glasscoral

[glasscoral]

Finished my sixteenth ending cluster! SF/Mystery route, endings 53-60, and endings 93-100.

You know, before I played this, I heard that this route was bad. It is. I think it's actively one of the worst routes in the game, if not the worst. However, the ways in which it was bad kind of surprised me. Here are my thoughts on it. (Be warned I'm very negative about the central character relationship and the route as a whole.)

When I first heard about this route, I heard it was terrible.

The thing was, the parts of it that I heard were terrible were the fact that it apparently invalidates other routes, and the fact that it's not a satisfying ending.

When I played the route, I didn't really have an issue with either of those.

In terms of it not feeling like a satisfying ending...

Ima and Kako getting their issues solved offscreen, eito getting ~magically fixed~ that wasn't really an issue for me because early on in the route it did feel intentional. (Eito's cognitive disorder being an intentional thing he was 'created' with rather than an actual mental illness aside...)

It felt like intentional commentary on the idea of a 'perfect' ending, the fact that it'd feel hollow and cheesy if we magically managed to press a button and fix everyone, because part of what draws us to these characters is their struggles with an imperfect reality that they can't fix.

In that sense, I think SF could've been really interesting. I think it would've actually been really good if it'd been even more saccharine, even more over the top, even more 'perfect'.

Like I would've loved it if it was more embarrassing.

But then, we get to what feels like the actual issue with SF, which is that it introduces a whole lot of complexity, a whole lot of fake-outs, a whole lot of everything to then do nothing with.

Hiruko and Takumi spend half the route going through all these timelines to find these codes and through all of that, we don't really seem to get much about the two of them and their relationship except banter. I found the banter falling a little short because...Hiruko's kind of blushy/easily embarrassed/calls takumi a Pervert for doing nothing which is a trope I really dislike.

Kurara also does this, but she's usually scolded by others for doing this/we get to see other sides of her--for Hiruko, this is the first time her and Takumi have really hung out at length and the only time we've found out she cares about him being a Pervert (unlike CoT where she's just like yeah do you want to get a naked oil massage. like cot's 'special circumstances' aside i personally enjoy her deadpan side more, so..), so having this suddenly appear as a personality trait was a little bit offputting.

Still, this was just 'kind of irritating' until we found out what was motivating her.

So with all the timeline traveling, we've learned a few things about Hiruko. One is that she's a time looper. Unlike Takumi, she seems to experience these loops linearly--according to her, once she dies or goes past 10am on day 100, she'll wake up in the next loop. Also, unlike Takumi, she seems to remember each previous timeline in each iteration. She can also interact with them and travel to them using a machine separate from her timelooping.

However, she cannot fix these timelines herself. She says very early on that changing timelines for the better simply 'creates a new rail'--the old timeline, the one where everyone dies, still exists (but she thinks it's still worthwhile to make a new one)

What's motivating her is that in one of those (bad) timelines takumi was really nice to her/said he loved her. As a result, she chose not to go back to that timeline and fix it and 'let it happen again' by her description of it.

Except it's already been established that this isn't how it works, that all 'fixing' it would do would be to make another branch timeline.

And yet the story describes this as her ~unforgivable~ crime, something she'd be fine with ~dying~ to atone for.

Because she just loved what Takumi did for her so much.

The thing is I think you could kind of make something interesting out of this--not that 'not fixing the timeline' is some sort of unforgivable sin, but that she is devoted to one Takumi and one thing he did.

That she's seen him in all those different timelines, and she cares for him, but it's all stemming from her projecting her feelings for that one takumi onto all of the others--and, as a follow up, that this is why she hasn't escaped the loop--she refuses to see the one with her now as his own person, or even try to build the same kind of relationship with this one--she instead on some level simply wants to return to that one moment despite it being impossible.

But that's not what happened here.

What happened in this route was: 20000 alternate timelines, some of which ended with people randomly getting killed by Evil Kako who is jumping timelines to murder people.

(I have no fucking idea where Evil Kako went. She's still out there.)

Wait no she dies in kg. Great

Nozomi also randomly began to sparkle, also for no reason. This was also never mentioned again.

Hiruko was also given a USB drive that allowed for "vertical as well as horizontal" movement, by a mysterious older female scientist.

Neither the USB drive or the scientist were relevant or mentioned ever again.

There is a random clone of Shion that the people on the Artificial Satellite had lying around who exists to charge the rockets instantly, then die. This was never mentioned before and never mentioned since.

The reason they were protecting the school for 100 days was to give Shion time to charge up the rockets, but I guess that doesn't matter.

The last two choices of the route are identical, except one of them involves saying it's ok if we blow up the entire world, and the other involves saying no we shouldn't </3.

If you say we should blow up the entire world eva's brainwashing wears off on the escape pod and she says she's going to kill everyone when she gets to the artificial satellite, which i guess all the students on the escape pod are just going to Let Her Do,

If you say we shouldn't. happy end i guess. It doesn't wear off.

idk.

sf sucks because there are a lot of real interesting ways it could've gone and a lot of interesting things they could've done with it but all of that got tossed in favor of adding a ton of random ass plot points that were never hinted at before and will never be hinted at again so they just mean nothing

and i mean i guess you could file 'oh all the other timelines were actually loops' under this but it genuinely didn't have to be like that. you could do something really interesting with the idea that hiruko is the only one experiencing this timeloop and it's entirely due to her own desires. you could do something really interesting with the fact that she seems to remember previous timeloops even in the prologue.

you could do something really interesting with the fact that she says that all the timeloops she's remembered have her getting onto the escape pod and not onto the satellite and reaching day 100 but not day 101, and at the end of this route she only gets onto the satellite and only reaches day 100 and she assumes this means she's free.

you could do something really interesting with the fact that takumi mentions multiple timelines in which he's gotten way past day 100 and hiruko doesn't seem to understand what he's talking about.

but sf didn't.

and that's the saddest part of that all for me.

yaoi rating: 5/10 i guess eito was a little yaoi

yuri rating: n/a

het rating: 10/10

i found the kiss in slasher bad. this is that but central to the narrative

i give up. why this

i am so fucking tired

I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MENTION MYSTERY. I THOUGHT THE MYSTERY PART WAS OK, IT HAPPENED BEFORE ALL THE SF PLOT TWISTS STARTED GETTING REALLY BULLSHIT the route was 'ok'. lots of stupid bad ends that are just (someone randomly kills you). i enjoyed all the REALLY stupid choices you could make during the persuasions. mystery was ok but not good, but i'm counting it as part of sf due to the format

there were a couple interesting ima bits in it i guess.

[glasscoral]

Finished my fifteenth ending cluster! Conspiracy route, endings 015, 016, 017, 018, 019, 020, 021, and 022. I thought this route was funny and brought up a couple interesting things. More extended thoughts + spoilers under the cut.

I actually thought this was pretty funny. This is because I'd take trying not to get unceremoniously killed by multiple eggs every two seconds over the hell that is box of blessings. I'd take 'short and stupid' over 'long and empty' any day.

