I know you~ I dated your brother once upon a dream~
Hmm. I don’t know… Isami’s route is the most romantic so far in HanaIchi, and it’s nice to be loved and wanted, but the man in question… hmm. He’s a rather dense idiot, which makes him easy enough to fool and lie to, but he’s also a huge jerk who doesn’t know he’s a jerk. He may treat Haru nicely, but it’s just her: Haru. All other maids and servants are still less than dirt to him, plus he has conveniently ‘forgotten’ all the mean things he said to her when she was ‘just a maid’ so I don’t see the remorse or change of heart there. Once the blush of newlywed life wears off, will he keep treating her well or will he revert to being a jerk? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have risked it if I were Haru.
But she did and we got Isami and they’re happy together, and that’s what matters. Not much was revealed about the real story with the assassin on this route. The assassin attacks, they fight, he gets away, he comes back, they fight again, and on and on. I’m really not sure what this assassin is after, but he doesn’t seem like a particularly competent guy to me. If he really wanted Isami and Genichiro dead he had tons of opportunities. Well, I don’t care.
And neither does the game either, because a lot of time on this route was devoted to shoujo manga-style shenanigans. Like Haru telling Isami: I want you to treat me like a normal woman.
Isami: A normal woman? I don’t know the first thing about normal women.
Haru: Uh, never mind then, forget I said anything.
Isami: I know a lot about the whores in the red-light district, does that count?
Haru (& Me): .____.
Isami: Tell you what, I’ll call my buddy Kisuke and ask him. Good ol’ Kisuke knows everything. *ring ring* Hey Kisuke, what do I do with a woman?
Kisuke: First take your pants off, then—
Isami: No, I mean a regular woman. In the daytime.
Kisuke: Ah. Well then you take her on a date, then treat her to a really nice meal, and then when the mood is right, you give her a kiss…
Isami: *click* Aight, I took her to Ginza yesterday and she’s already eaten lunch, so let’s skip straight to the kissing part *smoooch*
Haru: Nooooo! My very first kiss! You pig! You monster! Waaaaah!
“Noo! It was my first kiss on the hand!”…said no maiden ever.
And of course she ran off and told her best friend, and he also ran off to tell his mother “I kissed a maid, and I liked it” and more shoujo drama occurred and it was actually pretty funny and oh so childish, which really isn’t what I’d expected when I started Isami’s route… I guess I did enjoy it, in a way. Susumu and Tadashi were so oblique and wishy-washy that Isami’s blunt stupidity was rather refreshing. Okay, okay, it was fun. He’s a jerk, but a fun jerk. Best guy so far.
By the way, the Miyanomori father Genichiro is a really evil guy. I wish he was available to date >:-D. But since he’s not and I’m not ready to give this game up yet, I think I’m going to do one final route, most likely Masashi’s, and then I’ll call it a day for Hanayaka nari Waga Ichizoku… for the main game, anyway. I’m interested in the fan discs now and even if I don’t play them I’ll probably watch the OAVs at least.
In other gaming news… I’ve been playing some other stuff, but nothing has progressed far enough to be worth talking about. Maybe next time, if I don’t do Masashi’s route, or the time after that if I do.
Eh, I admire your self-dedication as I usually clear 1-2 routes and then shelve the game orz. Sorry, but not a huge fan of shoujo tropes and sometimes too much text…
Same for me with most otome games, but HanaIchi is pretty fun, and funny. Good writing can make up for a lot. I just finished Masashi’s route so I’m done with the game, but I’m a little sad.
Sounds like you’ve been having good luck with finding good games lately. This definitely seem the type of game I can recommend to a friend of mine who’s into otome games. Speaking of VN with gameplay, have you heard of HuniePop’s that’s been recently been released? It’s a western VN/Puzzle game with some racey CG that’s about 80% match-3 puzzles and 20% satirical VN style dialogue that’s so bad that it’s good. I vaguely remember you writing about how addicted you were to Candy Crush Saga so this should be right up your alley, might be worth checking out.
Yes, I’m having a good year so far. I just started Entaku no Seito (I think you mentioned you’ve played that) and I’m enjoying that as well.
All I remember hearing about Huniepop was that it was fanservice-heavy, which didn’t seem like my sort of thing at all. I’ll look into it, but I’m not much of a puzzle gamer so I’m not really hyped.
Looked into HuniePop some more. It looks and sounds too risque for my liking so I’ll pass. Hope you enjoyed it.