Otome Game Review: Collar x Malice

There exists an organization called Adonis which has been responsibile for a several murder cases throughout the year. Each case they have “count down until X-day” in which they plan to “rebuild” Japan. They leave a coin with a cat symbol on it and a roman numeral that indicates the number of months till the count down. The overall theme of each case is revenge. Adonis has decided to become the anonymous justice league that murders those who have hurt others when police refuse to take action. Our heroine, Hoshino Ichika is a regular boring policewoman who doesn’t do more than maybe help find a lost child or take a cat down from a tree.  However one day after work, someone drugs her, knocks her out and when she wakes up she finds her body is paralyzed in a church and she has a collar around her neck. The collar transmits a radio signal through which a voice tells her that she’s been chosen by Adonis to be an “experiment” to prove her sense of justice before X-day happens. If she fails to do so, Adonis will send a signal to release deadly poison through the collar and she will die. Just then a group of guys burst in, and by inputting a code they disable her paralyzation but she cannot remove the collar. They also just so happen to be a bootleg detective agency full of ex-cops (+ half assed secret service member) set up by the leader, Yanagi Aiji, in order to put a stop to X-day that’s set to occur on new year’s day of the following year. Remember big fat spoilers ahead so jump to my final thoughts if you intend to play this game – which has been licensed in English for release in 2017! (｀・ω・´)

X-Day Cases

Let’s briefly go over the X-day cases so anyone deciding to read the spoilers is familiar with what’s going on.  All the X-day cases can be found on the official site and in the limited edition booklet.

April & May – A bunch of policemen are gathered in a room, tied to chairs, forced to wear animal kigurumi heads and then executed on camera. Revenge for the police wrongfully accusing a music idol of causing a man to suicide and ruining his career.

June – A middle school chemistry lab is blown up killing everyone inside. Revenge for them bullying their classmate into killing herself.

July – A stalker, who left gross phone calls every day to a woman detailing everything she did that day, is murdered.

August – A bunch of mobile online game bullies are murdered for bullying one of the players.

September & October – No information at first but later revealed to be murder of those who bullied a school counselor & mother into not only suiciding but also killing her husband and attempting to kill her children.

November – A policeman is killed on a bike when he crashes into a truck. Seems like an accident but it was planned as a revenge murder to kill him for verbally and physically harassing his underlings.

December – Not listed on the official site but several random murders happen for things like workplace harrassment and the murder of the guy who created the online game in which the bullying occured.

Okazaki Kei – Kei is an SP (security police in Japan kinda like secret service in usa) who just does his own thing and can fall asleep in random places.  He climbs through 5th floor windows, takes Ichika to the park and then falls asleep on her shoulder. He always looks sleepy but has the movement of Jackie Chan and kicks ass when needed and uses cute kaomoji in his messages ヾ(*´∇`*)ﾉ He follows Ichika around quietly acts like it’s totally normal 😂. The police at Ichika’s office start to question her relationship with Kei and why she hangs out with him so often. They also ask how she got involved with Aiji & remind her that doing investigations isn’t in her job description. When Ichika goes to see the former stalking victim, Rika, the woman says she’s been reborn and now understands what it’s like to love someone enough to “kill  him”. Rika then says she won’t talk about the case and that soon everything will be “reset” anyway. They go to see the guy who killed her stalker in prison, Oogata, and he continues to say it was self defense and that he stabbed the guy by accident. In the end all they get out of him is he did it for great justice. So then Ichika goes to the park with Rika again who gushes about her love for the killer of her stalker. She goes on to say how the stalker stalked her every movement and the police ignored all her complaints so she was in anguish for months. Once she sees the collar on Ichika’s neck she rages how “Zero” picked Ichika over her and she lunges at Ichika with a knife. Fortunately Kei was observing from the shadows to begin with just in case & he knocks the crazy hoe out before Ichika can get hurt. He then immediately points a gun at Ichika asking her about her collar.

Just then Adonis transmits a message from her collar explaining she’s their tool and if he gets in the way they will kill her. Kei realizes she’s just being threatened by them and is not the enemy and that she tried her best to keep working on the case despite her circumstances. A week goes by and Ichika runs into Kei outside of Aiji’s agency. He tells her to stay away from Aiji & co. Since his job is to monitor them & report it to his higher ups in the SP force. Worst case scenario is he may have to shoot her if she goes “against the police”. After a few days he tells her he’s gonna protect her after all because she’s the person he’s been “looking to protect” from his own feelings rather than because it’s his job. They go to do research on  the November crash where 3 motorcycle policemen were hit by a truck. They run into an ex cop who quit 5 years ago cause his boss was a harassing asshole.  He warns them the following night a police officer will be killed and challenges Kei & Ichika to figure it out. So they find the guy Sanjou in the park and he admits to killing all the bullies from the August mmo game case. He basically decided to work for Adonis cause he’s done with life and is just waiting for it to end, pointing out that Kei has the same “mindset”. They have a shoot off and Kei is hurt protecting Ichika and getting blown up by a landmine. He tells her he’s used to worse injuries and since Sanjou ran away,  the two of them decide to leave before more landmines blow up in their faces. He grabs her in his arms and runs through the woods with mines blowing up behind them. The police hq start to get antsy that they can’t arrest Adonis so their head chief tells them just arrest everyone involved, whether or not they have alibis and regardless of if Adonis erased the suspect’s memories.  

After Kei is hospitalized Ichika presses him why he’s willing to throw his life away to protect her. In fact he admits he wants to die while protecting her. Once Ichika realizes he’s protecting her for “his own desire” & has no fucks to give about her feelings she tells him to bugger off. She says she’ll get someone else to protect her,  someone who isn’t using her as a reason to end their life with a bang. Of course she’s really upset since she had a crush on him thinking he really cared for her. Eventually after he follows her to Aiji’s office,  and they argue back & forth about why he has to protect her, he  confesses he loves her in front of everyone. \(´ω` )/♡ (Also apparently this is a revelation for him rofl. ) Takeru tells them to gtfo and make up so they go to their usual park bench to talk. Just then Kei’s dorky partner runs over giving them a Christmas dinner, cake and Santa hats. 😂 Kei then says oh good idea and takes Ichika to his place. He tells her of his past, when he was a newb SP assigned on a mission, along with his partner. That day the terror group Adonis sent a warning that they’d strike. Kei and his partner waited until they realized they were the only ones there when suddenly an explosion happened and the whole building caught fire. Suddenly part of the ceiling collapsed, and Kei’s partner pushed him out of the way getting flattened and killed himself. Due to this Kei had survivor guilt because had he listened to his partner to move to another area, they both would have been saved. Before he died his partner told him not to die  a meaningless way like himself. Because of this incident Kei was demoted and he felt like he wasted the past 2 years being an SP who could never protect anyone. In fact he was just given a spy job to spy on Aiji & co. Also turns out his partner was was actually a spy for Adonis. This information was only known to a select few since leaking it would be bad.  Kei didn’t want to die like his partner cause he died protecting Kei so one cared.