Other than that, though...I think that specifically playing this post 2nd scenario ending 01 and knowing that a good chunk of what the anti-exodus project people are saying are lies (but not all of it) makes this a lot more interesting/funnier when Gotoh was like yeah I lied...sorry...Like yeah girl I know.

I am absolutely sure that if I'd played this before 2nd scenario and tried to actually get information out of it I'd find it a lot more irritating AS an ending but since I did not I think it's funny.

There were a couple things I did get out of it--that the anti-exodus project people aren't actually trying for peace, they just want humanity to lie down and die, and would be happy to kill students that don't just roll over and accept that.

If Eito was programmed by them, this explains exactly why he's 'programmed' in such a cruel way, and also why his plans are so short-sighted--his 'creators' are also short-sighted.

While, like I said, a lot of this route was attempting not to get killed by eggs every two seconds, I think this does kind of explain that the anti-exodus project people are just as selfish as the rest of the people on the artificial satellite.

Yes, ignoring the violence you do because you believe that you deserve to live more than the people there before you is a horrible thing, and being complacent in it is also horrible.

But simply sticking your head in the sand and saying 'well, that's horrible, what we've done is horrible, all we can do is just roll over and die' rather than actually trying to help the people you've hurt--that's just another type of complacency.

It's not a matter of 'oh, the people trying to change things and the people who want things to stay the same are just as bad' it's that believing something is bad is not the same as making an effort to change it.

And it's interesting to me that what's basically being said here is 'our backstories are fake so we should just give up and die because that's all we can do', it doesn't mean anything to us'' vs 2nd scenario's 'even if they were 'fake' they meant something to us, but that doesn't justify what we've done and even if all we can do is give our lives, we have to do something'

But, again, a lot of this route is about trying not to get killed by eggs every 2 seconds. Don't go into it with very high expectations.

Anyway, yaoi ranking yuri ranking het ranking.

Yaoi Ranking: N/A

Everyone is too busy trying not to get killed by eggs

Yuri Ranking: N/A

Everyone is too busy trying not to get killed by eggs

Het Ranking: N/A

Everyone is too busy trying not to get killed by eggs

i had fun though i liked getting killed by eggs

[glasscoral]

Finished my fourteenth ending cluster! Box of Blessings + Serial Battles (endings 025, 026, 027, 028, 029, 030, 031, 032 and endings 013 and 014!)

I keep saying I have a new contender for worst route but genuinely Box of Blessings is the worst. I played about half of Serial Battles before it became skippable, and finished the other half immediately after playing Box of Blessings so it's grown on me. This is just me talking about how similar they are. And also why I think Box of Blessings is bad. It's not bad because it has bad writing it is bad because it has no writing.

When I first heard 'Box of Blessings is by the Boruto writer and everyone thinks it sucks' I assumed it 'sucked' in the sense of character assassination.

It did not. That assumes it has writing. What Box of Blessings has is a bunch of characters saying 'we should go on an expedition to find this box' -> they go on an expedition -> 'oh, we need to prepare for a battle' -> there is a battle -> 'oh, we should go on an expedition to find this box' -> they go on an e

And it continues for 100 days.

Every branch of this route goes to day 100, and while it does skip days/gives you pretty much no free time it almost feels worse because there's nothing happening other than battles and expeditions, so it feels like the game knows how to speed things up but is deliberately choosing to make things formulaic just to fill days.

The choices are also pretty much meaningless, with almost all of them boiling down to 'will you go with x team and go on an expedition, or will you go with y team and go to battle' but of course both teams do expeditions and battles, and there's very little difference between them in both the routes.

The word 'box' gets used 60 times per minute.

You have to fight ALL OF THE SAME BOSSES WITH THE SAME DIALOGUE IN EVERY BATTLE IN EVERY FUCKING ROUTE

jesus christ i thought BoC dragged a little but this is horrific

Gaku and Shouma get some minor character development, but it's hard to take that seriously as anything character-wise when it's singular conversations in a really long route with no buildup BECAUSE WE ARE TOO FUCKING BUSY GOING ON EXPEDITIONS AND BATTLING TO HAVE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE BUT FUCKING GOING ON EXPEDITIONS AND BATTLING

Now. This is interesting to compare to Serial Battles because Serial Battles was purposely a deliberately storyless miserable experience for the player, meant to punish them for making a bad decision (although i think the sheer level of 'fuck you' is nerfed by just making all the battles skippable)

In practice, this ends up with it having the same gameplay 'loop' (minus expeditions) as Box of Blessings--battle -> skip days -> battle.

Which is...it's not great.

But it's better than Box of Blessings for being deliberate--it tells you beforehand that you're making a choice you'll regret.

The characters in-story are just as miserable as you are from going through the boring gameplay loop.

There's some funny quips during battle.

There's even a tiny bit of explanation of the timeline bullshit going on at the end.

SERIAL BATTLES DOESN'T MAKE YOU FIGHT THE FINAL BOSS TWICE TO GET ALL OF THE ENDS AND THERE ARE ONLY TWO BUT BOX OF BLESSINGS SURE FUCKING DOES

I don't know. I'm of the opinion that it is shitposting even if you're being ironic and so making a route to torment the player and be bad on purpose with no other redeeming qualities will just leave you with a bad route with no other redeeming qualities.

But after seeing a route that is NOT intentionally being written to torment the player and be bad on purpose that is almost identical to the route that's doing it ironically EXCEPT WORSE...yeah, okay, fine, you can do it ironically and be self aware. I guess that's """better""".

God.

One thing I do think this route has made me realize is that there are a few ways I think routes in this series can be 'bad'.

'Bad' in that I think they don't stand as well on their own/require other routes for context.

'Bad' in that I'm not interested in the concepts they're pitching in the route or the concepts are executed badly enough to irritate me

and 'Bad' in that I think it wasted my time.

Of these, and the routes I dislike, I'd put Slasher into the first category, KG and Eva route into the second, and this into the third.

There's some overlap, definitely, but those were the main feelings I felt playing those things.

I also think the first two categories are heavily route-order-dependent, and I likely would've felt at least somewhat differently about these routes should I have played them in a different order. But 'wasted my time' is route-order-agnostic. It's just bad.

This is just bad.

I don't have anything else to say.

I'm not going to do a Yaoi ranking or Yuri ranking or Het ranking like I've been doing for all my previous route reviews.

Yes I know there was a fucking joke gaku harem ending where he resurrects Darumi and Kyoshika and they fall in love with him.

Yes Takumi and Shouma have moments in this route.

None of that counts to me.

Nothing in this route counts

There's no undertones. In any direction to me. No nothing.

All there is is 2000000000000000000000000 expeditions.

Please help me.

Why did the Boruto writer do this

[glasscoral]

Takumi, Nozomi, and the 000-001 parallels

More specifically, I thought I’d put some screenshots side-by-side from Nozomi’s death in Route 0 and Takumi’s death in Route 1. Y’know, just to really lay out how the latter builds off the former.

Whew! Screenshot dump over!!! Some of these are stretches but I wanted to keep the flow of it.

