cw for yet again more mentions sexual assault because thats all i read about i guess

Is this my life now? Just reading kinda disappointing visual novels forever and ever and then complaining about them on the internet? I promise, I do other things. I read good stories. I touch grass, even. But I have friends, and I'm a nice guy so I do them favors...Such as play disappointing vns. I actually don't think Togainu no Chi is a bad game-- It's got some likable character and bangin' music, some moments of genuine pathos-- it's just very, very clumsy and totally lacking in momentum. I'm telling you, man. They forgot the plot. Bitches forgot the whole ass plot! But you know what they didn't forget? The OSSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANSSSSSSS

please take a moment to observe this perfectly good ossan (╯▽╰ )♡

ANIME IS MY ONLY ESCAPE FROM THIS BULLSHIT CALLED REALITY

Game stars ̶S̶q̶u̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶L̶e̶o̶n̶h̶a̶r̶t̶ Akira, certified streetfighting lone wolf, autistic baddie and total babygirl. He lives in like, Neo Tokyo or something, I forgot, but it's pretty MESSED UP. Y'see, WW3 was about to go down, so the Japanese government kidnapped a buncha kids to turn them into super soldiers but the war never actually happened so now all the kids are MESSED UP. And so there's all sorts of violence and drug crimes goin' on, lots of MESSED UP stuff happening. Akira is framed for murder and a lady with big boobs tells him he has to go to MURDER DEATH CITY to fight the MURDER DEATH BOSS or else they'll send him to MURDER PRISON. Also also, there is a drug called "Line" that is translated to "Rein" for some terrible reason and it's MESSED UP. Also also also, the people in MURDER DEATH CITY and heavily implied to do MESSED UP things like kill people and be gay, sometimes even at the same time.

Frankly, the game is MESSED UP and it really wants you to know this. It reinforces from the the get-go that, erm, sexual assault is what they're selling and that there absolutely will be violence and drugs and all those other things that your mom really hates. It is, in an odd way, endearingly edgy. It was the first game Nitro+chiral put out and it's clear they wanted to fit in with their parent studio's (Nitroplus of Saya no Uta fame) renowned darkness. The setting is great springboard for intrigue and the story loads you up with a lot of lore. It's a shame, then, that the game almost immediately drops all of that and just kinda collapses in on itself like a half-baked birthday cake. Yippee.

So basically, forget about the plot. It doesn't matter. But the boys, they matter. Kind of. Maybe. Oh god, tell me at least the main characters matter, right...?

ROUTE KEISUKE: EVERYBODY LOVES A CHILDHOOD FRIEND

me and the homie right enjoying some delicious hotpockets in an amazon warehouse

Keisuke is the first up in the recommended playing order. He's the designated osananajimi boy of the game and frankly, annoyingly, a very realistic character. He's much more innocent than Akira and devoted to a fault-- His insistence on joining his bosom buddy in Murder Death City Adventure is a source of great contention in the first half of the game. His route revolves around his feelings of inferiority towards Akira and how that drives him to do Super Heroin.

As a character, Keisuke is strangely real. He's most certainly somebody you've met before. Think about it: Middle school, your old friend group. There's this one kid, perfectly nice and all, but he's clingy, especially on this one other kid. He insists they do everything together. He unknowingly talks about him constantly. He's nice, but he's lacking in his own personality. He's sensitive, naive, and stubborn beyond belief. Keisuke is a character that made want to both ruffle his hair and slap him upside the head. The scenes of him coming to terms with his sexuality are written with a lot of honesty, it's hard not to feel for the guy. A baby gay if I ever saw one.

...His route, though, is a different matter.

Keisuke's route is something like deciding to get Arby's while your house is burning down: it's a bad decision. The entire setup of the "please go find the murder boss so we don't send you to murder prison" thing is thrown into the void in favor of hunting down your dear ol' friend, who decided to give the fantasy PCP a try and is now murdering people in the street. With the entire death gauntlet structure disposed of, the intense action mystery turns into a meandering, almost cushy affair with some gore splatters thrown about haphazardly. It's almost offensive how little the plot matters at this point. This route is also where you're greeted with your first H scene (yes, a very MESSED UP one) as well as your second H scene (which, despite having 100% more consent, is somehow more offensive. How? How does that even work? Oh, the gymnastics!). At the end of it all of it, you're greeted with an embarrassing text dump and a pathetic murmur about how all those pals you made along the way are probably dead. Keisuke's route is essentially nothing. It takes everything the story set up and cancels it out, making the (canonical) happy ending feel hollow. Seeing Akira and Keisuke's relationship grow was, with a few exceptions, very touching-- But the resulting backhands to the plot and everyone in it left a bad taste in my mouth.

