2359: Purupurupurino

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I took a chance on a peculiar-looking game on Steam the other day. It wasn’t a completely blind purchase, since the developer Front Wing were the creators of The Fruit of Grisaia, my favourite visual novel to date, but this looked like an altogether different sort of affair.

Purino Party is a puzzle game with a lightweight visual novel plot, loosely based on Front Wing’s Japan-only straightforward visual novels Pure Girl and Innocent Girl. (Indeed, Purino Party reuses a number of event images from both Pure Girl and Innocent Girl, much to the chagrin of those who have read said works, but as someone unfamiliar with them but very much in love with the work of artist Nanaka Mai — who also designed Grisaia’s characters — I didn’t mind at all.)

The plot is lightweight, stupid fluff straight out of a nukige, which is unsurprising given the source material. You come to a town for a vacation, but are quickly accosted by mysterious local landlord Kei, who decides that your clearly godlike puzzle game skills make you an ideal person to help the girls in her charge realise their potential. (And shag them.) Thus begins a series of eight short stories, each focusing on one of the girls — first the four Pure Girl heroines, then the four Innocent Girl cast members — punctuated with increasingly difficult puzzle game challenges, with your reward being the advancement of the story and a picture to add to your gallery, most of which are lewd. (Most of which are very lewd if you install the optional X-rated patch, which Front Wing have been ballsy enough to link to on their Steam Store page.)

The puzzle gameplay may initially seem to be straightforward Bejeweled-style match three, but it’s actually more akin to popular mobile game Puzzle and Dragons in that you can grab a piece and then slide it around the grid as much as you like, displacing other pieces along the way to shift them into advantageous positions, until a 10-second timer expires, at which point you’re forced to drop it if you haven’t already. Each level gives you a point target that increases with each episode of each girl’s story, and a limited number of moves in which to accomplish this score. Later episodes also present you with a time limit, though this isn’t normally too much of an issue.

The puzzles are really fun. The way in which you can move pieces around allows you to set up enormous chain-reactions of pieces, and indeed to meet most of the point targets in the game and progress, you’ll need to do so. The fact you have ten seconds to move the piece around and displace the rest of the board as you see fit allows you to be strategic and methodical about arranging the pieces to your advantage rather than it simply being a challenge of spotting matches as quickly as possible. There’s a touch of randomness that can sometimes screw you over a bit — if you start a round with a bad board layout, there’s not a lot you can do — but you can usually mitigate this to a certain extent by taking advantage of the few special mechanics. Firstly, each girl has a “favourite” type of piece that loosely corresponds to their personality or interests, and you get more points for matching or chaining these pieces. Secondly, matching three or more “heart” symbols puts you into Fever mode, accompanied by some thumping cheesy J-pop. During this time, the points you gain are considerably increased; combined with the favourite piece bonus, this is generally the best way to score a lot of points quickly.

Meanwhile, the story is also entertaining. Don’t go in expecting an emotional rollercoaster on the level of Grisaia, but each of the characters are endearing and appealing in their own way, and they all have their own personalities and stories to tell. A lot of it tends to descend into sex humour, particularly given that a number of the girls are total perverts, but amid the smuttiness (which, it has to be said, is amusing and curiously charming rather than weird) there are some genuinely funny jokes and some really likeable characters; it’s just a shame we don’t get to spend much time with them. Though I guess there’s always Pure Girl and Innocent Girl to see more of them after the fact — assuming you speak Japanese or can find a suitable translation patch.

Purino Party isn’t an amazing game or an amazing visual novel, but it does what it does well. It’s lightweight, enjoyable fluff, not meant to be taken seriously in the slightest, and its bright colours, cheery music and immensely endearing characters make it just the sort of thing you can relax with for half an hour when you don’t want to do anything too strenuous.

Kanae best girl. And not (just) because she looks a bit like Amane from Grisaia.

2103: Amane, the Girl Who Learned to Say Thank You

I finished Amane’s route in The Fruit of Grisaia tonight, bringing my time with this absolutely incredible visual novel to a close, and frankly I’m a bit of an emotional wreck right now, but I will do my best to try and collect my thoughts and post something reasonably meaningful.