Ichika then admits her feelings to Kei and why she wants him to live with her, not die for her. He continued to babble that if he can’t die for her her has to find someone else to die for. Ichika rages at him that dying is not some hobby or a walk in the park. 😂😂 She then stuffs Christmas cake into his mouth & tells him if he dies she’ll forget about him and go off with one of the guys at Aiji’s place 😂😂😂😈. He gives in finally and after eating they watch a horror movie cause that’s literally the only thing Kei has at his place 😂. Ichika hates horror movies and freaks out but that just makes her cuter for Kei and he kisses kissed her forehead saying he’ll wait to go further when she’s ready. (But he’ll be annoyed if she makes him wait too long.  (*´艸`)) On December 26 they finally find Adonis’ hideout. Adonis however ain’t pleased and tells Ichika to come to their hideout alone or they will kill Kei. They also demand that she betray the police and become their ally. Kei gets worried about her so he asks to come over, and Ichika figures this might be her final chance to spend time with him. She tries to act normal afraid Adonis will hear every part of their conversation since her collar is basically a walkie talkie lol… They end up screwing in her room (I think 😂?) and he says to the collar that he ain’t giving his bae to Adonis. After he leaves,  Ichika gives a teary goodbye to her brother Kazuki and tells him to follow his musical dreams. Kei isn’t stupid though, and shortly after she leaves her apartment he intercepts her asking if Adonis is threatening her to come to them…perhaps his death. He grabs and hugs her saying that if she became a hostage he’d lose his reason to live and die anyway! He says he will go to Adonis with her and they can kill him there if they want to. When they get there, they run into Sanjou who has a one on one with Kei. Kei wins the shoot off so Sanjou unlocks and removes the collar from Ichika’s neck. They then run into Mikuni Rei, who isn’t the boss but is very high up.  They shoot him and while he lies on the ground he tells “Zero” – the leader to run away while he will get Ichika. Kei and Ichika start to run for it, but Ichika gets shot protecting Kei. Kei grabs Ichika and runs while Adonis hq begins to crumble. Rei tells Zero to start over elsewhere without him. Happy End: Ichika manages to survive and recover from her gunshot wound. Xday never happens & Adonis goes quiet with a bunch of holes and unsolved mysteries surrounding all the murders. Kei is mad that Ichika nearly died for him, but she kisses him in her hospital room and he forgives her. ヾ(*´∇`*)ﾉ He then says he’s gonna be with her 24/7 for the rest of her life and Ichika’s response is of course “by all means bby” (ღ˘⌣˘ღ).

Bad Ends:

1. Ichika tells her police partner about the collar so Adonis immediately sets the poison on it and kills her.
2. Ichika decides she will work on solving the xday case alone but with no leads to anything. Then on January 1st Adonis kills everyone.
3. Ichika follows Kazuki’s friend to the club and he tells her to not be a “bad fan”. One of his fangirls, Hana, beats her to death.
4. Ichika tells Rika the truth that she doesn’t really have a guy she loves. Rika flips out seeing Ichika’s collar but after Kei saves her, he shoots her in the leg saying she’s part of Adonis. Adonis then poisons her so she isn’t arrested and forced to spill the beans.
5. Kei is shot by Sanjou and killed when he tells Adonis that he can’t betray the police.
6. Ichika decides to chase Sanjou through the landmines on her own. She steps into one but before it blows her up,  Kei pushes her out of the way and gets blown up instead. He’s happy to die protecting her since that was initially his wish.
7. Ichika misses her target and both she and Rei get shot to death. Kei can’t live without her so he lets Zero kill him.

Enomoto Mineo – Mineo is a huge dork who is very awkward around Ichika. He used to be on the Japanese equivalent of a swat team, and he originally joined police because he liked detective dramas. He wears an eye patch cause he thinks its cool 😂  and loves the Shinsengumi and Hijikata. He acts like a tsundere and distrusts Ichika at the start. He avoids and runs away from her until she scrapes her knee chasing him so he carries her to Aiji’s place and gets all deredere. (*´ω｀*) Mineo was really close with a cop who got killed in the May X-day case. It was a huge shock for him to find the guy dead. Because of this he’s in an endless cloud of despair and tells Ichika she’s wasting time with him as a partner. He has a huge hate for Adonis so it’s hard for him to work with her. Ichika doesn’t give up though and grabs him by the arm to get him to listen to her, and promises not to betray him. So then his old boss decides to be a wingman and he calls Ichika to pick up a drunk Mineo from the izakaya. She grabs a taxi and brings him to Aiji’s agency. While there,  he ends up pulling her into bed with him thinking she’s his pillow.😂😂 He falls asleep hugging her and babbling how she is a cute angel 😂😂. Before anything wild happens, Kei crawls through the window and is like oops sorry for cockblocking! But then after Ichika explains he helps get Mineo’s death grip off her. The next day Mineo comes to her place apologizes & tells her to punch him several times. 😂😂 One evening they sit on a park bench where Mineo tells Ichika how Fujii senpai (the guy who died)was jealous of him getting into the swat team.  Fujii even lied about an arrest to get promoted and get ahead of Mineo. So because of this wrongful arrest, Adonis killed him & Mineo felt like it was his fault for making Fujii have this inferiority complex. He takes her out to lunch a few days later and they both discover they have a fondness for pudding.

