Otome Game Review: Meiji Tokyo Renka

Ayazuki Mei is a gluttonous high school teenager who runs into some do-M wacko named Charlie at a magic show at her local summer festival. Charlie throws her into his magic box and when she comes out, she finds herself thrown back in time into the Meiji era! They’re both hungry so they sneak into a fancy Rokumeikan building but instead of roast beef, they run into famous Meiji era historical figures! So now Mei gets to choose which historical bishie she gets to snag, while dealing with the fact that she’s completely lost all memories of her present time self.  On top of this, she magically gains tamayori powers and can see dead people.

01/30/2020 – I’ve updated it to add Iwasaki Tosuke’s route from the Vita port/mobile game. Original review was from 2014.

Mori Ougai – Ougai-san is probably the funniest guy in the game and was a great way to kick things off. Based on the historical figure Mori Ougai, who was an army doctor as well as a translator & writer. At the rokumeikan party, Ougai greets her and saves her from the rage of being an outsider and pretends that she’s his “cousin” who has returned from America. He tells her to stay at his house, along with his other freeloader Shunsou, until she regains her memories. Shunsou started living at Ougai’s place after one day Ougai found him (:.;ﾟ;Д;ﾟ;.:)ﾊｧﾊｧing over a cat in front of his house X’D. Ougai’s aunt insists that he marry someone (for family rank purposes) but Ougai asks Mei to pretend to be his fiance so he can twist out of it. She agrees and then he also asks her to participate in a beauty contest to prove that she has some kind of rank worthy of marrying him. So the whole time Mei knows that she’s just pretend fiance, but after a while the line between pretend and real feelings begins to blur for the both of them. Since Shunsou kinda has a crush on Mei too, Ougai notices and starts to get jealous. Meanwhile Mei is jealous because she finds out that Ougai used to have a lover from Germany named Elise but has no idea what their “status” is. One night after being jealous that Shunsou is painting a portrait of Mei, Ougai takes her to his room and because he’s a smooth criminal, basically ropes her into letting him kiss her over & over. (/ω＼)ｲﾔﾝ  And so the day of the beauty contest comes but sadly Mei’s poems don’t even get her into the top 5. Ougai thinks its all b/s but she tells him to let it go. He then tells her that even if she lost she’s still his fiance cause he loves her and intends to actually marry her. Mei is like oh noes but I need to go hooommme and runs away. She ends up running back to his house ಠ_ಠ…where she runs into a blonde lady spirit.Turns out it’s Elise, and Ougai finds her and tells her that Elise is actually a character from the novel he’s writing. He says that he modeled her based on a girl he had a crush on in Germany, but it went nowhere and he went back to Japan. Mei is still hesitating about returning home, but after being kissed multiple times (and possibly humped) that evening, she quickly changes her mind 　(￣ー￣)ﾆﾔﾘ.

Stay End: Mei can’t remember her present self and wonders why bother going back anyway? So on the night of the full moon,  Charlie tells her to be happy with her lover and she wakes up back at Ougai’s house. Mei ends up becoming Ougai’s fiance for real and they icha it up, much to Shunsou’s dismay :lol:. In the epilogue, after Mei and Ougai are married he’s still the same, running around in his fundoshi at his house because he can ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ァﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ / ＼/ ＼ . Shunsou goes off to America telling the 2 of them to icha it up all they want. Ougai tells Mei she must give him good morning and good night kisses like they do in the west (lol?) or else he will “punish” her hahaha (/ω＼)ｲﾔﾝ. In the after story, Mei is worried that she doesn’t “appear” to be Ougai’s wife because his friend thought she was just some ho he was keeping in his house. After she tells him that he’s like lol pls and says that this is in fact a compliment! He then gives her a belated diamond engagement ring and vows to be with her forever. Back to the Future End: Mei decides to return to the future and Ougai’s like well I ain’t letting you go without me! And so they go to the future, prolly screw up history but all’s good. Mei regains her memories and a few years later opens up a shop with a bunch of old antique items – since apparently she collected them as a teenager. Ougai becomes a famous novelist, writing even more now that he has access to a computer :lol:. They’re still engaged and live happily ever after~. Forever alone end: Mei returns to the future alone, because she regains her memories just by looking at her cell phone…that’s apparently been in her pocket the whole time! ヽ(。_゜)ノ Before returning, she goes to say goodbye to Ougai and he gives her 1 last goodbye kiss. щ(ಥДಥщ) Meanwhile in the past Ougai and Shunsou move on with their daily life and realize how quiet it’s gotten without her. I DON’T KNOW WHY I STARTED BAWLING IN THIS SCENE OUGAI-SAAAAANNN ｡･ﾟﾟ(ﾉД`)あﾞ～ん. Sadly, after seeing the bad end once, all the subsequent bad ends in the other guys route did nothing for me. Such is the fact of copy pasta. Some other funny stuff about Ougai was him calling her BABY SQUIRREL which reminded me of his BABY GIRL in Bloody Call :lol:. Also according to wikipedia, his actual daughter started the ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐ movement in manga. LMAOOO.