One thing I will say before I jump into spoiler territory after the “More” tag is that I’m really glad I saved Amane’s route for last. Not just because she was immediately my favourite girl — and still is after playing through her route — but because her route acts as a rather wonderful way to wrap up the entire experience. Her good ending is particularly “conclusive”, and as the last thing I saw in the whole work, it feels like I’ve had a great sense of closure — although, as always with this sort of thing, I’m going to miss these characters very much. At least I have two more games in the series to look forward to!

All right. Let’s get spoilery.

Continue reading “2103: Amane, the Girl Who Learned to Say Thank You” →

2098: Makina, the Girl in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

I finished Makina’s route in The Fruit of Grisaia at last. It’s a long route with a noticeably different tone to the previous three I’ve completed, but it was just as enjoyable.

Spoilers ahead, so I’ll put the rest behind a More tag for the convenience of those browsing my front page.

Continue reading “2098: Makina, the Girl in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time” →

2076: Sachi and the Maid’s Burden

Finished Sachi’s route in The Fruit of Grisaia last night. Once again, this route proves to be significantly different in tone and theme than the others I’ve seen so far (Michiru’s and Yumiko’s) — it also felt like it was a bit longer, for reasons I’ll get into later.

As ever, this post will contain extensive spoilers for Sachi’s route in The Fruit of Grisaia. As such, if you want to avoid being spoiled, don’t read! Here’s a More tag to prevent accidental spoilage from my front page…

Continue reading “2076: Sachi and the Maid’s Burden” →

2070: Michiru, the Girl in the Box

Finished Michiru’s route in The Fruit of Grisaia today, and my goodness is there a lot to process.

It doubtless goes without saying, but major spoilers for Michiru’s route ahead. I’ll put in a “More” tag for those who care about such things. Hit the jump for the full story.

Continue reading “2070: Michiru, the Girl in the Box” →

2067: Yumiko

Spoilers for not-quite-all of Yumiko’s route of The Fruit of Grisaia ahead!

When we’re first introduced to Sakaki Yumiko in the common route of The Fruit of Grisaia, it’s clear that she is both troubled and likely to be trouble for Yuuji. When Yuuji first tries to introduce himself to her, she initially tries to ignore him, and subsequently tries to slap him when he persists. This eventually escalates into her lashing out at him with a box cutter whenever she sees him, a fact which Yuuji’s fellow students just shrug off as being “something she does”, because they’ve all been through it too. Yuuji, being a certified badass, shrugs off Yumiko’s attacks without injury easily, and eventually they stop altogether, though she still proves herself to be a prickly individual who is generally unwilling to interact with others.

Except it’s not that simple. Throughout the common route, Yumiko can often be found lurking on the periphery of the rest of the group’s social activities; they’re all aware of her and take care not to exclude her, but they also don’t try to force her to participate in anything. It’s clear that even if she doesn’t show it on her face or through her behaviour, she finds comfort in being around people who care for her and are considerate of her feelings. Even the foul-mouthed Makina proves herself to be enormously perceptive of Yumiko’s personality traits, accurately “reading her thoughts” in one particularly memorable scene.

In the common route, we’re given a teaser of what has made Yumiko as withdrawn, sullen and prone to lashing out as she is — it’s clearly to do with her father. Upon returning from a shopping trip to the town, a number of the group report a suspicious-looking black car outside the station, though those who have been at the school longer know that this is a sign that Yumiko’s father is coming to inspect the school, which it seems he financed and had built. Yumiko, meanwhile, refuses to see her father, instead preferring to watch his cursory inspection of the school grounds from the dormitory rooftop; it’s clear that he’s not really inspecting anything, but is instead hoping that he might be able to get through to his daughter.

When Yumiko’s route proper starts, we’re given a bit more information about Yumiko’s father, who has already been suggested to be a not very nice person. Indeed, early in Yumiko’s route, we’re given a third-person scene (i.e. protagonist Yuuji isn’t present for it) in which we see Yuuji’s handler JB and Yumiko’s father discussing how they might get Yumiko to come back to her family and be prepared to take over the family railway business. Yumiko, until now, has been having none of this, of course, and so her father resorts to desperate measures, requesting that JB assign Yuuji to bodyguard duty for Yumiko and then arranging for her to be attacked and abducted. What he didn’t count on is that Yuuji is more than capable of taking care of a few hired thugs, particularly as they had been specifically instructed not to actually harm Yumiko — at least initially.

