Issho ni Gohan. Portable – Apartment Dinner Show (lit. Let’s Eat Together) is a forgettable otome game about the relationship between a bunch of college students and their female dorm manager, more or less. They’re all studying at a college of nutrition and food sciences or something like that so a lot of their interactions revolve around dinners, parties and other food-related events.

Issho ni Gohan. was originally a drama CD series which got adapted into a video game and a manga which I should have read instead and saved myself the time. With most otome games I like to clear at least one route so I can have something more concrete to write about, but at last in my old age I’ve finally learned to cut my losses and quit games while I’m ahead. I haven’t learned to keep my explanations short and to the point yet, but I’ll try to be less wordy while I explain why I dropped this.

Reason: It’s boring.

Reasons why it’s boring:

• Too many lectures about food. You can’t walk into the supermarket without getting a 5-minute lecture + quiz on the different kinds of miso and all the parts of a chicken and on and on and on. Any player who cares that much about food would know all this already. Those who don’t care will be bored.
• It’s mostly a visual novel, but once in a while you have to play minigames like flipping pieces of french toast or slicing up a fish. The minigames are pointless because they rarely require you to do much, just press a few buttons here and there or stare at toast/chicken for 30 seconds and flip it once, that sort of thing. These dull “games” are also accompanied by more interminable lectures and quizzes on how exactly to cook one food or another. Boring.
• The main character kind of got of my nerves, I’m not sure why. Maybe she was too pretty. There’s a reason why most galge’s make their main character a dull brown-haired non-descript kind of fellow. I just look at the stupid flower in her hair and I’m like “Oh please, who do you think you are?” Haters gonna hate.
• The main character also comes across as kind of dumb with all her oohs and aahs and “I totally didn’t know you could fry chicken that way” kind of comments and accidentally tripping and falling on top of first one guy then another then another. I don’t find klutzes cute.
• 

  This guy. Gimme.

  The male characters are too ordinary. Bright-eyed freshmen, seniors writing up their theses, everyone in-between, just regular boys. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but then the writers need to work double-time to give them all distinct personalities and interactions with the female lead. Instead they’re all generic cookie-cutter nice guys (except one guy who is straight up crazy) so there’s not much to choose between any of them except looks. Which are again generic nice-guy looks and not really worth the effort.

• None of the guys really clicked with me, and the one senpai I thought might be kinda okay wasn’t dateable. Boring.
• The game is too happy-happy-nice-nice. MC has a cushy job where she’s paid to do nothing but hang out with cute guys and they’re always holding barbecues and Halloween parties and Christmas parties and it’s all so happy-happy it just makes me sick and… oh dear, I’m hating again aren’t I? I’d better quit while I’m ahead.

tl;dr

Boring guys who only ever talk about food, annoying main character, too much talking, not enough gameplay. And that’s why I dropped Issho ni Gohan. Now on to Rune Factory 4!

Related posts:

Kanuchi: Futatsu no Tsubasa – An introduction Kanuchi: Futatsu no Tsubasa – One step forward, five steps back Kanuchi: Futatsu no Tsubasa – Should have known it was too good to be true (spoilers) Kaeru Batake de Tsukamaete Portable – Didn’t click with me