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... I'm going to be blunt. It has been a while (think 2014) since any company has produced a nakige that compares to this one. The characters, their backgrounds, their personalities, and the setting all come together to form a story of deep affection, pain, and tears that had me crying more than a dozen times throughout the VN. In terms of heroines, this VN's imoutos are the best. Shinobu is the twisted, obsessive half-yandere, super-capable imouto who adores her niisan (with good reason). Tsubasa is the honest, affectionate, straightforward imouto who is incapable of hiding anything. While the other two heroines kind of pale compared to those two, their routes are another story entirely. I'm going to be straight... there are no bad or under-developed paths in this VN. The characters' emotional and real-life (to them) struggles are intense, engrossing, and emotional. Neneko's and Yuuka's paths are cases of the 'paths surpassing the heroines', a phenomenon that has become sadly rare in recent years, as writing quality has fallen drastically in the charage 'genre'. Technically, Tsubasa's is the true route, but none of the routes were neglected in favor of hers, though I could have wished for an epilogue based a few years later for Shinobu's path (a matter of personal taste). This is a mark of the skill of the writer and the person who designed the scenario, as the fact is that in most cases where there is a true or central heroine, the other heroines tend to be neglected, at least in my experience. The protagonist in this story will probably get mixed reactions out of people, if only because he is a bit angsty, especially when issues of parents come up. He has good reason, as he is a victim of child abuse (he doesn't hide this, and it is revealed within the first half-hour of reading). At heart, he is a good person, but he is very exclusive in the people he cares about and insanely protective of those chosen few. His obsession with his role as a big brother causes some big problems in Shinobu's route, but that is mostly because he is very hard-headed and straight-laced... the type of guy who makes a vow to himself and never breaks it, even in the particulars. Story-wise... this is classic non-Key nakige fare. The protagonist deals with his own issues (to varying degrees) while doing his best for the heroines, the troubles and drama along the way designed to drag the tears out of you, though it all ends happily eventually. I was particularly touched by the healing that occurs in the protagonist in Tsubasa and Neneko's endings (through different methods), and I, for once, wasn't frustrated with the protagonist and heroine's struggles in Shinobu's path. None of the characters' struggles felt forced or unnatural, the way many charage make them seem, which was impressive in and of itself. Overall, this is a first-class addition to anyone's nakige collection, and it is definitely going to be stiff competition for my VN of the Month for May. I wept, I laughed, and I suffered along with the characters and out of sympathy for them. I come out of this VN glad that I played it, a rare experience for a person who is as jaded as I am when it comes to VNs.

I've been playing video games more or less constantly for over twenty-five years. That's a very simple statement that holds a surprising amount of meaning, considering how much video games have changed since I first began playing them. It began with the NES, for me... with Mario, Luigi, and the ducks. I shot ducks out of the air, I jumped Mario across gaps and on top of turtles, without ever really understanding what was going on. As a kid, this was fun, seriously. Understand, this is the biggest point I am going to try to get across here... the difference between addiction and fun with video games. I played rpgs, primarily jrpgs, throughout most of my first ten years as a gamer, starting with Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest), eventually reaching levels of true love with Final Fantasy II and III (IV and VI), Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, and Ogre Battle. When the era of cd-gaming came, I played D&D dungeon-crawlers on a shitty dos computer setup, and I played every jrpg I could get my hands on, with a lot of shooters, strategy games, and sports games mixed in. Throughout all of that, I was still having fun. Fun was my reason for continuing (I've always been a story-centric player, so I tended to stick with jrpgs, but I did play a lot of other stuff) and my reason for playing in the first place. It was in the PS2 era that I first came to recognize the difference between taking pleasure in playing something and merely being addicted to it. I picked up FFXI and started playing it on the PS2 (yes, it was possible to play it on the PS2), and for the first time, I knew addiction... for the first time, I poured hour after hour, day after day, into a game that I wasn't having any fun at. I was constantly irritated, constantly driven to continue, whether for social reasons (friends I'd made in-game) or simply because I felt like I was 'almost there'. Then, one day, I suddenly looked up and realized... I was immensely depressed and not enjoying anything about the game. The sense of having wasted my time... sent me into a funk that lasted the better part of a year. I still played games, but the color seemed to leech out of the screen even as I played them. I realized that I was seeing bits of FFXI in other games, and that was enough of a reason for me to actively hate them. No game hit me this way more than FFXII... because FFXII's battle system is essentially that of FFXI with some tweaks. Visually, it was a nightmare, and the weak story and characters only made it worse for me. Ironically, it was the realization that I honestly didn't trust Squeenix to provide pleasurable games anymore that led me to start playing a lot of the weirder stuff out there... such as Eternal Darkness for the gamecube and the SMT series. Ultimately, because I'd become very much aware of the difference between pleasure and addiction, I lost interest in games that I would once have jumped onto simply because they were jrpgs or done in a style I found interesting. I started abusing Gamestop's used game 'seven-day return policy' to demo games, and I slowly but surely came to realize that I honestly and truly hate multiplayer games that aren't played in the same room. I am now an unabashed solo gamer, even outside of VNs. I won't play most multiplayer games at all, and I hate games where the social element is as or more important than the actual gameplay or story. Of course, if a game has an interesting concept, I'll try it... but if I feel that sensation I used to get from FFXI, I drop it immediately, cancelling all subscriptions and discarding all related materials without a second thought, even if I paid a good deal of money for them. To be blunt, life is too short to waste on playing something that is merely addictive (this coming from a VN junkie, I know). That sensation of false social interaction you get from online gaming and the high you get from winning in competitive games is highly addictive... but are you having fun, really? I wonder, how many younger gamers actually know what it is like to enjoy a video game, rather than simply being addicted to one? This is a question that seriously bothers me, as I saw my young cousin playing Call of Duty (whatever the latest one is) online, unsmiling, for two days straight while we were staying at their place a few months back. He really, really wasn't enjoying himself. He was angry, depressed, and frustrated, but I never saw even a hint of a smile when he won, only this vague expression of relief he probably thought was a smile. Was that relief that his team-mates weren't treating him like a worthless noob or an incompetent, or was it simply because the match was over and he could relax? I don't know, because I didn't ask. I know from experience that the difference between addiction and fun is fine enough that most people don't even recognize it is there until they are forced to. What are your experiences, gamers of Fuwa?

