VN Talk: Café Enchanté - Part 3: Rindo

Continuing my commentary on the different routes of Café Enchanté, this week I'm covering Rindo, who has the distinction of being the only love interest referred to by his last name. I suspect this is because he's Japanese whereas the other characters are non-human with western naming conventions. While Kotone can be comfortable calling everyone else by their personal names, Japanese social customs prevent her from calling a man over twenty years her senior by anything other than his family name.

I'm glad I ended up playing Rindo's route after Canus's because Rindo's turned out to be a dramatic and wild ride in ways that Canus's was not. Though this later turned out to be true for other routes as well, I didn't know by how much. Canus's story was sweet, but Rindo's moved me.

Like Canus's route, Rindo's starts out fairly mundane, laying additional groundwork for the route-specific conflict in its second half. Rindo has an unusual complication to his romance that in theory applies to most of Kotone's romance options, but is perhaps unfairly applied, and the failure of the first half of his route to really establish why it's a problem prevents it from being as strong as it could be.

Rindo is the only human love interest in Café Enchanté, and though he's considered one of the gang, he's also a member of the GPM, the government agency tasked with monitoring (and if necessary, dealing with) non-human activity. So even though he's a friend and the regulars trust him, they are also aware that the main reason he hangs out with them so much is because it's his job. He's assigned to monitor the cafe and the non-humans who frequent it.

He's also older than most human otome love interests, being 42. Rindo is a career middle manager.

In a game where some of the romance options are hundreds if not thousands of years old, 42 is nothing, but the thing is, the super old ones are all non-humans who look like they're still in their twenties. Rindo looks like he's in his forties. He's fit and good looking for his age, but the artwork doesn't shy from adding small wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. The dude's been around the block a few times and it's refreshing when a major human character is old enough to justify having a bundle of skeletons in the closet.

It's because of the age difference that Kotone begins spending the first half of Rindo's route figuring out what he means to her. We're never given her exact age in game, but the hints given suggest she's around 20, making her half his age. She worries about Rindo, being that his job is dangerous (on occasions he's dispatched with his team to directly deal with hostile non-humans) and also demanding, with long hours where he might only leave the office to sleep.

The game is very careful not to make Rindo come off as predatory, so even though he flirts with her, you never get the impression that he's doing it seriously. During the "date" episode of Il's chapter on the common route, Rindo even admits asking her to dinner at his age is incredibly awkward. He knows the gap is huge, so even though he likes her, he doesn't seriously entertain the idea that they will ever get together, which means that Kotone gets to do the pursuing in his route.

And I really like that.

When they go grocery shopping together to get ingredients for lunch, they get mistaken for a couple and Kotone spends much of the rest of their trip trying to figure out why. She eventually concludes that they don't look like father and daughter, but they don't look like brother and sister either, so a couple is the only thing left. After they get back and make that lunch, Rindo jokes about her becoming his girlfriend, and with all due seriousness, she asks what would happen if she said yes.

From his reaction, you can tell that he expected she would dismiss the possibility and life would go on as it had before.

Rindo as a character is a very closed off personality. He's helpful and friendly, but he doesn't really share his own problems, and it's only at Misyr's suggestion that Kotone starts to push her way into Rindo's space to get to know him better. She doesn't do this in an aggressive manner, but she does ask questions that she might have otherwise withheld, which brings us to the rest of the first half of his route.

When not dealing with Kotone feeling out her relationship with Rindo, we learn a surprising amount about side character Akira Mikado. Mikado is sort of an annoying character on the common route, fulfilling the role of the genius GPM researcher who is a little too enthusiastic about his work, to the point where no one really wants him at the cafe because they all know he's going to be gross and invade their sense of privacy by asking to touch the gate or requesting blood samples.

Rindo's route actually kicks off with a visit from Mikado and most of its first chapter is Kotone reluctantly helping Mikado pick out a birthday gift for his girlfriend (who most of the cafe regulars assume is either 2D or non-existent). Though Mikado fits the stereotype of someone who wouldn't have a girlfriend, being a short and frequently obnoxious geek with glasses, he's also clearly infatuated with her and spends a lot of effort in picking out a present.

That alone expanded his character, but what really sealed it is when we discover the identity of his girlfriend. Mikado is rarely without a little fox cradled in his arm called Kuu, which is described as a stuffed doll in its first appearance (and it should be noted that the "doll" description is in the in-game dictionary and not Rindo's narration when Mikado is first introduced). Kuu, however, is very much alive, just sleeping, and its real identity is Shizuku Rindo, younger sister to Kaoru Rindo, our love interest.

Seven years ago Shizuku was transformed from a human into a hostile and uncommunicative non-human in what later turns out to not actually be a lab accident, and Rindo nearly put her down as part of his job (knowing it was her) except Mikado intervened, using part of his research to sedate her. She feeds on human blood, but in her sedated state she's no longer killing people, and Mikado handles all her feeding himself, literally giving her his own blood every time she needs to eat.

Though Mikado tells Kotone that he's satisfied because at least Shizuku is alive and they are together, he privately admits that he won't be happy until he can make his girlfriend human again. And damn if I didn't get a bit teary-eyed at the guy caring for his girl for seven years and refusing to give up on her.

While I enjoyed the backstory though, it's supposed to serve as a foundation for Rindo's current view on human and non-human relationships. He is disappointed in himself for not killing Shizuku when he had the chance, and unlike Mikado, he doesn't take solace in the chance that someday Mikado will restore her. Judging from Rindo's reaction to Mikado's affection, it seems he regards Mikado's behavior as akin to playing house with a woman who is in what is essentially a vegatative state.

