her words of encouragement when she is nervous about being around a dying person.  Their graduation exam target turns out to be Kairi’s father.

Kairi tells Kokoro that after his mother left them, his father blamed him for everything. He said that Kairi was the one who “destroyed their family” and made the mother suffer. His grandpa felt sorry for him and took him in  saying that Kairi deserves to live his own life.  After grandpa died, his dad came by to tell him one more time that all he does is bring misfortune to everyone like a “grim reaper”.  He then found himself dead but doesn’t remember what happened other than hearing his father’s angry yells.  Just then Zen showed up to take his soul and Kairi was like “knock yourself out my body is ready (　´_ゝ`).”  Kokoro asks if his father was the reason for his unfinished business but Kairi says that that’s probably not the case and it’s because of something else.   And so they go to see his father in the real world telling Kairi’s dad Keigo that he has 30 days to live. He tells them to GTFO and refuses to see them as they continue returning. And so one day at the university, one of Keigo’s students panics and calls an ambulance on a passed out Keigo.  When Kairi asks Keigo why he won’t get treatment for his illness, he says that he has nothing left to live for anyway so he figured he’d just die. Kairi tells him he wants to make sure that after he dies his soul is reborn without any unfinished business. As the days get closer to his death he tells Kokoro about the past and how he abused and beat Kairi (´・ω・｀). He however almost blurts out indirectly that he wasn’t the one who killed Kairi.  While at his house, Kokoro finds an old photo of Kairi smiling when back in elementary school. Kairi says it was a photo sent here by his grandpa when he had 1 friend who he made laugh back in the day. That friend was also his first love but when Kokoro looks at the photo she feels like she “knows” the boy in the picture even though it’s just young Kairi. Keigo takes Kairi to the place where he died despite his protests.  He then says that he regrets saying horrible things to his son when he was already in despair from his grandfather’s death.

Not wanting to leave him in a dead village, Keigo tried to drag Kairi back home with him but Kairi refused.  Keigo was like fine whatever and left him alone figuring eventually Kairi wouldn’t be able to live alone and would agree to return with him. When he came to pick him up a few weeks later, he found that Kairi had shot himself in the head….so those last words he was yelling was Keigo begging him not to leave him as his son died in his arms. The gun left at his grandpa’s house didn’t have bullets but Takumi had the talent to make them and he made them to kill himself. Keigo says he never hated his son and realized that he was just a terrible father who couldn’t properly show love to his son. He says that while Kairi was the one who pulled the trigger, it’s his terrible parenting and words that made him do it so he feels like he’s responsible for his death. Kairi yells for him to stop saying anything further and suddenly the 2 of them are brought back to the gates between the real world and Netherworld. Nami sensei shows up saying he brought them back because things looked bad while he was keeping an eye on their activities. He then tells Kokoro that in the past the only light of hope for Kairi was his grandpa – and her. She then has a flashback of her time back in the inaka with Takumi and how they were childhood friends. He impressed her by his inventions while she impressed him with her singing. She then sees the memory of Kairi before he died and he basically would rather be dead than return to his father to live with him. He found a replica of a gun and managed to make it useable to kill himself. Afterwards he realized what a mistake he made, giving up his dream to be an in flight doctor, and meeting his first love once more.

This ended being his regret which is why he didn’t go to heaven.  Kokoro then wakes up from the flashbacks and tells Kairi that he should rely on her but he’s like no way I can ever show the girl I love my weakness. He says all this time he wanted to see her and Kokoro asks him to give her his heart (　；∀；) ｲｲﾊﾅｼﾀﾞﾅｰ.  In his final days, Keigo apologizes to Kairi for being a terrible father and hurting him saying that he really did love him and wanted him to live.  Before he dies he tells Kairi thank you and Kokoro sings his soul to heaven.  Rebirth End: This solves all of Kairi’s regrets and he ends up going to heaven. He tells Kokoro he loves her and kisses her goodbye before disappearing. щ(ಥДಥщ) As Kokoro prepares for graduation she thinks about Kairi again and cries wishing she could see him again. Suddenly she finds herself enveloped in white light and a voice tells her her wish can come true if she just sings. And so she’s reborn as well and the two of them are childhood friends once more as Takumi and Kokoro. Takumi lives in the village by himself and Kokoro visits him so they get to hang out together. He finally confesses that he loves her and tells her she should confess as well even though he knows the answer. Kokoro then tells him that she loves him too. Shinigami End: Kairi decides he still has regrets – like not spending more time with the girl he loves so he decides not to transcend. He wants to smooch Kokoro but she says she’s not ready yet 😆 In the epilogue they are shinigami partners and she finally lets him smooch her. Bad End: Kairi gets pissed off and kills his father before the scheduled time. This gets him arrested and imprisoned to be forever alone. After this Kokoro becomes a badass Shinigami lady who don’t need no man! Common Bad End: Kokoro fails and gets kicked out of the special class. I realized after doing Kairi that the bad ends added nothing to the game nor did they unlock anything so I didn’t do them for any other character.

