VN Talk: Rose in the Embers - Part 4: Misao

I didn't expect to like Misao when I first started looking at Rose in the Embers. He's still not my preferred type of love interest, but he's not as bad as I thought and his route was entertaining. If anything, his route is a nice example of why it's worth seeing people for who they are rather than who they appear to be.

Misao is known as an ukiyo-e artist who does erotic paintings of partially clothed women, and given his line of work, the assumption is that he's a wanton hedonist. After all, he lives at a lavish inn with dubious moral standards and has various women going in and out of his room in the later hours of the day. The main character's first impression upon accidentally catching a glimpse of a half-naked woman inside is that she stumbled upon a couple in the middle of a private moment, and Misao does nothing to disabuse her of this notion.

I probably would not have bought his route if not for the fact that there was a special running that let players view half of it for free. Since he was the one Rose in the Embers love interest I thought I might skip, I took advantage of it, and was pleasantly surprised.

VN Talk: Rose in the Embers - Part 3: Takahisa

Takahisa gave me a really bad first impression by being flat out rude to the MC in the prologue (basically inviting her to die in front of his carriage), so even though it was seeing artwork of him that originally attracted me to Rose in the Embers, I didn't pick him for my first route. (It was that military uniform. It screamed Taisho, and I love early 20th century stuff, if you couldn't tell from the World War I short stories I've written.) But he was a total bro in Kyosuke's route, helping out the MC and sharing information to help her better understand Kyosuke, so I ended up picking him second.

In his route, the MC is dumped on him by Kyosuke and he reluctantly takes her home as a maid. Takahisa is a captain in the army and is very strict about what he expects of her. His sister is as well.

Due to their parents dying when they were children, the two live alone in a large traditional Japanese home. Suzuko is in finishing school so she's away at class most days, and prior to the MC's arrival, the two of them handled most of the chores themselves. Takahisa makes it clear that the MC is only going to stay until Suzuko is ready to leave home (i.e. get married). They've had maids before, but none have lasted, supposedly due to Takahisa's demanding requirements. If you've ever heard the phrase "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable," then you know what Takahisa is like. (Actually, with him, five minutes early is still late.)