Clephas

Primal Hearts is a game I have an odd relationship with.  At the time I first played it, I don't think I gave it a completely fair assessment.  The reason why?  I was hitting the first of my many 'charage doldrums' periods.  However, in retrospect, it grew on me... sort of like mold.
First, I should note that the game is actually fairly old-fashioned, despite its modern visuals.  The wacky concept, larger-than-life characters, and the sometimes ridiculous 'coincidences' that pop in all hearken to a previous era.  At various times, this game channels such famous games as Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no, Majikoi, Shuffle, and any number of 'golden age' games.  Of course, it doesn't go as far as any of those does, but the makers' fanboyism is fairly evident throughout the game on a second playthrough (something I didn't notice on the first playthrough).
First, the resemblance of Majikoi lies in the larger than life characters and sometimes crazy abilities some of them have (the protagonist included).  The protagonist's casual manipulation of the other characters for his own amusement (and for their own sakes, more often than not) is very much reminiscent of Yamato, without ever actually approaching his level. 
Perhaps the strongest resemblance to Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no lies in Haruhi's path... to be blunt, Haruhi is a redesigned version of Miyabi, with Kanna a reformed version of Lida who also happens to be a heroine.  The resemblances and relationships are so obviously drawn from fanboyism of that particular kamige that I just had to shake my head during this replay. 
Shuffle is channeled, along with a lot of other early charage, through the setting.  While the specifics are drastically different, the wacky, overblown occurrences, the general madness surrounding the 'elections', and any number of other factors in the setting make me nostalgic for the middle of last decade (soon to be the decade before last). 
I perhaps didn't notice all this the last time because I was focused on heroines... and I was playing charage rather mechanically already, two years into VN of the Month.  A peculiar element that you generally don't see in most charage in general is character designs like that of Mizanori.  Most charage tend to make all their regular characters (the ones at the center of the cast) attractive to one degree or another.  However, Mizanori stands out as a character who was made comically unattractive, which struck me as hilarious at the time, since I used to make some of the same excuses he did to eat more as a teenager, lol. 
The common route of this game is excellent.  The relationships between the characters are formed and deepened appropriately, and it actually makes sense that the heroines would fall for the protagonist by the end.  It helps that the protagonist is really a 'great guy' in every way, though he can lack common sense at times.  The decision to avoid mediocrity in the protagonist and those around him is one that is rarely made in charage, which just made it that much better as a result.
Sadly, after the common route, this game stumbles somewhat.  The heroine routes lack some of the depth the common route does, perhaps because the shift to romance automatically debuffed the intelligence of the writers.    Oh, the heroines are unbearably cute when they go dere (Sera's dere makes me giggle hysterically even now, and Haruhi's is as strong in its own way), but the 'drama' included in the heroine paths pales a great deal in comparison to the drama that pops up in the common route.  In that sense, it felt almost like they were running out of ideas at the end...
Overall, this is an excellent charage that manages to escape mediocrity by channeling some of the best parts of a number of famous VNs into its characters and setting.  I won't say it is a kamige (because it isn't), but if you are just looking for a good charage to add to your collection, this is a good choice.

Primal Hearts is a game I have an odd relationship with.  At the time I first played it, I don't think I gave it a completely fair assessment.  The reason why?  I was hitting the first of my many 'charage doldrums' periods.  However, in retrospect, it grew on me... sort of like mold.
First, I should note that the game is actually fairly old-fashioned, despite its modern visuals.  The wacky concept, larger-than-life characters, and the sometimes ridiculous 'coincidences' that pop in all hearken to a previous era.  At various times, this game channels such famous games as Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no, Majikoi, Shuffle, and any number of 'golden age' games.  Of course, it doesn't go as far as any of those does, but the makers' fanboyism is fairly evident throughout the game on a second playthrough (something I didn't notice on the first playthrough).
First, the resemblance of Majikoi lies in the larger than life characters and sometimes crazy abilities some of them have (the protagonist included).  The protagonist's casual manipulation of the other characters for his own amusement (and for their own sakes, more often than not) is very much reminiscent of Yamato, without ever actually approaching his level. 
Perhaps the strongest resemblance to Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no lies in Haruhi's path... to be blunt, Haruhi is a redesigned version of Miyabi, with Kanna a reformed version of Lida who also happens to be a heroine.  The resemblances and relationships are so obviously drawn from fanboyism of that particular kamige that I just had to shake my head during this replay. 
Shuffle is channeled, along with a lot of other early charage, through the setting.  While the specifics are drastically different, the wacky, overblown occurrences, the general madness surrounding the 'elections', and any number of other factors in the setting make me nostalgic for the middle of last decade (soon to be the decade before last). 
I perhaps didn't notice all this the last time because I was focused on heroines... and I was playing charage rather mechanically already, two years into VN of the Month.  A peculiar element that you generally don't see in most charage in general is character designs like that of Mizanori.  Most charage tend to make all their regular characters (the ones at the center of the cast) attractive to one degree or another.  However, Mizanori stands out as a character who was made comically unattractive, which struck me as hilarious at the time, since I used to make some of the same excuses he did to eat more as a teenager, lol. 
The common route of this game is excellent.  The relationships between the characters are formed and deepened appropriately, and it actually makes sense that the heroines would fall for the protagonist by the end.  It helps that the protagonist is really a 'great guy' in every way, though he can lack common sense at times.  The decision to avoid mediocrity in the protagonist and those around him is one that is rarely made in charage, which just made it that much better as a result.
Sadly, after the common route, this game stumbles somewhat.  The heroine routes lack some of the depth the common route does, perhaps because the shift to romance automatically debuffed the intelligence of the writers.    Oh, the heroines are unbearably cute when they go dere (Sera's dere makes me giggle hysterically even now, and Haruhi's is as strong in its own way), but the 'drama' included in the heroine paths pales a great deal in comparison to the drama that pops up in the common route.  In that sense, it felt almost like they were running out of ideas at the end...
Overall, this is an excellent charage that manages to escape mediocrity by channeling some of the best parts of a number of famous VNs into its characters and setting.  I won't say it is a kamige (because it isn't), but if you are just looking for a good charage to add to your collection, this is a good choice.

