Otome Game Review: Brothers Conflict -Brilliant Blue-

After god knows how many years of delays, Otomate finally released Brilliant Blue…however now that I finally got to play it, the delays are a mystery to me when all the common route/stat raising/date system is a copy pasta template of Passion Pink! Literally I just sat there force skipping through almost every “family” scene because it was dejavu from the previous game. Some scenes I sat through simply because it has been such a long time since I played PP that I didn’t actually remember if I saw them or not. Despite the copypasta, the individual brothers were still enjoyable for what it’s worth and while it took me a bit getting used to, eventually the system became pretty easy to go through. With improvements such as saving during choices as well as using quick save/quick load unlike last time, this time it was smooth sailing. Anyway on to Ema’s brocon adventures!

Asahina Wataru – I did Wataru first because…well you’re probably wondering why the 11 year old shota even has a route （ಠ_ಠ）. Fortunately most of the route is basically “babysit your little brother” the route. Though I think the most irritating part is the fact that despite being 11 he acts like he’s 3. Seriously I think back at myself when I was that age and I’m just like…I didn’t randomly start crying and throwing tantrums because I didn’t get my candy. If I made a mess of the kitchen like he did, my mom would kick me on the floor and mop it with my face so I’d never dare to do anything like that. In that sense Wataru felt almost …under developed. This is probably due to Masaomi treating him like a baby the entire time though and his brothers clean up his room for him even though he’s perfectly capable of doing it himself. To add on to the bad though, when Wataru like stuffs his face into Ema’s boobs she’s all like “he has much stronger arms than I thought!” Uhh…. ಠ_ಠ The entire time this whole route is the babysitter route for me and in no way possible any hint of romance so when Ema would say this stuff…yeaaaa…. There were funny moments where Wataru would act like his brothers, including the hair which was probably my favorite part of the route. Otherwise I was like oh god what a waste of Kaji Yuuki’s sexy voice Σ(ﾟдﾟlll)ｶﾞｰﾝ And yea there’s really no plot other than onee-chan please wait for me to grow up boku. And so I guess 6 years later or whatever he’s going to high school and he finally asks Ema to marry him after giving her a kiss because now he’s tall enough. Unfortunately since he still dresses girly and wears teddy bear hair clips in his hair, he’s not very convincing. (´･ω･｀;A）

Asahina Ukyo – Ukyo is like the “mom” for the family, always taking care of cooking and other household chores and assigning roles to help keep the chores in line. He often asks Ema to help him out because he trusts her more than the majority of his derpy brothers. Mama Ukyo aside, he’s also a very serious lawer and well a very seriously sexually repressed one. So while he acts completely stoic on the outside around Ema, deep down he wants to hit dat sheit so badly 😆 So Ukyo’s problem is, when he was in college he dated a gold digger whore who just wanted to get closer to his mom. Since the Asahina family is pretty famous, she figured this was a way to get connections. However once she graduated (she was 1 year ahead of him) she realized she can get connections by spreading her legs for rich lawyers and so she went around fucking all of them…while still going out with Ukyo. Ukyo heard rumors and confronted her about it so she’s like “yep, I spread my legs for the rich D so I can get ahead lel”. He was so angry he decided to just focus on his studies to become a lawyer but ended up doing bad which is why he ended up working at a smaller firm.　And as it turns out, Ema looks a lot like his ex so he’d start to have these rage outbursts on her.

During one of them, Ema slaps him and is like “the fuck I’m not the whore you dated!” She tells him that unlike that woman, she will always be by his side and never betray him. Ukyo realizes that they are in fact not the same person and that Ema will not treat him like shit..and decides to be more open with his feelings towards her. (This also means more open with his do-S side.. (/▽*＼)～♪ ｲﾔｧﾝ )The ex-whore shows up telling Ema that Ukyo won’t take her seriously cause she’s just a high school girl. Ema is upset and when Ukyo finds out he grabs and kisses her saying that no matter what dat ho says, he loves Ema and wants her by his side as a woman not a “sister”. In the epilogue, Ukyo tells his ex-whore to fuck off because he’s tired of her shit and if she doesn’t, he’ll sue her for being an annoying stalker m9(^Д^)ﾌﾟｷﾞｬｰ. At dinner time Ukyo hints to Ema a proposal by asking her to make dinner “just for him” but poor Ema doesn’t get his old fart proposal ways XD.  In the after story, Ema graduates high school and Ukyo takes her out to dinner asking her to marry him. He then tells her he got a hotel room for some SEXAY TIME YEEAAAAA….cause he can’t hold back the lewd anymore and he’s waited years for this :lol:.