They both go to her brother’s concert with 2 of her co-workers. Thanks to Hana who is really close to the lead singer Hiro, allows Ichika & Mineo to talk to him privately. They suspect him as one of the criminals so they came to talk to him. So Hiro is the guy that Fujii had wrongly arrested and later on he wrote Hiro an apology letter for ruining his dreams. The incident was they tried to stop a drunk guy from jumping in front of a train but he did it anyway. Fujii arrived at the scene and arrested both Hiro and the other guy for murder. Eventually Fujii realized his mistake and let them go (except the other guy got arrested later for the murder of Rika’s stalker). Unfortunately the arrest ruined Hiro’s musical career so he had to basically “start from scratch” to rebuild his reputation. Hiro says that Fujii probably realized his mistakes and Mineo shouldn’t feel like anything was his fault. Hiro hated cops after that,  but despite that he decided to move on and follow his dream to be a singer. He asks them to watch his performance and for Ichika to cheer on her brother’s dream as well. At the show though, Hana shoots a gun and all the fans panic and start running for the door. Hiro tells her he’ll become her hostage and to let Kazuki go but she rages at the fact that police took away his dream.  She then confesses that she will destroy anyone who gets in his way effectively admitting to the murder of the 4 cops – including Fujii. Mineo hears this and he’s pissed. She threatens to kill Kazuki since he’s “related” to the police and Mineo threatens to shoot her. Ichika calms him down that his job isn’t to take revenge but to save people, so he decides to focus on saving Kazuki. Hiro tells Hana he didn’t ask her to take revenge for him and it doesn’t make him happy. Mineo and Ichika then take the opportunity & shoot her in the arm and leg. However she still manages to shoot Saeki and says she’s gonna kill all the cops.  Mineo shoots the gun out of her hand and they arrest her. Saeki is taken to the hospital and Ichika has a long chat with Kazuki. He says he was jealous that she got a cool job as a cop while his parents tried to force him to take over the family business. He asks her to come see his live performance again and calls her neechan.(ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡

So then Mineo and Ichika go to talk to Oogata in prison (the other guy involved in the train jumper case and the one who killed RIka’s stalker.) He gives a hint to meet at a certain place to find out the truth about X-day. Mineo tells Ichika not to come with him because he doesn’t want her to get hurt and he loves her. After he runs off, Ichika realizes she feels the same and can’t wait to tell him her feelings. Meanwhile Mineo runs back to Aiji’s place and rolls around like a schoolgirl that he finally confessed his feelings xD. And so a few days before their meeting,  Oogata is proven innocent and released from jail. They meet at the place where Fujii was found dead. Ichika and Aiji are worried about Mineo so they secretly follow him and observe from the shadows. Just then Shiraishi calls Ichika telling her that Mineo and Oogata’s meeting is being streamed on live video online. Oogata keeps trying to provoke Mineo into shooting him on camera. Mineo doesn’t shoot him but punches him instead.  His goal is to prove that people will believe what they see even if it’s out of context. That’s why he’s angry for being jailed for 2 years for false accusations. So Mineo is upset and angsting at Aiji’s office when Ichika decides to visit and cheer him up (per advice from otoutokun). She tells him to forget about the live stream cause no one understands and loves him like she does anyway. He thinks he’s dreaming and freaks out so she pulls his cheeks and cooks him dinner.😂 When she sits next to him to ichaicha he runs away and shits bricks 😂😂😂. To try to calm down he turns the TV on and it’s an interview with Oogata. Suddenly Adonis takes over the TV and says that they aren’t going to kill random people – They will only target those who have “sinned” and are wearing a “collar”. Mineo and Ichika decide to find others who have a collar and save them as well.

Several days later, Kazuki invites Mineo and Ichika to his concert but doesn’t tell them that it’s couples night.When they get there, the ticket lady asks them to kiss to prove they’re a couple. Ichika kisses him on the cheek and he freezes until the concert begins 😂😂. Meanwhile back at the ranch,  Takeru hacks into Adonis and creates a tracker that shows locations of all nearby collar wearers. He also l33t hacks and disables her collar so she can finally remove it. She immediately calls Mineo and he’s so happy he starts crying over the phone. (*´˘`*)♡  Good End: Some crazy guy bursts into the studio raging at the interviewer for messing up his life.  He claims that the guy is “evil” and must die.  Oogata then realizes that by letting this go on he wouldn’t be any different than the cops who originally arrested him. But by stopping it, he would allow “evil”. Just then Mineo walks in revealing it was an act to see Oogata’s true intentions when put on the spot. He even admits he liked Rika’s stalker intentionally as a planned murder as a member of Adonis. He then tries to kill himself on the spot but Mineo gets into a scuffle with him and gets stabbed instead. Fortunately it’s only his hand, and Oogata is arrested a 3rd time and hopefully this time for good. Ichika cries and he wipes her tears away and gives her a late Christmas present – a clover hairpin. 🍀 In the epilogue,  3 months go by,  and they free collar victims and destroy the collars. Adonis cancels their X-day plans and goes quiet but they never did manage to find their hideout. Mineo returns to the swat team and all the ossans tease him about dating Ichika. 😂 Mineo takes her to the church where they first found her, asks her to marry him and finally properly kisses her. (´｀*)♡ A bit disappointed with Mineo’s plot since it felt like it was mostly resolved by Takeru’s hack job while Mineo just kinda focused on resolving his past. 😅 

Bad ends:

1. Ichika takes the shortcut dark alley home when she runs into some rapist attacking a screaming woman. Some other guy comes out and shoots the rapist and the girl runs away. This guy then shoots Ichika when he finds out she’s a cop. (I later found out the guy was Souda from the mmo game case in Takeru’s route.)
2. Ichika makes the wrong investigative decision and loses all leads on the case. Eventually she gives up, gets clubbed to death by some high schooler with a gun and some Adonis person removes her collar. This way she’s now free from everything before she dies.
3. Mineo is killed by Adonis.
4. Ichika misses her target and Hana shoots and kills Kazuki. Ichika is livid so she shoots Hana multiple times and kills her too.
5. Because Ichika isn’t there to stop him,  Mineo shoots Oogata live for everyone to see.
6. Ichika shoots and kills Oogata afraid he’ll kill Mineo. She’s not arrested but feeling bad about murder she leaves her job deciding to take over the family business, so Kazuki doesn’t have to. When the train doors close Mineo runs up to the train yelling at Ichika not to give up…but Ichika just looks at him sadly as she says goodbye to her love when the train pulls away.