This is perhaps one of the few games from my first five years playing untranslated VNs that isn't a chuunige that I remembered vividly.  I decided to pick this up again because I wanted some good catharsis, and I was tired of waiting for Mangagamer to get off their butts and actually release this. 
Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta wake is what is called a 'soft utsuge', in the sense that there are no good endings but it focuses more on the bittersweet sorrow rather than the absolute despair of a 'hard utsuge' like Houkago no Futekikakusha.  Each of the first three heroines has a bad and a normal ending, and no matter what you choose, darkness awaits.  The fourth heroine, the angel Aine, is the true heroine and only has one ending (the true ending) which is also bittersweet, though there is some sense of salvation for the protagonist, albeit at a price. 
The first three heroines are the aggressively helpful osananajimi (who is the only one of the heroines who knows his past) Naruko, the soft-mannered but somehow gloomy Yuri, and the standoffish Minamo.  Thankfully, only Naruko falls into an archetypical role (osananajimi characters have a very limited range of roles), which is nice for someone looking for something with unusual heroines. 
This game focuses on a sort of tug of war between the apparently apathetic Kirinokojima Tomoe, who actively loathes romance in general, and the optimistic clumsy angel Aine, who believes in romance as the ultimate force for human happiness with all her heart.  Tomoe is kind-hearted under his apparently apathetic exterior, inevitably caring about what happens to the people Aine wants to help, but his belief that romance only brings suffering and is a force for evil in the world is so strong that he is constantly wavering on whether to go along with Aine or not.  This conflict, though it is not one born of malice, defines the main storyline, as the characters worry about what is best for the people involved.
The first six chapters of the game are the common route, and each chapter covers a different romantic mess that draws Aine's attention.  These messes are never simple nor easily resolved, and regardless of which path Tomoe chooses in the end, nothing turns out perfectly.  The seventh chapter covers the heroine routes, which are much more intimate and have an impact that quite naturally surpasses that of the arcs of the common route.
Yuri
I advise anyone who plays this game to play Naruko's route third, regardless of which of the other two paths you do first.  I say this because Aine's (the true path) splits off immediately before you would otherwise head into Naruko's route... 
Yuri's route is pretty... sick-minded.  Sorry, the writer of this game probably has a serious mental illness, and I shouldn't be insensitive about it, lol.  Anyway, there are hints of what Yuri's conflict is in the common route, but it escalates rapidly once you actually get to her route and her personal issues are laid bare.  Tbh, Yuri's route is the most horrifying of the initial three routes for reasons that become obvious to anyone who plays it, and I wept at the normal ending and was somewhat disgusted at the bad ending (both times). 
Minamo
Minamo's route is a bit less psychotic than Yuri's... but in exchange, the issues are more 'worldly' and familiar to the average reader.  The central conflict involves Minamo's work as an idol and a combination of her past issues, family issues, and the inevitable problems of a celebrity in Japan getting involved romantically with someone else.  While this path is milder than Yuri's, it is a lot easier to empathize with, and it also epitomizes Tomoe's nature to a greater degree than the other two paths. 
I didn't bother with the bad ending this time, instead going for just the normal one.  The normal ending is bittersweet and strikes me as the ending that most fits Tomoe's personality outside of the true ending.  It is sad, though.
Naruko
This is by far my least favorite path in the game, though it isn't just because I dislike osananajimi paths.  I won't go deep into why I didn't like this path either time I played it, because I don't want to spoil anything important, but I will go ahead and cover the spoiler-free issues.  This path is the only one of the first three paths that actually touches upon the reason for Tomoe's apathetic/asexual personality, and it also is the only one that touches upon the truth of what the angels work is.  As such, it is absolutely vital that you play it before the true route even if you want to go straight to it, since the explanation isn't repeated in the true route.  Moreover, Naruko's route's normal ending serves as an example of the game's true central conflict that is vital for understanding the true route.
True Route
What can I say about the true route/Aine route?  It is by far the best path in the game (though the ending is still deeply bittersweet), and after you finish it, there is a sense of salvation for Tomoe that doesn't exist in any of the other paths.  I say a sense of salvation, but it is salvation at a cost, as is typical of every blessing any character in this game experiences.  This path reveals the fullness of why Tomoe hates himself to the point where he rejects all possibility of happiness for himself, and, to be honest, I replayed the rest of the paths solely so I could re-experience the heart-jerking events of this route in the same manner I did the first time. 
I can recommend this to someone who wants catharsis and doesn't mind a darker atmosphere than you would see in a nakige.  It is also something I can recommend to utsuge lovers (if you liked Swan Song for the emotional elements, there is a good chance you'll like this).  I do not recommend this for people who want undiluted happy endings.