Ame – I read someone’s blog impressions on this game and they were raving about how much they loved Ame and cried so much in his route. Meanwhile I finished Ame practically falling asleep and feeling like ( ´_ゝ｀)ﾌｰﾝ the whole way down. I don’t know, it just felt all so anti climatic to me in comparison to all the tears I shed in Kairi’s route prior to it.  Unlike all others, Ame is OLD. He’s 15 year old because that’s how old he was when he died but he’s from the Taisho Era so he’s been in the Netherworld for a long time. Due to this he loves washoku and one of his hobbies is drinking tea with Yoru.  He gets chosen to be Cinderella in the school festival lol. They make a frilly dress for him and it looks TOO GOOD LOL.  Unfortunately someone destroys their set before the festival day. They find out some owl did it and the owl babbies tell Yuyu the truth lol. The play is a success, Ame is a pretty princess and Kokoron is a wizard. And so on their first real world mission Kokoro sees a man hospitalized ready to die with his wife & child by his side. Kokoro thinks that he’s loved so much by his family that he will go to heaven…but Rikka tells her that the man committed too many sins and is going to hell. As usual Kokoro interrupts Rikka’s song, but the soul of the dude starts to rage and attacks her. Fortunately she’s saved but then she passes out.  In his past life he got the power to read minds and because of that he was locked away in his room most of the time until shinigami came for his life.  Kokoro is like come here bebe lemme give you a hug because I can tell you’re sad on the inside. He’s surprised finally someone notices his feelings that he always tries to hide. For their graduation assignment, they are given the target of an 11 year old boy named Yuzu who’s about to die of heart disease – just like Ame. After hanging out with him a bit Yuzu asks if they could bring him to his friends so he can hang out & play with them before he dies. Ame tells him they cannot get involved that far per shinigami rules  and there’s a chance he might get into an accident and shorten the time for his scheduled death. Despite this they decide to bring him to his friends anyway.

Unfortunately this ends up causing him to have a heart attack and they drag a random passerby to call an ambulance to get him emergency care.  At the same time, as the kid starts having a heart attack, Ame starts having heart pains too.  Kokoro takes him back to Netherworld where she runs into Shun & Yuyu who help carry him back to the dorms. The heart pains Ame had was because of all the emotions that Yuzu was going through that were being thrown into Ame’s head since he can read minds/feelings. When they return to Yuzu the following day he’s in denial about his death and wants them to GTFO cause he doesn’t want to die. So then Ame starts to wonder why he can’t read the thoughts of Nami and the own principal and feels like the 2 of them are hiding something from them.  Kokoro continues to have dreams of a past life with herself and Ame in the taisho era.  She remembers her friend passing away and being sad so she wakes up crying. When Ame comes to her room to prepare to visit Yuzu he finds out she remembered everything…and that his real name is Hotaru.  She then cries and hugs him apologizing for forgetting about her important friend.  The reason he ended up coming to Netherworld is because he had regrets of being apart from Kokoro too. He tells her she was his first love and gives her a kiss on the forehead. Rebirth End: And so graduation day approaches – the day they take Yuzu’s life.  They sing Yuzu into the afterlife and prepare for the graduation ceremony the following day.  Ame already knows Kokoros’ feelings for him and she complains it’s not fair so he tells her that he loves her as well. Some time later Ame suggests that he and Kokoro transcend together. And so the 2 of them are reborn and have a DESTINED meeting where they become lovers thereafter. Shinigami End: At graduation, Ame admits to everyone that he can read their thoughts.  Ame says that his regret is not spending time with Kokoro in his past life so as he spends more time with her in Netherworld eventually he’ll transcend. Kokoro says that she’ll spend their limited time as best as she can. If his route didn’t feel anti climatic as it is, poor Ame got no kiss CG…(´・ω・｀)