Sasazuka Takeru – Oh god Takeru is my absolute favorite donut eating bae. I thought Mineo was a tsundere but I think Takeru is the TRUE tsundere of the game cause he spends a lot of time being tsun..then when Ichika’s not looking he turns into a deredere donut. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Takeru loves sweet things, especially donuts but if you give him a maccha or azuki flavored donut BE PREPARED FOR HIS WRATH. 😅😅 He lived in America for a while before coming to Japan so he likes sweets American style aka no wagashi/maccha/azuki etc. He dropped out of school at age 14 cause he was tired of dealing with shit because he was “asian”. He ended up homeschooling and learning hacking from his dad. His route is handling the case with the online game bully murders. He’s doing that case because he wants the anti weapon law reinstated since it’s after that case that it was repealed. He feels like it will be too dangerous for Ichika so he immediately tells her to pick a different case to handle. Eventually after Ichika proves herself to be worthy to him based on her detective skills, he gets all deredere and even offers her donuts and goes to eat dinner with her. (￣▽￣) However things get weird when he notices Ichika’s brother hanging out with one of the suspects of the school bombing case, Sera Akito. He demands to inspect Kazuki’s room after going home with Ichika. After searching they realize he’s in a band with Hiro – the suspect from the case with the suicide jumper. Ichika collapses on her knees from shock so Takeru hugs her while she cries. ヾ(*´∇`*)ﾉ

They decide to attend Kazuki’s concert convey a few days later to see if they can find anything out. They run into Sera Alito, Kazuki’s friend and later Ichika finds out he’s a suspect in the school bombing case. The reason is because the person who suicided due to bullying was his younger sister Kanade. One night Ichika comes to his place cause he’s not at the agency and Mineo gives her his address. Takeru is annoyed af but agrees to let her come in if she buys him some food. 😂 He’s also in a bad mood cause Minegishi from the police has been making it harder for him to hack things. He gets tired of stuff so after eating he falls asleep telling Ichika to go home.  She doesn’t want to leave with the door unlocked so she tries to wake him up and instead he pulls her into bed like a pillow.  (///ω///)💕 After she falls asleep he wakes up shocked to see her in his arms but is relieved they didn’t have sex cause their clothes are on 😂😂. He then mentally babbles about how cute she is and kisses her head as they both sleep the rest of the night together. Next time Takeru comes to Ichika’s place,  he acts like her boyfriend so it’s easier to do investigation on Kazuki and Akito.  Takeru ends up talking with Akito who asks him to keep all of this a secret from Kazuki. Takeru asks Kei to follow Akito around but they manage to lose track of him because of some durds that they have to fight off. By the time they finish, Akito gets into some black car with a hidden license plate and it drives off. However thanks to this they confirm that Akito is working for Adonis. A few days later Takeru tells Kazuki that Akito is working for Adonis. Kazuki gets mad and doesn’t believe it until Takeru brings up Akito’s sister.

They also warn him that the police will have to interview him because he’s Akito’s friend. Kazuki refuses to believe Akito would ever kill anyone but Takeru tells him to grow up and if he blindly defends Akito they could  consider him a criminal too. They also have him meet Kei to let him know that Kei is protecting him from the shadows in case Adonis targets him for being friends with Akito. Ichika is upset and stressed by all of this, and Takeru notices. When she goes to walk him out of her apartment building, he calls her by her name and then kisses her tears away. (*´ε｀*)❤ They hack into a mobile game addict’s account, a guy named Souda, and make it seem like he’s stealing everyone’s items and killing his guild members.  A lot of people leave his guild and he loses his “god” status in the game for always helping everyone.  He gets pissed thinking Ichika did this since at one point he logged into his account from her phone. When the police go to arrest him, he points a gun at them demanding they bring out Ichika. Just then Takeru admits to him that he’s the one who hacked his account and before the guy can shoot him Ichika blasts the gun out of his hands.  Takeru tells him he’s not a god but a loser who can’t do shit in real life. After the wacko is arrested, Takeru hugs Ichika saying he’s glad she’s not shot and he’s so shaken he passes out. It’s because he has ptsd with guns and why he refuses to carry one and wants to gun ban to return to Japan. With Aiji’s help,  she brings Takeru to rest at the agency and stays with him there until he wakes up. After he wakes up,  he reveals to Ichika that his mother died from a gunshot while protecting him.  (´:ω:`) They were caught in a crossfire from some gang shooting guns at each other,  while on the way home from shopping in America. This was 6 years earlier,  when he was 18. The guy was some underage punk who saw Takeru walking back to the mall with his mom and shot him. The mom jumped in the way and died immediately after being shot. The guy was Japanese and was part of some kind of a gang and he was sent to juvie because he was under age.

Takeru really wanted to just kill him after he got out of his prison but the guards around him were so tight that he could never a do it as a newb policeman at the time. He tried to hack to get his info but wasn’t successful. This is why he returned to Japan,  to get away from all the guns but now there’s guns everywhere and he’s had enough of that shit. He quit the police since he could no longer arrest anyone for gun possession. Adonis of course hears all this and invites Takeru to join the dark side so he can take revenge on his mother’s killer. When they go talk to Souda, the mobile game wacko, he starts crying and babbling random nonsense as Takeru calls him a loser without his god status. Suddenly he gets an electric shock, passes out and when he wakes up he seems to have no idea who either Takeru or Ichika is and no idea the he’s actually in prison.  Turns out Adonis used a chip in his choker and used it to wipe his memory just like they did with Rika. Takeru is so pissed he didn’t manage to track down the signal he decides to go to his apartment and rage drink – And he drags Ichika with him. 😁😂 He gets her so drunk she drunk rages at him that he better not go join Adonis or she’ll cry – And she starts crying anyway 😂😂. After that she clings on to him and they spend the night sleeping together (again). Several days later they manage to finally have a video call with Akito who admits to being the middle school bomber. He did it to avenge his sister based on her diary with the names of her bullies and everything they did to her. Just then Akito mentions the name of the guy who killed Takeru’s mom:  Thomas Ken Nagata. He says they have all his info and that he’s currently in Japan. Adonis says they will help Takeru take revenge if he wishes to join them. Takeru tells her to leave for the night and the next day he goes mia ignoring all her calls and messages. After talking to Mineo, she realizes she needs to make sure Takeru doesn’t stray off  the right path so she sends him a msg that says “I’m on the verge of tears.”

Good end: Takeru comes back to the agency but he tells Ichika to be quiet cause he doesn’t want Adonis to hear or know his movements through her collar. They instead chat via phone msgs and he even sends her a kaomoji telling her to sleep as he pulls a hacking all nighter. (*˘︶˘*)♡ He nearly gives in to his rage but remembering Ichika’s words keeps him calm and focused. The next morning,  he disables and removes her collar. Takeru goes to the police chief and they decide to infiltrate Adonis hq since he managed to get info on where it is. However by the time they get there it’s mostly deserted save for a few people that had their memories wiped. Not only that but Akito didn’t even remember Kazuki anymore either. After this they began to collect guns from people for preparation of reinstating the anti gun law. Now that the case is closed,  Takeru invites Ichika for a dinner with him on Christmas eve. Afterwards as they leave the restaurant, Ichika sees all the couples around and gets upset that she’s not like that with Takeru.  As she babbles how she’s not worthy of him he reminds her it’s thanks to her he didn’t go join Adonis. Ichika is so happy she hugs him from behind and confesses her love. Takeru is like gurl I already considered us lovers  I mean why else would I invite you to dinner on Christmas eve!? 😂 She demands he say it directly so he grumbles, let’s out a few bakas and says he loves her. Afterwards they go screw in his room the rest of the night.  (๑¯︶¯๑) Since Takeru returns to work at the police they eat lunches together. He takes her outside kissing her in public to show everyone that she’s his 😚. In the epilogue Ichika complains that he’s not giving her enough affection and he tells her to have her “siscon bro” move out so they can live together lol.😂 Part of me is disappointed that Takeru’s killer still walking around freely I mean..he literally murdered someone, hard to believe someone like that would be freed even if he was under age especially since this happened in America. Pretty sure gunshot murder punishment is taken seriously here but maybe for plot sake they let him go. Btw Takeru’s short story was so good…I even read it twice. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)♡