Still, to make up for this sin, here are some bonuses:

[glasscoral]

Finished my thirteenth ending cluster! Box of Calamity route, endings 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40! This was a really long cluster because most of the ending branches go to day 100 so a lot of different things happen. I liked it though. Thoughts + impressions under the cut.

I liked it. While it does drag a bit because every branch goes to day 100 rather than being quicker 'bad' ends (so you have to do all the battles again and they have identical text which can get irritating), most of them go differently enough and reveal different parts of the mystery that it doesn't feel THAT much like doing the same thing 5 times (it feels like that a little but not that much)

It felt like the most 'Uchikoshi' part of the game so far (=alternate timelines and timeline jumping to other routes become relevant, rather than the "Kodaka" routes which feel mostly self-contained).

Slasher and to some extent KG (although way less because it's just the surprise Eito and we don't learn that much about him) also have timeline jumping, but this uses the length of its routes pretty well.

As you might recall, my biggest issues with Slasher were the pacing (free times + having to constantly go to the cafeteria made things drag) and the fact that half of the route doesn't really make sense without the context of the other half of the route.

With Box of Calamity, there are definitely branches of the route that are only explained in other branches of the route, (and I'd almost say I should've played this BEFORE slasher/KG because it makes a lot of Slasher make way more sense) but crucially I think all the branches on this route stand on their own fine, even if you don't have context.

Like you might not know why things are happening but they're compelling enough in their own right, and when you do learn in other branches it makes it even more interesting (or if you learn the truth FIRST and put the pieces together and realize what's going to happen before the characters do...)

In regards to pacing, there also aren't extended stretches of free time, which makes it feel like it drags a bit less (even though there are times when the characters go 'it's going to take me 7 days to do it' and then you have to go through those 7 days where they do/find nothing, which did feel a bit like padding)

From some of my previous route reviews you might see that I thought that Rebellion didn't really give enough time to what would be required for a peaceful future + I thought Eva route was just...bad (romance aside, 'we're the same' didn't really feel like it hit that hard.)

This gave me a pretty good answer to both of those--this feels like it's spending enough time on thinking about what a 'peaceful' future would look like/having them question their 'mission' so that it'll feel a little less "well, everything is fixed now" (and also nozomi explodes) if there's an ending where everyone survives and they DO fix things and it feels like a 'happier' future.

I feel like I'll still prefer 2nd scenario, but it seems like it's setting up something at least okay.

Also, with Eva, 'I've had a chance to watch you, and I'm realizing that you're just kids that literally don't know anything, so I feel sympathy and forgive you because I'm an adult and you remind me of my own kid who is also being forced into a war" makes a lot more sense as a motive for her to forgive the cruel things they did to her than 'we're all the same'--it also allows 'her being a parent' to be an important part of her character without her being reduced to The Mommy (tm).

It does make Eva route a little more awkward in retrospect because in this route she's like i forgive you because I am an adult and you are children, it was the responsibility of us adults to protect you (and yet this does nothing for Takumi's guilt because he did kill her and there's no changing that).

And in Eva route it's just..........yes i am a grown woman happy to have this 17 year old father my kids.

Okay

Anyway, we saw more Hiruko, which was nice. We also saw a Nozomi imposter which was...surprisingly interesting.

I also like when Tsubasa kills people and I got that too.

Overall, I feel like this was definitely a solid route plot-wise. I don't know if I have a ton of feelings on it after the fact, but I don't feel negative/like it wasted my time and I had fun.

I keep doing a 'yaoi rating/yuri rating/het rating' so I guess I'll continue with that.

Yaoi Rating: 6/10

Eito is gone but for some reason Gaku had a bit of a moment with Takumi. Good for him, honestly.

Yuri Rating: N/A

I dooooooooooon't know if two girls talked at length in this very long route. Probably not.

Het Rating: 6/10

Nozomi is gone but Takumi is having a romantic moment with her brain parasite despite knowing it's a parasite. I don't know if that's a win for heterosexuality or just further enforcement of the fact that the only time they can be romantic is in the weirdest possible situations. Probably both.

[glasscoral]

Finished my twelfth ending cluster! Killing Game route, endings 085, 086, 087, 088, 089, 090, 091, and 092! We've finished 50 endings now!

This route had so many concepts and if I close my eyes and forget everything about the execution of those concepts in the route it could be something vaguely approaching good.

Thoughts/spoilers under the cut. You know what I'm going to say.

So, let's start off with the things I would've liked theoretically.

Theoretically, I would've liked Yugamu getting more focus in a route--especially one that grappled with Takumi going 'down to his level' by starting to kill as a job, and what differentiates Yugamu from Takumi.

I also think that Yugamu actually not being attached to Takumi early on (because it's a new timeline!) but growing closer to him as he sees more of Takumi is a good idea!

I've also wanted to see more Nozomi backstory, as someone who really found her speech about her mom in the prologue and why she did what she did resonant.

So, in theory, having someone help her come to terms with the fact that her mother treated her horribly and that she's possibly just acting the way she does out of a desire for someone to care for her is also really good!

I also did like (not theoretically) that we see Hiruko talking about why she cares about Darumi, rather than vice versa.

And, of course, this does have girls kissing, which I'd never say no to. But.

But.

oh my FUCKING GOD THIS WAS DOGSHIT AND IT'S ALMOST MORE OFFENSIVE BECAUSE IT BRINGS UP CONCEPTS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN EXPLORED IN ANY OF THE OTHER ROUTES AND ALMOST COMPLETELY FUCKS THEM UP

like. okay.

-darumi has a bad past but is a kind and deeply suicidal person underneath. instead of showing this subtly like in retsnom where we slowly get to know what she's really like without getting beaten over the head with Horrifically Tragic Backstory Feel Bad!!!!!!!!! we get flashbacks of her saying i had a bad past and then hiruko says she had a bad past we should feel bad for. great. thanks. glad i know how i'm supposed to feel

-tsubasa generally gets along pretty well with takumi and is very smart but also is a coward who will choose to save her own skin and go along with the flow rather than actually making her own decisions even though she knows something is wrong. instead of having her grow past that she is treated as the load who needs to be protected THE WHOLE FUCKING ROUTE and when she kills someone it's because that person was mean to her boyfriend uwu. she also keeps going 'you're a big strong BOY and i'm a girl so you need to protect me' which is weird because, again, in MULTIPLE ROUTES INCLUDING THE ROMANCE ONE THIS HAS NOT BEEN A PART OF HER CHARACTER. IN THE FUCKING PROLOGUE HER WHOLE THING WAS THAT SHE DIDN'T WANT TAKUMI TO TREAT HER LIKE A CHARITY CASE OR BABY HER

-genuinely i am so fucking mad about tsubasa because she has TWO FUCKING ROUTES WHERE SHE HAS BETTER CHARACTERIZATION AND THIS ONE IS JUST DOGSHIT FROM BEGINNING TO END. like vex route has her grow (or 'grow') from being a coward who got them all captured to killing someone in a way that was actually thematically solid and not oops my you were mean to my boyfriend. romance route has her SAY that she wants a boyfriend but isn't desperate for one and just wants to have a nice time with him. and guess what! nowhere in that route does she act weirdly sexist like this at all! nowhere in any other routes, too, but i'm bringing up romance route because that's where she says she actually wants a boyfriend

she's like this the ENTIRE DAMN ROUTE and her and takumi get very little time to actually bond as people that does not involve the phrase we're a guy and a girl

-nozomi gets very little character development in any route outside of 2nd scenario and while SOME OF THIS is understandable because of the nature of her and takumi's relationship (if he doesn't find the actual 'truth' about karua he can't see nozomi as nozomi and he doesn't find the truth until 2nd scenario, so they can't really get 'close' as people like they did in the first route when he thought they WERE different people) and most of the routes are focused on takumi and (whatever other chara)

-it makes the fact that THIS is where she gets extended screentime and 'focus' on her issues even more galling because:

-eva's kind of a nothing character who we don't see 'unbrainwashed' in any other route besides eva route, where her focus is ALSO on how good of a mommy she is.