Shun – Shun’s route is similar to Kairi’s but the abuse is so much more blatant in this one it was very painful to sit through and made me baww at the end. That aside, Shun is a tsundere which was a charm of his route but I’m not a huge fan of Kondo Takayuki’s voice. I might have liked him a bit more if he was voiced by Kondo Takashi or Ono Yuuki because he’s basically a replica of Subaru from Diabolik Lovers :lol:.  He’s from the showa period and loves to eat meat so he & Kokoro are glutton friends. He’s also kind of a delinquent and constantly tries to skip class and doesn’t give 2 shits about graduating.   Despite this he’s a kind & gentle soul on the inside and he has a fond love for animals – or rather animals seem to attract to him like Snow White in the forest :lol:. He has owl friends and a stray cat friend who he named Hanako XD. Shun lived in an orphanage at Netherworld – for those who aren’t in the shinigami school and don’t know what else to do with themselves. He was there for a while until the owl principal brought him to the school. So basically the whole time Kokoron works her butt off for the extra lessons while Shun sleeps on his lazy ass all day. She ends up having to do extra homework as a penalty cause Shun never shows up to class. Yuyu gets pissed  and yells at him and tells him the truth. He finally shows up for the lessons and Nami is pissed so he gives him EXTRA homework as a penalty.  After his father died, his mom couldn’t handle it and just ignored her son jumping from lover to lover. To try and survive he worked most of his life through middle & high school and doesn’t have any fond school memories.  He’s good at cooking/sewing etc so he helps with sewing outfits for the school festival. Meanwhile those on the prep committee the bitches say shit about her and Shun saying the 2 of them are losers who make them uncomfortable and bring everyone else down. Shun is like whatever that’s to be expected since we’re both failures.

Kokoro is upset because she had bought apples for all the committee to eat together but after hearing that she lies saying it was for Yoru to make an apple pie for the special class instead. Kokoro tries to smile and pretend she didn’t hear anything but Shun tells them they’re ugly bitches and that the 2 of them heard all the shit they said. He gets pissed and leaves so Kairi tells everyone to calm their tits. Kokoro feels terrible for trying to make Shun have a “fun school life” and feels awful for pretending that everyone is nice and accepting of them.  She runs to his secret clubhouse that night and apologizes. And so after this Shun and Kokoro manage to get along with the bitch brigade and successfully get through the school festival. Afterwards all the bitches apologize to Kokoro and then put make up on her and make her all pretty for Shun…cause everyone is tired of the 2 of them not getting with each other (✧≖‿ゝ≖). They push Kokoro towards him in a dress all pretty & stuff and he’s like ((〃／⊥＼〃))いやーん And so everyone else acts like a bro and leaves them to sort out their feelings xD.  After the first real world visit and Kokoro shitting bricks, she has a dream about herself bleeding out of her stomach. Everyone says they have experience with taking souls and only she and Shun are the inexperienced ones. He’s in so much of a shock he doesn’t show up for class for the next couple days. She eventually sings to get him out and he opens his room door telling her to stop. He admits that just thinking about what happened that day or soul hunting in general…makes him want to vomit. He says when his father died when he was little…he saw Shinigami come and take his dad’s soul. Kokoro gives him a hug and says if he wants to quit becoming a shinigami he can. He’s like but what about you!? And so they decide to keep their distance for a bit to think about what they plan to do with themselves.

At the Shinigami Festival, Shun tells Kokoro that not only does he dislike Shinigami for taking his dad’s soul but his mother liked to sing so he hates songs in general. He also adds that his mother became a prostitute to try to make ends meet once his father died. And the songs she sang became uh songs to “lure the mans” in which disgusted him. When she didn’t have some man, she’d take out her rage on him and became abusive. (　´_ゝ`) After beating him she’d then cry about how much of a horrible mother she is and apologize.  After the festival Kokoro realizes she’s in love with him.  The next morning Kokoro says to Shun that she’s made her decision to be a Shinigami. Shun says that he’s decided to become a Shinigami as well because he wants to support her and be her partner. And as the ultimate test, their graduation assignment target is Shun’s mother. They go to visit her but she’s blind and cannot see the fact that one of the Shinigamis here to take her soul is her own son. As they talk to her to try and figure out how to get rid of any regrets she may have she requests for apple pie that she used to eat back in the day. Kokoro promises she’ll make one and spends the next couple days burning pies. Shun’s mom tells Kokoro about her past and that everything was good until her husband died from an illness and then she really abused her son Haruto (Shun’s real name). She knew what she was doing was wrong but couldn’t stop herself. And one of her former lovers tried to kill her – with Shun protecting her and getting killed instead. After this his mother lost her sight from the shock and ever since then she stopped with the lovers. She was hoping she could die to reunite with her husband and son but figured that afterlife hates her already. It was worse when he’d fight with her wifebeating lovers, and then she’d slap him saying that he made her “money fountain” leave. When he was contemplating suicide, he ran into Kokoro in the park. And so he basically sees her in the park every day to try and get away from the hell of his house.