Hishida Shunsou – Shunsou just wants to hug every cat, but since he can’t he just (*´Д`)ﾊｧﾊｧ’s while drawing them. Based on the historical figure, Shunsou was a famous artist but his art technique was criticized due to it being “different” from the standard at the time. Shunsou attends art school but when he gets home, he’s quite the tsundere towards Mei. (Oh well that only makes me (◉◞౪◟◉｀) more towards him うへへへ). The cat in his painting turns into a spirit and runs to Mei’s room at night. Due to this Shunsou can never finish that painting. Once Mei puts on her dress for the beauty contest, it triggers his art (*´Д`)ﾊｧﾊｧ　and he starts (*´Д`)ﾊｧﾊｧing all over her lmao. (DAT KENN DUMMY HEAD THO) After this his tsun starts to slowly turn into dere.Ougai warns Shunsou that Mei is his fiance, even though it’s fake, both Mei and Shunsou are upset by this. In fact he tells Ougai to stop calling her baby squirrel, if the fiance thing is fake anyway. He constantly gets upset at Ougai getting too close to her as well :3. In fact Ougai knows Shunsou likes her, so he purposely acts like he’s NTRing jut to light a fire under his ass ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ァﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ / ＼/ ＼ !!! When they go on a date and he nearly kisses her, he’s upset she doesn’t resist but she’s all like WHY RESIST THE SEXYNESS (except she don’t tell him that sob cell phone heroine).  Shunsou’s artwork is not appreciated by Japan cause he has a mix of styles but Ougai knows that the kid’s talented and wants to prove to Japan this fact. That’s why he wants Shunsou’s gallery submission to succeed.  And so the date for the beauty contest comes, and Ougai acts like a wingman constantly pushing Shunsou and Mei together. Mei once again loses but afterwards Ougai yells out that she was awesome and deserves to be his fiance and that he’ll marry her no matter what. Shunsou ain’t having none of this so he grabs her and runs out of the ballroom into the night. When they get to a random part of town he finally admits that he loves her and kisses her over and over. ∑>―♡(((´д｀Ο)→ずきゅーん☆°＊*。

After this not all things are well because Ougai is worried about Shunsou’s eye problems because his vision has been going bad for a while. He asks Mei to convince Shunsou to get an eye exam but when she tries to, he tells her that he’s afraid of the results. His eyes are the key to his painting so if something is wrong, he’s horrified at the idea that he would no longer be able to paint. He shows her a painting that he started of her in his room and asks if he can finish it. After finishing it, he says that he just draws based on what he sees but if it looks better than the real thing…that just means that it looks better in “his eyes”. Aka he basically babbles how much he loves Mei and they kiss and do all sorts of other randy things off screen.  Stay End: And so Mei decides to stay in the Meiji era with Shunsou but he’s always grumpy because she calls out Charlie’s name in her dream and Ougai is always troll-NTRing XD. Shunsou gets an eye exam and says he has retinopathy but it’s supposed to get better over time. The cat in his painting finally returns into the painting after 1 last visit to Mei’s room. In the epilogue, Shunsou decides to go to America to paint and asks Mei to come with him. She’s like anywhere with you babe and they smooch on the train to the boat which will take them 20 days to reach US of A. In the omake, it’s the period before they go to America and Shunsou says that he doesn’t want to be separated from Mei for a year. He asks her to come with him as well as asking her to marry him (and pinning her to the wall and making out with her until she says yes :lol:). Back to the Future End: Shunsou returns to the present with Mei and she regains all her memories. He becomes a famous painter but the one thing that never changes is his cat hobby. He stalks stray nukes in parks and (*´д｀*)ﾊｧﾊｧ ‘s over them with his new digital camera xDD. He tells her not to be jealous of the baby nukes and starts smooching her all over ヾ( 〃ω〃)ｯ ｷャーーーッ♪. His eyes got much better thanks to modern medicine and in the end they take a photo together. Forever Alone End:  Basically the same as Ougai’s except she runs into Shunsou in town instead. I won’t be posting about these ends anymore since they’re pretty much the same template throughout the game. But seriously though, DAT KENN.