-nozomi is completely obsessed with her to the point of suicidality but this is played off as just Something Annoying Nozomi Is Doing but its ok!!!!!!! evas such a good mommy!!!!!! mommy nature!!!! she'll sacrifice herself for her daughterwife!!!

-because she is the PERFECT MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-the cast lectures nozomi about having boundaries and not trying to breastfeed from eva every moment of every day but they can't really convince her one way or the other and this only stops when eva blows up

-like is eva's love supposed to be pure and a good thing for nozomi to experience or is it supposed to be an obsession on nozomi's part that's only serving to make her worse and do not fucking say 'well it can be both' because yeah! sure! both of those things can be true, that eva had good intentions but also that nozomi's view on it was deeply unhealthy, but MAYBE THEN THE STORY SHOULD'VE FUCKING HAD EVA GO INTO IT INSTEAD OF JUST BLOW UP

-the third option of course is that we're not supposed to think of it THAT seriously and mostly it's just being played for laughs

-in which case WHY THE FUCK DID WE SPEND SO MUCH TIME ON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF A KILLING GAME

-kamyuhn is also dogshit and i hope she dies and i never want to hear the word little sister again

-however it is very funny that ima is just the 'well........THAT happened' guy and not a siscon in this route because nozomi is taking all his bits

-like this is just recycled ima and kako but going on for like a month. again. in the middle of a killing game

-i was ragging on slasher for feeling like it was moving too slow/the characters weren't taking the killer situation seriously (200000000 free time where nothing was happening) but i think kg might actually be worse because things were happening but it was all ^ that and very little kg-related

-because at that point i find myself going okay why the fuck is the killing game setting there at all? why not have this in some kind of slice-of-life lower stakes setting?

-i think this is really the crux of why i find kg so irritating, because there are so many plot points where i find myself asking why was this there at all? why are you TELLING me how i'm supposed to feel? why is this suddenly a cliche storm?

-finding out this was the same writer as rebellion actually made a lot of sense because i think rebellion had the same issue of 'brings up an interesting concept that starts off ok and then executes it in a lackluster tell-don't-show cliche storm deus ex machina everything's okay now!!!!! way' but the thing with rebellion is that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

-like i found rebellion very cliche-storm not very deep writing but only in comparison to 2nd scenario.

-i can appreciate what it was trying to do (providing a 'better' end for the cast) partly because it wasn't that long and it didn't introduce plot points that made me think 'oh, this would've been better handled in another setting'

-meanwhile kg..................very much made me think that

-i don't think kg being a slice-of-life route would've fixed EVERYTHING but i do think that it'd feel better having the sponsor thing not feel like a completely dropped side plot. eito can still show up after takumi murdered him and try to convince him to murder someone else just while he's looking for apartments. i think that would be fun

-"but it's supposed to be what they're looking forward to giving them hope for when they get back to the satellite" i don't care

^this is what needs to happen to all of them

-more seriously though i think it sucks ass that eito is like you killed me so i wanted to show you how you were a killer too and then everyone's like don't worry takumi you're great <3 don't feel bad you didn't do anything wrong

-this route in general sucks takumi's dick way too damn hard. like...yes, they do ostracize him in the beginning because he killed eito.

-but the way every single character BENDS OVER BACKWARDS to say we're so sowwy takumi we were mean to you the way tsubasa stabs eito for being mean to takumi the way it doesn't even seem to be about killing people or blood on his hands it's about people being mean to takumi it's about all this horrible stuff takumi has had to go through

-i'm not going to lie ESPECIALLY with the way tsubasa is suddenly acting like that it's giving me the vibes of a certain type of isekai light novel protagonist who gets Revenge After False Accusations

he's not like eito at all good thing we dropped THAT 'becoming like eito' plot point early on!!!

(the funny thing is that very early on i thought he WAS 'becoming like eito' in that i was wondering if him being extra sad and wanting connection after being ostracized due to a murder was intended to parallel eito's feelings after being ostracized in goodbye eito but i guess not! great)

okay i've been giving these routes a score for yaoi/yuri/het solely for my own interests so i guess i'll do it here.

Yuri Score: 9/10

Darumi and Tsubasa kiss with tongue. There's more than one suggestive yuri cg in a game so far pretty lacking in yuri. But at what cost.

I don't want to talk about it

Yaoi Score: 6/10

Eito and Takumi talk once but it has some vibes. Giving it a six just for Yugamu flirting with Takumi earlier on and

Het Score: 8.5/10

Tsubasa and Takumi kiss and plan to live together with other roommates. I...think they're a couple. And Tsubasa is fucking Darumi on the side. And whatever is going on with Yugamu

honestly i don't even care anymore this is my response to everything that happened in kg.

please help me

Okay one addendum. A lot of my criticism of KG comes from being able to compare it to other routes, and it's one of the only routes [the other one is written by the same author] I dislike for that reason.

I wouldn't find Tsubasa's writing in this nearly as offensive if I didn't know there were multiple other routes where she didn't act like that.

Darumi is written comparatively solidly this route, but Retsnom is a lot more sympathetic to her.

Likewise, I'd feel a lot better about Nozomi and Yugamu's treatment this route if I didn't know they don't get that much screentime in other routes.

I'm pretty sure I'd find Eva route bad no matter when I played it, because I'm just not interested in Takumi getting a pregnant wife.

But if I thought this was all Tsubasa was going to get, or if I thought Yugamu and Nozomi were potentially going to get more later on? I'd probably find this route pretty decent, because I'd be looking at it from the perspective of 'could've been worse'.

[glasscoral]

I finished my eleventh ending cluster! Eva route, endings 07 and 08. Thoughts under the cut. I think I have a new contender for the worst route in the game, and this is a post explaining why.

First of all, I did know this route was considered bad going in.

I didn't know the specific flavor of bad. I didn't like Slasher, but that's mainly because of the pacing (+ the route not standing on its own well)

This is bad because it is the dr1 bad ending. You know the one.

More seriously, this started off bringing up some interesting concepts (that are elaborated on other places in the series)--Takumi isn't letting Eva go, he's just talking to a brainwashed girl to ease his guilt for being complicit in something horrible.