Yumiko is initially resistant to Yuuji guarding her, insisting that “it’s not as though [her] life’s anything worth protecting”, and that she “doesn’t particularly mind if someone does come for [her]”. The initial attack from her father’s men puts her somewhat on her guard, though, and from that point on she is less resistant to Yuuji’s efforts to protect her, and gradually softens towards him over time, eventually developing feelings for him because she’s come to rely on his protection — a feeling of safety and security that she’s never enjoyed before.

Yuuji, being a stubborn idiot prone to inadvertently annoying women with non-deliberate insensitive comments, of course, doesn’t notice that Yumiko has started to feel something for him — or refuses to admit that this might be a possibility, at least — but sticks beside her “because it’s [his] job”. When JB pulls him off the case at the request of Yumiko’s father, he is somewhat surprised to receive a direct request from Yumiko to continue working as her bodyguard in a private capacity.

On one excursion, the heavens open and Yuuji and Yumiko find themselves trapped under a bridge in a torrential downpour. Something doesn’t seem right about Yumiko’s behaviour to Yuuji, and it’s not long before things come to a head; a thunderclap and flash of lightning absolutely terrify Yumiko, who crumples into Yuuji’s arms in an uncharacteristic display of weakness, fragility and reliance on others. Having already come this far in showing her fragile side to Yuuji, she then relates the story of how she came to be the person she is today, and what she is doing at the mysterious school.

Yumiko’s mother was the daughter of a pair of struggling business owners. She married into the Sakaki family primarily for financial and political reasons, and bore Yumiko as the family’s only child. Being a girl, Yumiko was an immediate disappointment to the family, who had been hoping for a son and heir apparent, but Yumiko’s mother was much too weak to survive another pregnancy, and eventually succumbed to a debilitating psychological disorder that saw her and Yumiko retreat back to the countryside and her family home. She was hospitalised, and Yumiko was left to live with her grandparents, who resented her existence because she was a symbol of their failing business, and how they wouldn’t be able to rely on the support of the Sakaki family forever.

Yumiko tried to stay positive amid this bleak situation, but the youthful joy she once had at the simple sight of a passing dog eventually gave way to bitterness and resentment. Her only outlet was her neighbour, who had formerly been employed by her grandparents as a servant, but now continued to help them out for free. Yumiko was the only one to show her gratitude, and she resented her grandparents for taking advantage of her right up until her death — a feeling shared by her daughter and son-in-law.

Her hospitalised mother gradually comes to show an improvement, eventually reaching a point where it looks like she’s going to be discharged from hospital, but suffers a catastrophic relapse upon hearing the news that her husband — Yumiko’s father — had taken a mistress in her absence, and said mistress had borne him a son.

A year passes, and Yumiko’s bitterness grows, since her mother had relapsed so severely that she couldn’t even remember anything about her family. She had no-one to rely on, no-one to talk to, no friends, which is why when her father’s aides come to collect her from her grandparents’ house — bearing the offer “if you let me have Yumiko back, I’ll continue supporting your family and your business” — she jumps at the opportunity.

Initially resenting her father for the anguish he caused her and her mother, Yumiko eventually softens towards him as he appears to be making a genuine effort to reconnect with his daughter. It eventually transpires that he is only doing this because his illegitimate son died and his mistress abandoned him shortly afterwards, leaving Yumiko once again as the only potential heir to his business. Feeling a familiar, growing sense of rage at this, Yumiko is in a fragile mental state and is pushed over the edge when she overhears one of her classmates speaking untruths about her.

Prior to this, she had taken to expressing her anger through destruction. “The clicking of the blade emerging from its sheath,” she relates. “The sound of something once whole being severed apart. Those had become calming sounds to me. How wonderful would it be if I could slice away my femininity with a single box cutter? How wonderful would it be if I could sever my fate with the touch of a blade? How wonderful would it be if one movement of my hand could cut me free of all the troubles that coiled around me and choked the air from my lungs?”

The first thing she destroys is her long, black hair; an attempt to “slice away her femininity” and look more like a boy — a largely successful effort, though one that causes people to shy away from her even more than normal. Later, she destroys her artwork and the diary in which she had written down all the growing positive thoughts she had been feeling as she had mistakenly thought her father truly loved her.

