KoiChoco - 46-48 Hour Mark Impressions (Spoilers)

in The Visual Novel Den5 months ago (edited)

Hey y'all. Welcome back to my impressions of KoiChoco. I finished the Michiru route in this session and wanted to share my thoughts with you. Let's Jam!!!

Check Out Previous Sessions

Here are the rules for my play so you know what to expect from this portion:

  1. If I didn't talk about it much in previous routes, I will only reference it here when needed
  2. Most of this session was new content that tied heavily into the other routes; I will only loosely discuss the parts that affected me since I haven't completed all of the other routes
  3. I'm only showing off screenshots from the 2-4 hour mark of this play session; most of what happened in the first 2 hours, I'm not discussing or touching (to avoid majorly spoiling things)
  4. These rules may apply to other routes

General Thoughts

Around half of the meat of the content in this session was adapted by the Anime but it still felt like an afterthought, especially the parts that were only alluded to in the original work that AIC Build fully animated and fleshed out the story of. I'm not sure if I appreciate the changes made yet since, on the one hand, they do give more context to the greater narrative and help introduce the prequel Visual Novel's main cast; on the other hand, I still stand by the notion that there were things that weren't adapted that really should have been.

Now, I won't be discussing the ending in full, but in terms of general presentation and structure, I enjoyed this route more than both Isara and Chisato's (but Isara is a very close second). Both were interesting and welcomed changes to the common formula. Sadly, the 40 Oojima rolls never made a future impact or appearance, though. I also feel that the reveal and resolutions of the final important character to the story, Kana, was a bit too handwavy and convoluted for what the route's general narrative was going for, but the Anime, in my personal opinion, did drastically improve it with the alterations made.

The Sex is a Farce, Part III

Source

I expected her scenes to be finished during the first two hours but then the developers snuck in an extra helping right after the two hour mark, so I'll briefly touch on it here. This meme perfectly encapsulated what I saw of it; her cat hair was definitely not just for show at all.

NOTE: I don't hate any of the sex scenes so far but this last one really caught me way off guard on this route. I will openly say that I will never forget this one. Moving on!!!

I Love Chisato Much More Now

Chisato as a character never bothered me as much as she did many other readers and Anime watchers. I think some of it may be how much more Anime I've consumed than Visual Novels I've completed along with mostly staying out of the greater community for both. I have chatted with others over the years for both hobbies but have found how open and forgiving I am to many of the common tropes to be the rejected way of viewing things. As someone who has experience with a similar toxic relationship (Yuuki and her really are unhealthy throughout most routes so far) and past traumas (no one died in a horrible way in my case but the losses were still real and relatable), I felt sympathy towards her. This route, she did something I never thought she would: she blessed the relationship between Yuuki and Michiru in a realistic and overall very mature way. His happiness and her real love for him both took priority here. This entire exchange broke my heart.

My favorite part of the exchange was when Chisato realized how broken their relationship had been for a long time through watching how broken Michiru was and how Yuuki truly really cared about her. Loving someone with a mental illness (as someone who has his own) isn't a bad thing but rarely do media address it in a positive or neutral light. Here, Yuuki genuinely caring about another person and Chisato giving up her selfish desires, both of these traits make them still a great pair of close friends.

Now, Have Some Porn

I'm not going to give full context for the following screenshots; the art and animation team went all out for these. They put quite a bit of effort into this route compared to the others so far, which fit what kind of character Michiru really was and how her story played out in a bit of a fit of chaos.

I hate to admit this but this kiss scene and everything around it was hot. She's a very short, fragile bodied girl compared to the rest of the heroines, so of course Yuuki would be bending down to kiss her. I also find it interesting how much they age up her appearance here compared to most of her moe appeal ones instead. Often, she has a very derpy, goofy expression but for story reasons and where this happened, making her a woman in this scene made a massive amount of sense. Her real self and story both were pretty hard on me, so I am glad she received a serious pass in the visuals.

Michiru playing with a camera was never something I thought I needed in my life, but now, I want to give her head pats for it.

The school President and Michiru sharing mutual secrets and some history along with how completely messed up Yuuki's mental state was, this represented all of those extremely well. I love these so much because of what cutting both characters out of the scenes really meant in context of those scenes.

I plan to do Mifuyu's route next and then finally finish with Satsuke, Yuuki's political rival. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts here, and I'll be continuing to post in the future as I go. What were your thoughts? Are you also playing this? Leave your comments below, vote and reblog. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful night.

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Instant follow. Found you in waves and I’m a huge lover of anime - keep it up man!

 5 months ago  

Welcome. Have you found any Anime that made you want to check out the source of? This is my third or fourth one that did that. Any visual novels that you were curious about but never played yet? 😎

I don’t even know about visual novels. I’m honestly fairly novice. I loved Akira, and my friend in the army told me how the guy painted each scene on giant canvas, which was how they got all the detail. I also loved:
Fullmetal Alchemist (I know it was written for Netflix which feels kind of cheap and dirty, but I was absolutely smitten)
Spirited Away(same thing. Written for Disney, but just…what an amazing journey.)
I’m 41 years old, so I played the living F*CK out of FFVII which, although it’s not full on anime, definitely has some hefty anime vibes.
I never got into dragon ball-z or Pokémon or anything, but I’m assuming they’d be cool if I tried them.
I liked onepunch, although it was probably my least favorite.
Last thing I can think of, Grave of the Fireflies was an absolute crush, I loved it.
Not to get too graphic, but I also was a sucker for anime “NSFW” content in my early teen years - though now I personally steer clear of such content of any genre…anyway, yeah if you have any good show/movie recommendations based on the above, I’d love to check them out!

 5 months ago  

Have you played this official Sonic VN yet made by Sonic Team? It’s not something I’ve played yet but is considered all-ages. You have an interesting perspective then. I’d love it if you posted a full post about the kind of stories you enjoy and any possible questions you have in this community.

You’re open to creating a story from a request??? With art!!??? …still cool even if I’m over-imagining 🤣

 5 months ago  

More like finding recommendations. The stigma that all VNs are only sex based is something I would love to alleviate, but if it’s there, I view it in context. If you view the other parts, it’s very isolated to towards the end and there’s an all ages version coming soon to probably steam

Im all about wizards and stuff, as well as having a loyal army of crows - so if you had a story about a witch or wizard who is followed by a pack of crows, I’d be stoked to read it! I don’t want to be too specific and stifle creativity, so I guess this is my recommendation lol :)