ROUTE RINCHAN: THE PRICE OF GENKI!

me and the murder twink i bagged by being a final fantasy character

Rinchan's route is difficult to place in the playing order due to big reveals it contains....That being said, these reveals are kind of laughable and change basically nothing about the already nothing plot. So yeah, don't worry about it and just enjoy the Rinchan. This embodiment of "twink boutta pounce" is one of the first fellas you'll meet on your trek through Murder Death City and he, despite his slightly concerning affection fro murder, makes life quite cushy for you. His route is focused on picking at old wounds and having really lame plot twists.

Rinchan is probably the most dynamic character in the entire game. He's endlessly friendly to you at the start, really going out of his way to keep you alive, but at a certain point in his story a switch is flipped and Rinchan goes Discord Darkmode due to Immense Gay Trauma and Forever Guilt. I like the guy. He says the Fuck word a lot and murders people in the rain with epic action music. He's notably the only openly gay character who isn't a demented lunatic, which is weird considering what genre of game this is... But basically, Rinchan was a refreshing surprise after the stupidity of a certain childhood friend. He is also the only character in fiction who I believe would benefit from getting some dick.

But the problems arise yet again. Unlocking Rinchan means diverging from Keisuke's route, which means you have to abandon the guy who started this whole thing in the first place. Your coked out oasnanajimi is left to murder randomly in the streets and die pathetically offscreen. Instead, the focus is on the history of Rinchan, which inevitably brings up some mega plot reveals that are somehow much more relevant to the plot while still being totally hollow. The ghost of Keisuke seems to loom overhead, undercutting every twist with the overwhelming feeling of pointlessness. Everything is tied up and cancelled out with a messy, haphazard bow/explosion. At least you get to see Rinchan fight Shadow the Edgehog with a katana in the rain to buttrock.

ROUTE MOTOMI: LOVE IS STORED IN THE OSSAN

LOCAL MAN IS AND HAS BEEN "GOIN' THROUGH IT" FOR 40+ YEARS

Motomi is the second (or third) up on the recommended playing order and he is a grizzled, extremely divorced detective man who chain smokes and ruffles your hair and has a dark past and talks about God in a wistful manner. His route is the only one that actually means something, and it's also the best route because it's mostly composed of scenes where you smoke a cigarette in an old church.

I think it is very clear how I feel about this geezer. Look, I don't go here. I'm just a little guy. I'm just a little dude. A gamer. I'm not a man liker by any means. But this ossan? This absolute, tar-lunged, sleezy-smiled specimen of nonbeliever? I'm converted. Motomi is by far the most romantic character, his scenes consisting of gentle musings and sage advice in candlelight. There's a lot of nostalgia there, and I'm weak for that kind of thing, so hook line and sinker! His and Akira's back-and-forth is endearing as well-- A relationship that starts with hesitant comradery and ends with the declaration "I'm gonna take you all the way to the grave with me..." Ah, yes. The love is stored in the ossan.

Motomi's route still lies in the shadow Keisuke's Big Fuckup, but it manages to just barely pull through and be worthwhile. First off: Motomi is charismatic as hell. In Keisuke and Rinchan's route, the mention that the other characters where probably dying off screen was extremely distracting to the cozy cute times attempting to happen. But with Motomi, I don't even care. Keisuke's head was exploding while the ossan waxed on about his dead family and I was having the time of my life. Second off: the reveal actually (kind of) matters. This route does contain a few twists, and while the plot STILL ultimately does not matter, the information given serves to flesh out both the world and resident dadman number one. Finally, something with actual thought and purpose! If you play the game, play it for this route. Play it for the ossan. It's the only one worth your time.