One day when one of his mother’s lovers tries to kill her, Haruto tried to protect her but instead Kokoro ran in and got stabbed in the stomach, dying in his arms. Haruto tried to kill the guy but instead the guy killed him as well…only for his mother to wake up and see both kids dead in front of her losing her eyesight in the process. Kokoro then remembers that it was her that was the one who took the stab to the stomach to protect Haruto/Shun. As she remembers this, she remembers the pain of getting stabbed and Shun rushes her back to her room. She then tells Shun that she was  the friend he had and he’s like why didn’t you tell me!? And they end up hugging it out in her room while Kokoro tells herself that she loves him. Rebirth End: Shun decides to make sure that his mother doesn’t have regrets to have her go a peaceful way and one last time to call her “mother”. He then tells his mother that he’s her son Haruto. He apologizes for leaving her alone all this time and the last few days of her life they interact a lot more. (´；ω；｀) Back in Netherworld Shun thanks sensei for letting them remember their past life memories. And so on the final exam day right before she’s about to die, Haruto’s mother regains her vision щ(ಥДಥщ). She thanks Kokoro for bringing her son to her, making her apple pie and becoming her friend in the end. She then apologizes for getting Kokoro involved in their family problems and ending her life prematurely. After she goes on her way, Shun transcends as well because his regret was not working things out with his mother before dying. He asks Kokoro to sing her song for him to send him off on his way and then kisses her goodbye. Kokoro ends up transcending as well and in their new life she and Haruto are regular ol’ high school kids dating. It’s also Kokoro’s 17th birthday and she knows her tsundere boyfriend is a QTpie and not a scary yankee like everyone thinks. Also his father passed away again but his mother stopped whoring herself out so he no longer lives in an abusive household. Shinigami End: Shun confesses to Kokoro that he loves her and says he might transcend after they see his mother off.  He ends up transcending while confessing to Kokoro how much he loves her  but Kokoro’s like U AIN’T GOIN ANYWHERE BRAH. And so her song pulls him back in and he can’t go to heaven!  And so they become an ichaicha raburabu shinigami couple. Sad panda again that Shun got no kiss CG either. The poor guy had so much shit in his life, this is the least they could have done for him. White flashes are not acceptable kiss alternatives! (；ಠ益ಠ；)

Yoru – Yoru is also a tsundere (yahoo this game is full of them) but he’s also a childhood friend and by now I was getting sick of everyone being Kokoro’s childhood friend. Honeybee pls. Still his route made me all ドキドキ(*´∀｀*) except in the ending where I expected to cry instead I was pretty shocked at the sudden outcome. (´ﾟдﾟ｀) Kokoron decides to work her butt off studying alone so that she can be a better partner for Yoru…but she’s so sad & lonely being alone that she can’t focus. She then continues harassing sensei to help her study while everyone else has fun going out together. Yuyu spills the beans and Yoru finds out that she’s been studying with Nami sensei late at night. He asks why she did this and she admits she didn’t want to disappoint him by being paired with him. He’s like ain’t no thang babe I will help you study instead (✧≖‿ゝ≖) The reason he failed his original exam is he didn’t get along with his previous partner and the partner realized they didn’t want to be a shinigami. Due to this he was left back to repeat a year again. When Kokoro asks him why he took interest in baking he says that he used to have someone who loved eating his sweets…and he wanted to please them more so he learned to cook better.  It was for the person who Kokoro reminds him of.　And so at the school festival he’s an ikeman waiter that increases the amount of female customers xD This makes Kokoro jelly and she gets mad at Kairi for putting Yoru in a sexy waiter outfit ;D. After the festival she admits to Yoru that she felt like he was taken from her by all the girls at the cafe. He calls her a baby but then says he’s kinda happy to hear that he’s that important to her. (✧≖‿ゝ≖) After the first real world visit, Kokoro has a dream of herself then being hit by a car. While she’s resting everyone takes care of her including Yoru who spends time with her until she falls asleep.  One night as she goes to sleep he kisses her saying he loves her – but Kokoro hadn’t fallen asleep and felt/heard everything (/▽*＼)～♪ ｲﾔｧﾝ