This, as a start to the route, is actually interesting writing that's in line with some of the themes expressed elsewhere in the story. If this route had been Takumi doing something kind of selfish to a brainwashed girl to ease his guilt and that escalating that'd be kind of terrible but it'd be coherent as a route.

Instead...

Eva magically breaks out of the brainwashing.

Eito and Nozomi deus ex machina them out to escape.

However, they almost die in the desert...and then Kamyuhn randomly shows up to save them.

There's a ~2 week timeskip, and then...

We're greeted with THIS dialogue.

You were spending time together????????? During that two week timeskip I was not there for? And now you're in love with her?

WHEN IN THE LITERAL LAST ROUTE I PLAYED, THE ROMANCE ROUTE, YOU HUNG OUT WITH MULTIPLE OF YOUR CLASSMATES FOR LIKE A MONTH STRAIGHT AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU /LIKED/ THEM?????????

IN THE LITERAL LAST ROUTE I PLAYED SOMEONE /ASKED/ YOU ABOUT KIDS AND YOU WERE LIKE I GUESS I'D LIKE TO HAVE KIDS SOMEDAY BUT IDK and then in this one you're like it's been two weeks i'd be happy to be the father of eva's child

like it's not even 'this is ooc' it's like genuinely was there a gas leak here????????? did someone slip the omegaverse drugs into your food????????????????????????? hello??????

Anyway one of the endings is 'eva's pregnant with my kid now :)'

fuck kamyuhn btw idk if she's alive but that doesn't matter.

And the OTHER one (i do think this is the 'more canon' one bc eva gets to have her big moment...defeating vex with the power of love...for a guy she's known for two weeks...and then suddenly dying tragically because of course)

It has this in it. Like, everything else aside, doesn't this way of looking at things ("we're all the same underneath, this was just chosen for us, we can fix it with the power of love") seem like it contradicts multiple other routes? (rebellion, 2nd scenario, reset, etc)

Doesn't 'we didn't choose this, it was chosen for us' seem to directly contradict WHAT TAKUMI SAYS IN THIS ROUTE ITSELF about him lying to himself to make himself feel better about his complicity?

And, the thing is--the route would make a lot more sense if Eva was still brainwashed--if all of it really was a lie, but I'm not really sure the route itself supports that reading.

It genuinely makes me wonder what happened here--why does the first part of the route feel at odds with the second?

What was the point of this route?

This is the first route where I genuinely haven't been sure.

(if it was 'Takumi ignores the plot in favor of a happy delusion' that's been done better, and with more intent, in multiple other routes.)

I know Kodaka helped write it, but it actually feels mild for his work.

Also, I've generally liked Takumi's relationships with all of the female characters and they haven't felt forced, so I'm also not sure why he's falling in love with her after 2 weeks offscreen????

Other routes say kamyuhn is the daughter of her brother's wife, so she's her aunt--and then in eva route eva...just does not mention that at all and calls them 'kamyuhn's birth parents' like they're not at all related???????? hello?????

Anyway I've been ranking these routes on how yaoi/yuri/het they are and this is a 10/10 on het ranking because there's nothing more heterosexual than ending up a pregnant tradwife.

At least the route wasn't that long.

(seriously, why was the vex route weirdly solid and then this was...this)

N/A on yaoi and N/A on yuri because two guys and two girls don't really talk all that much.

Yes. It is

This video is Eva route to me.

[glasscoral]

I finished my tenth ending cluster. Romance route, endings 061, 062, 063, 064, 065, 066, 067, and 068.

Thoughts + spoilers under the cut. A lot more positive than I thought they'd be. I had fun.

When this route started with 'Takumi falls off the roof trying to kiss Hiruko, cracks his head open, has a dream about kissing three girls, and then ignores everyone else to go on a dating game show run by Moko with those three girls participating'...I kind of expected sfw, 'toned-down'/'acceptable' Cult of Takumi. ('people falling in love with takumi with a very slim justification and acting way different than normal')

And, well, the whole thing about CoT is that it isn't in any way 'acceptable'. So I was kind of worried, going into it as a route.

But the 'Romance' route ended up being a lot more about expectations surrounding romance than I thought?

Don't get me wrong, there is an option to date all those girls, but I was really pleasantly surprised at the fact that most of it was focused on Takumi genuinely enjoying the time he spent with them, as friends, and feeling like he'd lost something when he had to 'move onto the next girl'.

I also love that the longest ending to the route explicitly didn't have him getting together with any of them, but had him acknowledging that he enjoyed their company and promising to meet up with them afterwards.

It was a genuinely sweet route, I like the way all of the girls bounce off Takumi...they're fun. I wish we saw a bit more of them with each other but they're really fun. Also we saw some of Takumi's hobbies + interests which is nice.

[Also the pacing was better than I thought it'd be? Maybe I'm still...shellshocked from Slasher Route but there actually weren't 20000 free time events for no reason, despite the whole concept of the route being 'fuck around with girls and forget the aliens']

more miscellaneous thoughts

-if you said takumi saying 'i don't have romantic feelings for nozomi' was just a justification for all the confession stuff i feel like i'd partly agree with you but also i think that because of how deeply the 'ideal' of karua underlies the way he sees nozomi...i think he's also just kind of right about that as an appraisal of their relationship

-like it could be romantic but it could also be just chasing after an idol. or rather, forget 'could be'--there is an ending where he confesses to nozomi in this (and gets turned down because he hasn't talked to her at all and she doesn't know him) so it really feels like he's just chasing something that doesn't exist with her

-although i guess you can say takumi is chasing something that doesn't exist with everyone (the way they used to be in previous timelines) --nozomi is different because he was already chasing karua and then he's overlaid a karua that never existed over a nozomi that doesn't exist in this timeline over the one that exists now and ended up with something that feels a couple more layers of weird than what's going on with everyone else

-not sure what my point is here other than 'another route where this series has opinions on nozomi and takumi's relationship that seem more like 'it's an elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with' than anything else

anyway i keep going yaoi ranking yuri ranking and het ranking so i'm going to keep doing it

Yaoi Ranking: N/A

Two male characters do not talk onscreen in this route.

Yuri Ranking: 6.5/10

Okay, I'm looking back to CoA and realizing I rated it really low because of the het love confession but maybe it doesn't deserve that because Kurara and Nozomi did have a moment in that route and in so many routes girls don't even talk.

Anyway. 6.5 because Kurara phrases a few things like she has a crush on Kyoshika and I think it's the most explicitly (not very explicit) something has seemed yuri-ish in an otherwise very not-yuri game.

So it goes.

Het Ranking: 7.5/10

I'm bumping it down despite there being kissing and a lack of other relationships because there's an option to turn them all down. This might seem like I'm bumping down the 'het' option because I liked this route (partly true) but also I do think it's different if it's avoidable non-serious fluff that doesn't necessarily have to be romantic vs unavoidable kiss scene in an otherwise serious route. Maybe it's just me.

Maybe I just rated Slasher higher than this because I thought it was bad. Maybe I need to find another way of communicating that.

Anyway

the mood

[glasscoral]

If you're curious, here's the full incident.