One of only two games written by Kazutaka, the writer of the somewhat comically-named Doushite Daite Kurenai no!?  Onna no Ko Datte Yaritai no! (incidentally, despite the title, the aforementioned game is not a nukige, which is in itself humorous, lol).  It is also the game that gave substance to Ensemble's quest to define itself as a specialist company in trap protagonist and ojousama-ge.  Ironically, it is also the flat-out best SOL game the company has ever made, which makes it somewhat sad for me that Kazutaka faded out after this game was released.  I can say right out that the only reason I still try Ensemble games is because of the experience I had with this one.
One of the parts anyone who first plays this game will notice is that the protagonist is voiced.  More than that, 'Mizuki' is voiced by a female VA that was able to put a hint of androgyny into the voice, giving you the impression that it was quite natural that most people mistake him for a girl.  Another part of this game that is obviously noticeable from the start is that the writer has really done his research into the art field.  'Mizuki' has an extremely wide and deep knowledge of all forms of art and their care, and this serves as one of his (actually, it is easier to think of him as a girl with a penis, lol) charm points for the reader, along with his obvious love of housework. 
One part that makes it easy to regard this game's path as being far more in-depth than the norm for an SOL-focused game is the way the choices are handled.  Essentially, before you exit the prologue, you will have already chosen your heroine, since all choices are concentrated in a very short period of time at the beginning of the game.  By choosing to essentially get the choices 'out of the way', the writer manages to avoid one of the most common pitfalls of VNs in general... breaking engrossment in the game by inserting choices into every important scene.  This game essentially ignores the lie of player agency (Clephas: Player agency in a VN, pfft), which is definitely a positive in this case.  This allows the protagonist's and the heroines' personalities and actions to become clear to the reader (and there is no doubt that you are a reader with this VN) without the interference of random choices or the need to keep which heroine you want to go for in the back of your mind constantly.
Ootori Rena
Rena is the game's obvious main heroine.  She is the daughter of the town's owner and permanent mayor (literally, their business bought the town in which the game is based).  She is also an art dealer from a family of art dealers.  It is tempting, at first glance, to call her a tsundere... but for once, this archetypical characterization fails.  Rena is very straightforward in how she expresses her feelings, having a policy of expressing her emotions openly regardless of what they are.  She is also very mature in the sense that she has a solid grasp on what her responsibilities are to those around her, coming from her upbringing as the successor of a family of primary art dealers (art dealers that primarily 'raise' artists and sell their works as opposed to buying artists' works that already have an established market value). 
I say she is the main heroine, and indeed, her path is one of the few paths where the protagonist is forced to confront his own issues head on.  For better or worse, in most of the paths, Shin/Mizuki manages to avoid directly confronting his past and his own weakness, making this path an obvious favorite for me.  That said, this was the first path I played originally, so I couldn't help but play this one first again.
Chiharu
Chiharu is my yome!  lol  Seriously, if you were to ask me which heroine (as opposed to 'which girl' since Akie is my favorite girl... I love haraguro characters) touched my heartstrings (and my libido) the most, it would be Chiharu.  Chiharu is the single-minded but kind-hearted bodyguard that serves Rena.  She is very serious and kind-hearted, but it often shows in odd ways, because she is somewhat socially awkward.  Her reactions are also driven by her early upbringing and profession, the former of which was strict and the latter of which is professional security. 
Chiharu's dere is... frighteningly powerful.  Oh, this can be said of all the heroines, really, but Chiharu is a very loving soul.  I love Chiharu's path for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that she is, at heart, someone who just wants someone who can accept her from the bottom of their hearts, flaws, disabilities, and all.  This very human worry is what turned Chiharu from a two-dimensional character to a person in my mind.
Also:  「だって幽霊って死んでるんだよ、死霊って生きてないんだよ、生きてなければ殺傷することもできないじゃないか、刀で死人は斬れないよ怖いよ！！」
Chiharu "But ghosts are dead!  Ghosts aren't alive!  If they aren't alive, you can't kill them!  You can't kill the dead with a katana!  I'm scared!"
「いえ、テレビは斬れます。寮の器物損壊はやめてください」
Akie "No, but you can cut the TV.  Please refrain from damaging dorm property."
Shizuku
Shizuku is an art auctioneer and the daughter of the head of the Karasuma Group, a company that specializes in the resale of art.  She and Rena are on bad terms, not the least because their places in the art industry make it inevitable.  To most people, she is a sharp-tongued (dokuzetsu) but elegant-looking girl who dominates her surroundings by her very presence.  In private, she is an intensely loving and passionate woman who will do absolutely anything and everything for the person she loves.  However, she has a bad habit of jumping to conclusions (something that can be said of the other two heroines above as well, though not of Yuki and Anastasia), especially when it comes to Shin.
Tbh, this is the most frustrating of the routes to speak of, because so much of her profile is spoilers for the other routes.  Let's just say there are some seriously hilarious antics that occur partly because of Shii-cha- *coughs* ahem, Shizuku's tendency to jump to conclusions, her willingness to do anything for the people she loves, and Rena's inevitable reactions, lol. 
This path is primarily hilarious, but it also gets into the more intimate elements of Shin's 'why' in a way that even Rena's path doesn't.  Tbh, if I were to put a recommended route order up, it would be Rena>Shizuku>Chiharu>Yuki>Anastasia.  My reasoning for this is because this game actually benefits from experiencing it in an order that could be seen as 'main to sub' instead of 'sub to main' as I would normally recommend.  All the paths are good in their own ways, but the knowledge from Rena and Shizuku's paths enhance the experience of the other three paths to a rather large degree.  Moreover, playing Anastasia's path without having played Rena's would make it somewhat confusing, and I'm pretty sure some important points would be missed by first-timers. 
For now, I'm going to stop, because I need to take a rest from SOL for a few days, but I'll finish this one up soon.
 

Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in.  While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before.  It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them. 
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre.  When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after.  This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves). 
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine.  I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally.  I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.

Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in.  While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before.  It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them. 
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre.  When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after.  This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves). 
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine.  I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally.  I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.

Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in.  While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before.  It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them. 
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre.  When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after.  This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves). 
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine.  I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally.  I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.

Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in.  While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before.  It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them. 
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre.  When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after.  This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves). 
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine.  I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally.  I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.

Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in.  While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before.  It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them. 
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre.  When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after.  This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves). 
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine.  I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally.  I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.

Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in.  While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before.  It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them. 
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre.  When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after.  This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves). 
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine.  I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally.  I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.

As I'm currently playing Sorceress Alive and have played numerous Digination games in recent years, I thought I'd talk about my thoughts on the company and its subsidiaries. 
My first thought is that the company is both aggressively pushing the current boundaries of the industry fanbase while also regressing into an older time.  When I first expressed this thought to a friend of mine, he asked me if I was crazy... but this is how I explained my thoughts to him.
While charage/moege have always dominated the non-nukige part of the VN industry (since the turn of the century, anyway), there have been times when the percentage of such games to other games has leaned toward more variance.  This last year and a half has been very much such a period, and the period between 2004-2008 was another such period.  In these periods, less 'genre-bound' games have been released in larger amounts than is common in what I call the periods of stagnation (2008-2010, 2012-2017).  Common genres often named are charage/moege, chuunige, nakige, utsuge, and plotge.  While these should be merely generalized 'umbrellas' under which games fall, during the periods of stagnation, there is far less blending between the genres.  Chuunige are chuunige with little or no SOL, charage/moege are entirely SOL-romance focused, nakige go for your tears from beginning to end, etc, etc...  The current period is one where we are seeing more genre blending and the resurrection of genres that were mostly dead until recently (mystery, psychedelic, etc). 
I first noticed the trend was changing (as well as the number of non-nukige being produced overall going down) when Navel released Kimi to Mezameru, Ikutsuka no Houhou, a peculiar blending of genres (mystery, sci-fi, chuunige, nakige, SOL) that was unusual in my experience when coming from a frontline charage company like Navel (though they have at times produced more plot-heavy games like Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou).  However, Digination was already digging into this back in 2016, albeit in the form of the 'close but not quite there' Shinsou Noise.
I'm uncertain whether Digination has succeeded because it happened to start producing this type of game when the market's hunger for more varied genre-blends was rising or because it was doing something a newer generation of VN fans had yet to experience.  However, soon they had begun putting out genre-blending and unique titles at a rate I found somewhat surprising, though not all of their games appeal to me.  Sorceress Alive, for instance, is hard to get past the first part of the prologue, because the protagonist is somewhat of a doofus when he lets his enthusiasm take over.  I actually had to come back after dropping Raillore no Ryakudatsusha to be able to be able to appreciate its better points, lol.
Missing X-link told me this company, owned by DMM, is serious about making its mark on the industry, because it was both ambitious and highly emotional in a way I found fascinating... though I also found their choice to use the ladder-style structure to be frustrating, since many of the side-heroines are as interesting or moreso than the mains.  However, Digination strikes me as a company that is willing to experiment to a degree that most other companies are wary of even considering.  I find in this company a gleam of hope for the future of VNs in general, though it will take more than a single company pioneering the way to drag the industry out of its sludge-filled ruts.