During the Shinigami Festival Kokoro thinks that she looks like Yoru’s former lover and that he’s projecting his former feelings on to her…when she’s not the one he really loved.  She realizes then that shes in love with him even if the person he loves is not “her”. Oh you two. ( ≖‿≖)  Their  target for graduation seems like a normal college girl named Mei who doesn’t appear to be ill or old meaning her life will probably end because of an accident.  She reacts normally to the fact that she’s dying because the person she loved died half a year before. She had confessed to him and then ran away in embarrassment…only to find out he died in a car accident the following day.  As Kokoro spends more time with Mei she finds out more and more about the person she loves meanwhile Yoru observes them from the shadows.  One day Kokoro finds a high school photo in Mei’s room and Mei points out the guy she liked …Sawa Yaichi…Yoru’s former life self.  When Kokoro asks Yoru directly if that’s him, he admits that it was. Kokoro then starts to think Mei is the person Yoru was looking for and that if he and she share their feelings they can both transcend. And now she’s torn between trying to help them both clear their regrets and her own feelings for Yoru. The next day Mei asks Kokoro to accompany her to her hometown where her old high school was. As Mei tells her about her past with Yaichi, Kokoro gets more and more jealous because she feels like Mei is prettier and better than herself.  She gets so upset she yells at Yoru to go see Mei and give her an answer to her confession. Just then Mei sees the 2 of them and the sight of them together makes Kokoro’s head hurt and she runs away. She almost gets hit by a car but Yoru pulls her back and Kokoro realizes that this happened in her past life. When she wakes up in her room Nami sensei tells her unlike other souls, hers is protected by a special power and she’s been reincarnated many times in a short period of time.

After sensei leaves Yoru rushes in her room and hugs her for hours.  She asks him to tell her about his past and he basically reveals that she was his childhood friend. On her 17th birthday he prepared a present for her and was going to tell her his feelings. Unfortunately that day he got bombarded with librarian work and coincidentally got left in the classroom with Mei. Mei then confessed to him and he was going to reject her but she ran out of the classroom. On the way walking home, Kokoro then asked out of jealousy if Yaichi was gonna date Mei. He was totally spaced out and not paying attention to her because he was so surprised Mei confessed to him. Kokoro was upset because it was her birthday and here the dude’s got some other chick on his mind.  She got so upset she ran away from him and not paying attention ran a red light. She then ended up getting hit by a truck and he tried to save her and got hit as well. He then spent time looking for Kokoro in Netherworld but nobody knew anything about her.  He then tells Kokoro that his childhood friend was named “Kokoro” and suddenly all the missing pieces of memory come together in her mind. And so the whole thing played out like some tropey shoujo manga and Yoru is the unlucky guy who has all these girls constantly running away from him before he can get a word in! 😆  Also because well Kokoro said that she was upset that her childhood friend was taken he was like “don’t be so immature.” This is when she yelled that he can go have fun with Mei – ran off and got hit by a car along with him. Kokoro then realizes that it’s HER that Yoru loved and not some random person that he projected his feelings on to her.  The following day they both visit Mei and Kokoro leaves them alone to talk things out.  He tells Mei that he loves someone else and he cannot go out with her.  Kokoro also then tells Yoru that she loves him but he says he cannot confess his feelings back to her…because if he does he will resolve his regrets and transcend. Instead, he gives her his feelings in a kiss.

And so on the day of Mei’s death, she gets hit by a car putting flowers on where Kokoro & Yoru died. Before she’s about to die her soul goes into yandere mode and starts bitching about how much she loved Yoru and Kokoro just TOOK him away from her. To calm the crazy bitch down Kokoro just says that everything is her fault and apologizes. She then sings her song and manages to reel in the yandere back inside Mei. Mei then cries that everyone put her on a pedestal except Yoru which is why she fell in love with him. She apologizes to Kokoro for blaming her and says that she had fun the last few days before her death. Kokoro then sings her soul off to heaven.  Rebirth End:  Yoru and Kokoro successfully graduate and pass their final exam.  Kokoro then tells Yoru she wants him to move on and asks him to confess to her. He confesses to her and moves on with Kokoro following him behind thanks to mystery white light voice. And so they’re both reborn as childhood friends again and this time Yoru is able to confess his feelings to her on her 17th birthday.  He then gets all tsundere on her when she tells him she loves him as well. ( ≖‿≖) Shinigami End:  Kokoro sings to the heavens to not take Yoru away from her and so Yoru confesses his love and doesn’t disappear. They end up becoming full fledged shinigamis who ichaicha on their days off and live happily ever after in the Netherworld. Someone made a comment in my broadcast of “Why can’t we have side character females who aren’t hateful bitches” and I have to agree. I know they exist (Tomochan from Utapri) but 90% of the time other females are always used to either bully the heroine/cause conflict because of NTR. I think in this case if they just had her be hit by a car and die quietly it wouldn’t have been as bad…but the yandere bit just made me raise an eyebrow. On top of this, I can’t help but think that it’s Yoru & Kokoro who came down to “see her off” but were the initial cause of her death! I mean if she didn’t know that the 2 of them died in that spot, she wouldn’t have even gone there to place flowers right? Isn’t “influencing a death” against the rules of the Shinigami code?? And why was she even placing flowers in the MIDDLE of the road where cars are driving by and flattening them?? So because of the ridiculous plot twist in this route I couldn’t take anything seriously. Oh well it’s okay honeybee, I didn’t want to cry in every route anyway. ( ´_ゝ｀)