And ultimately, the event which sees her totally severing her ties to her old life: she stabs her classmate, whom she had previously thought was a friend, but who had turned out to be just as much of a turncoat as everyone else in her life.

Yumiko escaped a criminal conviction for her violent outburst, because money can make anything go away, and her father knew that very well indeed. Knowing that the situation couldn’t continue in the way it had been, however, he offloads her onto Mihama Academy, where she meets Yuuji, and her life undergoes some considerable changes once again.

When Yuuji ends up injured in the line of duty protecting her, Yumiko is wracked with guilt, not just at the trouble she’s embroiled Yuuji in, but at how much she’s hurt her other classmates too. This guilt eventually manifests itself in her deliberately allowing herself to be taken away by her fathers men and capitulating to whatever demands he might have — which turn out to be her attendance at a school in America, far away from anywhere she could possibly become a problem.

Yumiko’s father doesn’t count on Yuuji’s stubbornness, though; spurred into action by a text message from Yumiko apologising for a situation that is in no way her fault, he eventually rescues her following a dramatic chase, and the two of them begin a life on the run, during which period they both eventually manage to admit their feelings for one another — though it takes Yumiko essentially sexually assaulting Yuuji in the middle of the night to spur the latter into action and contemplate that she might actually possibly maybe be interested in him.

Yumiko and Yuuji making love for the first time — and, for that matter, the subsequent time, during which she admits that she “doesn’t dislike” playing a submissive, masochistic role — is a turning point for Yumiko in particular, and to a lesser extent for Yuuji. Yuuji reveals that he has some sexual experience thanks to sex workers that were laid on for him in a previous assignment, but comes to realise that sexual intimacy with someone you truly care about is on a whole other level of pleasure. Yumiko, meanwhile, allows this ultimate expression of intimacy as a means of demonstrating that she trusts Yuuji absolutely; the pair of them continually push the boundaries with each other to see how far they will each go, and it turns out that they both feel absolutely comfortable with one another after all the time they have spent together.

Yumiko’s growth is pretty touching to see, but tragic at the same time. On more than one occasion, she ponders whether it’s acceptable for her to be happy, or whether she “deserves” it. Yuuji has to admonish her several times for apologising when it’s not necessary, though she does the same for him too; eventually the two settle into a pattern of gratitude for one another, neither of them quite sure how to deal with having been alone for so long and now having another person to take into consideration.

I haven’t quite finished Yumiko’s route as yet, but I’m excited to see how it concludes. There’s been plenty of drama and touching, emotional moments so far, and the whole thing is clearly building towards what I hope will be a satisfying final confrontation with her father. I’ll just have to wait and see how that pans out!

2060: A Fruitful Relationship: More Grisaia Impressions

In an effort to steer away from three solid days of ranting about games journalism, I asked my followers on Twitter for some suggestions of things to write about, and got a few nice ideas, so I’ll be making use of those over the next few days.

I thought I’d start with a request from my friend Mr Michael Cunningham, who wanted to hear a bit more about The Fruit of Grisaia, the visual novel I’m currently reading, and which I gave some first impressions of here.

So far, I believe I’m still in the “common” route of Grisaia, since I’ve only made a single choice so far, and that didn’t come until after a considerable number of hours of reading. The lack of interaction hasn’t been a problem, though; the early hours of Grisaia are clearly intended as a means of helping you get to know the characters and the context in which they find themselves, and the distinctly leisurely pace at which the early hours of your typical visual novel such as Grisaia unfolds allows it to dangle some truly tantalising mysteries in front of you, mostly with regard to the backgrounds of the characters and what has actually brought them all together.

Even the basic concept of Grisaia is still a slight mystery to me at this juncture. Although the early hours have been relatively typical high school slice-of-life so far, there’s clearly something more going on. From the protagonist’s frequent references to his mysterious “job” and use of military terminology and tactics to the unpredictable, trope-subverting nature of all the heroines, nothing seems quite “right” in Grisaia’s world, and that’s what makes it so intriguing. The fact that the school which they all attend has no-one but them in it — making for a student body of just six people — is perhaps the biggest mystery: why are they all there? What has pulled them out of “normal” life? What is the school for?