Originally, when this game came out, I bought it, played the first part of the prologue, facepalmed over the protagonist's actions, then dropped it.  I still don't think that choice was a mistake, even now.  That's not to say this is not an excellent game (it is), but the fact is that Kouki being a total doofus at times is annoying as hell. 
This game is split into two parts, Sorceress and Alive.  The two parts have significantly different story progression and outcomes, and it would be safe to say that Sorceress is a different game from Alive in many ways.  Sorceress can be called a 'combat sport charage', as it focuses primarily on the heroines, romance, SOL, and the Rave tournament.  This in itself is quite an enjoyable example of the sub-genre, though the gap between Kouki in his 'strategist mode' and his 'dense doofus mode' is startling at times. 
Alive is more of a plotge with chuunige elements (I've had people describe it as a chuunige, but it doesn't have most of the major qualities of one).  The story there is darker and much denser, showing sides of the various characters you can't see in Sorceress.  Though, tbh, it is bound pretty tightly to some tropes familiar to most otakus. 
The heroines are Azuria, Akina, Yuzuriha, Miya, and Riri.  Riri only has an ending in Alive, but she does play a role in both parts of the game. 
Azuria is your typical mother-like oneesan character... with the classic physical features to go along with it.  Of the five, I think she has the strongest personality second only to Yuzuriha, who is intense behind her calm appearance.   She wields earth magic, which she uses mostly in a defensive manner at first (though she does expand her repertoire).
Akina is your typical 'fire magic tsundere'.  To be honest, there really isn't any need to explain her further if you've seen any number of anime tsunderes with fire magic.  They all act the same way and are equally predictable.  Her relationship with Kouki ends up somewhat like that of Yuuji and Shana in Shakugan no Shana (the first half of the season) in some ways.
Yuzuriha is the quiet bullied girl of the group.  She uses ice magic, and her manner seems to reflect this...  However, she is probably the most passionate and loving of them all by several degrees.  Her relationship with Kouki has a rather larger portion of psychological dependence than the other paths, but I still think of her as the strongest personality of the group.
Miya is the apparent 'imouto' character, constantly clinging to the protagonist, always with a mischievous smile on her face.  While there are definitely hidden depths to her personality, it is somewhat hard to get at them early on.  She wields wind magic, which reflects her (apparent) whimsical nature.
Riri... is your typical arrogant tsundere ojousama, with fight-loving traits blended in.  To be honest, she has the least amount of character development, so I have to say I think she got gypped.  That said, she is a great rival for the Sorceress part of the game, and a wielder of darkness magic.
An important character to keep in mind is Yuumi, who is the most powerful mage in the school, a wielder of light magic that dominates her opponents easily.  Her personality is apparently hedonistic and driven by the whimsy of the moment.  She also is extremely lazy.
Sorceress
I'll state here again that Sorceress is basically a charage with battle elements tacked on.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The 'working together to win the tournament' element provides an excellent reason for the protagonist to get close to the heroines despite his original meeting with Akina, and the actual individual story progression is quite good.
However, except for Yuzuriha's ending, the character endings were somewhat disappointing in comparison with the deeper character development of the common route and the drama of their individual routes.  This is understandable in retrospect, if you've played Alive, but it was still irritating.  Considering how much the romance of the paths built up the characters' dreams for the future, the lack of a 'significantly after' factor to the endings was disappointing.
The action in this game in general is about the same as a low-end chuunige (reasonable action, low on descriptions of what happened...). 
Alive
Alive is a far darker story, which strips away the veil hiding the nature of the Queendom (females are dominant due to a low rate of male births), and there is a lot of death and destruction...  For those who loved the characters in Sorceress, Alive can be painful at times, though the catharsis is pretty decent, especially in the middle and later parts of the story. 
To be honest, due to the structure of this game, it is really, really hard not to spoil anything important.  So, I'll just say that the story is good... for what it is.  It is not terribly unpredictable (though I imagine some will think there is a light mindfuck in there), and the twists were rather obvious.  However, for what it is, it is enjoyable. 
That said, it isn't without a few severe flaws endemic to its structure.  Alive is essentially a single path with seven endings (one normal, five good, and one true).  As a result, there is little effort to give further life to such characters as Riri or Yuumi (until near the end), and I was immensely disappointed with how the endings were handled... in particularly the true ending.
While the five main girls all have a 'years after' ending, the lack of a harem ending (I'm not joking) after making all the girls fall in love with him (not kidding) is just ridiculous.  In addition, the true ending fell flat... yes, it was nice in an abstract sense, but for someone who read through the last part of the main path on the edge of his seat, I had to wonder what the writer was thinking.  While it does bring tears to the eyes somewhat, there were at least a half-dozen ways it could have been easily turned into a bawling tear-jerker final scene that would have had all the readers dribbling snot and going through whole tissue boxes.  This lack  of a satisfying catharsis to top off the game was a somewhat flat ending to an otherwise excellent game.