Nami – Nami sensei wants to hit that shit SO BADLY but has to pretend to be this lazy sensei who doesn’t care to do anything except smoke cigarettes and sleep in his office. This is all a huge coverup for his great keikaku to have Kokoro all to himself because turns out he’s just a MEIJI ERA YANDERE! Well maybe he wasn’t a yandere to start with, but I suppose seeing your lover shot in front of you while trying on wedding dresses would make anyone lose their marbles. He takes Kokoro to the real world with him while he goes to get his favorite cigarettes. This is where she finds out that his real name is Narumi. The grampa he buys the cigarettes from is close to dying which is why he can see Nami and has no idea that Nami is a Shinigami. For the real world shinigami experience, sensei takes her personally, Yuyu excluded despite being Kokoro’s partner in this route.  The target in question is the gramps he’s been buying cigarettes from  because he’s just reached his life limit. Unlike with Zen and Rikka, Nami tells Kokoro to sing and take his soul instead.  She also finds out that gramps is going to hell because in the past he murdered people.  She starts to panic and is unable to sing properly so Nami takes the wheel and sings instead. After the guy dies, Kokoro freaks out until Nami knocks her out so he can take her back to the Netherworld. When she wakes up he said he did it so she would become a better Shinigami. When Kokoro says she refuses and it’s too horrible he pushes her down on the couch saying she MUST become a shinigami.  They continue going to the real world but Kokoro continues to refuse to get souls and constantly has Nami doing it instead. Mr. Owl Principal tells Kokoro that the first Shinigami that created Netherworld still exists in this world to this day.  He’s trapped inside the school and because he’s been there so long he lost his body shape and is just an “existence.” He can only do this because he has a lot of power, but he’s starting to reach his limit and his power is weakening. If he loses his power, the Netherworld will cease to exist.  On top of this Netherworld is connected to the real world and stuff is starting to blend together and since Netherworld is also connected to heaven/hell it means ALL THE WORLDS WILL BE DESTROYED!!! (　´_ゝ`)And of course the only way to stop this is for the next candidate to take over as the “great power” holder and that candidate is Kokoro because as I had guessed it, the current dude is her father!  He then tells her Nami cockblocked her soul from transcending so she would come to the Netherworld to train as the next shinigami candidate. Chuunibyou demo Shinigami ga Shitai!?

She goes to see her father’s big ball of light in the basement of the school thanks to owl sensei. She also finds out her father was originally really ill with a terminal illness that no doctor could cure. He would sing songs so that Kokoro wouldn’t be sad but eventually died.  Then Kokoro caught the same disease her father died and as she was about to die, she realized she had a regret.  Her regret was that she never found someone she loved like her father loved her mother…and that was why she continuously was reborn & ended up coming to the Netherworld.  Nami also tells her his goal is to destroy Netherworld and re-create a world where he can live with just her! He then calls her by her original name “Sana” and she remember she was supposed to marry him as Narumi. And the day she was trying dresses on some dude involved in a Coup d’eTat burst into the store and shot her. When Narumi died he wasn’t satisfied with the criminal dying and his revenge kept him from transcending. And so her Netherworld dad was like “its ok guurl we’ll just restart so you can find a lover no matter how many rebirths it takes!” When he was on the research team in Netherworld he realized that his lover had the soul of the Netherworld creator’s daughter. Because of this he couldn’t catch up to her since she was “protected” by him. And now that his power finally weakened, he succeeded in cockblocking the rebirth process. The council wanted to take her soul but it ended up wandering around until it ran into the owl principal.  Own principal wanted her to then be a student at Shinigami school to test if she was worthy of being a successor. They made a “fake special class” just so that Nami could keep an eye on her.  Though at this point I wonder WHY YOU PUT HER INTO THE SAME CLASS AS HER FORMER CRUSHES AND GOT NTRED 4 TIMES BEFORE I GOT TO YOU SENSEI LOL.  He then goes into Takato from CZ mode and says he don’t give no fuck about Netherworld and he just wants to spend eternity ichaichaing with his babe. Unfortunately for Kokoro, she feels NTR’ed by her past self “Sana” and when Nami’s saying sweet words to hurt she’s hurt because well…she’s in love with him but he’s not looking a “her current self” because he’s stuck in the past.

