The current event has an interesting format! Similar to the main game, in each route you select there are two love interests to choose from after playing through a “common” route – the one catch here is that one of those love interests actually don’t have a main storyline! I’m impressed with Voltage’s creativity 🙂
The first pairing I went through was Inuchiyo and Keiji, his trusty retainer/sidekick/I don’t know??. The common route begins when Inuchiyo (grumpily) rescues MC from an angry man who’s mad that MC interrupted his child beating ways. After a snarky exchange, MC returns to her mom’s restaurant, where we learn that Keiji is a regular, and that Keiji and Inuchiyo are buddies, of some sort (“Call me Toshi again and you’re dead”). The next day, MC runs into the angry man and his thuggish sidekicks again; Inuchiyo helps her hide from the men by hugging her, and Keiji somehow manages to beat them all up off screen, before coming over to tease Inuchiyo (“Oh Toshi, you always were the kinky one~”). The three people return to MC’s restaurant, but when MC’s mom realizes she’s almost out of ingredients, MC is left with a choice to make.
If she selects Inuchiyo, she goes out shopping for ingredients with him. After they return, her mom sends the two of them out to have fun at a festival, which triggers fond memories that MC once had of attending said festival with a neighboring boy. Spoiler alert, Inuchiyo’s the boy. 😉 Unfortunately, MC doesn’t remember, which makes things awkward when she asks about a sword decoration that Inuchiyo has (“Someone who means the world to me gave me this.” “The woman you love?” “Yeah.” – cue self-jealousy). But at the last moment, MC remembers, and the two of them have an adorable reunion.
If MC picks Keiji instead, she stays with him and the two help out at her mom’s restaurant. Keiji’s a charmer but hopeless at the whole waitering thing, so MC sends him out to promote the restaurant instead. It goes swimmingly, until some local assholes get mad him and Keiji…beats them up off screen. I’m sensing a pattern here, haha. In the end, MC catches up with Keiji at a riverbank, and they almost share a kiss before being interrupted by Inuchiyo the cockblocker. Haha.
This may be my super heavy Inuchiyo bias talking, but to be honest, I thought this route would’ve been much stronger if it just featured Inuchiyo! I don’t know much about either character, but Inuchiyo’s story (lost childhood friendship) was so much more interesting than Keiji’s (happy drunk super samurai?). It doesn’t help that I don’t think Keiji’s an especially appealing romantic interest, haha. He’s a great side character, but…let’s be real. The guy’s kind of an idiot. ^^
Personal Inuchiyo enjoyment: 7/10
Personal Keiji enjoyment: 4/10
The second pairing that I encountered featured the always sexy Hideyoshi and his brother? cousin? retainer, Kiyomasa! The meat of this route starts with a war council: there is a security threat at an upcoming fair, and the duty of protecting everyone falls to H and his retainers. Small problem: everyone at the fair is required to be a couple! So Hideyoshi enlists the help of the women in the castle to help out with some fake relationships, including MC. H uses this hilarious premise to practice his flirty lines with MC prior to the fair (“I love you. … Something like that, maybe?”), while Kiyomasa takes a more….physical… approach. (He adjusts his hands, pressing me even closer with a sudden jerk, not even a breath of air between us. “This is nothing between lovers, is it?”)
On the day of the fair, if MC chooses Hideyoshi, H spends a good amount of time holding MC’s hand, and some point in time, buys her a hair clip and puts it in her hair seductively. I love this guy. Eventually, they hit up the dance floor, which is on a ship, for some reason, and are pressured by MC’s European friends into slow dancing. It’s awesome. Until the ship/dance floor is attacked…by angry warrior monks! They’ve rigged the ship to explode. H goes into cold sexy scary samurai mode when MC’s threatened, but when the monks set the signal to blow up the ship…nothing happens. Because H’s retainers took care of the problem already! In the end, MC and H share a romantic moment on the riverbank (“Say a word to me with that smile on your face and I’ll have no choice but to fall in love with you…you know that, right?”). I swooned. ❤
If MC chooses Kiyomasa instead, she is the sole woman to join K’s group! They scout out the monks’ temple together during the fair, where he, too, holds MC’s hands. The monks require proof that MC and K are lovers; K’s really good at pretending, but MC freezes up. K hilariously blames “performance issues” due to such things exciting her too much, and the monks buy it! Lmao. K even uses the monks as an excuse to make out with MC in a super hot way at some point (Just when I think he is going to break the kiss, he starts another, hand working into hair, grasping at it. Then, he tugs it back, tilting my chin several times to take my lips from every angle, each kiss deeper than the last. “D’you plan on letting me take you to school for the rest of this, too?”). In the end, K instigates a fight in a random room anyways, and H’s retainers show up at the last moment to save the day. Sadly, the two of them don’t quite get together by the end of the route ^^
…So look. I know nothing about the guy, but Hideyoshi has pretty much been perfection in every route he’s shown up in so far. He’s mad sexy. But Kiyomasa really holds his own! If MC and Kiyomasa had actually gotten together in some satisfying way by the end of their event, I probably would’ve enjoyed his event route just as much, to be honest!
Personal Hideyoshi enjoyment: 8/10
Personal Kiyomasa enjoyment: 7/10
Overall, neither the Inuchiyo/Keiji nor the Hideyoshi/Kiyomasa routes made much sense. But nonetheless, this event has been really fun. Looking forward to some Saizo/Kiyohiro goodness soon!
Otome Reviews 