Originally, when this game came out, I bought it, played the first part of the prologue, facepalmed over the protagonist's actions, then dropped it.  I still don't think that choice was a mistake, even now.  That's not to say this is not an excellent game (it is), but the fact is that Kouki being a total doofus at times is annoying as hell. 
This game is split into two parts, Sorceress and Alive.  The two parts have significantly different story progression and outcomes, and it would be safe to say that Sorceress is a different game from Alive in many ways.  Sorceress can be called a 'combat sport charage', as it focuses primarily on the heroines, romance, SOL, and the Rave tournament.  This in itself is quite an enjoyable example of the sub-genre, though the gap between Kouki in his 'strategist mode' and his 'dense doofus mode' is startling at times. 
Alive is more of a plotge with chuunige elements (I've had people describe it as a chuunige, but it doesn't have most of the major qualities of one).  The story there is darker and much denser, showing sides of the various characters you can't see in Sorceress.  Though, tbh, it is bound pretty tightly to some tropes familiar to most otakus. 
The heroines are Azuria, Akina, Yuzuriha, Miya, and Riri.  Riri only has an ending in Alive, but she does play a role in both parts of the game. 
Azuria is your typical mother-like oneesan character... with the classic physical features to go along with it.  Of the five, I think she has the strongest personality second only to Yuzuriha, who is intense behind her calm appearance.   She wields earth magic, which she uses mostly in a defensive manner at first (though she does expand her repertoire).
Akina is your typical 'fire magic tsundere'.  To be honest, there really isn't any need to explain her further if you've seen any number of anime tsunderes with fire magic.  They all act the same way and are equally predictable.  Her relationship with Kouki ends up somewhat like that of Yuuji and Shana in Shakugan no Shana (the first half of the season) in some ways.
Yuzuriha is the quiet bullied girl of the group.  She uses ice magic, and her manner seems to reflect this...  However, she is probably the most passionate and loving of them all by several degrees.  Her relationship with Kouki has a rather larger portion of psychological dependence than the other paths, but I still think of her as the strongest personality of the group.
Miya is the apparent 'imouto' character, constantly clinging to the protagonist, always with a mischievous smile on her face.  While there are definitely hidden depths to her personality, it is somewhat hard to get at them early on.  She wields wind magic, which reflects her (apparent) whimsical nature.
Riri... is your typical arrogant tsundere ojousama, with fight-loving traits blended in.  To be honest, she has the least amount of character development, so I have to say I think she got gypped.  That said, she is a great rival for the Sorceress part of the game, and a wielder of darkness magic.
An important character to keep in mind is Yuumi, who is the most powerful mage in the school, a wielder of light magic that dominates her opponents easily.  Her personality is apparently hedonistic and driven by the whimsy of the moment.  She also is extremely lazy.
Sorceress
I'll state here again that Sorceress is basically a charage with battle elements tacked on.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The 'working together to win the tournament' element provides an excellent reason for the protagonist to get close to the heroines despite his original meeting with Akina, and the actual individual story progression is quite good.
However, except for Yuzuriha's ending, the character endings were somewhat disappointing in comparison with the deeper character development of the common route and the drama of their individual routes.  This is understandable in retrospect, if you've played Alive, but it was still irritating.  Considering how much the romance of the paths built up the characters' dreams for the future, the lack of a 'significantly after' factor to the endings was disappointing.
The action in this game in general is about the same as a low-end chuunige (reasonable action, low on descriptions of what happened...). 
Alive
Alive is a far darker story, which strips away the veil hiding the nature of the Queendom (females are dominant due to a low rate of male births), and there is a lot of death and destruction...  For those who loved the characters in Sorceress, Alive can be painful at times, though the catharsis is pretty decent, especially in the middle and later parts of the story. 
To be honest, due to the structure of this game, it is really, really hard not to spoil anything important.  So, I'll just say that the story is good... for what it is.  It is not terribly unpredictable (though I imagine some will think there is a light mindfuck in there), and the twists were rather obvious.  However, for what it is, it is enjoyable. 
That said, it isn't without a few severe flaws endemic to its structure.  Alive is essentially a single path with seven endings (one normal, five good, and one true).  As a result, there is little effort to give further life to such characters as Riri or Yuumi (until near the end), and I was immensely disappointed with how the endings were handled... in particularly the true ending.
While the five main girls all have a 'years after' ending, the lack of a harem ending (I'm not joking) after making all the girls fall in love with him (not kidding) is just ridiculous.  In addition, the true ending fell flat... yes, it was nice in an abstract sense, but for someone who read through the last part of the main path on the edge of his seat, I had to wonder what the writer was thinking.  While it does bring tears to the eyes somewhat, there were at least a half-dozen ways it could have been easily turned into a bawling tear-jerker final scene that would have had all the readers dribbling snot and going through whole tissue boxes.  This lack  of a satisfying catharsis to top off the game was a somewhat flat ending to an otherwise excellent game.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I’m going to be frank with you about this VN.  Maggot Baits is in no way, shape, or form a story with good guys.  Everyone in this VN is a monster or scum.  This VN has way too much guro, even for a VN focused on the grotesque, and it is actually made worse by the high-quality writing, lol.
That said… story-wise, if you skip through 90% of the H-scenes, this VN is actually pretty good.  Unfortunately, if you don’t skip those h-scenes, it is very hard not to see this as one big snuff-film turned VN.  Horror… it is that.  It is definitely horror.  Unfortunately, it is pretty obvious that the writers were just being self-indulgent with the sheer number of such h-scenes (was it really necessary to have multiple mind-break scenes for every single Witch introduced, even the ones who weren’t really significant to the main story?)
The writing in this VN, ironically, is first-class.  The problem is, there is so much torture – sexual and otherwise – that it was pretty hard to maintain my interest through large parts of the early VN, where they kept digressing to look at h-scenes of witches that the protagonist never encounters.  To be blunt, this is a failure of scenario design, despite the VN as a whole being very well-written. 
Visually… the VN is about as high-quality as it gets.  Unfortunately, that high-quality just means that those with weak stomachs will spend a lot of time vomiting. 
The audio in this VN (I’m ignoring the voices, since way too many of them are h-related) is fairly high-quality, with a focus on death metal tunes and dark techno. 
What’s most ironic about this VN is Ending 2, which is the closest thing you can get to a ‘good’ ending.  Ending 1 isn’t a bad ending… but it is very much an Akiha from Tsukihime-style ‘normal’ ending.  Well, in the sense that there really isn’t any sweetness and a lot of loss.  There is a bad ending early on, but it is more like an ‘oops, you screwed up, time to die’ ending, and it feels kind of tacked on, considering you can only access Ending 2 after completing 1.  On the bright side, Ending 2 is actually pretty touching, leaving a definite impression and a sense of salvation Ending 1 didn't have.
The protagonist... think of someone who has gone completely over the edge due to his desire for revenge and reduced himself to being a killing machine, willing to use anyone and anything for the sake of his goals, and you will have a decent picture of the guy.  In Ending 2, he shows off a softer side, but throughout the path leading to Ending 1, he is a cold-blooded bastard.
Overall… what can I say about this VN?  It is a party for those who like extreme guro, but for anyone else, this is going to be a high-stress VN that they probably won’t even get halfway through before dropping.  This VN is tailor-made for a niche within a niche in the VN community that generally doesn’t see much high-quality work (that isn’t a remake of old stuff) anymore.  That said, it didn’t appeal to me, except once I basically excised the h-scenes and thought about it that way.  This VN is a major failure though, from a scenario design perspective, simply because too much effort was put into inserting extra gratuitous sexual violence scenes that just made the entire thing seem monotonous after a while.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