This shit is so inconsistent because when she remembered her past self with the other guys it was like OH YOU WERE MY CHILDHOOD FRIEND AND SUDDENLY I REMEMBER MY FEELINGS FOR YOU! I guess Meiji Era is just too fucking old for her to give a shit so she’s like “whatevs I’m a different gal now!” 🙄  After this he tells her she doesn’t need to bother coming to class  and he’ll just teach her in his office.  He tells her to just stay in his office and to make sure she does, he locks her inside his uguu library of love!! ヽ(。_゜)ノ  While she’s stuck there all day, Kairi’s pet frog Maximillian sneaks in with a communication device attached to him. Kairi talks to her through that and asks if she’s locked in sensei’s office and she says she is. Kairi and Yoru then break in to rescue her because they thought something was wrong when she would never come to class.  When they bring her back to their dorm house, they say that she needs to run the fuck away from the school because both Owl principal & Nami are bad news. Kokoro sticks around hoping she can get him to return to “nami sensei” again but he’s in lala land and only sees “Sana” in front of him like a horse with blinders. Her feelings don’t reach him and he continues calling her Sana and locking her in his uguu library.  Each time Yoru & Kairi keep breaking in to talk to her about planning her escape (　´_ゝ`).  Unfortunately she returns a bit later than expected and he finds out that she’s left….but he’s so delusioned he starts referring to them as a married couple. He then takes her to the real world again to take a soul of a guy who got murdered on the street.  Kokoro realizes that the song they sing shouldn’t be a miserably one but a warm one so that the soul can go on their way peacefully. She then sings the song of her people and the dude’s soul goes off.  After this she admits she planned to run away from him this evening but she didn’t because she loves him and wants to protect him. She says she won’t destroy Netherworld, and she will become the new ruler and protect him and everyone else. This snaps him out of his happy waifu illusion and he realizes the girl in front of him is not Sana but Kokoro. When they return to the Netherworld, the council arrests both sensei and owl and tells Kokoro to come with them.  They try to seize her and the other guys try to intercept but ultimately she sings the song of her people & everyone calms their tits (and starts crying apparently.)

The councils dudes back off realizing what a badass powerful Shinigami lady she is.  Unfortunately Nami is hurt from nearly being killed by their scythes and they have him rest in her room while he recovers.  He then wakes up and smooches her apologizing for being a big old dick  and says he kissed her as Kokoro not because of “Sana”. And so Kokoro takes over dad’s position as Netherworld ruler and remembers all her memories of NTR with everyone! 😆  Unfortunate one of the upper council dudes named Towa is mad as fuck at Nami for trying to cockblock Kokoro’s soul and destroy Netherworld.  He wants to execute Nami but Kokoro gets in the protecting him threatening with the power of her dad. She says Mr. Owl isn’t bad because he gave her lost soul a place and sensei isn’t bad cause he let her reunite with her ex boyfriend harem! (Ok well she didn’t say that but let’s face it, that’s what happened! 😆 ) Rebirth End: Kokoro becomes a super badass Shinigami but Nami ends up emoing alone away from her for a while. He sends her an owl message to meet in the school and when she does he says he asks her to help send his soul off into his next life.  He says that her song saved him from death before but now he wants her song to send him off cause he’s about to disappear anyway. She sings him her song and as he goes off she kisses him goodbye.  And so they end up somehow being reborn even though she’s supposed to be the Netherworld powers now….!? They are student & teacher and she constantly confesses her love for him but he ignores her. One day after school in the empty classroom she finds him smoking and  continues saying she loves him. He ignores her at first but then takes his cigarette out of his mouth and kisses her. He says that’s his feelings and if she wants to continue she has to graduate first. (おまわりさん…) So much stuff left hanging here I’m just ヽ(。_゜)ノ at this point. Then there was this long ass epilogue reminding us of all the NTR/deaths/Kokoro harem with daddy being like U GO GURL JUGGLE DAT MAN HAREM! (Yea I couldn’t really take anything seriously with all the copy pasta, repetitive flashbacks and another unexplained deus ex machina end.) Shinigami End: This end feels more “natural” because Kokoro continues to be the “ruler” of the Netherworld and Nami is back to being a regular sensei at the school. They decide to live together and then Yuyu runs in crying that he wants to live with them too. Yuyu bby my precious angel. (ʃƪ ˘ ³˘)  Some months later they get married but instead of coming out to all their guests they go roll around the grass for no reason…. (　´_ゝ`)  He tells her to stop calling him Sensei cause he’s no longer a teacher and from today on he’s her husband.