Asahina Louis – Louis is the chill dude who works as a hair stylist at a famous salon. He loves playing with people’s hair and will sometimes give people free do’s.  He’s one of the other people who can actually understand what Juri says. Due to this he also refers to Ema as Chii-chan as that’s the nickname Juri calls her by. He reveals to Ema that he was adopted by Miwa from an orphanage. He has nothing in common personality or looks wise with his other brothers, but has enjoyed living with them all as a family. That’s why he tells Ema that he understands her feelings when she finds out that she and her father are not blood related either.  Louis’ plot is that his missing father has his assistant come to Japan to ask Louis to go to France. Turns out Louis is half french and his father is some famous beautician in Fance. He wants them to live as family in France together and cut everyone’s hair ohohoho desuwa.  Louis is worried about what to do so after thinking about it, he decides to meet his dad’s ambassador Serge  at a hotel and brings Ema with him for moral support.

Serge tells him that his father and mother were madly in love but when his father started to get all famous the mom decided she’d just be in his way so she returned to Japan alone with baby Louis. He wanted to follow her but everyone stopped him from sabotaging his career so he focused on his work to forget about her. He lost contact with her but only when he saw Louis’ hair salon in a popular magazine he realized how much Louis looked like his deceased lover. Louis says he’s had a photo of his father & mother as the only memory of them all this time but he says he cannot go to France. Serge understands and says while his father will be said he will surely understand the sadness of parting with your lover. After Serge leaves, Louis tells Ema he don’t regret nothin’ and says he loves her. In the epilogue they go shopping together and live happily ever after. In the after story, they take a bath together before sleeping together for the night. I’m kinda bummed he didn’t get any lip touching cgs despite having 1 CG where he’s licking cream off her lips 😛

Asahina Azusa –  I actually liked Azusa at first because he seemed like the sweet shy megane dude but it’s all a cover up for his extremely negative personality that he hides behind those frames. Azusa is like the calmer twin compared to Tsubaki though more of a brocon compared to Natsume. While on the outside, it seems like Tsubaki is the clingy one, in actuality it’s Azusa. Azusa has pretty much lived in Tsubaki’s shadow his whole life doing whatever Tsubaki wanted. He had no career goals so he became a seiyuu because Tsubaki became one too. On top of all of this, his interest in girls basically mirrors Tsubaki’s…..so basically HIS ONLY INTEREST IN THE OPPOSITE SEX IS TO NTR WHOEVER TSUBAKI LIKES Σ(ﾟдﾟlll)ｶﾞｰﾝNow fortunately, we’re in his route now so it’s not a huge deal because he’s getting the thing that Tsubaki haahaa’s about. But if I think back to Passion Pink, the only reason Azusa fell for Ema is because Tsubaki took interest in her first. Siiighh. So now that I’m in Azusa’s route it makes the entire situation weird like “Do you like Ema because of your own interest or is it just a pure NTR-Tsubaki kind of love!?” Unfortunately following the copy pasta pattern of the last game, the plot for Azusa’s route is identical to what Tsubaki’s was.

Azusa is picked as the lead role for an anime that Tsubaki really wanted the lead role of. Azusa frankly couldn’t care less since he lives in his brother’s shadow anyway, and in fact wants Tsubaki to have the role instead….cue me rolling my eyes at any lack of attempt at original scenario. 🙄  And so Azusa gets sick with some mysterious disease and has to be hospitalized. Due to this he gives up his role as lead and Tsubaki voices instead. Once the first episode of the anime airs, Azusa watches it in the hospital with Ema and says he realized how jealous he is of Tsubaki. He also realized how much he wants to be a seiyuu and that he “cares” about it after all. After he’s released, he confesses to Ema that he loves her and in the epilogue says while he’s “everyone’s voice actor” his heart belongs to her. In the after story, Azusa decides to stop holding back and has some sexy time with Ema ( ･ิω･ิ）. Frankly son I am disappoint because honestly it just felt like Azusa wants to be better than Tsubaki, but he won’t “dare” cross that line because he feels like its his job to live in Tsubaki’s shadow. Since he’s technically the “middle twin” I think he just has the Jan Brady syndrome :lol:.