Kawakami Otojirou – Based on this historical figure, Otojirou is known in this game for having a full time job of being a cross dressing geisha. He’s not ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐ or anything though and it’s purely a job for him while he trains for his theatrical performances. It takes a bit of time before Mei realizes dude looks like a lady but eventually she just deals with it because he spends 90% of the time looking like a trap anyway.  He then gets Mei to work as his Geisha bar (restaurant? establishment? idk). Needless to say she’s horrified when some dirty ossan grabs her ass. Otojirou tells her that’s what you gotta do to earn a living and I’m just horrified that basically the heroine has is forced into prostitution in this route -_-. Well technically this isn’t Yoshiwara, so prostitution is not allowed, but apparently sexual harrassment is A-OK! ಠ_ಠ  Fortunately at the geisha job, Kyouka comes by and tsuntsun’s his way into asking Mei to service him so that dirty old men don’t pick on her. Kyoka btw is a tsundere playwriter whose script Otojirou steals so he can act it out in his play, much to Kyoka’s dismay and rage. One day at work when some gross GGE starts to fondle her thigh because she spilled some sake on him, Otojirou smacks the guy over the head with a bottle and says they don’t offer THOSE kind of services here. One night, Otojirou asks  Mei to practice his play lines with him and while they practice Mei can see a spirit of a black haired woman that’s escaped out of Kyoka’s script.  When she gets sick he comes back to take care of her. Says he doesn’t want her to be all sexy ladeh at the establishment because that would  make more ossans hit on her and take her away from him 🙂 While she’s out cold, he feeds her medicine mouth to mouth 😛 At work one of the other geisha ladies teases Kyoka and Mei that they’re close in age and would be compatible together. Otojirou gets all jelly and that night he jumps on top of her going “ you don’t see me as a man do you?” Mei gets scared but when he goes “lol jk” and gets off her, but she gets disappointed.  He uses the excuse that he’s drunk and rolls off to sleep.

A few days later, Mei goes to watch Otojirou’s play rehearsal and the ghost lady he’s portraying comes out and starts repeating the same lines as him. Afraid that the spirit will take over Otojirou’s body, Mei yells out to him and jumps on him on stage.  So then suddenly the opposing actress spirit that’s somehow inside of Mei calms the other ghost chick down. After she hears his voice again, she jumps up and hugs him realizing that she’s in love with him. Otojirou snaps out of his acting trance and is like whut because suddenly Mei is on stage crying and hugging him. Fortunately, at the real deal, he doesn’t get taken over by any spirit and puts on a great performance. The night before the full moon, Otojirou’s worried Mei’s gonna leave him so he drags her into his futon and snuggles with her telling her that he’s fallen for her. (*´ω｀*) He then kisses her and says this isn’t the first time because he gave her medicine mouth to mouth before.  Mei’s like whut I was out cold I don’t remember this but he takes his “thanks” and makes out in the futon with her. He asks her to move out of this geisha dormitory with him so they can have plenty of ichaicha time alone( 〃ω〃).  (Wish we had a decent CG in this scene though -_-.) Stay End: Mei decides to stay with Otojirou and he takes her to America on a nice boat.  Also apparently they’re married now cause he refers to her as his waifu and says he’s her husbando~ lol.  In the omake, the two of them go to dinner on Christmas eve though at this point in time, Japan still hasn’t gotten on the bandwagon to celebrate it lol. Otojirou convinces her to spend the night at a hotel and soon as they get in, he’s in sexytime mode cause it’s been 2 weeks since they saw each other.  And so they hump before he makes the decision to take her to America. Back to the Future End: Mei returns to the present time and regains all her memories as usual but Otojirou comes along with her and becomes a famous actor.  Because of this though he’s rarely home and the play he did in the meiji era gets a remake in the present time that he gets to act in. In the epilogue, Otojirou’s all excited because a lot of stage props are “automated” rather than having to be moved around by people :lol:.  He tells her he has a day off and tells her to prepare of what she wants him to do to her. (✧≖‿ゝ≖) Otojirou was actually really sweet but I kinda wish we got less shafted on some of the CGs.

Izumi Kyoka – Well if tsundere Shunsou wasn’t enough, we have another addition to the tsundere bunch, Kyoka. Based on this historical figure, Kyoka was a famous play writer.  His “thing” in the game he hates dirty things and bacteria and throws shitfits whenever anyone even as much as bumps into him. (Maybe they figured he had intestinal problems in real life so it was relevant?) He also hates dogs but he ADORES BUNNIES. He’s a tamayori like Mei, and keeps the spirit of a bunny by his side which is apparently a hand me down from his deceased mother.  So yea he basically spends the entire game tsuning, until well eventually he starts to dere it up AND THIS IS WHERE IT GETS GOOD GUYS DAT NOBURIN DUMMY HEAD (◉///◞౪◟///◉｀)!!! Otojirou knows that Kyoka has a crush on Mei so he always  trolls him and flirts with her to piss him off. He even makes up stories to make Mei jelly for no reason so she ends up stalking Kyoka all the way to Ueno while he sings a song for some dragon spirit at a lake. Afterwards she feels bad so she offers to take him to a “teahouse” for snacks but the “teahouse” ends up being a cover for an old timey love hotel　( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ァﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ / ＼/ ＼ . Nothing happens of course and on their way out, Kyoka finds out that Mei intends to return to her “time period”. He gets really upset and the next day gets piss drunk until he passes out at her restaurant. Otojirou tells Mei to lend the poor sap her lap. The following day Mei gets sick and while she’s passed out, a tsuning Kyoka visits her and wipes sweat off her body while Otojirou’s out getting medicine. After she wakes up and finds out Kyoka took care of her she  goes to find him at the lake. He says he wants to get that lady dragon spirit back inside his script so he tells it to get back “inside himself’. Apparently it’s too much to handle and Mei can’t stand back and watch so she tries to “absorb it” with him. His bunny spirit guides her and thanks to this the spirit returns to the script and both are saved. Once they hear Fujita nearby, they don’t wanna get caught & arrested, so they run to hide…at that love hotel place again x’D. While there, one thing leads to another, and Kyoka ends up confessing his feelings to Mei and probably screwing the rest of the night (/ω＼)ｲﾔﾝ.