Amane initially appears to be the most “normal” of the cast. She likes to play the role of the older sister, and does so with great enthusiasm, particularly when it comes to protagonist Yuuji. Yuuji is initially resistant to her advances but eventually allows her to indulge a little for the sake of having a marginally quieter life, because even when she’s getting what she wants, Amane is forthright, frank, open and honest about everything — arguably to a fault.

She’s also seemingly very much at ease with herself as a woman, happily stripping off and getting changed in front of other people (including Yuuji) and wearing clothes that emphasise her curves. She’s also rather sexually aggressive towards Yuuji even as they’re first getting to know one another, often grabbing him and pressing herself against him, and on one memorable occasion, sneaking into his room while she thinks he’s out and inhaling his scent from his clothes and his bed; Yuuji catches her just before she starts masturbating.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Amane yet. I certainly like her a great deal, but I have a feeling that her forthrightness may, in fact, be compensating for something. Exactly what, I couldn’t say just yet, but I’m pretty convinced that there is more to Amane than meets the eye.

Makina is brilliant. Initially presented as the dimwitted loli of the group, it takes a little time for Makina to take to Yuuji, but they eventually bond, much to the surprise of Amane, from whom Makina is otherwise almost inseparable. It transpires that Makina is far less stupid than she likes to make out, and that she may well be putting on an act for her own mysterious reasons.

This doesn’t mean that she’s entirely “normal”, though. Her impressive ability to take mental photographs of books she’s reading and instantly recall information from them — albeit only in black and white — reminds Yuuji of his deceased sister, who had a similar ability. Perhaps not coincidentally, Makina quickly starts calling Yuuji “Onii-chan”, despite his resistance; much like he softens towards Amane somewhat, so too does he eventually just let Makina continue along in her own bizarre little world.

Perhaps the most amusing and intriguing thing about Makina is the way she talks. Far from being stereotypically cute and shy, Makina is foul-mouthed and frequently comes out with things you’d expect a dirty old man to say. Amane occasionally admonishes her for this, but since she occasionally slips into her own Kansai region colloquialisms, she doesn’t really have a leg to stand on in this instance.

Again, I wouldn’t like to conjecture what brought Makina to Mihama Academy in the first place, but it’s clear that something traumatic happened in her past; so far, however, the conversation has always been steered away from it any time it looks like getting into dangerous territory.

In contrast to Makina’s front of stupidity, Michiru actually does appear to be pretty dimwitted. Obsessed with the tsundere character trope to a fault, Michiru deliberately tries to act as stereotypical as possible, but in the process frequently breaks character in order to seek the approval of others — and, to a certain degree, herself — on how well she’s doing at playing the spoiled princess.

In keeping with the other characters, though, there’s seemingly a lot more to Michiru than meets the eye. As time progresses, whenever she is alone with Yuuji, she seems to want to open up to him somewhat. In some instances, she drops the tsundere act completely and attempts to have a serious conversation, though her inability to articulate herself in anything more than the most simple terms sometimes means she finds it challenging to get across quite what she wants to say.

Michiru is clearly struggling with depression — perhaps as a result of a condition or illness she has. Her adoption of the tsundere personality is a coping mechanism designed to hide any outward signs of her pain and suffering; by being deliberately aggressive and contrary about everything, she puts up a formidable barrier around the truth that lies in her heart, though, of course, I’m sure by the end of her own narrative route we’ll get to the bottom of exactly what is bothering her so much. She is the butt of a considerable number of jokes throughout the common route, but I have the distinct feeling she’s going to end up being one of the most sympathetic characters.

Sachi (right) is something of an enigma. Sweet, innocent and largely emotionless to a fault, something in Sachi’s past has caused her to become someone who takes everything she hears absolutely literally. This means that a joke about how she should wear a maid costume all the time because of all the hard work she does for others means that she now wears a maid costume whenever she’s not in her school uniform; it means that someone requesting “the freshest milk possible” sees her catching a train out to the countryside to go and milk a cow.

Sachi’s initial impression is that she’s a thoroughly nice and considerate person, but there’s something else at work. Occasionally — particularly when she’s dealing with Michiru — some uncharacteristically hurtful, acidic comments will come out of her mouth. There’s evidently some bitterness festering beneath the surface, though for the most part, she simply refuses to talk about it and quickly puts her façade of being the perfect maid back up.

