As I’d predicted, the sporty girl was incredibly easy to get. I joined the soccer club and worked on my exercise stat. I also took her to the stadium to watch soccer matches and took her to the “recommended” date spots whenever they opened up. Itsuki likes anything active, so the pool, the beach and the bowling alley were good as well.

Itsuki’s a sweet girl, in the cliched sporty tomboy kind of way. Like sports, lives with dad and brothers, dresses and acts boyish, blushes heavily when she likes you, drags you from place to place at the school festival, etc etc. Nothing unexpected or untoward. She was mine before the second year was up.

And not just her, but most of the other girls at least liked me by the end of Tokimeki Memorial 4. I raised all my skills like crazy, which somehow made me utterly irresistible. I even ended up getting chocolate from 7 of them on the final Valentine’s Day. Maki Hoshikawa in particular was only one or two steps away from tokimeki by the final year. I made a second save so I could dump Itsuki and get Maki’s ending instead without having to do her whole route, but now that I think of it, she deserves better. I’ll give her a proper go.

I’ll also do all the other routes in turn except the following:

1. Haru. Nothing against her but reading her diary entries gave me a serious case of the yawns. So you want to become a pâtissier, big deal. One vapid, brainless high school girl (Yanagi) is enough for me.

2. Elisa D. Naruse. Daughter of two naturalized weeaboos. I don’t have a problem with that, in fact it’s rather cute. But I can’t live with that backwater Miyagi dialect she speaks. Trashing Miyagi Prefecture may be low in light of what happened there recently, but I’ll come right out and stay it: their accent sounds like ****.

3. Miyako. I’ve watched, played and read a lot of series, and she is hands down the most unfriendly childhood “friend” I have ever encountered. What’s more, I strongly suspect her of pulling a fast one with my allowance. A measly 8 rich raise over three years? Really, Miyako? Really? The real deal-breaker, though, is that she hit me at the start of the game. We all called Saeki an abuser when he hit the MC in TMGS2, and rightly so. So why should Miyako get away with it just because she doesn’t have a penis? Start saying things like “crazy is cute” and “yanderes are great” and it will be you in handcuffs 10 years from now because your crazy girlfriend broke her own nose and told the police you did it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

4. Satsuki-sempai. Ehh, I dunno. Yamato Nadesico types bore the crap out of me so unless she’s going to turn into a raging temptress once she melts a little, there’s nothing in this for me. But on the other hand I would like to join the Student Council and try to get by without a part-time job. Hmm. Okay, I’ll save her for last and then decide.