I love my cat.
Let’s get that out of the way from the beginning. Even though she is gone, as of today, I have never, for one moment, believed that I would ever stop loving her. For seventeen years and eight months, this calico wonder has made her home in my heart, never failing to wrap me around her paw and jerk me around by my heart strings.
As the undisputed mistress of all she surveyed (all eleven rooms and corridors of it), she has dominated the lives and conversation of our family for almost long enough for a child to have graduated from high school. In a very real sense, she was one of the most important pillars of our family, and her presence both lightened the atmosphere and gave us something to talk about even in the darkest of times.
My cat loved people… primarily because she knew a few stares and quiet nuzzles could get any given person to pet her or give her what she believed she wanted at any given moment. She liked being with people, even if it was just in the same room, completely ignoring one another (incidentally, her favorite game).
In her youth, distant as that is to me now, she was a rambunctious and hyperactive ball of calico fluff, her medium-length fur usually disheveled from one event or another until she chose to let us smooth it out. When we got saltillo tile on the first floor, she could be found with red dust on her belly constantly until it was sealed. When new carpet was put into the master bathroom, she was the first to roll on the floor, and when new furniture was brought into the house, she was always the first to ‘test’ it. Heck, I couldn’t keep her out of my computer chair when I wasn’t sitting in it.
As she grew older, she retained many of her kitten-ish traits, being enthusiastic and affectionate to often extreme degrees, given our previous experiences with cats. She purred loudly, meowed insistently, ran at ridiculous speeds only to slam into walls, and generally made us laugh and smile.
When we went out of town, she always made her displeasure known upon our return.
She was an inside cat, mostly by our choice. While she enjoyed short periods outdoors, she could generally be trusted to want back in whenever her slaves decided to go back in, due to an incident with a coyote in her misspent (I can hear her indignant meow at the thought of her time ever being misspent in my head, even now) youth. If her life was a somewhat boring one by feline standards, she made up for it by being loved and lovable in general.
When she first became ill, over a year ago, I had my first close encounter with absolute panic. The cat, as we always referred to her (subcontext: Empress) as being, was listless, had lost her appetite, and she had, for some reason, decided that my sink was her new home.
We took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed as having thyroid problems, as is typical in elderly cats (as she was by this time). We began giving her medicine on a daily basis, and for some time, she was doing relatively better, even if she never quite regained the spunk and vigor of the now-lost past.
However, a month ago, what vigor had returned to her was rapidly lost. She gradually ceased to eat, began to have bowel problems… and she began to starve to death. The only time she seemed happy was when she was sleeping on one of us, being lightly caressed, comforting herself with her own purrs.
It was with a heavy heart that we listened to the vet start speaking of quality of life, a typical speech made whenever a loved one nears death… and, our hearts already broken, we eventually assented to euthanasia.
Less than five hours later, I don’t know if it was the right choice. Was it a mercy, an act of love? Was it a betrayal of the absolute trust one can only gain from an animal when that pet is treated as family? Or was it something in between… I can never know. While I understood many things about my cat, I will never know what she thought on this, her last day, what she felt toward us as she went into the final sleep.
I will never know. There are so many things about that last day that I will never know. I feel my heart breaking all over again as I write this. I feel the empty feeling of loss. The standard words are no comfort. The euphemisms and trite words of comfort that come out of people’s mouths at times like this feel like excuses and obfuscations. The bitter flavor of grief sours food in my mouth and makes the world a darker place.
I can’t even make the excuse that she wouldn’t want me to grieve for her… because she is a cat, and no cat would ever miss out on a chance to be the center of attention.

異なる世界の話をしよう。
Let us speak of another world.
 
　我々とは森羅万象の法則が異なる世界、　違うものたちが生きる世界のことを。
A world where the laws of creation differ from our own.  A world where beings different from us live.
 
　誕生したとき、その世界はただの“無”でしかなかった。
When that world was born, that world contained nothing but the void.
 
　何も存在しないが故に何も起こらず、幾千幾万の時間が経とうとも、その世界は変化することがなかった。
Since nothing existed nothing happened.  No matter how many tens of thousands of years passed, that world continued unchanged.
 
　やがて、そんな世界に偶然――“神”と呼ばれるものが生まれた。
Eventually, coincidentally, a being that could be called a 'god' was born there.
 
　神には世界を思うがままに操る力があった。
God had the ability to control the world as he saw fit.
 
　神は何も存在しない世界を嘆き、“無”を“有”にするために、自らの力を行使することにした。
God bewailed that his world was empty and, in order to turn the void into existence, chose to use his power.
 
　神はまず世界を二つに分かつことにした。
God began by splitting the world into two parts.
 
　自らが在るための“天”と、自らが統べる“大地”に。
One part was the 'heavens' he existed in and the other was the 'earth' he ruled over.
 
　神は天に『ブレシグランド』と、大地に『ゴルトロック』と名前を与え、二つの間に空を置いた。
God called the heavens the Land of Blessings and the land Goltrok, and he created the sky to exist between them.
 
　次に神は、ゴルトロックに草木と水と生き物を与えた。
Next, God gave Goltrok foliage, water, and living things.
 
　だが“生”を与えられても“死”を与えられなかった草木は、大地を覆いつくして空に昇り、生き物は増え続けて大地を揺るがし、大地は凄惨なものとなった。
However, since he hadn't given 'death' along with life to them, the foliage filled the land and rose to the skies, living things increased to the point where the earth began to quiver, making the earth a horrible thing to look upon.
 
　神は嘆き、彼らに“死”を与えることにした。　そして死を与えるという重要な役割を負わせるために、神は自らの存在も二つに分かつことにした。
God bewailed this and chose to give them 'death'.  And so, in order to give the important role of giving death to life, he split himself into two.
 
　この時、二つとなった神には名前がついた。
At this point, God, split into two beings, came to have a name.
 
　生を司る神エル・アギアス。　死を司る神ヘルダイス。
The god that ruled life became El Agias, the god who ruled death became Helldais.
 
　二柱は、飽くことなく大地に生と死を与え続けた。
The two deities continued to infinitely give the land life and death.
 