Bad Ends:

1. Bad end 1: Ichika finds some angry long haired girl in the park at night & tells her to go home. She rages at her and begins strangling her. Her brother comes and shoots her to death. Shiraishi’s route revealed this to be Uno Shion & Suzune.
2. Bad end 2: Ichika gets shot by Souda & dies in Takeru’s arms.
3. Bad end 3: Takeru disables her choker before putting her to sleep and going to join Adonis.  When she wakes up she panics and runs outside the agency looking for him. Once Xday comes the announcer voice is Takeru.
4. Bad end 4: Ichika hears screaming & gunshots and finds Rika’s dead body.  Just then the killer comes and shoots her too.
5. Bad end 5: Souda takes Ichika hostage at gunpoint. He shoots and kills Ichika despite Takeru telling him that he’s the one who hacked his account.
6. Bad end 6: Takeru is done with his work at the police and they are dissolving the investigation department. Before he leaves he gives Ichika a necklace as a belated Christmas present. He then leaves to return to America to join an anti terrorist team there. Both end up regretting not confessing their feelings.

Shiraishi Kageyuki – This route was just so sad and left me with such a heavy feeling. It reminded me a lot of Ukyo from Amnesia but sadly it didn’t feel like it had as a happy ending as that one did. In fact it’s because of this route alone that I feel this game DESPERATELY needs a fandisk. Shiraishi works as a profiler for the Shinjuku police department, while secretly assisting Aiji with info gathering. The truth of the matter is, Shiraishi is a spy injected by Adonis and he basically feeds info to Aiji as necessary. He also loves kitty cats and often plays/feeds stray ones near the park. Shiraishi was originally raised as a nameless child in the Adonis religious underground cult that was secretely run by the prime minister….which I am pretty sure was filled with his lovers and bastard children. I have no confirmation but I almost feel like Shiraishi (also known there as #14) is one of the prime minister’s bastard children because a lot of  his info is unknown and he is not a registered “human” being which is why his name is actually just a name given to him 10 years ago while he was injected into the police force to be a spy at age 19. (This is why I desperately want a fandisk with more details on his past life rather than just confusing flashbacks.) Anyway, he promises to help Ichika with the investigation as long as she lets him “observe” her. 😅  One night Ichika tries his alcoholic drink at the izakaya  (After she and her lady coworkers talk shit about him at their anti-Shiraishi meeting) and she passes out to find him petting her sleeping in his lap. 😂 He also lied to the other ladies that there’s a hickey on Ichika’s neck to avoid anyone seeing her collar.😂 The next day they question Ichika’s relationship with Shiraishi but Ichika has to lie so they don’t see her collar.

Shiraishi’s assistant Eriko ends up shipping them and suggesting stuff like having Ichika come to his place to cook dinner. However she uses the time to search his room but only finds books on how to hit on girls and an album of cute baby nuko photos 😁😂. He’s not pleased that Ichika is rummaging through his stuff so he kabedons her and explains she can’t resolve everything with words. Ichika calls him a heartless puppet and runs out of his apartment, deciding not to deal with him anymore. Feeling bad Shiraishi gives Ichika some cookies and so she buys him some macaroons in return. Aiji tells her Shiraishi is pretty bad with interpersonal relationships so to not take things too harshly from him. They make up and he even calls her by her name (which is a big deal because normally he doesn’t remember anyone’s names.) He then starts to develop feelings for Ichika but it drives him crazy cause he thought of himself as an emotionless robot on a mission.Ichika also blurts out that she “doesn’t hate him” like others do. He then tells her he ‘likes’ her but Ichika just thinks he’s just making fun of her for his entertainment. Her coworkers start a rumor that she confessed her love to him and Ichika starts to wonder what kind of feelings she has for him.  She tries to shrug it off figuring he’d never take a romantic relationship seriously. She’s right to be suspicious since the whole time it was an act and he’s been communicating with Rei from Adonis. One day he just straight up tells her he’s bored with her and everything he’s said to her was a joke. She visits his place randomly to discuss the case and he once again concludes that this is the last time they will talk. Tired of his shit, Ichika grabs him by the necktie and asks what his real feelings are. He then basically admits that being with Ichika is giving him too many feels and he’s losing control of himself. 😏

Former free school teacher Takeuchi finally decides to talk with Ichika again about the past 10 years ago and the suicide of Uno sensei. There were 2 key personalities in the case, Sunamori and Hachisuka. Sunamori told  the counselor Uno sensei that it’s her fault if Hachisuka kills himself. It was all a lie cause Hachisuka was buttmad at Uno and wanted her to feel shitty so he had Sunamori make up the lie. They wanted to drive her to suicide and Takeuchi heard about this. She tried to report it to the principal but Hachisuka’s mom was a big donor to the school so there was nothing they could do about her son. So then one of the female students, Yoshitani Souko’s mom complained that Uno was abusing her daughter and should be fired. Souko lied and so Uno felt so awful after everyone was lying and blaming her because of Hachisuka. Takeuchi now feels guilty for not taking her side and providing support for her friend who was driven to suicide. She’s been feeling this guilt for 10 years until Adonis contacted her to take revenge on those who drove her friend to end her life. So she agreed and Adonis basically egged on Sunamori to kill Hachisuka and then kill himself. She also had Adonis  deal with Souko. Both Ichika and Shiraishi realize that Takeuchi is covering up for the true perpetrators – the twin children of Uno sensei, Suzune and Shion who Ichika ran into in the park. Takeuchi then admits that she told the children when they were 18 what really happened to their mom, (and dad as it was a murder suicide) and the kids took matters into their own hands. Takeuchi regrets telling them the truth and feels like she made them murderers. After this, Ichika and Shiraishi find Souko’s rotting corpse in the same apartment where their mom committed suicide. Ichika and Shiraishi find the kids in the park, shoot the weapons out of their hands and ask them to tell them how they really feel and what they went through. Suzune then gives Ichika her diary which is basically written by the other personality Suzune created in her head, a male one, the day her parents died. Their mom came home babbling that by them being alive they would have a miserable life and they should all die together. She went to attack the kids with a kitchen knife but their father protected them and died instead.