Asahina Iori – Of course Azusa’s problems can be taken with a grain of salt as we head over to the sinking ship that is Iori’s route. I felt generally disappointed with Iori and felt like nothing was truly resolved with him. After finishing his route, whenever he’d show up in other routes and they’d be like “Iori is such a iyashi gentlemen type” and I’m sitting there like gguuuurrlll plsss…. I knew shit wasn’t right with Iori when I saw the anime and during other routes, he’d show up and say some weird as fuck lines….so I pretty much walked into his route expecting all sorts of creepyness. It all began the first date with Ema where she saw his cross necklace and when she went to touch it he’s like FUCK OFF BEETCH. Other than his creepy outbursts though, he usually acts like “prince” and attends a private school for really smart people. So basically Iori is one of those oppressed geniuses with SERIOUS EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS. So serious that when it snows outside he loses his marbles and one night Ema finds him strangling himself with his cross in the living room. ヽ(。_゜)ノ He makes her swear that she “saw nothing” and then on the day of his college entrance exam, she goes to see him…he hugs her and then collapses in front of the gates. After he’s hospitalized, Ema goes to see him finding out that his ex-girlfriend died in middle school. He tried to get over her without suiciding and even tried to fall in love with Ema but he just couldn’t get over the grief.  Eventually he takes some time off and when he comes back from the hospital he’s all over Ema. So all over her that it’s pretty much crossed into the yandere zone and as Kaname says he wants to “suck her into his black hole of depression.”

Iori’s thought process is pretty much “fuck the world, I just want you with me”. Ema is a bit thrown off by possession level over 9000 and when Kaname tries some brotherly intervention, Iori gets really pissed off and rages for him to fuck off.  A few weeks later, Iori asks Ema to go to the movies with him where he takes her to a movie equivalent of the End of Evangelion 😆 (Aka everyone dies.) Some days later when Iori sees Ema getting words of encouragement from Kaname he gets extremely pissed. Deciding to “remove the cockblock” between him and his precious Ema, he goes into Kaname’s room one night and attacks him strangling with his cross necklace. ( ﾟдﾟ)… Kaname’s like “ok but if I die, will that let you get over your ex-g/f??” While all of this is happening, Ema hears noise and walks out of her room to see Iori about to kill his brother www. She’s like wtf and while Iori is frothing at the mouth Kaname asks Ema not to blame Iori for anything. Iori doesn’t believe that Kaname will die for him and then Ema tells them to both shut the fuck up and stop taking life for granted. Iori babbles that he’s sick of living and wants to die, but he can’t die as long as Kaname continues to live. Ema cries saying she doesn’t want either of them dying and says she’s not going to just go off and die like his ex. There was no epilogue and in the after story Iori goes to pay his respects to his deceased ex-g/f and “tell her” he’s found someone else. He then takes Ema inside a church and kisses her babbling wedding vows to her. Uhhmm okay……ಠ_ಠ.  Someone get this child a therapist. I tried to get his bad end out of curiosity but I just kept getting the normal one so I gave up (and probably it was for the best :lol:).

Asahina Natsume – After consulting 3 different guides I finally figured out how to get into his route! You cannot give gifts or raise affection ANYONE (even the PP guys) until the parents’ wedding. It’s best to just raise general family affection by watching TV with the family or something until you meet Natsume. Once I did this, I threw food coupons in his face to go on dates and it was all good from there. ;D Natsume works at a video game company that makes Ema’s favorite games – how convenient! He’s the youngest triplet, always felt like he was the 3rd wheel cause he didn’t feel like his personality fit in with Azusa or Tsubaki. On one of their dates, Natsume injures his arm so Ema comes over his place to cook for him since he’s unable to do much on his own. She also finds out he has 2 nukos named Tsubaki and Azusa XDDDD Apparently Tsubaki brought them in as strays and felt sorry for them in  the rain. Natsume had to hide them though because his apartment didn’t allow pets. Eventually it was discovered he had the cats so he had to move out of the building with all the others brothers and move to this one that allows animals. And so Natsume’s drama is that back in high school he used to be on the track team and was really good. Subaru idolized him and wanted to be a great sportsman like him but when Natsume graduated he dumped his sports career like a ton of bricks. He figured there’s others out there better than him, and he chose to become a salaryman so he could make a stable living.

This made Subaru extremely buttmad because Natsume refused to tell him “why” he quit. So for like all these years he’s been buttmad until Ema comes along and actually tries to talk to both of them to work things out. And so magically they do and Natsume decides he wants to get back into running again. He starts training with Azusa & Tsubaki as well as Subaru. The other 2 triplets tell him that because he’s hogging Ema, he must now enter the next marathon and make sure he’s in the top 100 or else they’ll NTR him. ／(^o^)＼ In the epilogue, Natsume’s training makes him run faster and he ends up moving back into the apartment building with the rest of the Asahinas. He then asks Azusa to move out of his room right next to Ema’s so that he can break the wall down and they can have a shared room together. The catch is, he must be Tsubaki and Azusa’s slave forever and ever! ….which apparently is not a problem because they already treat the youngest triplet (born 1 official day after them) like a slave their whole life anyway! 😆 Natsume is willing to take it as long as he can get some sexy time with Ema (/ω＼)ｲﾔﾝ❤ I honestly think Natsume is what made this game Cero C… XD Well I guess Ukyo’s ending was kinda randy though only through text.