　やがて生き物たちの中に知恵が芽生え、二足で歩き、道具を使う人間ヒューマンや亜人デミヒューマンたちが誕生した。
Eventually, there arose those amongst the creatures of the land who had intelligence, walked on two feet, and used tools... it was the birth of humans and demi-humans.
 
　人間や亜人は互いに協力し、大地をより良いものにしようと日々働き続けた。
Humans and demi-humans cooperated to make the world a better place.
 
　だが人間や亜人が生まれて数百年が経つと、死を司る神ヘルダイスは少しずつ狂い始めた。
However, within a few centuries of the rise of the humanoid races, the God of Death, Helldais, slowly began to go mad.
 
　知恵を持つ彼らは、“生”への執着が神の想像を凌駕するほどに強かったのだ。
Due to their intelligence, the humanoids possessed an attachment to 'life' that far surpassed the imagination of the gods.
 
　死を与えるたびに触れる無念の想いにヘルダイスは狂わされ、いつしかそれはエル・アギアスへの憎悪に転化した。
The regrets of the dead he touched every time he gave death drove Helldais mad, and this eventually caused him to hate El Agias.
 
　そしてついに、神と神の戦いが始まった。
And so, finally the war of the gods began.
 
　二人の神は魔法を使い、神の戦器トラブラムを使い、互いの存在を否定せんと果てしのない凄惨な殺し合いを繰り広げた。
The two gods used magic and the divine weapons, Trobrahm to try to deny the other's existence, indulging in an infinite cycle of mutual slaughter.
 
　神たちが戦い始めると同時、人間や亜人たちもそれに感化されたかのように、ゴルトロックの覇権を握るための争いを始めた。
At the moment the gods began to fight, the humans and demihumans, almost as if they were influenced by the godswar, began to fight for control of Goltrok.
 
　それから永劫とも思える年月が流れ――。
A time that seemed infinite in its length passed...
 
　神と神の長きの戦いにも終止符が打たれた。
And the long war between the gods came to an end.
 
　敗北したヘルダイスは『名前』を奪われ、天から追放されて大地へと墜ちた。
The defeated Helldais's name was stripped from him, and he was exiled from the heavens, causing him to fall to the earth.
 
　エル・アギアスはヘルダイスの代わりに『死の黒霊スレイドバズ』という、心を持たずただ大地に死を与え続ける精霊を生んだ。
El Agias created the Death Spirit Slaidbass, a spirit without emotions, to give the earth death.
 
　大地へ堕ちた『神だったもの』は腐乱した頭で考える。
The thing that had once been a god, fallen to the earth, began to think with its rotten brain.
 
　――生を憎め。　――生を受けたもの全てを憎め。　――生を謳歌するもの全てに等しく死を与えんことを。
--- Hate life.  ---- Hate all things that live.  --- Give death to all things that have life.
 
　――我は“不死の王ノーライフキング”なり。
--- I am the King of Undeath.
 
　これこそが、“不死の王”の誕生であった。
This was the birth of the 'King of Undeath'.
 
　彼は『屍を操る』術を使い、虚ろな思考のままに自身の眷属――屍兵ゾンビを増やしていった。
He used 'Necromancy', and, obedient to the thoughts of his hollow spirit, created many zombie servants.  (Clephas note: Just easier to call it Necromancy rather than saying 'He used techniques that controlled corpses')
 
　村が滅び、町が滅び、国が滅んでいく。
Villages, cities, and countries fell into ruin.
 
　屍兵が大国を滅ぼせば、大国の民たちも屍兵と化した。　屍兵が巨人の集落を襲えば、巨人たちの屍が歩き出した。
When zombies destroyed a great nation, the great nation's citizens became zombies.  If zombies destroyed a settlement of Giants, the corpses of the giants strode forth.
 
　大地で争っていた者たちも遅まきながら気付いた。
When it was almost too late, those dwelling upon the earth finally realized what was happening.
 
　不死の王を倒さねば、この世界そのものが死に絶えるのだと。
That if they didn't defeat the Undead King, the world itself would die.
 
　全ての地の民──人と亜人たちは種族の壁を乗り越えて団結し『ゴルトロック軍』として、不死の王の軍勢たちに戦いを挑んだ。
All the people of the world--- humans and demihumans alike, came together to form the Goltrok Army, in order to fight the armies of the Undead King.
 
　だが昼夜の区別なく、頭を破壊されない限り戦い続ける屍兵ゾンビたちに次第にゴルトロック軍も押され始めた。
However, the Goltrok Army quickly began to lose ground to the zombies, for they continued to fight day and night unless their heads were not destroyed.
 
　為す術はないのか。
(at this point, the dialogue shifts to vicariously echoing the people of the time)
'Is there no way?'
 
　不死の王が住む凍りついた城の周囲は無限とも思える数の屍兵ゾンビによって護られ、巨人や変身した竜人種ドラゴニュートですらたどり着くには神の奇跡を乞い願うしかないだろう。
The area around the Undead King's frozen castle is protected by a near-infinite number of zombies, and even Giants and transformed dragonewts would have to beg God for a miracle to arrive at its walls.
 
　偉大なる神エル・アギアスはおられぬのか。　崇高なる存在エル・アギアスは我らを見捨てられたのか。
Is the great god El Agias no longer present in the heavens?  Has the divine El Agias abandoned us?
 
　そう大地全ての生物が嘆いていたとき、対屍兵最前線の城砦都市ガーレに、九人の魔法使いが訪れた。
As all that lived upon the earth bewailed their fates, nine mages appeared at the frontline fortress city of Garey.
 
　彼らは不死の王によって最初に攻め滅ぼされた小国の魔法使いの一団だと名乗ると、一つの光明をもたらした。
They called themselves a group of mages from the first country to be destroyed by the Undead King and bestowed upon the people a single hope.
 
　――我々の魔法さえ使えば、我らの祖国、不死の王の居城の間近まで勇者を送り届けることができるだろう。
'Using our magic, we can send heroes to the foot to our homeland, at the foot of the Undead King's castle.'
 
　だがその魔法は一人の魔法使いにつき、たった一度きり。　即ち、九人の魔法使いによって送ることのできる戦士はわずか九人。
However, that magic could only be used once per mage.  In other words, the nine mages could only transport nine heroes.
 
　ゴルトロック軍は相談の末、数多ある種族の中で、特に突出した勢力を誇っていた八種族からそれぞれ勇者を選り抜いた。
After considering for a time, the Goltrok Army selected warriors from eight races that possessed the largest military power at the time.
 