The mom then ran out leaving her 8 year old kids with their father’s dead body. Their grandparents adopted them but they only did it to receive money. They had no place in society because they were known as children of a murderer. Suzune wanted to become stronger for Shion which is when she created a boy persona in her mind who was strong and confident. Suzune had no idea about this other personality and began to panic since she’d find herself in places not knowing how she got there. Shion then gave her a diary to write things in when she would swap personalities. When Takeuchi told them about what happened, Suzune’s other persona came out and they decided to kill those who ruined their  with the help of Adonis. After telling their story,  they ask Ichika to kill them because they have no reason to live. Shiraishi tells them if they wanted to die they could have taken their guns and killed themselves. He asks why they didn’t kill Takeuchi for keeping the truth from them for 10 years. They end up admitting that in the end they did what they did to “free” Takeuchi from being tied into their family’s problems and free her from 10 years of guilt. She was the only person who cared about them when everyone else abandoned them. After they’re brought to the police station to talk to Takeuchi, Adonis pulls the trigger and wipes their memory via implanted microchip.  So now case closed only thing left is to figure out the deal with Shiraishi who invites her to his place. He gives her some of his sweat clothes and tells her to take a bath at his place 😂😂. When she’s done she finds him attempting to cook and failing miserably. He manages to make her some tamagoyaki which is so good she just blurts out what a sweet guy he is. He did this to make her feel better after the depressing case she closed. He tells her to let it all out so she ends up crying and falling asleep on his couch. The next morning she wakes up in bed with him, though he’s disappointed nothing happened 😂.

After he goes to wash his face, Ichika realizes after all his b.s., she’s fallen in love  with him. They go on a date where they play with all his stray cat friends. They go home holding hands and he admits he’s changed a lot thanks to her. When they get back, Adonis tells her through her collar that she has to join them in 3 days. They make plans to have a Christmas party at Aiji’s agency & bring Kazuki there to make sure Adonis doesn’t get to him. On the 22nd Shiraishi goes mia and at the same time a policeman is murdered courtesy of Adonis. Later that day Ichika hears that Mikuni Rei was found murdered and a nearby security camera shows Shiraishi as the culprit. Minegishi comes to Aiji’s agency to question Ichika and the others who knew him. He warns if they try to hide him or defend him,  they will be considered criminals too. So now everyone is trying to figure out why Shiraishi did what he did.  Suddenly they bombs go off in the building where Aiji’s agency is trying to force them outside. They run through a smoke filled stairs but due to inhaling so much Ichika passes out, waking up Adonis Hq being carried there by Shiraishi. He admits to having set up the bombs and that this was all part of Zero’s plan, as he is also a member of Adonis. He says he was assigned to act like he would be in love with Ichika with his assigned name “Shiraishi Kageyuki”. Just then Zero’s voice comes out of her collar confirming that he’s just pawn #14 for Adonis. He then says that Shiraishi killed Kazuki, Takeru, Aiji, Mineo Mine on his own cause they were in the way of getting to Ichika. Zero then commands Shiraishi to give Ichika  a gun and have her shoot him as “justice” for killing her loved ones. Ichika refuses so Shiraishi takes her hands and points the gun at his forehead. He tells her if she kills him, Zero will remove her collar and she’ll be a member of Adonis. Good end: Ichika says there’s no replacement for the Shiraishi Kageyuki that she loves. Suddenly he starts to break free of the brainwashing because he was away from Adonis for 10 years.

Zero gets annoyed and sends signals to tells Shiraishi to shoot himself. Shiraishi’s feelings for Ichika break through, he shoots in Zero’s direction, grabs Ichika and runs. He tells Ichika to run outside without him since he’s a murderer and cannot return to the outside world. He also says he didn’t actually kill Aiji & co. He also confesses that while he was originally just an experiment brainwashed child for Adonis, he changed his mind and pretended to be their ally so he could remove Ichika’s collar. Just then Zero finds them and sends more brainwash signals to hurt Shiraishi. Ichika is tired of his shit shot so she shoots Zero but he activates her collar and paralyzed her. Ichika falls into a 3 month long coma and while Shiraishi worked on getting her to wake up,  he did it underground because if they went to the outside world they would be separated since he’s now considered a criminal. Zero was shot in the heart so he had died immediately. Shiraishi also reveals he was the one who left the letter to “save Ichika” at Aiji’s agency. So finally after 3 months Ichika awakens and she has amnesia. He lies, holds back his tears,and tells her that he’s her “doctor” and her name is Hoshino Ichika. 😭 In the epilogue, a year goes by and Ichika is mostly recovered except for her memory. One day he offers that they finally go “outside” since she can walk now. He brings her to Aiji’s agency and everyone there is happy to see her and they all have a Christmas party. The whole time Ichika has flashbacks but can’t concretely remember anything. He then admits he’s killed someone, and did awful things while in Adonis so he can no longer be with her. He then starts crying and confesses that he loves her but he needs to pay for his crimes. Suddenly Ichika regains her memory because of him saying “I wish for you to continue to be yourself.” She confesses her love to him and says she’ll wait for him no matter how long it takes. (´；Д；｀) He tells he loves her too, they kiss and he promises to return to her. How depressing and unsatisfying….fandisk please Otomate.

Bad Ends:

1. Bad end 1: Ichika hears Rika in the alley crying to Zero to answer her. When she finds out Ichika is a cop, she kills her.
2. Bad end 2: Ichika gets a message from Zero in her collar to focus on xday. Just then she hears Shiraishi in the same room as the voice,  a gunshot and then her collar goes silent. She gets a call about a gunshot and when she gets to the scene she finds Shiraishi dead.
3. Bad end 3: Ichika misses her shot and gets shot to death by Shion and Suzune.
4. Bad end 4: Ichika misses her shot but Zero then tortures her with poison until she mentally breaks and becomes his killing machine. He then gives her Shiraishi as a “pet” but he’s constantly crying for not being able to stop things from getting this bad.
5. Bad end 5: When Ichika wakes up Shiraishi introduces himself as her lover. Ichika realizes she’s never been outside but she voluntarily stays with him because she doesn’t want him to be upset or break their uguu dungeon of love relationship.

