VN Talk: Bad Apple Wars - Part 5: Satoru

Man, where to start with this guy. Satoru is actually the first love interest Rika interacts with in Bad Apple Wars, by virtue of the fact they arrive at NEVAEH Academy at the same time and are seated together as new students during the opening ceremony. But at the same time calling it an interaction is overselling it a bit, because it's more like she tries to talk to him and he blows her off so he can study words and phrases out of his reference book.

In other routes Satoru is frequently used as a demonstration to show how bad apples are treated by the Prefects. We see his Soul Totem (his reference book) being taken from him, we see him being "corrected" multiple times, and even the good apples laugh at him for being so obstinate for no discernable reason. All he cares about is studying what he thinks is important, resulting in a disconnect between what's actually happening in class and what he's preparing himself for, and yet he never wavers in his single-minded dedication to his studies. Anyone who gets in his way, be it Rinka, a Prefect, or even a teacher, gets the cold shoulder and/or a lot of attitude so he can continue doing what he does.

When I started playing he was highly irritating, but as I watched him get smacked down route after route, I started to wonder, why does he need to study so badly? Clearly it's some failing from his previous life. The exam, which highlights the test taker's weakest subject, asks him to write an essay on how to make friends, which unsurprisingly is something Satoru is completely incapable of doing. (He's really pissed that's the exam too.) So even though I wasn't that eager to hug the porcupine, by the time I was on my fourth route I was ready to see what made this guy tick.

Satoru takes a fair bit of narrative effort to crack, to the point that there are some things that happen a lot differently on his route because otherwise he'd never get involved. For instance, in all other routes, the key in the Reaper Game is in a classroom where it goes undiscovered by all other students save Rinka. But Satoru has no reason to participate in or to monitor the game--he just wants to study--so he never leaves the gym to go on the scavenger hunt. This necessitates moving the key (on to Satoru's back no less) so Rinka can discover it while in his presence.

His route also has him getting dragged along by one of the tertiary Bad Apples to their clubhouse so he can be better known by the rest of the cast, which doesn't happen in any other storyline.

Things like this keep Satoru front and center in a story where he would otherwise melt into the background through sheer non-participation. And by pushing his trigger buttons (like telling him to "drop out" in regards to the Reaper Game), the story is able to showcase what Satoru is like when he's really passionate about something. Not to mention that it's hilarious watching him go berserk just because White Mask told him to drop out.

It takes a while, but after Rinka Soul Touches with him enough, she learns the reason why he's so focused on studying to the exclusion of everything else. He was being raised by a single mother in the wake of his father's untimely death, and while he is not naturally a good student, he realized that getting good grades was one of the few things that would lift his grieving mother's spirits.

He subsequently went overboard in his determination to make his mother happy and decided to shoot for the best high school even though it was in all likelihood beyond his academic ability. His teachers argued against it, saying that even if he managed to pass the entrance exam, he'd never be able to keep up with his new classmates, but Satoru refused to accept no as an answer. The solution to everything was simply to study harder, no matter what it took.

As a result, he gave up all his hobbies, stopped seeing his friends, and dedicated everything he had to being a more knowledgeable student, even if was detrimental to his own well-being. In fact, the reason he died and ended up at NEVAEH is because he was fueling himself almost entirely on coffee and sacrificing sleep so that he could study more. Once he arrived at NEVAEH he was so focused on his studies that it took him until Chapter 5 to even realize he was dead. (Presumably on the other routes this never dawns on him.)

But once he does, it's a complete heartbreaker for him, because he realizes that all his hard work was essentially meaningless. Since he died, he never got into the high school he wanted, and now his mother has not only lost her husband but her son as well.

And I do want to stop here a moment and say that Satoru is oddly enough (considering that this is a high school afterlife) a third year middle school student. He says he's in eighth grade in the translation, but it's actually closer to ninth grade, since high schools are a three year program in Japan and first year high school students are fifteen. It's not a huge deal as far as being in a relationship goes since he and Rinka are only one year apart, but it's odd that he's not in high school but is in a high school afterlife, and somehow everybody intuitively knows that Satoru is younger than Rinka since she gets ribbed about liking a younger boy. Prior to getting all his Soul Touch flashbacks I thought Satoru died after his entrance exams so he'd at least made it in.

Satoru is the only love interest who consciously makes the choice to become a good apple over the course of his story because the message being drummed into NEVAEH's students is exactly what he learned from his own death. Trying is meaningless. It only ends up getting you hurt when you fail.

As in White Mask's route, Rinka has to step up to save Satoru from himself, making this one of her better storylines. She quits being a Prefect, right in front of White Mask no less, and decides to break the unbreakable rules so she can give Satoru the forbidden apple.

Despite the fact that Satoru became laser focused on his studies while still alive, he actually had a relatively normal life beforehand, having both friends and hobbies that he dropped in pursuit of better academics, and from Soul Touch Rinka knows this and wants to give that life back to him. In her presence, Satoru manages to loosen up a bit, and once of the sweeter things in his route is how the other Bad Apples go out of their way to give Satoru and Rinka some time together. They ship the pair before Rinka and Satoru are ready to acknowledge feelings for each other.

The finale is a bit rushed since the inappropriate relationship and crying at graduation rules are broken almost simultaneously, so we don't even get to see one of the apples like we would on the other routes, but at least we kinda have a clue that both are broken when Rinka causes Satoru to cry at graduation and then kisses him. The two of them also face down the Rotten Apple together with their answer about returning to life, which is a nice touch.

Interestingly enough, the era Satoru comes from is never discussed with Rinka. I suppose he just comes off modern enough that Rinka is relatively certain he's from the same time period as her, so when he comes back to life he is still one year younger than her. He presumably did not get into the elite high school of his dreams, but he also realizes how much he's been hurting the other people in his life and that his mother was devastated when she nearly lost him. So it's a more mature Satoru who ends up going to the same high school as Rinka.

But I wish that at least some of the epilogue had taken place from Rinka's point of view because it's not immediately clear why Rinka and Satoru reunite at her high school's opening ceremony and why she's sitting with the new students, especially since she's a year older than him. However, from Higa and Shikishima's endings we know that she falls back a year in school due to the time it takes for her to recover from the accident. If the player has already gone through at least one of their routes it all makes convenient sense, and it's nice to have them get to be first years together, but if Satoru is the player's first playthrough this scene will feel a little off.

I feel like Satoru was a middle of the road route for me overall. Though it complements White Mask's route nicely, and has some genuinely fun moments, I don't feel like I ever got super invested in Satoru himself. I could feel for his circumstances, but he felt more like a boy who really needed a good hug rather than a potential romantic partner for Rinka. I get that he's fourteen and probably put any thoughts of romantic attraction on the backburner when he cracked down on his studying, and that's fine. I just think he and Rinka worked together better as friends than romantic partners, no matter how much the Bad Apples pushed it.

Next week we'll wrap up Bad Apple Wars with Alma's route!