Stay End: A drunk Otojirou complains that Kyoka is taking away his “daughter” he was going to raise into a great geisha xD. She returns to Ueno with Kyoka and he complains that he’s still worried she will leave him someday. He tells her his dream is to live in a house with the 2 of them in Kagurazaka and after Mei confesses she loves him, his spirit bunny returns. Unforunately, Kyoka has lost his tamayori powers and can no longer see it. (´;ェ;`)ｳｩ･･･ For some reason after they get married, Mei continues her geisha job even though Otojirou no longer works there o_0. Kyoka visits her often to make sure she’s okay. Otojirou stops by one night to give them souveniers from Fukuoka and because he wants to eat them asap, he goes home and takes Mei with him. Turns out that she was gonna quit this job once they got married, but they were short staffed so they begged Mei to stay and work a bit longer. As they walk home, he kisses her and says he don’t care who sees and it’s better they see that she belongs to him ;P. In the after story, the day before they get married,  Mei walks into the park where she travelled through time and suddenly starts crying not knowing why. Some eroGGE hits on her until Kyoka shows up and is like why the fuck are you alone in a park in the middle of the night!? She then starts bawwling for some reason and he’s like I don’t care if you changed your mind we’re marrying tomorrow! XD Mei’s like  umm I never said I didn’t wanna marry you, and says it’s just marriage blues or whatnot lol. He gives her a letter from Otojirou who’s been travelling in all over the US to increase his worldwide presence. Kyoka tells her that he’ll make her marriage blues go away, and in return she has to spend the rest of her life building his trust. (๑╹ڡ╹๑) The next day they get married and have their photo taken in traditional Japanese wedding garments. Back to the Future End: They return to the future and like in every other end, Kyoka becomes a famous kabuki play writer.  He wishes he could show the new Kagurazaka to Otojirou via cell phone pics. The 2 of them ichaicha as they hold hands on their date. I loooved Kyoka’s BGM but until the very end, most of his dummy head moments were him yelling in my ears which is NOT a good use of the dummy head mic 😨. The dummy head mic was only great at the end where he was a deredere sexy beast but otherwise he’d just be like yelling in your ears and I’d be like NO STAHP!

Fujita Gorou – Fujita Gorou is based on this historical figure aka yes, he is indeed Saito Hajime from the Shinsengumi. Apparently once he left the Shinsengumi he changed his name or something? In this game though, they don’t make a direct reference to it (an indirect one only) so I have to thank Wikipedia for the enlightening. Unfortunately he had the bad luck of getting stuck with the “I’m srs badass policeman and I will be kuudere forever” stereotype which made the route pretty dull and uninteresting….aside the fact that I had no idea why he suddenly even fell in love with her ಠ_ಠ. Koizumi Yakumo, a silly gaijin English teacher, has her stay at a fancy hotel and Fujita says that he’ll check up on her and tells her to stay at the hotel and not do anything suspicious. Yakumo says Fujita is his bff, much to Fujita’s dismay and they met because Yakumo had trespassed into his house thinking it’s some public Japanese garden ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ァﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ / ＼/ ＼ .  He constantly nitpicks at how Mei is not a proper woman because her kimono is messy, and she can’t really cook and would fail as a wife because she can’t even as much as prepare rice apparently. His old fashioned ways were expected of that era, but for me it was rather nerve grating and blatantly misogynistic. In the route itself, there’s some case that a criminal who is a tamayori has been controlling spirits and since Mei is a tamayori she’s also a suspect.  When some drunk dude bumps into her and Fujita saves her, he asks if she’s ok and starts to warm up to her…but is once again cockblocked by Yakumo being called a MUTTSURI POLICEMAN for almost kissing Mei x’DDDD So like this was pretty funny but I’m sitting here like wow really you suddenly liked her??? So then the “nopperabou” bed intruder criminal that everyone’s been chasing bed intrudes into Mei’s room. He says he’s a mononoke then goes lol j/k I’m just a dirty ossan and starts strangling her. Fortunately for some reason Fujita comes to her rescue and slaps the dude with his badass sword and arrests him. The reason he appeared there is the REAL nopperabou mononoke guided him there because apparently that random ghost chick Mei’s been seeing in her room is the dude’s long lost g/f or something :lol:.