Yanagi Aiji – Aiji’s route reveals the final truth about the leader of Adonis as well as unlocking a bit more details about all the criminals pasts & motives. Aiji cut off his family & friends when he became a cop so they wouldn’t be ever a target of any criminals just in case. He’s 28 but everyone calls him “dad” because he really cares for everyone, is pretty serious, and is really good at cooking and household chores. Tbh, he’s like the perfect husbando (if he would drop his chainsmoking habit 😂). One day Zero calls out to Ichika and Aiji and reveals to her that Aiji has killed a man in the past. Ichika is shocked but Zero then confirms it by telling her how she was kidnapped by some pedo when she was 9 …and then he violently beat her. Just then Aiji who was 16 at the time, beat the guy to death to save her. He wasn’t convicted because it was considered self defense and he was underage.Ichika recalls that she was kidnapped to be used as ransom from her rich parents. Aiji saw her being dragged away and went to save her but the criminal raged and violently beat up both of them. After getting kicked and punched Aiji managed to free himself and ran to kill the gge fearing he might kill him and Ichika at this rate. After the gge died, Aiji went over to Ichika and realized she was more scared of him than her kidnapper. The guy has been a vegetable in the hospital for years and Aiji has been visiting him and bringing him flowers. (Wtf honestly the shitlord deserved it.) Ichika says that despite what happened she still remembered Aiji as “someone who saved her” and is thankful to him. She says she doesn’t wanna dwell on the past and wants him to open up to her and be her partner. Zero points out Aiji is as much of a criminal as they are. Later Aiji tells Ichika that when he became a cop there was an incident where a criminal took someone hostage and Aiji was ordered to shoot him. Aiji kept trying to reason with the guy, but eventually the other cops killed him anyway.

Aiji was scolded by the police chief for ignoring orders, so Aiji quit because he didn’t want to kill anyone, even if they were a criminal. So the  the xday cases began and order was given to find the mastermind behind it and kill him. Aiji wanted to find out and reason with the xday perpetrators instead, so he decided to work on his own and then brought the Takeru, Mineo and Shiraishi in to help him. Aiji points out that while he doesn’t believe Adonis is right in persecuting these bad guys, they are also not really wrong. Shiraishi admits to being the guy who left the rescue letter at Aiji’s agency so they have Takeru hack his phone. (The rescue letter was originally how Aiji & co. found Ichika paralyzed at the church.) Aiji mentions that there seems to be some internal problems at Adonis and the new staff there isn’t in agreement with the older one.  That’s why they let Shiraishi do whatever he wants and why Rei was in disagreement with Zero about all the December murders. Also apparently Rei was hell bent on allowing guns to make a “stronger Japan.” They’re able to get all this info thanks to Akito leaving a USB stick with encrypted data on it for Ichika. Somehow Ichika and Aiji conclude that the leader of Adonis is Ichika’s coworker Saeki. Just then Saeki calls her phone and after asking her to go for drinks he tells her they should talk about their “justice” together. Ichika doesn’t wanna believe it, but when she thinks back to their conversations everything adds up. She starts to panic but Aiji hugs her to calm her down. After this,  Ichika confesses her feelings to him. The following day, Aiji, and Takeru meet with Mikuni Rei ( and Shiraishi), who tells them that his and Saeki’s (Zero’s) views have changed. They originally had the same mindset when they set out the mission for Adonis, but it has now changed and there’s some scuffle in the organization because of this.

Meanwhile, Saeki finally stops joking around and paralyzes Ichika after she suspects him and her bodyguard Kei points a gun at him. He threatens to kill her (via collar) if they do anything so Kei lets him go – and all of this happens at the police station where I am SURE there are cameras! Then one day, Yuzuru calls Ichika to the rooftop and kidnaps her right in front of Kei Me because apparently he had a ton of allies in the police station working for him. When Aiji finds out he’s livid and demands Shiraishi lead him to the Adonis hideout. Meanwhile,  at Adonis HQ, Yuzuru babbles about his ideology and goes on to call his underlings pathetic pawns. He picked Ichika because ever since they were at police academy he liked her ideals of “kill bad guys & protect the good guys”. He put the collar on her to test her “justice” and she passed by finding him as the bad guy.  But not everyone is strong as her and he doesn’t care if he kills off the “weak”. Ichika asks him if something hurt him in the past but he just says that his past doesn’t matter and he lives to absorb pain…so He he wants to put an end all the pain and suffering and create a cleaner Japan.  So then Aiji and friends invade Adonis (thanks to Takeru disabling the traps), and in the meantime Rei tries to ask Yuzuru to stop the whole operation. Yuzuru says that 10 years ago they clearly had different goals cause he never changed his. He felt Rei never understood him, that’s why he chose Ichika to be his future partner instead. Rei points a gun at Ichika saying if she’s what made Yuzuru go crazy he will kill her. Just then Aiji and co burst in to save her.

Yuzuru escapes, despite being shot by Kei while saying that X-day is gonna happen regardless. Rei gives them the unlock code and they finally remove Ichika’s collar.Takeru urges them to get the hell out because the entire place is about to explode. They run out buy Kei gets hurt badly. Rei gets arrested and the police ask Ichika & Aiji to help them in finding Yuzuru. They go talk to Rei who tells them that 10 years ago Yuzuru’s mom died from an illness. From that time for some reason Yuzuru would feel the pain and sadness of others and wanted to put an “end” to it. Rei had somewhat similar beliefs, so he took his mom’s crazy underground religious cult and turned it into a terror group 😅. Rei made Yuzuru the cult leader so he could gain power and followers. The thing is, in the criminal past epilogue (which opens once you clear Aiji’s end), they reveal that Rei and Yuzuru are half brothers. Their dad was infamous for his manwhoring and Yuzuru was just the son of one of his lovers. That’s when Rei said he wanted to do something to make up for Yuzuru’s mom being thrown away until she died. Yuzuru lied to Rei pretending they had the same goal,  but Yuzuru never felt Rei would understand him from the start. Because he was an illegitimate child of the prime minister, Yuzuru was never registered as a baby so he didn’t “exist” and the name Yuzuru was given to him by his mom. He and his mom were locked up in that underground cult and were never allowed to leave so she went mentally insane. She began to think that Yuzuru was her former lover, and that Yuzuru himself “no longer existed”.  

