BLVN Review: Uultra C

Recently MangaGamer released the English version of Adelta's BL visual novel UuultraC and I was very excited to play it! I really enjoyed Hashihime of the Old Book Town and was interested in seeing what Adelta would create next. This review will mostly be spoiler free!

Sypnosis
UuultraC's story takes place in the second half of Japan's Showa era (the 1970s). It focuses on the Tokusatsu movie genre, in which superheroes fight kaiju. In this world however, kaiju and heroes aren't just characters you see in movies, they also exist in the real world. Kaiju are living among humans and when they cannot control their emotions, some of them transform into their kaiju forms. The hero siren gets set off at any sign of a kaiju attack, alerting the ‘’heroes’’ called Icarus in this game. 

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Unlike most other BL visual novels, this game has 3 different pairings and each episode focuses on one specific pairing. There are no choices, so you can just select an episode an enjoy the story! The second and third chapters are locked until you completely chapter one.The story is the same every time, you just see it from a different character’s perspective each time.

Chapter 1

The first chapter focuses on the protagonist Kagome Shoutarou. His dream is to become an actor like his idol, Sayashi Juurou, who plays one of the most popular heroes on TV: Icarus. Shoutarou is in a relationship with Kozuka Akira, an aspiring manga artist. They live together in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo. Even though Shoutarou wants to become an actor, nobody usually calls him back after the auditions, which is why he currently has all kinds of other unrelated part-time jobs. Akira always disappears when the hero siren goes off and Shoutarou wonders what Akira has been hiding from him...

Chapter 2

This route focuses on Choutsugai Shirou, a camera man who also graduated from law school. He's not just any photographer, he also works for several gossip magazines and isn't afraid to show his own selfish desires. He also hates Icarus because nobody came to save his family when they were attacked by a kaiju in the past. When he was younger he starred in a movie together with Sayashi Juurou and his childhood love "Bell-chan". Choutsugai is convinced Bell-chan is a girl but when they reunite he realizes that "Bell-chan" is actually a man called Isshiki Suzu. Isshiki is a kaiju who pretends to be a fake white icarus. He always shows up when a kaiju is spotted, but his intentions are unknown. He is a kind and caring person who wants to protect Shirou.

Chapter 3

The last chapter focuses on famous Icarus actor, Sayashi Juurou, who is mentioned a lot in the previous chapters. Many people look up to him, but he has many dark secrets. Juurou often meets up with his childhood friend Yomi, who he met after a tragic accident when they were kids. Juurou’s uncle raised both of them together after this incident. Yomi has a lot of part time jobs and seems to be very busy, which Juurou doesn't really like because he just wants to be together with him. Yomi is a very mysterious character, his real age is unknown and he seems to know way too much about certain topics, not suspicious at all of course!....

Personal thoughts
This game really is something else, it is incredibly difficult to summarize the plot because so many things happen! There's also quite some side characters who all have their own stories too and they play a big part in certain routes.

I think most of the main pairings were pretty good, but it did take me some time to understand the plot. You really need to play all three chapters before you know what's really going on. In the end, I think my favorite pairing is probably the one featured in the final route, but I also really liked many of the other characters. I really recommend checking the official website and reading the short story. I also created a list of all the short stories in another blog post.

I did not completely understand the plot of this game until I read all the chapters, the Q&A, the short stories and the information published in the official book, but I do think all questions get answered if you look hard enough. Most of this content hasn't been translated, so if you have any questions feel free to send me a message and I'll check if Kurosawa Rinko gave an explanation..!

The game is not super long (I finished it within 12 hours) but it somehow feels longer because so much happens and it definitely has some replay value as well. I heard this game has over 1800 (!!) CGs which is why it sometimes feels like you’re reading a manga rather than a visual novel. The OST of this game was also amazing, according to the credits Kurosawa Rinko created most of it themselves which is really impressive, considering they’re also the scenario writer and artist.

Definitely completely different than Hashihime but not bad if you're looking for another BL visual novel to play！

BLVN Review: Dystopia no Ou

I finally finished playing PIL/SLASH's new BL visual novel! I'm happy they released the digital version, you can buy it here! This review will mostly be spoiler free, so don’t worry if you still want to play this game. 

This story takes place in a futuristic world, which is governed by a vast network of AI. The poor and the rich deeply divided, almost never crossing each other’s paths. In this world, the entertainment industry is saturated and culture is almost completely weeded out.

Music barely survived and only exists in the form of occasional live concerts.

Our protagonist Kiriku Inga, who grew up in the rich A district, runs away from home to follow his dreams to become the most famous rock star.

Kiriku lives together with his parents in the rich A district, where he lives a completely carefree life without any hardships. His parents are famous engineers who created the AI that governs this futuristic world, Yggdrasil, named after the sacred world tree often mentioned in Norse mythology (This name suddenly starts making a lot more sense after playing the final route...)

Even though Kiriku lives a comfortable life, he decides to leave the A district with the help of his childhood friend Hanza, who lives on the other side of a fence that separates the A and Z districts. Kiriku’s idol is the legendary rockstar ‘’Mere’’ and he dreams to become an even bigger star than him.