And so Mr. Nopperabou and Ms. Red Dress ghost chick are reunited and the case of the fake mononoke dude is closed. After this Mei goes to the police station for questioning and she’s tired and scared to go back to the hotel alone (especially since Yakumo’s having an all nighter at school). Fujita decides to then take her to his house and before they know it they end up making out and he tells her that he can’t let her go anymore! Welp that escalated quickly! Stay End: Unlike the other 4 routes I did , this time Mei ends up back at that rokumeikan mansion where she first met everyone. THere Charlie tells her that she obviously has a dude she wants to stay with and tells her he wishes her happiness. After living together with Fujita for a while, Yakumo attempts to NTR Mei while Fujita’s at work only to be faced with his wrath (and sword) when he returns home ((((((((((ﾉ∀`)･ﾟ･｡ ｱﾋｬﾋｬﾋｬﾋｬ . He tells Mei he regrets nothing and says  he’ll love her always & forever. In the after story, Mei thinks about how much of a terrible wife she is during this time period where she’s having her husband cook everything for her :lol:. She decides to stop calling him “Fujita-san” and call him “dear” which freaks him out and makes him drop his  dishes xDDD. Back to the Future End: Mei returns to the future with Fujita etc etc etc. He opens up his own kendo dojo so he doesn’t lose his sword skills but he’s surprised at how “peaceful” the present time is. Mei says she wishes she could show this to Yakumo and watch him shit bricks but Fujita tells her not to think about other men. Mei’s like don’t worry bebe I only have eyes for you and they hug & live happily ever after. His forever alone end was kinda sad though because he said “I’m used to saying goodbye to others” which made me think of Hakuoki and stuff. (´；ω；｀) In the seiyuu talk, Fukuyama Jun was like super happy genki guy and said his real voice is not like Fujita at all (well I knew this already.) But I could tell from his words that he didn’t really enjoy this character that much and was saying we probably like other characters more than his. Gomen ne Fukujun, it’s true, your character was a drag. (´・ω・`)

Koizumi Yakumo – Also known as Lafcadio Hearn, Yakumo is a HISTORICAL WEABOO! That’s right you think you were the first weaboo when you watched Astroboy? Well this guy beat you by like 100 years. Yakumo is from Greece and came to Japan to teach English while doing extensive research on mononoke. He runs up to random Japanese people scaring them while going HAVE U SEEN DAT YAMATANOOROCHI!? He was also a newspaper reporter so when a mystery strikes, he can’t help but try to solve it. Just like Mei, he LOVES MEAT so he appreciates her gluttonous appetite. One day she sees him in his hotel room with his hair not pulled back and his glasses off and is like DAYUM SEXY BEAST ALERT XD Seriously I wish that’s how he looked like the whole time |||😨.  He tells her if she doesn’t regain her memories within a year to just go ahead and marry him! And he figures a year is gonna fly by anyway so he basically starts to consider her like his “fiance” while Mei thinks he’s out of his mind. He even takes her to a cemetery on their first date because it makes him feel at ease ｀;:ﾞ;｀;･(ﾟεﾟ )ﾌﾞｯ!!  She sees the red dress ghost chick in her room who writes on a piece of paper “I’ve lost my memories. -Kathy”.  Mei tells Yakumo and he tries to figure out any info about her, since she’s a foreigner as well but has no luck. After this Mei and Kathy start “talking” to each other via writing (though I have no idea how a ghost is able to hold a physical pen and write with it lol.) Yakumo and Mei go to a fancy ball in which she feels like some out of place Japanese loli. Yakumo tells her that she’s like a fairy to him and cannot compare to those BORING WHITE WOMENZ :lol:. After bumping into Ougai and Shunsou, Mei and Yakumo dance together and he kisses her all over. Unfortunately our bloke heroine keeps convincing herself that it’s just “western greeting” ಠ_ಠ.

