VN Talk: My Sweet Bodyguard - Part 5: Sora

I was looking forward to Sora's route since he's a bright and optimistic personality on the other routes, even if he tends to get a little too huggy with the MC, but by the time I finished it, I wasn't sure I liked him as much anymore. It wasn't that he turned out to be a secret jerk, but there were two things about him that bothered me on his route.

The MC meets Sora first out of all the bodyguards during her rescue in the prologue, but she thinks she's being helped by another woman, who turns out to be Sora, who sometimes crossdresses as a disguise. He looks really good as a woman, and given his upbeat personality and that he's even enthusiastic about it on other routes, I assumed he was fine with it. And I actually think that he is fine with it, and proud of how well he passes, since he even has a photo album of him in his disguises which he admits are all of him dressed as a woman.

Given his protests on his own route, I suspect the problem is that Sora doesn't want to look feminine in front of a woman he's attracted to, but even if the MC is nothing but supportive he always feels resistant about it. It's not until the ending when the MC tells him his disguise is what allowed them to meet that he kind of dials it back, but it doesn't feel like there was a solid resolution on how he really feels about it and I didn't like the "I can't look girly in front of my woman" vibe I was getting.

VN Talk: My Sweet Bodyguard - Part 4: Subaru

Subaru, though seemingly the poster boy of My Sweet Bodyguard, actually pissed me off in the prologue for being rude and arrogant, so I wasn't inclined to like him, but he becomes a lot more tolerable later in Katsuragi and Kaiji's routes, which softened my impression of him. I especially liked seeing him discombobulated by Kaiji's sisters, which showed that he wasn't as put-together as he pretended to be. (And his freak out expression is a nice contrast to his usual smug one.)

It admittedly helps that the MC's internal commentary after choosing him is full of snark. She's impressed by his resume (Harvard grad, studied in Paris, professional accolades, etc.), but not his personality, which makes it a little weird when she starts falling for him about a third of the way in. There is the "there's only one bed" trope which results in them awkwardly sharing it, and unlike the other love interests, he passes himself off as the MC's boyfriend to cover for his need to shadow her 24/7. This produces some expected emotional confusion, but he doesn't act terribly boyfriend-like other than physical proximity.

I guess it's nice that he cleans her place and cooks for her (because those are always boyfriend points), but the way he does it suggests more that he thinks her standards are below what he can tolerate if he's going to be living with her. It's like no good deed he does comes without a put down, but the MC is attracted to him anyway. In universe multiple people comment on how attractive he is so I suppose it's possible the MC just can't get over how gorgeous he is, but as the player I think his character design is just "okay" and not obviously more attractive than the other love interests.

VN Talk: My Sweet Bodyguard - Part 3: Kaiji

As I mentioned in last week's My Sweet Bodyguard post, I was leaning towards choosing Kaiji as a love interest for being a similar age to the MC, and also being a childhood friend, which I thought could make for a more interesting dynamic than the other characters who are all strangers.

I thought it was off to a promising start. People who knew each other as children and then separated as they went to different schools, only to randomly meet each other again later in life is a thing that happens. So I wasn't bothered by the MC not remembering certain aspects of their childhood friendship, and though their romance does include a childhood marriage proposal, that's pretty much par for the course. I expect to be running into tropes in this game, so there's no harm in feeding the player the candy they're here for.

But even though I thought we were off to a promising start with the two getting reacquainted after an uncertain number of years (I think the MC moved away when she was about eleven, but the exact age is unclear), I found I didn't like their dynamic that much. Kaiji has a lot of fun teasing her due to their shared history, but otherwise spends a lot of time telling other characters how he's not interested in her. And meanwhile the MC spends a lot of time noting evidence that supports her theory that Kaiji hates women (he actually never says anything of the sort).

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.

VN Talk: My Sweet Bodyguard - Part 1: Overview

In which I talk (write) about visual novels from a storytelling perspective...

Platform: iOS (also on Android)
Release: 2013

My Sweet Bodyguard is a Love 365 title, which means that it's a part of Voltage's pay-per-route otome library app. Though I don't usually gravitate towards a particular trope in my otome gaming, on seeing this title I was actually surprised that the bodyguard trope hadn't already been exploited left and right, and arguably hasn't since. (Shout out to Variable Barricade's Nayuta though for being the one otome bodyguard I like who isn't in this game.)

With a title like My Sweet Bodyguard I expected a guilty pleasure sort of game, being in general the otome-flavored opportunity to live out Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard. The game even name drops the movie in one route, when the main character's friend finds out about her situation. And in that respect it delivers.

My Sweet Bodyguard does not take itself seriously. The villains are often cartoony, the situations unrealistic, but all the game really wants to do is give the player a good time that involves the main character and her chosen bodyguard falling in love. Normally I prefer heavier stories, but I found the irreverence charming, and even the more contrived situations (like the ever popular faceplanting into a kiss) are just right when in search of popcorn fare.

As I did previously, this blog post series will only cover the first of what Love 365 calls the "Main Story" for each route, which is the falling in love part of the romance. There is fandisc-ish material that follows the relationship as it progresses, but it's unequally distributed among the guys due to the modular way mobile content tends to get updated and My Sweet Bodyguard seems to have wrapped up. At the moment, I'll only be covering the first five love interests, though I may add others at a later date if I get around to them.

VN Talk: Kiss the Demiurge

In which I talk (write) about visual novels from a storytelling perspective...

Platform: Windows (also on Mac and Linux)
Release: 2022

Kiss the Demiurge is an unusual visual novel for me to play since it's yuri (lesbian romance) and usually if I look for a romance game I gravitate towards otome or RPGs with romance elements. But the developer of KtD, Studio YuriEureka, asked if I would cover it on my blog and provided a free copy of the game. It looked to be a supernatural themed plot and I like to try out indie games when I can, so I agreed.

The game follows Minori, a girl who accidentally made a contract with a demon as a child, costing her her parents, and the experience has forged her into a harsh and uncompromising teenager who works for a secret organization to hunt demons. She's actually a bit of a pill in the opening moments of the game, being so uptight that it borders on caricature, but surprisingly her zeal in saving the muggles from the realities of magic is exactly what makes her entertaining.

This game was released within the past year and is still fairly new, so this is a fair warning that this post will include spoilers after the cut.

VN Talk: Buried Stars

In which I talk (write) about visual novels from a storytelling perspective...

Platform: Switch (also on PS4 and PC)
Release: 2020 (Switch, PS4), 2021 (Windows)

Buried Stars is a mystery game, but placed in a very odd setting for the genre. It takes place in a recently renovated building being used to film the titular TV show, Buried Stars, which is described as a survival audition show where performing contestants move on to subsequent rounds based on the amount of votes they get and the lowest ranked is eliminated at the end of each episode.

At the start of the game, the contestants have been whittled down to the Top 5 and by the time voting wraps up they'll be reduced to the Top 4. Each of the five performers are introduced and given a little spiel about who they are and commentary on how their fans have responded to them, resulting in their current placement. Just after that, the stage begins to shake and the building around them collapses.

Following the collapse, the Top 5 and the floor director are trapped in an intact space in the rubble and cut off from the outside world (making them quite literally buried stars). This results in a much different cast of characters than you'd normally have in a genre more frequently populated by detectives and high school students. It was a little weird at first when the deduction mechanics start popping up before it's apparent any crime has taken place, but by the end I didn't even notice.