　人間からエイベル・スカイウォーカー。　エルフからフュール・サングマイン。　ドワーフからゴットロープ・ラナチウム。　オークからラッカロコ・ライターン。
From the Humans: Abel Skywalker.  From the Elves: Karafyur Sangmainn.  From the Dwarves, Goltrope Ranaschium. From the Orcs: Raccaroko Rytan.
 
　ジャイアントからワイズマン。　ゴブリンからサブル・ハブル。　リザードマンからジル・レ・シャドウフィールド。
From the Giants: Wiseman.  From the Goblins: Sable Habble.  From the Lizardmen, Jil Le Shadowfield. 
 
　ドラゴニュートから、　イングリッド・フォルテンマイヤー。
And from the Dragonewts: Ingrid Fortenmeyer.
 
　そして最後に、八人を補佐する役割を担った従者が一人選ばれた。
And, last of all, an attendant, tasked with assisting the Eight, was chosen.
 
　勇者たちは、九人の魔法使いにより、不死の王の居城『ヴァルトラン』の間近まで瞬く速さでの跳躍を果たした。
The heroes were transported in an instant to a spot next to the Undead King's castle, Valtran.
 
　されど。　九人の眼前に立ちはだかるのは、『不死の王を護る』という命令だけに従う、屍兵の軍勢。
However, what stood before the Nine was an army of zombies obeying only a single order... 'Protect the Undead King.' 
 
　その数、およそ十万。
Their numbers, around one hundred thousand.
 
　ここにゴルトロックに生きる全種族の命運を賭けた――九対十万の戦争が始まった。
Here began the fight to determine the fates of all of Goltrok's people... a war between nine and one hundred thousand.
 
　腐肉滴る馬を駆る骨だらけの無数の屍兵たちを、勇者たちは恐れず打ち砕いていく。
The heroes fearlessly struck down flesh-less zombies atop rotting horses.
 
　九人は高位の魔法と武器、強靭な胆力と優れた知恵をもって十万の軍勢を突き崩し、長い城塞を抜けて、ついにただの一人も欠けることなく、不死の王に対峙した。
The Nine used powerful weapons, great magics, iron will, and brilliant strategems to break down the army of one hundred thousand, breaking through the fortress walls, and they finally made their way to the foot of the Undead King's throne.
 
　だが無敵に思えた彼らでも、不死の王との戦いは熾烈を極めた。
However, even for the seemingly invincible heroes, the fight with the Undead King reached the peaks of ferocity.
 
　幾度聖剣で斬りつけ、幾度魔法で燃やし、切り刻み、凍り付かせても不死の王は滅ぼせなかった。
No matter how many times they cut at him with holy swords, burned him with magic, sliced him open, or froze his flesh, they could not destroy the Undead King.
 
　元より神であった不死の王は『死』を与える・・・だけの存在で、『死』を与えられる存在ではない・・・・・・・・・・・のだ。
From the beginning, the Undead King was a god who only gave 'death' to others, and he was not a being that could be given 'death' himself.
 
　誰かが神に祈り、　誰かが膝を屈しそうになったその時、
At the moment when one prayed and another was about to fall to his knees...
 
　不死の王の前に一人の男が進み出た。　これまで八人に付き従ってきた従者だった。
A single man walked out before the Undead King.  It was the attendant who had, up until this moment, followed the eight heroes.
 
　従者は自身も知らない呪文を導かれるままに詠唱した。
The attendant began to chant the words to a spell he himself did not know.
 
　魔法の名は“神の降臨サモン・ゴッド”。　選ばれし者にしか詠唱できない、屈指の大魔法。
The name of the spell was 'Summon God', a Grand Magic that could only be chanted by one chosen.
 
　従者はその時知った、不死の王は死を与えながら死を知らない故に、どうやっても滅ぼすことなどできないのだと。
At this moment, the attendant was given to know that the Undead King was a being that gave death to others while not knowing it himself.  As such, he could not be destroyed by normal means.
 
　滅ぼす方法はただ一つ。　死を知る者の躯の中に不死の王を召喚すること。
There was only one way to kill him.  He had to be summoned into the body of one who knew death.
 
　つまり死を知らぬ者に、死を知らしめること。
In other words, forcing the experience of death upon one who knew it not.
 
　そして。　神はそのために九人の中から自分を選んだのだということも。
And he also came to know that it was for that very reason that he had been selected from amongst the Nine.
 
　従者はその事実を本来の主であるイングリッドに伝え、不死の王もろとも自分を滅ぼすように、と願った。
The attendant confessed this reality to his former mistress Ingrid and asked her to destroy him along with the Undead King.
 
　イングリッドは一度はそれを拒んだが、従者の説得に応じ、その身を聖剣で貫いた。
Ingrid refused at first, but, in response to her attendant's please, she thrust her holy sword through his body.
 
　かくして不死の王は『死』を知り、滅び去った。
So it was that the Undead King came to know 'death' and was destroyed.
 
　彼が滅んだ途端、屍兵たちも塵へと還った。　朽ちた大地に再び草木が芽生え、穢れた水は清らかさを、瘴気に病んだ風は生気を取り戻した。
At the moment of his death, the zombies turned to dust, the withered land began to bloom once again, the tainted water was cleansed, and the wind was cleansed of miasma.
 
　大地を再び生者の手に取り戻したのだ。　人々は歓喜し、八人を英雄として褒め称えた。
The land was reclaimed by the living.  The people yelled in joy, praising the Eight as heroes.
 
　そして大神エル・アギアスは彼らが人でありながら不死の王を倒した偉業への褒美として『聖紋』を授けた。
And, as a reward for having defeated the Undead King despite their own mortality, the great god El Agias bestowed upon them the Sacred Crest.
 
　――聖紋は英雄の証明であり、連綿と受け継がれていくもの。
The Sacred Crest is the proof of heroism, to be passed down through the generations.
 
　――八人の英雄が、未来永劫語り継がれるように。
This is so the Eight Heroes will continue to be told of in stories for eternity.
 
　――この『聖紋』は我が与える奇跡。生きとし生けるもの全てが、邪悪と戦ったのだという確かな証し。
This Sacred Crest is a miracle I bestow upon you.  A proof that all that lives fought against a great evil.
 
　――それを示すために、この聖紋の継承者には大いなる力を与えよう。
In order to show this, I bestow upon the inheritors of this Sacred Crest an immense power.
 
　かくして、後世の歴史に永遠に刻まれるであろう『八英雄』が誕生した。
And so it was that the story of the Eight Heroes, destined to be carved into history for eternity, was born.