People have been passing around 'fan questions' that Kodaka had supposedly answered in Weibo DMs. Which was kind of suspicious in and of itself because all his previous fan q&as had been public responses (on twitter + bluesky) that everyone could see and verify on their own.

A lot of these responses were single-word answers, and a lot of these questions were very vague.

It was also impossible to verify whether it was the actual account, because...it was in DMs.

The one that had been floating around that got interpreted as 'Kodaka was commenting on Takumi top/bottom' was this.

The question this person asked (in chinese, notably) was 'in the/a blcg, is Takumi a 1 or an 0?'

[the first response is just the 'play hundred line' autoresponse]

Kodaka responds with '1', no further context.

The thing here is: This question could be read as 'in the cg that exists in the game, is Takumi a top or a bottom',( <- this is the way I read it at first)in which case Kodaka is just flat-out lying, because. Come on. We've all seen that cg. Takumi is not topping in it.

However, it could ALSO be read as 'Does a BL CG of Takumi exist in the game' (if you read the 0/1 as 'doesn't/does exist'), in which case answering 1 would be...just the correct answer.

Afterwards, he didn't apologize for saying Takumi tops, he just said he doesn't understand Chinese slang all that well and told people to stop asking questions in DMs.

In not even a month, we went from Kodaka answering fan-questions about The Hundred Line (even the weird ones) >> Kodaka confirms Eito had romantic feelings for Takumi by the end of the 2nd scenario >> Kodaka said Takumi tops but no one can tell if it’s a troll >> Kodaka apologises for saying Takumi tops. I see Eitaku as vers, but if I was Kodaka I’d tweet that anything remotely sexual makes Eito projectile vomit just to make everyone mad. Except for the perverts (complimentary) willing to indulge in Kodaka’s obvious thing for emeto. The perverts win.

[glasscoral]

I keep thinking about kodaka weighing in on chinese Takumi/Eito top/bottom discourse JUST to lie about what's in his game.

Kind of a legend tbh

[glasscoral]

I think it's beautiful when I see a line in EN, assume it's a joke the translators really had to make work, then look at the jp and it's pretty much the same joke.

[glasscoral]

I finished my ninth ending cluster (?). Casual route, endings 023 and 024. Thoughts and spoilers under the cut.

The whole premise of the 'casual' slice of life route is that Takumi is brainwashed to think nothing's going on and all his friends who are dead are back. (or who have just LEFT like eito. Like eito's not dead at that point in the timeline he's just away from the group)

The story kind of warns you about that and also warns you that you're going 'off the beaten path' so to speak, so it's not really a surprise (nice of it to do, also)

But also.

But also...

Okay. I get that the fake Eito tulpa is more a representation of Takumi's feelings + connected to the brainwashing because in the route [multiple Eitos] where the actual Eito is in his head he acts way different.

(I love that this game has multiple Eito tulpa incidents, also.)

I get the idea that this 'fake' Eito is intended to be a representation of Takumi's desire to ignore the reality of his friends dying and stay in his 'cage', just listening to someone else. To go along with the brainwashing, instead of fighting against it.

But like.

The whole time

It's just

It's just framed like this.

I'm not even going to ask why. I know why.

Thank you, casual route. I feel like I learned something here.

I also love that the actual Eito was just out there and could've theoretically come back and seen this. His classmates had to see him roleplaying with an imaginary Eito in the cage and talk to dead people and just ignore it.

It's great.

Yaoi Rating: 7/10

It wasn't that long but it was impactful. Also something was going on with Yugamu and Takemaru here. Idk what. But something

Yuri Rating: N/A

Girls didn't really talk enough for yuri to happen.

Het Rating; 3.5/10

Nozomi exploded AGAIN

[glasscoral]

I finished my eighth ending cluster. Rebellion end, endings 04, 05, and 06.

Spoilers [for 2nd scenario, because I discuss it too in this] and my thoughts under the cut. I think this route is actually kind of interesting as commentary on 2nd scenario, but taken on its own feels unsatisfying.

I think Rebellion route is good as a response to 2nd scenario and player reactions to it, like the reset end.

Much like the Reset end felt like Kodaka saying no, you don't get to just kill all these NPCs and get a happy end, this ending being short and pretty underdeveloped feels like it's addressing the player for wanting 'an ending where everything is fixed and everything is peaceful'.

On the surface, it seems like the exact "peaceful" ending a lot of players are looking for--they realize what they're doing is wrong, they turn their back on humanity (instead of continuing to close their eyes until they literally no longer can), and they make peace with the Futurans.

It feels like a 'fix-it' for the way 2nd scenario ended, in every way.

Eito and Takumi have their relationship suddenly fixed--the two of them get back together very quickly, Eito is accepted by the group and by Takumi, and even talks about his dreams for the future- he doesn't have to go to the lengths of pulling out his eyes that he does there. The two of them seem happy, like they finally understand each other, unlike 2nd scenario, where Eito can only confess that he also loved Takumi before he dies.

Shion's intercept system that killed the whole cast in 2nd scenario was dealt with easily, with just Takumi and Eito this time, as the close partners they are.

Unlike 2nd scenario, where Nozomi is forced to broker peace all on her own as the only human and a high school student who is not a diplomat and trying to survive on her own, a new rebel faction (that haven't been mentioned before) as well as their leader, a character who was vaguely mentioned but not by name and not as a leader, appear to give the students support and a promise of a happier life afterwards if they work together (And she's both sincere about it and able to do it with no catches, since she's actually a good leader!)

I even think Nozomi dying for peace in the 'good' end is commentary on her being the only one that survives in 2nd scenario, since it's the exact opposite of what happens there! That gets 'fixed' too! Why should everyone die for her?

But the thing is...while Rebellion 'fixes' a lot of the things in 2nd scenario, it does so by dramatically changing the tone of the story.

There's a way to fix this without everyone else dying. Everyone's forgiven. We can do this. We're family. We love each other.

This is a story about love and friendship now.

I think that the late branching point only contributes to the way it feels like a timeline that takes 2nd scenario plot points and 'fixes' them, but doesn't have its own identity outside of 'fixing' a 'bad' end.

We don't have that much time to spend with Kamyuhn! We turn our backs on humanity relatively late in the game!

-i love how the artificial satellite comes barreling down towards earth and it looks like it's going to crash into them and then there's a huge explosion. but its not them. its just vexhness randomly exploding. this is a character trait of hers to me now. i love that it cuts to 15 years later when takumi looks the exact same. i hope more people randomly explode in future routes instead of just dying

-i do think this route being short helps it be a lot more tolerable because it doesn't have time to drag. it gets in it 'fixes' 2nd scenario it gets out and i can't fault it for that. like i do get that it exists to give a 'better' timeline for the cast.

-it's still funny though

Without further ado: yaoi ranking yuri ranking het ranking

Yaoi Ranking: 6/10

Somehow, Eito and Takumi are at it again. I'd put it higher but it really was just one conversation. But what a conversation it is.

Yuri Ranking: N/A

Girls don't talk to each other in this one.

Het Ranking: 4/10

Nozomi explodes

[glasscoral]

I finished my seventh ending cluster (?) (I'm aware they're categorized as separate routes in game, but they're both branches of the same choice, so...) Ending 01, 2nd Scenario, and Ending 02, Reset.