Hmm... to be honest, I haven't played many VNs of this type, mostly because they don't really fit my tastes. This is one of those dark horror/rape/sex training VNs that also happen to be based in the middle of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. To be precise, this one is based on an island that mirrors Innsmouth in the mythos. It is ruled by the Mashuu Family, and the protagonist ends up marrying the last daughter of that family, Mizuki. He also gets stuck with an immense power and the role of giving women over to the islanders as breeders. I'll be blunt, while I liked the actual story, there is way too much dark H in this VN, for my tastes. It was made worse by the fact that I actually liked the 'heroines' and I didn't like to see the gang rapes that are part of the VN's story. The funny thing is that the actual relationship between most of the heroines and the protagonist is actually... pleasant, most of the time. Given that is a Cthulhu Mythos story, it is inevitable that people go insane or fall under the control of evil. However, on the flip side, the girls are basically stained with darkness somewhere at the core from the beginning, and the protagonist, for all his own insanity and flaws, is something of a salvation to them. I can't really say that any of the endings are 'good'. I did like Riri's ending, and the bad guys mostly got their just desserts in the true ending. However, I've never been fond of VNs that aren't utsuge where everyone goes insane to one degree or another, lol.

Tsujiura-san to Chupacabra Well, if Karin had good romance for shounen manga, then this one has terrible romance for a shounen manga, almost to the level of Nisekoi in terms of stagnation, but not quite. Anyways, the manga is 35 chapters in length and is made by Sakurai Atsuhita. The premise is that the MC named, basically Hikigaya Hachiman gone oh so wrong, saving a new transfer-student, who's pretty much the perfect student, from danger a few times and they start this fake-dating a la Nisekoi. That's the premise. What's the first thing that comes to mind? 'Nisekoi rip-off'? You're exactly right. There of course is some comedy, but it's basically one-trick pony through and through, recycling the same old skit over and over and over again. Two rivals appear later in the story, male and female. I'd say you their names, but I forgot them instantly I finished this manga. Both of them are one-dimensional, one is an ex-idol who suddenly falls in love with the MC and that's it. The male on the other hand is a rich boy, and basically does the same but to Tsujiura instead. Well, how about the main characters? There must be something good about them? Right?! ...Not really. The MC is as I said, a cheap knock-off of the loner-type and nothing else. Even his personality is run-of-the-mill. Tsujiura on the other hand has some redeeming qualities, like her aggressiveness and yankee-like exterior, but if you want to see this personality done right in a romance setting, go read Yandere Kanojo instead. That at least has some good characters and development. The only part that was legitimately funny was the rock-band arc... but that only lasts for one or two chapters, following with the most 'why the fuck am I reading this' final chapter ever. *sigh* What's left? Other than this manga being the cheapest thing I've read in a long while with one-dimensional characters, MC and all, having some of the most cringiest tropes ever-present I could think of, and to top it all off having the shittiest last chapter in recent memory, there really isn't anything positive left. Other than that one chapter with the band, I guess the comedy's good sometimes, albeit rarely. If you want some good shounen manga with romantical developments and tones, DON'T. READ. THIS. MANGA. It's awful, and you're much better off actually reading something with good development like Karin or JUST READ NISEKOI. That'll be all, it's terrible, wouldn't recommend at all.