Yea I had no idea this was going to be a nakige but when I suddenly got the expectations at the start that it was GOING to be one…the bad writing and copy pasta (and the horrible ending song) came in like a wrecking ball and ruined everything. I started the game with Kairi and I bawwed harder than my 12 year old self watching the Lion King for the first time. But then I did Ame’s route and the whole thing was so dull my expression was just ふ━━(　´_ゝ｀)━(　´_ゝ｀)━(　´_ゝ｀)━━ん the whole way through and by the end I was like welp I guess that’s that? My only memorable part was him in a dress 😆 Shun’s route made me rage at how terrible his life was, followed by more tears, followed by rage at honeybee for giving him and Ame 0 kiss CGs. Things got better with Yoru because he was a tsundere QT but then cue his route ending and me + the entire broadcast channel were facepalming and headdesking. Having great expectations for Nami sensei I walked in with a positive feeling, only to be UTTERLY BETRAYED by the sudden 180 polar opposite personality change that apparently he was hiding the WHOLE TIME! Boy he sure fooled me! So in the end, my favorite route ended up being Kairi because it was the first route, everything felt original and fresh and I enjoyed it a lot. It could have been probably any other character (except Nami because he has to be dead last based on story) and I would have thought they have the “best route” instead just because the game followed a set copy & paste template. Even though my favorite ROUTE was Kairi, my favorite characters by far were Yoru and Shun. I still love Kairi but the tsundere pair just wins this one for me hands down. They also had the best omakes in the Stellaworth patch and the interview section of the game special.

On the topic of Stellaworth patches, let’s talk about the fact that to get these adorable scenes with Kairi, Shun and Yoru (ignoring the snoozefest with Nami and Ame) you had to spend $100 to purchase the Stellaworth set that comes with the “append patch” scenario. No other store had this and that just seems absurdly ridiculous to me. The scenarios were so cute they felt like they should have been inside the original game because they added so much charm to the characters. The problem is the first run you see all the characters interacting and it’s fun and all…but by the time you do other routes you skip all that and you start to forget about the “fun” you saw the first time. This means that basically for the most part, the route has a brief thing with the school festival, and then suddenly it breaks right into the sad depressing shit that you know is coming because of the exact same template in every single route. After many spoiler hints here & there, by the time I finally got to Nami all the “great reveals” were just “oh okay whatevs” to me. THE OTHER PROBLEM IS, THE BOOKLET THAT COMES WITH THE GAME SPOILS THE ENTIRE FACKING GAME LOL. You know booklets usually have like random dumb facts about characters, silly interviews (what do you think about the heroine) sketches, etc etc….but this booklet had a timeline for EACH character that literally spoiled THE WHOLE ROUTE. You could literally just…read the booklet and know what happens in the entire game. I blame myself partially for not holding back and reading some of it but the predictions I made about the stuff about Kokoro were ALL SPOILED THE MOMENT THEY TALKED ABOUT THE HISTORY OF NETHERWORLD LOL. In Kokoro’s class they were talking about how it was formed and literally gave away a huge hint about who she really is! I wanted to give the game the benefit of the doubt but ultimately I was pretty much right. The only thing that ended up shocking me was Nami’s justaskeikaku plan and 180 polar opposite personality flip.

Honeybee…enough with the flashbacks. Flashbacks are useful for giving us story backgrounds – that’s all good. But then the EPILOGUE of the game was basically a digest of all the stuff that’s already in the booklet and in the routes themselves. It was also a painful reminder of the massive NTR in this game (why does Satoi keep getting involved with games that have NTR ┐(‘～`；)┌) and a reminder of the horrible things the characters went through in their past lives that I didn’t really want to see again. Also reminder that a lot of the CGs in the game weren’t in the right place and how “I wish there was a CG here instead of a big flash of white light!” One thing I will say though…Amazon and others have complained about some kind of text bugs or something or other…I didn’t really encounter this so in that sense, I don’t even know WHAT that is! There might have been a line here & there that the person talking the spoken line was slightly different than the text…or a text line didn’t have a voice attached to it. I only caught it maybe 3-4 times the entire game so I wonder if it’s related to what system you play the game on? I’m on Windows 7 Pro and I didn’t find it worth mentioning as a negative point for the game.

And finally as I mentioned the ending song of the game was the most inappropriate shit I’ve ever heard. Imagine you’re sitting there crying because someone you cared a lot for just died when suddenly:

Yea maybe appropriate if I’m in the mood to headbang all night at a heavy metal concert… ಠ_ಠ

Anyway overall I’m pretty disappointed. When I first started the game out I was really hoping for it to be good and I had even planned to get the Stellaworth set for UnBday song but now….I think I’ll pass. Seems like Honeybee is porting all their games to Vita now anyway they might port the next game sooner or later with more stuff added to it.  I guess I just don’t have good luck with PC games. They end up being too much of an expensive investment and for some reason I am never satisfied with the contents of them anymore. I don’t know what manpower goes into PC games and why it’s like this but I think I’ll just stick to Vita only releases for a while…which is a shame because I really enjoyed everyone stopping by the broadcast and laughing along at all the terrible copy pasta, tropes  & tsun-namis with me 😛 Thanks to all of you who came to watch!