Thoughts under the cut (and huge spoilers, please don't read until you're done with 2nd Scenario), as always. [kind of develops into a general thoughts dump halfway through]

I'm genuinely shocked that the first "half" of the game (the prologue) and the second "half" of the game (2nd Scenario) were as solid as they were.

I feel like there's no way to phrase this without sounding like 'oh, i expected the Danganronpa guy to make dogshit' but that's really not it.

The two 'halves' of the game were both very different tonally (the first half felt like experiencing the highs and lows of high school football (in the most positive way), and the second half was...a story about war asking the question of what the 'right' thing to do would be for people created as weapons, against their will--in a situation where it's either kill or be killed, but to live & continue with their mission and keep fighting is to keep committing atrocities and eventually wipe out a planet in pursuit of their own 'happy ending'.

It would be really easy to have it feel like tonal whiplash so bad it's hard to take seriously, but it's not--all the little things you ignored first go-around (because you were too busy just building up bonds with your friends and just trying to complete your mission- that'll fix everything, right? enjoy your high school life!) build up more and more in the second playthrough until it's impossible to ignore the horrible reality of what you're doing.

The game even asks you--do you want to do something horrible to this woman you have tortured onscreen until her mind breaks? tThe only thing she can do is beg you not to kill her, but you have to in order to know the truth. Do you really, really want to know the full truth about what you're doing, no matter how awful it is?

And then you say yes, and you get the full truth.

And you have to decide whether you're going to keep fighting, knowing that.

If it's worth killing millions of people JUST to have a chance to colonize this new planet. Humanity needs a new place to live, and it's not like the people you're fighting against will just let the war end, so surely it'll be 'okay' to do this?

^this is what a lot of video games about war end up saying.

One of the first things that shocked me about 2nd scenario was how much it really hammered in the point that what they were doing was horrific, but that Takumi and friends were doing it for their own happy ending, and were prepared to live with the guilt and blood on their hands.

So at that point I thought--well, I guess they're going for an 'unsatisfying' happy ending where everyone has to live with the guilt of a genocide on their hands but is going to get through it together?

(at that point i was like, eh, that's fine, i've seen a lot more questionable war narratives i've played xiv so this seems like a step up tbh)

-& then hundred line smacked it out of their hands and went oh you THOUGHT you'd get to nuke the planet and walk away scot free? great news, if you're going to use that as your strategy that means your enemies can too :) what now

-no just genuinely i think it's crazy (positively) that there is NO option that lets you just nuke everyone and get off scot-free as war heroes

-you can choose to not die for people you don't know. to not lose anyone else. and let the nukes go off and give them free reign of the destroyed planet but this is not a satisfying conclusion for the player. the characters as you know them have their memories completely erased and rewritten and are no longer who you know them as! their relationships are completely gone! the implication there is that they'll be expected to repopulate the planet, but oops, this is also the route where you learn that due to the process used to create them as clones they're all very close genetically. this might not matter otherwise as they don't really consider themselves siblings, but if you're trying to repopulate a planet.......this might be an issue!

-if you choose to not stand for anything and anyone else and only prioritize yourself and the people you care about while ignoring the reality, then you'll have the people you care about taken away and you won't be the same you. you'll lose everything you were trying to 'protect' and live in a 'safe' and happy fiction about nothing at all

-the fact that going against the system that created them is what turns them from immortal soldiers who won't stop coming back to people who WILL die and it's still the right choice

-like they knew they were going to die. they knew it wasn't an easy choice. they say multiple times they're prepared to lose everything

-it's not about living for something the only choice they could make was what to die for and by god they made that choice

-god i am so fucking upset it's not every day that you can kill off an entire cast of people and have the one survivor just among the rubble trying her hardest for peace and have me go yeah. that's a fitting ending.

-if anything this has made me realize just how many pieces of media about wars either both-sides it or act like if the people on the invading side are inconvenienced in any way by trying to stop the war then it's 'justified' for them to not try to do that

-hundred line says that no. to go against the system that created you to fight and try to stop the war yourselves will make you pay the ultimate price. it's not as easy as just saying oh we can just stop war :)

-but you have to do it anyway. that's how you can actually save someone

-i also really like that even though vex is the most amoral of the aliens ("aliens") i say but really it feels like they're just humans [on another planet so we don't get in hot water because if we set this on earth it Will be commentary on a specific conflict whether we want it to be or not] everything she's doing is stuff humans did first and none of it is ever portrayed as retroactively 'justifying' what they did to the planet

-genuinely like i said this is just making me realize HOW low the bar has been

-as much as i liked this route right now i personally feel like it's not really a good idea to do it first (we'll see if my mind changes later) because it does hit harder if you the player have been fucking around and doing other things and learning about characters in their actual routes, since they won't get that screentime here, and getting slowly drip-fed information that won't really get elaborated on there--you the player will go 'hey, what does that mean' and the characters will be dealing with other things and won't have time to dig into it so you'll be wondering what it means the whole time, if it's serious or if it's just another joke

-and then you get here and you go Oh they were serious and they did tell me ahead of time

-i really do feel like this game benefits from giving you a bit before you pop open this box and find the awful truth

-this ending was so solid that it's um. making me worry a bit about the 'ending where all characters survive' because at this point i feel like there's zero chance it doesn't involve timeline bullshit. and normally that'd be fine but because everyone's deaths were so purposeful in this ending a route that 'fixed the timeline' to have everyone survive would have a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to not feel cheap

-like, if i want everyone to survive i have fanfic. if i want most people to survive it seems like earlier branches of that route where you DON'T just go along with humanity might have a more hopeful vibe to them. i'd personally prefer an ending where everyone dies but it means something rather than an ending where everyone is magically alive but there's no real meaning to it

ok time to get to what i've been talking about in all of these

Yaoi Rating: 8/10

LOOK AT THIS CALLBACK

Yuri Rating: 4/10

Rip Darumi (girls talked to each other but didn't really have chemistry this route)

Het Rating: 4/10

I have to say, despite Nozomi asking Takumi out on a date after things are all over 1) it feels like he's TURNING HER DOWN BECAUSE HE'S STILL STUCK ON KARUA 2) also they don't even get to go on that date. He dies.

He dies held in her arms, yes, but he's also still calling her Karua as he goes? I guess you could read 'Karua was right here this whole time as' 'you are Karua' but honestly it just felt like he was hallucinating Nozomi as Karua as he died. (and she was also there during his final attack)

Which is really sad. Girl I think you're losing to a fictional OC version of yourself made up for propaganda purposes to convince him to fight in order to 'protect her'. Not that you'd necessarily want to win but . girl

[glasscoral]

If you were ever curious, here's every (non-Takumi) defense unit member's room in Hundred Line

[glasscoral]

I finished my sixth ending cluster. Multiple Eitos route, endings 009, 010, 011, and 012. Thoughts under the cut.

Everyone who called CoT the 'yaoi route' please know I'm coming for you for false advertising.