I can understand that pain, but it's a much harder jump from that to Rindo's fundamental belief that non-humans and humans are too different and even if both are well-meaning such relationships are doomed to end in tragedy. We see an example of that on his route, with a uncontrollable cat spirit that needs to be put down following the loss of his human companion, but Mikado and Shizuku's relationship, while tragic, doesn't appear to be a direct result of her becoming non-human so much as the experiment that made her that way. It could have been an explosion at work that threw her into a coma and it would be fundamentally the same thing (except that Rindo would never have been asked to kill her).

And the thing is, the story needs Rindo's fear and distaste of human/non-human relationships to feel like a solid thing, in order for the second half of his story to work.

The Rindo sibling and Mikado backstory collides with Kotone's budding romance in the second half of Rindo's route when he receives a distress call from work and is wounded by an awakened and rampaging Shizuku. Her attack inflicts a hex on him, and though the cafe crew manages to rescue him, Misyr and Il conclude that he's dying and the only way to remove it would be to stop Shizuku, who is no longer anywhere to be found.

Kotone is contacted by Mikado though and offered an alternative. Mikado has a serum that will save Rindo's life, but by transforming him into a non-human. He offers it to Kotone knowing that she will face a similar choice to his own, living on with a loved one who is no longer human.

Throughout the game Rindo has walked a fine line between being friends with the non-humans and warning Kotone against them. It's not that non-humans are inherently bad, but they can be unexpectedly dangerous without realizing how fragile humans are by comparison (which is borne out during her trip to Medio). He's often filled the role of the naysayer who says Kotone really shouldn't be visiting their home worlds because of the danger involved, but at the same time, he really goes the extra mile to protect the non-humans who are in danger in the human world.

I think his attitude towards them is much like someone who works with wildlife. Yes, non-humans can be great, but you can also be one step away from getting maimed. So even though non-humans can look human, Kotone shouldn't pretend that they are. Rindo believes that most human and non-human relationships will end in tragedy without any harm intended by either party, simply because their perspective is too different.

It's a fair point, but I think the game mistakenly pushes a little too hard on that angle when it comes to Kotone using the serum. She has reservations about administering it because Rindo is unconscious and cannot consent, which is absolutely fair. As the cafe regulars point out, his life as a human will end, and that in itself is a small death, but as Ignis says, if she doesn't use it, he definitely will die. (And as a player, if you don't transform him, the game ends.)

But Kotone also reacts like turning Rindo into a non-human is the last thing he'd ever want, like if there was a scale of 0 to 10 on how much he wants something this would be a -2. While he unsurprisingly turns out to be unhappy with his transformation later on, it's not that bad. The game's narrative gives the player more than enough justification to use it when the choice comes up, and everyone, including Rindo himself, recognizes that if Kotone didn't use it he'd be dead.

Though a part of me was a bit disappointed that the only human romance option in the game ends up being non-human by the end of it, there are two things about Rindo's transformation that I did like. 1) The game delivers on the impact of his life changing. Rindo's new non-human appearance cannot be easily hidden, given that it encompasses part of his face, one arm, and both hands, and he does not have transformational abilities like some of the other non-human characters. And 2) Rindo does not become human again by the end of the story, so there's no magic reset button. His new body is his new self and though perhaps someday he'll become human again, there's no expectation that will ever happen.

The climax of the story worked thematically for me, though it felt a little forced. It ends up that Mikado was behind the attack on the GPM building, spurred on by the revelation that Shikuzu's transformation was done to prevent her from becoming a whistleblower over the GPM's less savory experiments. As revenge he let Shizuku eat up the people involved, which apparently sets her on the path to recovering her sense of self and becoming human again. However, Mikado goes a step further and has her basically take over the entire GPM building and start feeding off everyone inside, including people who had nothing to do with her transformation.

Kotone and Rindo show up to stop him and Rindo in particular says that Shizuku wouldn't want this, which Mikado acknowledges, but he's willing to go ahead anyway just to restore her. Furthermore, he suggests that Kotone and Rindo join him. Kotone is in much the same position as he is, and being that the serum he gave Rindo incorporates Shizuku's blood, Rindo should be able to become human again by the same method. (Never mind that he only got hexed in the first place because Mikado was letting Shizuku run rampant!)

This leads to a pretty good sibling battle where the no-longer-human brother and sister fight each other while protecting their loved ones, and though it's not a straight shot by any means, it eventually ends with Rindo being forced into the same position he was seven years ago; finishing off his sister. Though Mikado pleads again, Rindo can't spare her this time because Kotone got hit in the battle and ended up hexed herself.

I kinda wanted him to go through with it, but Shizuku ends up crumbling on her own after stabbing Mikado for some reason, so he dies along with her. It felt a little cheap, but not unexpected since having Mikado go to jail might not be a fulfilling enough ending for a tragic romance and I guess the writer wanted to spare Rindo from doing a coup de grâce on his sister.

I did like the epilogue though. Rindo takes a leave of absence from the GPM since he obviously can't show up to work looking the way he does now and begins helping Kotone out at the cafe. The fact he's older than her, and now non-human to boot, doesn't seem as big an obstacle as it had earlier in the story. As Kotone says, her idea of normal is much different from most people because she's the owner of Enchanté.