The other thing about Sachi is that her tendency to take things literally means that she has absolutely no sense of shame or propriety whatsoever. When Yuuji jokes with her about the power a glimpse of lingerie has over men, she turns up to school the next day in nothing but lacy undies, stockings and suspenders. When she and Yuuji are cleaning the dormitory bathroom together, she falls over and gets her maid costume wet, then subsequently decides that the appropriate thing to do — after another joke from Yuuji — is to take it off, attach it to her mop (“to cover more ground”) and continue the rest of the cleaning job in her underwear. I anticipate that this aspect of her character in particular will cause more than a few awkward situations by the conclusion.

Finally, Yumiko is the most obviously fucked up of the main cast. Initially refusing to even speak to Yuuji, instead preferring to first of all slap him when he approaches her, and subsequently attack him with a box cutter at every opportunity, the barriers around Yumiko’s heart are nigh-impenetrable, it seems, but Yuuji’s ability to shrug most awkward situations off — perhaps due to his own background, which he hints at regularly throughout the common route without explicitly explaining it — means that he takes her violence and anger in his stride. He eventually manages to get through to her enough to be able to speak to her and subsequently have an honest conversation with her, even spending some time with her alone without her trying to attack him.

Yumiko’s basic character trope is that of the perpetually grumpy “student council president” type, but rather than being a blushing, awkward individual beneath the façade, it’s clear that her outward grumpiness is a sign of outright rage and bitterness bubbling beneath the surface. She is, so far as I’ve read at least, the biggest mystery among the main cast — both to me and to the rest of the cast, too. She keeps herself to herself, and no-one seems to know anything about her history. No-one even seems to know where she’s going or what she’s doing at the weekends when she sneaks out of the dormitory in the early hours of the morning carrying a tote bag full of “wooden objects”. I’m looking forward to finding out more about her.

That’s what I know so far, then. They’re an interesting bunch of characters, to be sure, and I’m really looking forward to each of their routes to discover exactly what makes them tick and what has brought them to the strange circumstances in which they find themselves. I sense it’s going to be a long road to find out, but up until this point, it’s been a compelling and intriguing ride with a ton of tantalisingly unanswered questions.

Number one visual novel of all time? I couldn’t say with confidence as yet. But it’s certainly one of the most immediately compelling, well-written — and well-localised — ones I’ve read for quite some time, and if you have the slightest interest in the medium, I’d encourage you to support it.

2054: The Fruit of Grisaia: First Impressions

A while back, increasingly prolific visual novel localisation company Sekai Project — whose first commercially released title was the JAST USA-published School Days HQ, one of my favourite visual novels of all time — ran a Kickstarter campaign for the localisation of a series of Japanese visual novels collectively called Grisaia.

I didn’t know anything about these save for the fact that they were particularly well-regarded for one reason or another so, wanting to support Sekai Project’s efforts — their localisations are generally really solid efforts — as well as wanting to continue supporting the localisation of visual novels in general, I put my money where my mouth was and backed the Grisaia campaign to the tune of $120 — my largest pledge to a Kickstarter to date. Said contribution would net me a boxed set of all three Grisaia visual novels as they were released, and I later supplemented my original pledge with an additional $40 to support the digital release of the 18+ versions via Denpasoft, since Sekai Project’s original plan was only to port the Vita versions of the trilogy, which had all erotic content excised in order to comply with Sony’s platform requirements.

The Fruit of Grisaia, the first installment in the trilogy, came out a little while back, but I held off checking it out because I was waiting for the 18+ version for a more “authentic” and true to the original experience. (Also, boobs.) A short while ago, I received an email notification that the 18+ version was now available, so I decided that now would be a good time to finally check it out, particularly as I’d just finished up Hyperdevotion Noire and had a bit of a hankering for a pure visual novel, the last one of which I’d played was the PC version of Steins;Gate, and that was some time ago now.

I’m a few hours into The Fruit of Grisaia so far, still in the “common” route (at least, I assume so; I haven’t made any choices as yet) but I am already enjoying it a great deal. It’s a delightfully well-written (and well-localised) tale so far, with just enough intrigue about it to keep you reading in order to try and find out what happens next. I’m particularly excited to get into the branching routes in the latter half of the game, since I understand each of these are really interesting and go in some surprising and exciting directions.