More seriously, there are a few things in this route that are really interesting to compare to Eito's behavior in other routes and especially his behavior in CoT.

When I saw that scene with Eito and the fireworks in Coming of Age, it read way more as eito being genuinely upset that Takumi thought of him as completely controlled by his mental illness and unable to have his own will (and then trying to cover it up immediately after). In other words, that Takumi saw him as worthy of pity rather than trying to actually understand him.

In CoT, Eito thanks Takumi for 'curing' him so he can perceive things normally, and seems genuinely in love with him. At the time, something about it seemed 'off' but I didn't really have enough information about how he acted in other routes to really pinpoint why.

This, I think, gave me what I needed.

There are a few things that stick out about Eito's behavior in CoT--he's 'fixed' and obsessive over Takumi. What he feels in that route is just love, but he doesn't particularly care if Takumi feels the same way. He's also perfectly fine with suggesting more and more sexual 'rewards' to other members of the cast--he doesn't care about being exclusive with Takumi, just that he can continue to be with him forever.

Multiple Eitos is interesting in that he doesn't seem to be under the influence, and he's basically the opposite of how he acts in CoT. He doesn't feel just love (and honestly he isn't even acknowledging that part of what he feels towards Takumi is positive) but he wants Takumi to understand him. He wants Takumi to feel the same way he does, and to be one with him (and the "you and i are one now, like a clear empty field lit by a pale blue moon" is a reference to both of their last names (the 'aotsuki' is the blue moon and the 'sumino' is the field) He says he wants Takumi to surrender to him and give him his body, but when Takumi is willing to give up and let him do what he wants, he says he didn't want to see Takumi like this, that's not what he wanted. He also seems to want to be exclusive with Takumi in this route--'you'll be surrounded by ME, i'll be the one who's killing you'/'if you get a romantic partner i'll be there making commentary on every disgusting thing you do'. (and i'm still not sure if Takumi sees everyone as eito in that end so if he did anything wouldn't he. still be doing it with eito???? ALSO NO ONE ELSE BROUGHT UP ROMANTIC PARTNERS WHY DID EITO'S MIND IMMEDIATELY GO THERE)

It's a lot.

Also, all of that aside..

I kept seeing people post this and joke about it being in reference to either Eito being gay or eito's cognitive disorder so it was such a shock to see that in-game this is what kicks off a whole route that's kind of about both, where Takumi sees the world (somewhat) through the same eyes as Eito does and has to avoid getting found out, just like Eito.

Oh, Takumi, you think he has to die because he's not normal? Well, I have great news for you about yourself.

Without further ado, here is my yaoi ranking, yuri ranking, and het ranking.

Yaoi Ranking: 9/10

YES

Yuri Ranking: N/A

Two girls do not talk to each other at length this route.

Het Ranking: N/A

A guy and a girl do not talk to each other at length this route. Or they might, but it's all Eito so I can't tell.

i'm sorry this was just about yaoi i think it might be terminal on my end

[glasscoral]

I finished my fifth ending cluster. Retsnom route, endings 049, 050, 051, and 052. My opinions on them below the cut. They're mostly positive, although there's a little bit of ???.

I like how, just like in Slasher, Darumi goes for a group peeing session with someone (slight exaggeration) and brings back something that can kill everyone. Except this time YOU'RE the one going on the group peeing session with her.

Honestly, there were a lot of things I liked about this route (and a couple things i was a little unsatisfied with), so I'll just go in order.

It started off with Takumi lying to Nozomi's face to make decisions for her, and then it blowing up in his face.

-I liked that in some senses it's a story about making up for what you've done to someone--while Takumi and Nozomi mend their relationship, he's not 'let off the hook' for it immediately.

-I also like that part of what caused this route is making decisions for Nozomi, and part of mending their relationship seems to be Takumi slowly getting a stronger relationship with someone else and not making that same mistake with her again.

-While I feel like she didn't necessarily need to apologize to him, I did feel like her trying to carry on the memory of her dead friends made it feel less like 'sorry i was lashing out at you after you lied to me and let my friends die' and more like she's also moving on.

-Darumi and Takumi genuinely have a great dynamic. They're REALLY funny with each other and feel like stupid friends [with undertones]. The "I don't need love because I'm not going bald" conversation was just an amazing bit.

-The conversation about 'fakes' after the Eito revival + the one-off 'you were just made to be weapons of war' dahlxia line + the 'your backstory is fake' from another route really makes me have some questions about what's ACTUALLY going on with the SDU. I feel like we didn't learn all that much this route though, just crumbs that may or may not be true.

-The 'eito's corpse is still in the grave so who tf is this' reveal was great though.

-just thinking about no one ever choosing darumi and her willing to go through hell for someone who didn't even purposely 'choose' her

-thinking about the fact that every other host killed themselves because they realized they were a copy but darumi always wanted to die and from the beginning was fine with sacrificing herself to bring everyone back so she had no problem with it

-TAKUMI SUMINO YOU ARE SO STUPID FOR THINKING THAT THE REASON SHE WAS PUSHING YOU AWAY WAS BECAUSE SHE WAS A FAKE AND NOT BECAUSE SHE WANTED YOU TO HAVE AN EASIER TIME KILLING HER I KNOW YOU REALIZED AT THE END BUT IM SO FUCKING UPSET

-part of this route is about making up for past mistakes and darumi reviving everyone (that was lost because takumi came back and 'saved her') at the cost of her own life feels very fitting in a sense of it's what she'd want/she knows it was 'a mistake'

-AT LEAST GIVE HER A KISS TAKUMI COME ON JUST ONE TELL HER YOU LOVE HER SHE DESERVES ONE!!!

-the fact that he was fully prepared to kill himself WITH her because he thought it was a mistake that she took that burden on herself for him and he shouldn't have been alive but she was determined to be the only one to die and wanted him to live on

-man it would've been so easy for her to just let him die with her or not revive everyone else (because he literally tried to kill her after all that!!) but in the end she was determined to do it for him and she did.

Man.

Anyway, since I've been giving these a yaoi rating/yuri rating/het rating i'm going to keep doing it.

Yaoi Ranking: 4.5/10

Lower than the prologue, but not by a ton. Eito has a couple of yaoi lines towards Takumi (+ implies he's the only one he's interested in), but then falls in 'love' with Darumi after seeing her true form. This route is mainly about Takumi/Darumi, though, so it's not super yaoi. [Still a little confused about the 'true form' bit--she was wandering around before she'd fully transformed, right? So what was he seeing? Also, after he's revived he says something that implies he sees her as a monster and not a human. I'm a bit confused. Maybe it's just that Eito is het if it's funny based on route.]

Yuri Ranking: N/A

I don't thiiiiiiiiink two girls talk to each other at length in this route?

Het Ranking: 6.5/10

Weirdly this one's only a little higher than the Vex route because 1) despite all the jokes Darumi makes they genuinely do feel like friends with tension for most of the route 2) there's no kiss like slasher and while there is a love confession like coming of age...it's on the branch where Darumi eats the world, so it doesn't feel like an unambiguous 'happy' ending

I liked it.

Darumi :(

^summary of the route