ROUTE EVERYONE ELSE: I AM VERY TIRED

There are technically 2 (or 3, depending on the version) other routes in this game that act as a sort of "far side moon" reveal thing. However, I did not play them. After completing Ossan's lovely story I deleted the game and did something more productive, like raking leaves or doing laundry. I stopped caring about the story halfway through the first route and simply did not have enough will power to suck face with shadow the edgehog.

SEX, VIOLENCE, AND DRUGS ON TV

Here's where I get into the nitty gritty of the sex stuff, including the assault, so just go ahead and skip if that's not your thing.

Togainu no Chi, as stated before, is a game that advertises itself as "pretty frickin' messed up". It lets you now right off the bat that consent is not going to be a component in much of the intimacy, teasing on and on about how "the winner of the duel can do anything they want to the loser". I prepared myself for the worst. I was both underwhelmed and a little upset. Not that I was looking for that kind of thing, but rather, there was some pretty confusing mental gymnastics that resulted in a cozy, "consensual" H scene being somehow more offensive than an actual rape (I feel insane typing that).

In Keisuke's route, there is a pretty nasty scene in which he assaults the main character under the influence of Line (oddly not the worst thing I've ever read, and also not the first time I've read about creative use of a screwdriver). The only thing about the scene I actually cared about was what it would do to the main two's relationship-- Keisuke hurt the person he loves most and that very person must wrestle with that trauma while still caring about the perpetrator. It's a complicated situation where neither person is truly at fault but they still have to deal with the damage. It's ultimately not completely confronted, but the time Akira and his bestie spend together afterward does enough to reestablish their relationship. It's the best part of Keisuke's route. But then, there's the culminating H scene.

:(((((((

At this point, it's all pretty sweet and hunky-dory or whatever, Akira is going full tsundere and Keisuke is about to cry out of joy for finally getting some dick. He explicitly states "If you tell me to, I'll stop" which is a breath of fresh air honestly, and it's all swell until Akira's trauma resurfaces -- going down on a guy who hurt you, right mind or not, is panic attack worthy-- but Keisuke decidedly revokes his previous statement and goes about his snogging anyway. Now, how am I supposed to feel about that? How is anyone supposed to feel about that? Is it supposed to be sexy? Is it supposed to be heartwarming? Perhaps the ideology here is that "Keisuke is erasing the previous assault with his love" but that's a terrible fuckin' thing when the other party is visibly upset. It was such an odd choice, to contrast their previous encounter, a painful, horrific one with an intimate moment where the two could enjoy themselves only to destroy it all with much the same behavior. Keisuke goes from being a slightly annoying but realistically written friend to being a selfish, vile human being in this one moment. Any faith I could have in heir relationship was overwritten with disgust for the rest of the game.

As for the other H scenes, not much to report on except it's better if only because there's consent. Shiki (Shadow the Edgehog, if you will) is notorious for having a number of extremely naughty assault scenes, but I did not care about the game enough so I did not see them. I didn't encounter any other naughty things. I somehow expected a lot more nastiness to go down with how dire the setup was. Ossan's scene was 10/10 though I'd go down on a dad again LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WAIT THIS SONG IS REALLY GOOD

One of the reasons why I continued with this game as long as I did was the soundtrack, or more specifically, this one song. It plays a lot in the tender moments and it 100% carries the game.

Game still kinda not great but the song? Yeah. Yeah.

I'LL TAKE YA WITH ME TO THE GRAVE (UNLESS I FORGOR)

It's so weird to go into a game that poses itself as super messed up just to come out of it offended not by the actual events, but by the writing. The characters are actually really endearing-- Too bad their routes are abyssal. The setup is intriguing. The plot that plays out is nonexistent. The lore has some really interesting facets to it, but whats the point if it's all dumped into one single scene and thrown to the side like it's nothing? I've written more than I should for this game and it's because of all the lost potential. I'm endlessly frustrated with that. It was NitroChiral's first game, after all, so they've gotta get better....

(They do. They absolutely do. I've played much of Slow Damage since finishing this mess and dare I say that it's my favorite VN of the year? It takes everything this game does and does it well. Shit, I give it my full recommendation, even if you don't play gay games. Check the content warnings though like holy shit man)

How disappointing. I would still buy a figure of the characters, though. I liked those guys, I wish they were treated better. Here, before you go-- Take an Ossan. You'll need it out there.