In the opening of The Fruit of Grisaia, we’re introduced to the protagonist Yuuji. Yuuji is a young adult of indeterminate age — we can assume he’s around 18 or so, since he’s still of school age — who, when we first meet him, has walked about 150km to start his new life at his new school. Unfortunately, things don’t quite go according to plan, since his bedraggled figure seemingly wandering around aimlessly attracts the attention of the police, who take him in for interrogation even despite him skilfully taking down a purse-snatcher during his disagreement with the officer in question.

This minor inconvenience eventually dealt with — seemingly through someone pulling strings behind the scenes — Yuuji starts his new school life at what turns out to be a very strange educational establishment indeed. Yuuji is one of just six students at the academy, none of whom appear to be quite “normal”, for want of a better description. Yuuji, meanwhile, is the first to admit that he isn’t exactly normal, either, having suffered the loss of his entire family at an early age, lived on the streets and worked under the tutelage of an apparently Amazonian woman he refers to only as his “former Master” until she, too, died, leaving him as an employee of a mysterious organisation whose details have not yet been revealed to me so far as I’ve read.

Yuuji’s five classmates — all of whom are female, as these things tend to go — are a peculiar bunch. Amane is the most seemingly “normal” of the bunch, with a warm, friendly — if somewhat sexually aggressive — “older sister”-type personality that means you can’t help but like her; Yuuji feels a connection — or perhaps a morbid fascination — with her immediately as her rather tall stature can’t help but remind him of his mysterious “Master”.

Makina is the resident loli of the group, with what initially appears to be a distinctly childish attitude, as well as a habit of blurting things out in English instead of Japanese, a personality quirk that is attributed to her having spent lots of time in non-Japanese countries during her formative years. Makina claims not to be particularly bright, but it’s not long before she starts revealing that she’s oddly quick-witted and has a pretty acidic tongue at times.

Michiru, meanwhile, is a self-conscious tsundere, or at least she wants to be. Yuuji’s first encounter with her comes as she is rehearsing stereotypical tsundere lines, and she even congratulates herself on the successful delivery of a cliched zinger like “i-it’s not like I’m doing this for you or anything!” or its ilk. Yuuji takes great pains to point out to the reader that he’s not someone who likes to judge people on first impressions, but he finds the conclusion that Michiru is, in fact, a complete idiot inescapable after just a few days — though she does gradually start to reveal other sides to herself as time passes, particularly a caring, considerate side.

Sachi is a character Yuuji refers to as being “robotic” or “cyborg”-like, and this is because of her naturally demure nature and seeming inability to be particularly flustered by anything. She’s extremely loyal, but also has a tendency to take things very literally and follow the “orders” of others without question. I don’t quite know what her deal is yet, but I’m very interested to find out.

Finally, Yumiko initially appears to be the stereotypical “class president” type — aloof and haughty — but quickly reveals herself to have somewhat more disturbing tendencies, most notably her habit of swinging around a box cutter willy-nilly when she feels threatened. Despite the risk of injury — she attacks Yuuji very aggressively and persistently at the outset of the story — everyone seems to just sort of accept this as “just part of who she is”, despite no-one seemingly knowing the circumstances behind what made her this way. I can see that there’s going to be some interesting revelations about her later.

What I’ve enjoyed the most about The Fruit of Grisaia so far is how much it sets things up and teases them, revealing little pieces of information over time. We know nothing about Yuuji at the outset of the story, but he drops in details to his narration and internal monologue piece by piece until we can start to figure out a few things for ourselves. This keeps things interesting and compelling, particularly when combined with the more intriguing aspects of the main heroines’ personalities. It’s clear that each of them have something if not outright traumatic in their pasts, then certainly something that affected them deeply; the reason for the school’s existence isn’t yet clear so far as I’ve read, but it seems that their shared bond of “something not being quite right” with each of them is going to be a key aspect of the overall story.

I’ve been very much enjoying The Fruit of Grisaia so far, then; I have no idea how far through the whole thing I am, but I’m looking forward to reading it from “cover to cover” as it were; each of the five heroines are intriguing in their own unique ways, and far from being a typical harem setup, each of the characters seems to go out of their way to subvert some of the more typical tropes found in this sort of story. In short, it’s already clear why this visual novel was voted the number one visual novel of all time by the folks over on Reddit’s /r/visualnovels subreddit a while back; I’m sure this deeply interesting creative work will continue to enthral me for quite some time yet.