One night Mei hears Yakumo writhing in his sleep and wakes him up. He tells her he had a bad dream which was more a reminder of a girl he once knew who he lost after they got into a fight. He didn’t know if she died or not but either way she vanished from his sight and he never saw her again. Later that night, Kathy tells Mei she shouldn’t regret her decision in returning home or she’d end up like a ghost like herself.  The next day Mei sees Yakumo surrounded by sexy gaijin ladies and gets jealous feeling like she isn’t fit for him. He finds out she saw him and apologizes profusely saying he’ll harakiri himself X’D. Later that night, the lights go out and the faceless man ghost chases Mei down until she runs into Yakumo’s room. While in there, faceless ghost man reunites with his girlfriend Kathy and the 2 hold hands and disappear.They use the code 1862 to open the dresser drawer that Kathy was tied to and inside find a bunch of love letters from the ghost man whose name was Arren.  Yakumo also tells Mei that the reason he was so calm about seeing this ghost is because he feels like he saw him in the past. When he was younger he used to be able to see ghosts as well but at age 16 he had an accident playing with his friends and lost vision in his left eye. After this he was unable to see ghosts and his current left eye is just a prosthetic placeholder.  And so after he explains to her that he would love her even if she didn’t her tamayori powers and they screw the rest of the night and DAYUM SON DAT TACHIBANA EAR FANSERVICE (/▽*＼)～♪ ｲﾔｧﾝ/// Stay End: And so they get married move into a house so they’re not living in a hotel the whole time. He also explains to Mei that with further research it turns out that Kathy and her lover were a rich ojousama and her servant Arren who fell in love…but were obviously not approved by the families.

Due to this they had a double lovers suicide and the family couldn’t bear to keep her belongings, so they sold her dresser to the hotel. Yakumo continues his crazy mononoke chasing adventures (and pissing off Fujita). At home though, he’s in full ero sensei mode and spends his days making love to Mei in their Japanese garden. In the after story Mei is still embarrassed of his PDA while they’re at a summer festival. They buy some fireflies from some dude selling them but since they have a short lifespan Yakumo mentions it will die soon. Mei suggests that they let them go but Yakumo babbles that the 2 fireflies are inside this container like their own little love shack without any interference…which is the best way to spend their remaining lifespan together! So then Yakumo glomps Mei and it causes her to almost fall into the river – but he swaps her body and falls in instead. He comes out without his glasses and hair pulled back and looks like a sexy beast. (◉◞౪◟◉｀)　And so they end up making out by the river with fireflies glowing around them. Back to the Future End: Actually the back to the future end feels a lot like the stay end. A few years pass, and Mei and Yakumo move into a house together where he continues getting randomly jelly of her even talking to other dudes so he has to take out his sexual frustration with some sexy times. I dunno it was weird of him to get sooo posessive in the end like that. I know it was hinted in other parts of the route but I dunno it just felt weird to me. Also Mei’s expression in Yakumo’s CGs felt like that of a dead fish which kinda ruined the mood for a lot of them. (；´∀｀)

Charlie – Charlie is the Do-M magician who tries to ship Mei with the Meiji dudes but is disappointed when things go just as keikaku. She nearly gets mauled by rabid dogs but he saves her, only to have her beat him with shoes and tanuki statues for abandoning her at the rokumeikan. He’s the guy who brings her to the Meiji era with no explanation on who he is, or why he brought her there. He’s often doing random magic shows in the park but only at night, and by daylight he’s nowhere to be found. Due to this Mei is stuck on her own until my angel Ougai-san decides to take her in to live at his place in the meantime. One night on her way back to Ougai’s place, she runs into some crying loli who said her friends called her a liar for saying she can see spirits. Some boy comes and gets her and apologizes for the name calling. After the 2 leave, for some reason Mei starts crying and Charlie gives her a hug saying he’ll never let her be “lost”. Just as Ougai returns home though,  Charlie suddenly vanishes. Eventually Fujita comes to Charlie telling him he’s gonna arrest him for doing magic shows illegally at the park. He uses his magic and manages to ward off the cops but then says it’s because Mei wouldn’t leave that he got distracted.  He continues to say that he loves her and that’s why he wants her to go with “someone else” important to her..and she’s like wtf? She asks why if he loves her, he can’t be the one to take care of her and be with her. He just smiles at her sadly and says that it cannot be him and then Mei blacks out having flashbacks of someone telling her not to cry that sounds like Charlie.  One night she goes to the park because she can’t sleep and finds him there with a bunch of mononokes performing his magic show. He tells her that his show is over but Mei insists that she stay with him until morning at the park. He tells her sorry he can’t and disappears before her eyes, confirming that he’s also a mononoke himself. A few days later, Mei runs into Kyoka who explains to her that when a spirit considers someone their “master” they constantly will follow them around. They’re usually spirits that possess “items” and the owner of the item is the one they consider their master.