After his mom died from an incurable disease,  Yuzuru went nuts and began to hear voices in his head of all the victims of unjust crimes repeatedly crying for help. Back to the present, Christmas eve rolls around and Ichika’s lady co-workers take her out to drink. When they find out she has a guy she likes AND has confessed to they demand she call him asap! 😂 When he gets there they tell her to act drunk and snag him 😂😂😂. After they leave the izakaya, and Aiji says he always thought he doesn’t deserve happiness… Ichika hugs him and says she’ll be the one to bring it to him., confessing her love once more. \(´ω` )/♡ He finally confesses back and kisses her. They come back to the agency together to have a Christmas party with everyone else. Good End: Ichika and Aiji meet Yuzuru at the church where she got her collar put on. She tells him she cannot agree with his ideology nor will she “kill” him for his crimes. Instead she shoots the gun out of his hands and shoots him in the shoulder to disable him from pulling out his other pistol. Just then the other police burst in and arrest him, ending X-day and Adonis altogether. Everyone has a celebration party at Aiji’s agency and he says he will now go back to just being a regular ‘ol detective. Shiraishi shows up and then turns himself into the police since his “job” is done. After he leaves, Aiji gives Ichika a late Christmas present – an engagement ring ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)♡. Unfortunately their moment is interrupted when Mineo and co. come crashing through the door spying on them 😂😂😂😂😂😂.  In the epilogue, they just spend time being ichaicha together on dates and such lol. One other thing about Yuzuru is well…he got shot to death protecting Kazuki in Mineo’s route but I don’t understand why?? Why would he sacrifice himself for Ichika’s brother if he wanted his whole X-day plan to go through. It seems really odd when I think back and even weirder since Mineo’s route never even touched on what actually happened to Yuzuru. Did he die from the gunshot wound? Also on an unrelated note, to add insult to injury of Aiji being an ossan, his bonus CG is the USUAL ADULT MALE DRIVING IN A CAR CG 😂😂😂😂.

Bad Ends:

• 1. Yuzuru wipes Ichika’s memory through the collar before she can solve the case.
  2. Hana kills Ichika for bugging Hiro again.
  3. Ichika misses her shot and shoots the hostage lady by accident. The guy with the gun gets mad and kills Ichika instead.
  4. Ichika goes to the wrong place to see Yuzuru and because she fails to stop him X-day happens and people start dying every day one by one for the smallest offenses. Ichika gets so terrified she’s afraid to leave her house and even locks Kazuki in 😫. Aiji comes over and she panics asking him to never leave her and he agrees to stay with her forever.
  5. Swat team kills Yuzuru and he asks Ichika to end the suffering in his place. Just then an explosion happens and Aiji dies protecting Ichika. 😟
  6. Ichika’s shot misses Yuzuru and instead Aiji gets shot twice. Ichika gets mad and shoots killing Yuzuru. 4 months later, Ichika is mia and Aiji continues to search for her.
  7. Yuzuru end: Ichika gets kidnapped by Yuzuru but when Aiji & co try to save her, they don’t make it past the security system and get killed. Ichika is in despair to the point that she gets brainwashed into following his crazy beliefs.

I have some mixed feelings on the plot of the game for a simple reason of – I love revenge. I honestly felt like a lot of the people who got murdered in the game honestly deserved it. Not going into spoiler details since this is my final thoughts but overall I didn’t really think the bad guy was that bad of a guy. I feel like it’s really true that there’s just a lot of things and crimes in this world that go unjustly unpunished. A more recent news example is this piece of dog shit who is running around free after only 3 months of a slap on the wrist. To be honest, if Adonis came around and killed him, it would be very satisfying to me. Now that said, the other thing this game tries to tell you is that no matter what crime someone commits, they must live and atone for it. But with that shitlord and the one in Takeru’s route, they are certainly not atoning by runinng around freely as if they did nothing. So honestly, it kinda makes me mad that what Adonis does is considered “bad” but your mileage may vary. It’s probably a very unusual case for me to actually side with the bad guys who I don’t really think are bad after all. That said their leader was a bit crazy because of his personal circumstances and I just can’t hate him..I only feel sorry for him.

Now let’s talk about the overall game! (； ･`д･´) To be honest, this is less otome and more of a hard core cold case detective game. Without a guide I don’t think I would have been able to get the platinum trophy especially because you need to get EVERY ending and THERE IS NO ENDING LIST. Therefore if you are missing one of the 32 bad ends, good luck trying to figure out what you missed! So while I think it’s cool to probably play the game blindly and see if you can solve the case on your own, if you’re aiming for the platinum trophy, save yourself the grief and use a guide. There’s also a lot of choices so we coulda used a jump to next choice feature Otomate…come on…it’s 2016..please add this to all your games not just your vita ports… 😂 Also system wise I was actually surprised none of the sprites had eye blinking or movement. Most recent otomate games I’ve played had this, and even the 6 year old Amnesia had this…so since it’s a lot of the same staff why didn’t this game have it? I mean yea sure it’s not required but it’s something I’ve gotten used to and began to really like to have in my games. It makes the game play feel a bit more dynamic to me. The omake was great, especially the short stories. I highly recommend everyone who plays the game to read those after finshing each guy. 💕

As a heroine Ichika is great, she has a fun personality and she tries her best. That said she isn’t a superwoman, she has her flaws and I honestly praise her for her efforts. Still, for being a 21 year old, she seems a bit on the country bumpkin side. She’s from a rich family, living on her own but she had no idea about mobile rpg games or about doing video calling. Like wow come on really? That was the only strange thing I found about her, but otherwise she was a pretty decent gal. The guys themselves were the most precious adorable babycakes. All of them. There’s not a single guy (that you get with) that I hate, and the sub characters were pretty charming too (sans some of the crazy bad guys..some who I just felt sorry for.) The music and layout reminded me of a mix of Clock Zero and Amnesia but obviously overlapping staff is the product of this 😂

Overall I think if you can get past all the dry detective stuff, the game is really enjoyable. The character interactions and the otome scenes were the best part of the whole game so I honestly wish I could spend more time on that instead of spending time with police chief #x discussing evidence and details of every case. This is especially bad at the beginning when you are first trying to get into the game…it can be really offputting. Fortunately even when I’d zone out, they’d throw in some adorable scene with the guy and pull me right back in. By the time I was on Aiji’s route, and was familiar and understanding of all the cases, the detective stuff was less offputting and more interesting with all the revelations as well. Since this game was licensed in English by Aksys, if you aren’t confident in your Japanese skills I highly recommend waiting for a translated edition to play. There’s a lot of difficult detective vocabulary that even I had to look up so for a beginner I think it would be extremely exhausting. For play order I’d recommend Mineo→Takeru→Kei→Kageyuki→Aiji. All I can hope for now is a fandisk because we are in desperate need of more of the otome moments with all the precious babies.

P.S. I have no idea what’s with all the cat themes. Adonis’ symbol has a cat on it but other than that, I don’t get why it’s there. Maybe I missed something? If someone caught it please let me know 😂