Is Majikoi a good romance VN?

[voidpointer]

I've seen Majikoi get an insane number of good ratings and reviews. Most people say it's a good comedy and has interesting over-the-top situations. But no mention of romance. There are several routes, so I assume there is some degree of romance. Would anyone recommend this to those that prefer a strong romantic aspect to visual novels?

For context, I found Rewrite to have a very good level of romance, same with Little Busters and Eden*.

I appreciate any recommendations and would prefer no spoilers, as I obviously have not played this VN yet.

[Decay]

Majikoi has plenty of romance, but it's all romantic comedy, it's all pretty light-hearted. If you want your romance to be super dramatic, you won't find that in Majikoi.

I find it interesting that you list Rewrite as having very good romance, since the general lack of romance is one of the most common criticisms levied against it. If you were okay with that much romance, you'll definitely be okay with Majikoi.

[voidpointer]

Lucia's route in Rewrite had a ton of romance in it, IMHO. Also Chihaya's did too I think. Of course the common route is pretty bland, there is no romance until you lock into a route.

I did play the first few hours of the common route for Majikoi but it just seemed too slapstick for me. It wasn't that funny and I got bored really quick. I'm worried about investing more time if it isn't worth it later.

[Aleister]

As Decay already said, Majikoi is full of comedy romantic, if you're looking for games with full romance you should read some pure love stories, not very short or as very long, for example.... I'm reading Koisiru Kimochi no Kasanekata, so that game have comedy but a lot of romance too.

Now, if you just look for translated games.... maybe Clover Day's, I think there's a partial patch, and the translation is very close to the end so the full patch is very close too (sorry I don't read too much translated games)

[Kabu]

Majikoi is a romantic comedy through and through but, while it never really gets all too serious or dramatic, except during a very few key moments, it does ease up a bit on the slapstick once you lock into a heroine route and start progressing a bit.

[CorgiKing]

You said the magic words. Majikoi has been the franchise that brought me back into visual novels when I was getting burned out by them.

And like what everyone else has said, its a romantic comedy with elements of martial arts you'd expect to fidn in like a shounen manga.

 

[voidpointer]

To be clear, I'm not expecting melodrama, but some level of seriousness and affection between the characters is ideal. Lots of dating, time together, CGs of them as a couple, are things I look for. If it's mostly just friends together with very little romantic time between the protagonist and chosen heroine, that is a negative IMHO.

I guess a good analogy would be Princess Evangile. While I wouldn't call that a romantic comedy, it also wasn't super melodramatic either. And even leaving out the "moments of seriousness" in some of the routes, the point is that there was lots of 1 on 1 time.

Does Majikoi strike a good balance like I'm hoping for?

[CorgiKing]

Well the common route is a little bit of what everyone has already stated. It's there to introduce the characters, who they are and they play it off well. It sort of gives a "little busters" vibe when you meet the Kazama family.  Everyone has a place. Then they build up more of that as you go along.

It's honestly when you lock in on a heroine path where the real meat of the story happens, and well, the theme varies with each heroine. I'd say Kazuko has a very inspiring emotional weight to her story while Momoyo's feels like an action movie as you the plucky protagonist try to win the goddess of war's heart. 

All in all, a lot of us love the series for what it is. It's given me plenty of joy and made me smile a lot. If anything else, I'd say give it a try. 

 

[Kuma]

Some routes have their serious moments, but most of the time it's more like the action to comedy ratio is about 50:50 in the common and the routes either change action into drama or make it a 33:33:33 ratio

[Mr Poltroon]

9 minutes ago, voidpointer said:

To be clear, I'm not expecting melodrama, but some level of seriousness and affection between the characters is ideal. Lots of dating, time together, CGs of them as a couple, are things I look for. If it's mostly just friends together with very little romantic time between the protagonist and chosen heroine, that is a negative IMHO.

Does Majikoi strike a good balance like I'm hoping for?

It depends on the route. There is always a portion of the route dedicated to dating and romance so I think you'll like it.
However, said portion can vary...  I'd say on average 2/5ths is action/conflict, 1/5th is pre-confession/setting up the conflict 1/5th is dating and 1/5th is sex.

I still find that there's plenty of alone time between the love interests.

[castor212]

majikoi is a meme romance

im glad A2 translations have some of those moments too

[Shota_Victory]

Majikoi's basically a shonen moege with a heavy emphasis on comedy and not much focus on actually developing inter-character relationships. I quit partway through the first installment for that reason.

It's really not a good romance VN.

[Kabu]

34 minutes ago, Shota_Victory said:

Majikoi's basically a shonen moege with a heavy emphasis on comedy and not much focus on actually developing inter-character relationships. I quit partway through the first installment for that reason.

It's really not a good romance VN.

I'm not really too good at explanations so maybe someone else will be able to better explain this but.. There's a lot of inter-character relationship development, though a lot of it tends to be a bit more subtle. To be fair, especially in S, a lot of it IS restricted to the heroine routes but the first installment especially has a lot of relationship development starting towards the latter half of the common route and lasting all the way throughout the heroine routes.

[yorikbad]

Majikoi is an erotic romance comedy. Most of the jokes revolve around sexual topics or characters memes. It's nothing like Rewrite, LB or Eden, it's closer to American Pie movie but with a style and crazy (in a good sense) samurai battles. It never gets serious enough to be considered as dramatic title, but, yeah, it's incredibly romantic, funny and full of life.

Edited December 22, 2016 by yorikbad