That night everyone gathers at the Rokumeikan because Charlie plans to do a “magic show” there. He says he’ll make someone disappear and makes himself invisible….to everyone but Mei. He pisses off Fujita though, concludes his show and runs out the balcony.She follows him there, and he tells her how he didn’t jump off and only jumped on the roof. She tries to do the same but slips and nearly falls until he catches her. He tells her that it’s his job as her “slave” to catch his “master”.  He tells her that time at the park when the rapist taxi man tried to do stuff to her, if necessary he woulda killed the guy. He says he’ll do anything for Mei, whether it’s murder or not, because he loves her.  They end up stuck on the roof of the rokumeikan and he tells her he wishes she forgot about both him and the present time and been happy living in the Meiji era instead. Mei says that she’s glad that she’s a tamayori because of this she was able to see him. Charlie says that it’s been painful for him to constantly have to reject her feelings because of the whole mononke/human barrier…and he gives in and kisses her. He then admits that he was afraid if he did this he’d fall in love more and more with her, and turns it’s true. They end up kissing more and he tells her that he’s always loved her, while Mei starts to feel like she’s known Charlie in the past. Stay End: Charlie asks if Mei wants to return to the future, but Mei says she just wants to stay with Charlie. He once again tells her that no matter what he cannot make her happy and he can only be with her for half a day (night time.) He also says by staying with him, she won’t be able to return to the present and will probably be stuck in the Meiji era forever.  And so 2 weeks later, Mei continues meeting Charlie every day at night.  He says that seeing her only half a day isn’t enough for him and ends up kissing with her at the festival despite all the people being around cause he don’t give no fucks ;D

In the epilogue, Charlie is doing some play about his route lol and Mei gets annoyed and throws a shoe at him.  He tells her to stop doing that because he’d prefer her to step on him, not to have the shoe thrown xDD.  And so uh after it’s done they make out and live happily ever after! No true revelation in this ending.In the omake, Mei wants to eat modern meat dishes and demands Charlie return her back to the future.  They make a promise that when they return to the future, to have a yakiniku party together.  He uses his magic to get cows from America so they can have some delicious US Beef (?? lol) until Fujita comes and they run for it. He takes her to some Yoshino dude’s house and gives her some meat there saying the only thing she has to do to thank him is give him a dirty look :lol:. Back to the Future End: This is more like the true and final end to the game. Mei remembers her classmates making fun of her in elementary school for being able to see spirits. She decided to try to change in highschool so she would start ignoring all the mononoke voices..but she felt guilty doing so.  Mei then decided that she’d spend at least a small amount of time at the end of the day to talk to the spirits instead. She tells Charlie that she remembered all of this and that she was a tamayori in the present time too.  She realizes that’s why Charlie brought her to the meiji era – where being a tamayori was totally ok.  She then notices the strap on her cell phone of the fox is the exact same one Ougai gave her.  Just as she’s about to get into the box to travel through time, Kyoka shows up going “dafuq are you going?”  He says that Charlie is Mei’s “artifact spirit” and that he’s not treating his “master” properly.  He adds that if the mononoke uses too much power they will disappear.  Charlie says he’ll be fine but as he sends her off, he says goodbye and she hears a cracking sound – her fox strap cracks. Turns out that was Charlie’s spirit and it’s “guarded” her since she was bullied in elementary school. That’s why he figured sending her to the Meiji era would make her life better.

So then a month passes and finally Charlie magically returns to Mei – only to be greeting with a slap to the face with her slipper  xD. Turns out all the antiques she collected were also those “artifact spirits” that she’s talked to as a child. And so Mei continues her realtionship with Charlie, going to school by day and making love~ by night :P. In the after story,  Mei is excited to get home to see Charlie in her room but for some reason he isn’t there. She looks around for him but when she comes back, he’s in her room going HAPPY 17th BIRTHDAY ＼( ^o^)／ . He gets her a coupon to an all you can eat yakiniku saying he got it by doing part time jobs at night with his magic show.  She punches him saying she was worried and looked everywhere for him, so he apologizes saying it took him a while to prepare everything.  He says that if when she’s 20, she still wants him by her side, he’ll be with her. Mei worries that when she gets all old & wrinkly she’ll die and leave him behind. She then tells him that she’ll try to leave as long as possible so she can be with him. щ(ಥДಥщ)  He tells her that first thing she needs to do to live longer is cut on the meat and eat more veggies xD.  He then gives her a wedding dress as a present by using his magic to put it on her. The mood is broken when he realizes he can’t find the yakiniku coupon and Mei starts tearing his clothes off looking for it X’D. Just then she finds a photo in her room that looks like the girl she met in the Meiji era who was crying about being bullied. Charlie’s like “well if you’re curious, we can go back one more time!” and the screen fades to black with a “To be continued?” which is a possible foreshadowing to the upcoming fandisk :D. I thought Charlie was really sweet and all but since he constantly had to vanish because of his situation, it kinda made the route really frustrating?? At some points other guys would show up and I’d get all sad realizing that I was more sad about the game ending than about Charlie not being around.

Iwasaki Tosuke – Adding this route after I played it on the mobile app. This route was a Vita port added bonus but fortunately I was able to play it for free over the course of a month on their app! 😂 Mei runs into him in the town and asks him for 1000 yen for cab fare without realizing that’s like 10 million yen in meiji time. After being picked up by Otokko aka Otojiro at the red light district she spends a night there and the next day goes to a ball to find Iwasaki and return his money. He refuses to take it so she then ends up going to his house to return it. Turns out he’s working on electricity to light up all of Japan because his mother was abducted by a spirit and he hates spirits that come out when it’s dark outside. He’s also rich as fuck and often indulges himself in western imported chocolate, which at the time was very rare and expensive in Japan.