Upon arriving in the Z district, Kiriku meets several different characters. One of them is Murasaki Anji, the lead singer of the band Colchicum, and Tobari Rikyou, a medical doctor and director of theTobari hospital. He also reunites with Kachou Suimei, a mechanical engineer who works for Kiriku’s parents, who demands Kiriku returns to the A district.

In the end Kiriku decides to join Hanza’s band Teiji Taisha. The band has two other members as well, the guitarist Amagoi and drummer Kumori, who’s also an office worker (Teiji Taisha literally translates to ‘’Leave the office on time’’, probably an intentional joke because one of them is an office worker).

After this the game splits into four different routes: Hanza, Anji, Suimei and Rikyou. I recommend everyone to play them in this order, because the first two routes focus on the rock band aspect of the story, while the other two routes focus on the secrets of this futuristic world.

Kuwagata Hanza
This route focuses on Kiriku’s childhood friend, Hanza, and their band activities together. You quickly learn that Kiriku’s actually... not the best at playing the guitar. As a kid he was a very talented pianist, but the other band members have to teach him how to play the guitar. It was really funny to see everyone’s reaction to him playing the guitar, Kiriku is often too confident and thinks he’s the best at everything, while everyone else is questioning what the hell he’s doing (lol). Although it is a childhood friend route, it does not only focus on this aspect of their relationship, you also learn a lot about the struggles every individual band member deals with. At some point in the story Kiriku finds out some of the things Hanza has been hiding from him and it is interesting to see their character development.

I think this route was really sweet? The bad end was pretty dark but that’s what we can expect from PIL/SLASH. Overall I quite liked this route and Hanza is a good character!

Murasaki Anji
The vocalist of the popular band Colchicum, who seems to know Kiriku… but Kiriku doesn’t remember him. Although he is not impressed by Kiriku’s guitar skills, he really wants Kiriku to join his band as a pianist. Kiriku however, does not have any plans of leaving Hanza’s band and keeps rejecting Anji’s offers (lol!). I really expected him to join Anji’s band at some point, but he never did. The route focuses on the music industry of the Z district and it has some pretty interesting plot twists I did not expect to see in this route.

In general, I think Anji’s route is not the most serious one, but both Anji and Kiriku are hilarious characters who have a great dynamic together. Kyuuyouzawa Lychee’s humor really shined through in this route. I think after finishing the game this is one of my favorite pairings because all of their scenes together are super funny.

Kachou Suimei
One of the other characters Kiriku was already familiar with before he ran away from home. Even though Suimei works for Kiriku’s parents and is very close to them, he never interacted much with Kiriku. He’s worried about Kiriku’s parents, which is why he often travels to the Z district to tell Kiriku to return home. I expected this route to follow a similar pattern as the first two, however, it quickly became clear that this was not going to happen. This route is a lot more dark than the first two (pretty light hearted) routes. I finally got reminded that I was playing a PIL/SLASH game...! Pretty early on in the route I was surprised by how dark the story suddenly got.

Even though I wasn’t sure what to think of Suimei at first, the plot was really interesting and it kept me interested throughout the entirety of the route. It was hard to close the game because I really wanted to see what was going to happen next, a lot of action in this route! The route did raise some questions, but they were answered in the final route.

Tobari Rikyou
The director of the Tobari hospital, located in the Z district. He is kind and nice to everyone.........right? You can only play this route after finishing the other three. This is probably the most '’controversial’’ route and something that is more expected from PIL/SLASH. I suspected they would finally reveal some big secrets in this route and I was right! The plot of this route is pretty dark. Even though I could sometimes predict what kind of character Rikyou would be, I still think it was interesting to learn more about him. The first half of the route is a bit hard to play through because a lot of stuff happens, but after that I was really interested in the story and I wanted to know what this man was up to, lol!

I am not sure if the good ending is exactly what I wanted, but some of the extra content PIL/SLASH released does add some interesting details to the story. I think this route is not really a ‘’True Route’’ like some other VNs, but it’s probably locked so players don’t accidentally spoil themselves, considering this route focuses a lot on the plot of the world in which this story takes place.

Final thoughts
I wasn't sure what to expect because PIL/SLASH games are definitely not everyone's cup of tea. However, playing Dystopia no Ou was definitely a fun experience! Be aware that the game’s currently only available in Japanese and that it has not been translated.

Another thing I really liked was this game’s OST, composed by Sentive who also created the music for several other BL visual novels (Lucky Dog 1, Paradise, CAGE). Also the CG art is also gorgeous! The artist is Tateishi Ryou who also did the art for Omertà ~Chinmoku no Okite~ and Omertà: Code Tycoon. I did not even recognize their art new style because it looks completely different these days! Apparently the character sprite art was done by another artist, credited as ‘’Thugran’’. 

The game is not super long, I think it took me about 30-35 hours to finish it. In the end I think every route had something interesting and there was not a single character I wasn’t interested in. Kiriku is an amazing protag because he’s hilarious, I think the writers did an amazing job creating this character. He’s probably one of my favorite BL visual novel protagonists now.

I think it is important to know some of the routes are pretty light-hearted and the plot isn’t anything mind-blowing (until you reach the final routes), but I can still recommend it if you’re a fan of BL visual novels!