Juri – This route is on the same level of WTF as Cecil from the original UtaPri game xD. Juri is Ema’s pet squirrel but he’s a very special squirrel. When he was a baby squirrel living in the moutnains, Ema’s real father Kenji would sometimes stop by and feed him. He had lot of excavation related work so they became forest friends. One day Juri found Kenji had fallen off a cliff and was moments from his death. He saw Juri and asked him to take care of his daughter Ema after he is gone. When the police arrived on the scene, Kenji had already died and Juri saw Rintarou, Ema’s step dad there. He figured since Rintarou was the closest connection to Kenji’s daughter, Juri followed him and ended up with Ema. When Ema was young she thought everyone could talk to animals but then realized she was the only one who could understand Juri’s words. And so Juri basically watched over Ema to make sure she wouldn’t be alone and be taken care of. His mission pretty much ended once she got “accepted” into the Asahina family and came to terms with the fact that she was adopted. And so in the end of the game if you don’t pick a brother, Juri gets his final wish granted by Kenji’s spirit to become a human. Even though Juri was a squirrel, he was always jealous of the other brothers being able to talk to Ema, go on dates with her etc.

So when he becomes human he asks Ema to go on a date with him and asks to visit her classroom at school. Once he realizes he only has 1 day left to live (honestly I’m surprised a squirrel has lived this long to begin with) Ema hears that he’s gonna vanish and locks herself in her room refusing to eat or leave. The other brothers try to get her out until Juri comes in, tells her about his and her pasts and asks her to see him off with a smile. And so on his final day, he comes to Ema’s room, kisses her goodbye and disappears. His final words are that as long as she remembers him he’ll always be in her heart and that he’s always loved her. щ(ಥДಥщ) And in the epilogue…well I never unlocked it cause you had to basically unlock every CG in the game and no matter what I did some stuff just..didn’t unlock. I was too lazy to go back and get it and looking at the CG pack Ema just goes on some picnic with her family so there’s no miraculous Juri-returns ending T_T. Reading a summary on a Japanese blog confirmed that she just went on a hanami with the brothers as she moved on after Juri’s disappearance. (´；ω；｀) Oh also this route explained the reason Juri calls her Chii-chan is because when he first met her she was a loli who he called Chibi-chan. Juriii my baeeee. ლ（இ e இ｀。ლ） Oh forgot to mention you need the Passion Pink save data in order to get this route, which I had to dig out but eventually found!

 

Well copy pasta aside, I still enjoyed it! Still I gotta say I felt like more of the guys from Passion Pink were my types that really made me all (*´･ω･`*)ﾄﾞｷﾄﾞｷ . In this game I’d say the only ones who came close to that is probably Azusa and  Natsume. Everyone else was either too young, too chill, or just damn depressing. (´・ω・｀) I guess the names really fit PASSIONATE guys from Pink and Brilliantly depressing guys from Blue xDDD. Seeing all my favorites show up in this game and not being able to get with them was so sad. In some routes I just wanted to be like YUUSUKE BABY LET ME LOVE YOU or Masanii save meeee ／(^o^)＼ﾅﾝﾃｺｯﾀｲ. Also the guys from PP felt uh…randier than the ones from BB? The BB ones feel like they’re mostly sexually frustrated from trying to be all proper and holding it all in or something. Maybe that’s what the blue really means – Blue Bal— Σ(ﾟ∀´(┗┐ヽ(･∀･ )ﾉ.  Still though I guess if you do have a favorite in this game it’s probably worth the play through. My only extreme disappointment is Juri’s route and without posting spoilers I tend to be like “if you’re gonna go all fantasy up in this house, then go all the way”. Don’t be all fantasy-route then have this sad “realistic” ending wtf T_T.  You also needed the passion pink save file in order to go into any of the guys rooms (including the BB guys) so the first 2 routes I was wondering why I couldn’t until someone told me it was a necessary. I feel like if this game eventually got ported to Vita, they coulda just fit all the guys into 1 game because essentially all the common route + stat raising system is the same anyway  so it’s almost a system limitation that they were forced to put it out as 2 games. (Maybe that’s the cause of all the delays? But who knows.) It’s just a shame that the anime was such garbage and a additional shame of who Ema ended up with in the novels (but that’s a personal opinion and I digress :P).