His goal is to have so many lights that the spirits will never haunt him, like his mother continues to. So while Mei is working as a geisha, he continues to visit her and pay to spend time with her. (;´Д｀) One day she’s abducted by guys who want money from Tousuke and when he comes to save her, his “mother” helps and drags them into the river instead. She then reveals that she’s a water spirit that his real mother Sada befriended as a child and saved by stopping the villagers from completely drying up a local river. So then Sada had borne Tousuke and all his siblings but died early from an illness. Tousuke couldn’t handle the death so the water spirit continued to pretend to be his mother by taking on her form. She couldn’t be too far from the river though so when Tousuke thought that his mother was abducted, it’s just the water spirit having to return to the river.

So all this time Tosuke hated spirits for no reason and now feels like his whole life was a waste and a lie. Anyway in the end he visits the place where his water mom disappeared in order to move on. In the Meiji end, Mei stays with Tosuke and he asks her to come to Nagoya with him. In the epilogue omake she gives him Valentine’s day chocolate but he has no idea what Valentine’s day is cause lol old times.😂 In the return end Tosuke comes to the future with her and becomes a famous rich scientist just like he did in the past. It was kinda anti climatic to be honest lol. The present end meet Mei returns to her time alone in tears after saying goodbye to Tosuke and returns to being a boring high school girl who can no longer see spirits. I found this to be interesting cause in the anime she had this sad past of being a loner for being able to see spirits in the present, but in here she’s just like nope, completely boring, have avg amount of friends, can’t see spirits until I return to the Meiji era.

 

This game’s strong points are its male cast and dummy head mic. Everything else was just mediocre or just plain bad. The plot is something you pretty much will have dejavu with if you’ve played Heart no Kuni no Alice or Sangoku Rensenki. What bothered me was that there was no “issues” between the time travel. Like she stays in the Meiji Era like “oh yea I forgot my family oh well lol!” or she returns to the present time and MAGICALLY ALL MEMORIES BACK! And it bothered me that oh yea this historical figure just jumped through time and this had absolutely 0 effect on history!!! ヽ(。_゜)ノ The other issue was the massive massive copy & paste of the entire storyline. It was basically cut & paste for every guy. Just pick a) place where Mei stays b) guy she goes back to the future with/stays in Meiji era with and ultimately everything else is the same. Only the characters’ personalities were the one unique thing which is why that’s what stood out to me the most about the game. I pretty much loved all of them (except FUJITA-SAAAN) and even though the story was copy pasta balls their personality and interaction with Mei saved it for me.

My other problem is Mei. Except for Charlie’s route, she felt like she had no personality other than “I FUCKING LOVE MEEEAATTT”. (Her gluttony was further underlined in the manga omakes.)  There were so many scenes where she had that cell phone heroine issue where “I have so much to say but oh noes I cannot say it!” And the only time she’d say what she wanted was in Charlie’s route which is why it was so irritating! Why couldn’t you be like this in every route Mei!? My other issue was with her “Haa?”  I don’t know something about that just made me want to slap her ( 　ﾟ,_ゝﾟ). The art wasn’t that great either to be honest. A lot of the CGs felt kinda inconsistent and some of the sprite angles were derp-o-rama. The backgrounds were so cheap it felt close to the level of some kind of doujin game. When I think that this came out of Broccoli, I wonder why they couldn’t just completely redo stuff like backgrounds. Surely with all the money they’re racking in from $120 Utapri bedsheets, they could have spent some money to not make it look like some 5 minute half assed chicken scratch? (Especially the backgrounds in that one area near where Otojirou worked….holy crap.)  Oh and there was no scene playback! What gives come on! щ(ºДºщ) Meh well complaints aside, I enjoyed it for the guys and the seiyuu dummy head fanservice. There were no weird yanderes or abusers so it’s almost a disappointment that they didn’t put more effort to flesh out the story and polish the art. I know it’s a cell phone game port so I shouldn’t expect much, but with so much missed potential I’m hoping they make up for it in the fandisk.

January 2020 ninja edit: So after seeing the anime and playing Tosuke’s route I guess I can dislike Mei a little less? Well she’s still kind dumb in a lot of her decision making but I think the anime made me hate her a little less lmao. The Tosuke route was also ported by Mages with no involvement by Broccoli so maybe that’s why it was slightly better? Who knows. The new date app is alright too and they actually did remake a lot of the sprites and improve the backgrounds. If they ever release an actual full game with the remade stuff I would consider getting it but for now I’ll work on trying to collect enough currency to post an FD review. 😂