VN Talk: My Sweet Bodyguard - Part 2: Katsuragi

Picking Daichi Katsuragi first was a "me choice" rather than seeing who the protagonist seemed to mesh with the best. Voltage protagonists are never named, though they often come with their own personality, so they aren't completely blank slates. But when I first started messing around with the Love 365 app I didn't think about it so much as looking for a story with a love interest that I would find interesting. So those early days were a lot of hopscotching through the various titles to use my free reading time as much as possible before I had to pay.

What I'm getting at, is I was lured to My Sweet Bodyguard due to its premise (a lot of Voltage games are exactly what the name says on the tin) and then chose Katsuragi to be my protagonist's bodyguard because I thought if I was going to read a romance with any of these guys, I wanted the boss, who's older and more experienced than the others. (Might also be my own age talking.) I played about halfway through his story before my free time ran out and then set the game aside as I played other things.

Coming back after all this time, and having bought a bunch of other My Sweet Bodyguard routes while they were on sale, I restarted from the prologue and found I almost wanted to set up the protagonist with either Kaiji or Subaru, just so their age would be closer. Katsuragi's age isn't given anywhere to my knowledge, but since he's the only love interest who goes by his family name instead of his given one, he's probably several years older so they would not be able to address each other as peers. My personal guess is he's in his thirties since there are other love interests in Love 365 who are canonically in their forties and they look older than Katsuragi.

Unlike the prologue, which asks the protagonist to choose her bodyguard from the base set of five, Katsuragi's route rewinds about half of the prologue so when she learns the prime minister is her father, he also tells her that Katsuragi will be her bodyguard, and we move forward from there. It's a little awkward rereading his first chapter right after the prologue because of the doubling back and conversation revision, but I guess it works a little better narratively since it would be weird for her to directly ask for the head of her security detail to be the one guarding her 24/7.

The other members of the team talk up how good Katsuragi is, which you'd expect given he's the most senior guy on the team, but once he's actually on the job, he's oddly self-depreciating, at least for the early part of his route. In most circumstances that would be nice, but considering the protagonist is relying on his prowess to keep her safe and alive, I'm not sure confiding his doubts to her is really the smartest move? I'd probably be rather nervous in that position, though the protagonist is oddly unbothered by this. But then, she's also someone who's worried about how an attempted kidnapping is going to ruin her efforts to attend college.

As I mentioned, I picked up My Sweet Bodyguard as more of a guilty pleasure than expecting a particularly deep story. From my free reading time I already knew about being attacked by terrorists riding camels while dressed like they escaped the circus. So if you read it, you'll get exactly what you expect, at least in the romance department (I would not have expected the camels).

Katsuragi is the kind of guy who's been married to his job, and has probably never gone on a date in his life. The way he puts it is: he has to put his life on the line to protect his client, and if he's in a relationship, then he might not have the will to do that anymore. Which, I can understand. But this is an otome game, so he can't bat those feelings away forever.

And one thing I like about the protagonist in My Sweet Bodyguard is that she knows an attractive man when she sees one, so she quickly becomes invested in breaking down Katsuragi's walls, because she doesn't like his job getting in the way.

She's got help too, from her friend Kosugi to Subaru on the bodyguard team, who are all too happy to get a reluctant Katsuragi to act on his feelings.

So the route plays out more or less as you expect. Eventually the protagonist actually does get captured, Katsuragi helps her escape, they confess feelings for each other, the terrorists are captured, and then… oddly, there are still a few chapters left. I did not expect an extended epilogue (especially since there is an Epilogue with a capital E which is a separate purchase), but I was down for the electronic store date.

One thing I really like about Katsuragi is that he's completely adorkable when it comes to household appliances and electronics. It's nice when a character has unusual hobbies, and that a straight-laced bodyguard just loves talking about household appliances makes for a charming character trait. You know he would be handy around the house.

In fact, the amazing rescue following the protagonist and Katsuragi's capture could have been a total deus ex machina, but was actually foreshadowed by the mp3 player he accepted from his superintendent. Katsuragi was going to fix it since he's known as being handy with electronics, so he had it with him when he and the protagonist went to see the terrorists, and there was a tracking device on it because the superintendent kept losing it. But since he never mentioned that aloud (since there was no reason to), the hidden mic on the protagonist's keychain never picked up its existence, allowing the team to pinpoint the terrorist base when the pair get captured.

But getting back to the electronic store date, as it wraps up, we find out "surprise" it's not over. Since My Sweet Bodyguard does not take itself entirely seriously, the penultimate bad guy is taken out by slipping on salad dressing (I kid you not), but that leaves the door open for the "real" antagonist, which I admit I did not expect.

The terrorists in this route are after the release of Kiyoshi Okawara, who you get to meet partway through the story. Okawara was arrested years ago and supposedly has remorse for what he did. He otherwise refuses to talk about himself, but after a visit from the protagonist, he off-handedly mentions that he has a daughter about the same age, and that like her, his daughter would have grown up without her father.

It turns out that Karen, one of the drama club members, is the final villain of Katsuragi's route. Unlike the protagonist, she was raised within a terrorist organization and despite being hyper competent and often causing the protagonist to envy her, she in turn envied the protagonist for living the normal kind of life she didn't have. I was surprised to have an antagonist with a face, and especially one that was portrayed as a friend all the way up until the reveal.

She tries killing herself after failing her mission, but since this is not a game designed to make you feel sad, Katsuragi manages to stop her and she's taken into custody. The game is careful to let the player know that since Karen is underage she will not be tried as harshly (age of adulthood was 20 in Japan at the time this game came out, so it was normal for a lot of college students to be legally underage), and there is the suggestion that she will be allowed to meet her father for the first time, which will give her a more hopeful future to look forward to.

I probably should mention that I was amused that the prime minister felt reassured leaving the MC in Katsuragi's care because he didn't have to worry about any inappropriateness, which at the time felt like a good reminder to Katsuragi that he shouldn't let his feelings interfere with his job (I don't think that's what the prime minister was going for, but how Katsuragi would have taken it). So when Katsuragi finally acknowledges his feelings, and expresses his desire to date her, I was curious how the prime minister would take it.

And I have to say, I think the prime minister gives off pretty good dad energy. The first thing he does is ask if this is what the MC wants, and when she says she does, then he's cool with it.

However, there's a small part of my brain that hungers for realism and wants to shout that Katsuragi should probably be assigned another protectee out of concerns his feelings would interfere with his job. But that's not terribly romantic.

Next week we're going with Kaiji, who edged out Subaru just a bit because I like a good childhood friend dynamic.