Weāre back for chapter 2! I wanted to say at the start though, a big thanks to everyone who has checked out the blog since I launched this. By the very nature of it, I knew this would be an extremely niche project, but with a whole 8 followers, I think I can safely claim the title of top English-language Vamwolf blog of 2026! We did it, tumblr!
Also lord help me, I felt like I was losing my mind by the end of this, but itās fine! Everything is fine! This game will surely not send me on a series of strange random goose chases throughout the depths of the internet, definitely not.
Video playthrough link (credit to Youtuber Kappa Ebihara)
Seri wakes up still thinking about the vamwolf in their midst and deciding she needs to figure out who it is. This then brings us to a game mechanic tutorial yayyy.
The way it works is that Seri has been gathering a list of facts in the āTIPSā menu on what she knows about vamwolves. Essentially thereās a pretty straightforward investigation system where you assess the guys based on known vamwolf traits to see if they match the description or not. Weāve collected a few of these here and there during the common route and Iāll start noting down when we collect new ones. This is what we have so far:
Sunlight: they dislike it, especially morning sun
Red pupils: if you get a good look, you can see the eyes are red Silver: touching silver burns them
Fangs: very sharp teeth
Super strength: they are exceedingly powerful physically
At various points weāll be given opportunities to check the chosen LI for vamwolf traits. This is called a āVamwolf missionā. Seri simply assesses whether they match the description or not. But there are times when this can change to more active questioning if she makes her suspicions known. This is called uhā¦.'Sadistic Timeā (in katakana English).
Iāve yet to trigger it in this chapter though. Unfortunately with the way the game is set up, certain tips only unlock after finishing other character routes. I tried to see if there was one that would make sense to play first with the least restrictions but honestly theyāre all mixed in there. Which means that the game essentially expects you to play through every single route twice to unlock all content ahhhh. So because this is my first playthrough, I might not have the other tips I would need for the āsadisticā questioning?
Also worth noting that some tips seem to influence the ending. These are marked with yellow stars. You also choose whose room you visit at the beginning of each chapter to determine who you question. You should always pick your target LI for this. Itās marked with a pink diamond which raises the affection levels (I canāt find any way to check where your affection stats are at in-game so you have to go by either a guide or justā¦hope for the best). The contents of the āsadistic timeā questioning also changes depending on the affection level.
Okay so! Since this is a Ryu playthrough, we choose to visit his room (note: the video playthrough chooses Nagisa in this part but this other video includes his scenes ). Seri finds Ryu in the hallway, just getting back to his room while very tired. She follows him into his bedroom (Seri, youāre being weird) and notices he seems to be avoiding the light. VAMWOLF MISSION START! [Select] Sunlight
(damn, he's pretty neat for a teenage boy)
Seri watches Ryu close the window curtain with an exaggerated gesture and thinks he was trying to avoid the light. She opens it again (rude!), to which he retorts āhey, I just closed that.ā She tells him he needs to get up and ready for school. He says the clear sky is too bright on his eyes and he doesnāt want to go to school today.
Getting a bit annoyed, he says heās worn out from the āgameā last night, implying that he had to work harder than usual to watch out for her. He means it as a joke but Seri starts blaming herself for being a burden so Ryu flicks her on the forehead. She says it kinda stings so he apologizes and kisses her on the forehead while saying a common Japanese chant like āpain, pain, go awayā (ćććć®ćććć®é£ćć§ć). Seri says normally when people say that chant they just rub the area rather than kiss it. But Ryu says kissing gets a cuter response so heāll keep doing it that way. The scene ends with him telling her to wake him in an hour so he doesnāt sleep the whole day away.
Iām very confused by the whole thing about sunlight with Ryu considering the very first time weāre introduced to his character is outdoors in broad daylight?? Clearly she has seen him be in the sun, probably a number of times. Yet when heās tired and has a headache itās suddenly suspicious to want a curtain closed? Seri, calm down.
It jumps to her cooking a meal for them all (hamburg steak with eggs or something?). Nagisa starts separating his meat and vegetables and tells everyone that people can survive on meat alone like heās about to start preaching about the damn carnivore diet. Shuichi is upset over soft-boiled eggs, saying men eat hard-boiled eggs. Keidai says thatās just him, because he likes soft-boiled personally (Iāve never heard of gendered egg preparations??)
They then ask Seri what her decision is on becoming a hunter. She says that she canāt help but feel terrified of the vamwolves, but she still wants to be a hunter. In her mind though, sheās still wondering about the traitor. Itās basically a game of Werewolf now where we have to find the culprit before anyone else dies.
She tells them about the vamwolf she saw yesterday and they explain it was whatās known as a āstrayā ćÆćć. Stray vamwolves reject their vampiric urges and are outcast by the other vamwolves so they become loners. They do not attack people, but Yuya says that vamwolves are still vamwolves and they all must be killed. Keidai justifies this by saying they curse their own existence so taking them out is actually compassionate, saving them from a living hell.
The āgameā for tonight is a request from The World Federation for the capture of a live vamwolf. The Federation is some big international research organization investigating vamwolves. They arenāt formally connected to the Wilhelm Association, but they tend to cooperate sometimes due to having similar aims. Their research is to find if thereās a way to turn vamwolves into people, which Shuichi calls preposterous. Anyways, they plan to meet at the church at 6 pm and then split up until then.
Seri goes to class and comes home quite tired. Between university, landlord duties, and being a hunter, sheās pretty busy. She finds a bunch of books scattered through the common area. Theyāre an odd mish-mash of assorted topics (practical kabbalah? cyberpunk almanac?). Yuya says theyāre all books heās read. He tries to read 2-3 books a week to ārelaxā. Seri asks him then if he has any books on vamwolves she could read. He passes her one but warns her some info is out of date. Thereās information he canāt share with her until she becomes an official hunter. To do this, she would have to earn a hunter point by being the MVP on a hunt.
[TIP Garlic: seems they donāt like it]
She reads until itās suddenly 5 pm. One hour before the hunt. Her choices are to:
-learn more about vamwolves
-go about her manager duties
-go shopping
For Ryuās route, weāre going grocery shopping. On her way out of the store, she sees Ryu getting mobbed by a few fangirls who are being A Lot. One asks to shake his hand and then exclaims sheāll never wash it again, that kinda thing.
He spots Seri and waves her over, talking like sheās his manager and whispering for her to go along with it. She notices with his face up that close that he is actually quite pretty. They lie convincingly enough to say he has a shoot to get to soon so they have to head off and hail a cab. Theyāre both a bit relieved to have gotten away from the girls.
Then we cut to the church that evening. Keidai is praying except, wellā¦. So the first line of this prayer sounds like a thing one would actually say in a church in Japanese. Itās essentially a prayer to God for guidance in their salvation. Rather formal language, but definitely the sort that would be plausibly used, especially since Keidai is supposed to be a Catholic priest.
Then the prayer changes. The rest of the prayer is written in the Roman alphabet, like what we use for English. He says āGloria patri, et Filio, et Spiritui sanctoā which is the Latin version of a short Christian hymn. I donāt speak a bit of Latin but even I could tell at a glance this means āGlory to the father, the son, and the holy spirit.ā
The last part though is
āAmeno, omenare imperavi Ameno, dimere dimere matiro, Matiremo, Amenoā I looked this up. This isnāt Latin. Itās a pseudo-Latin song from a French new-age band released in 1996???
No idea why this is what they went with. Did they think it sounded close enough? Did they just want to sneak in a reference? So many questions. Shuichi is questioning why theyāre even praying at all since itās not a thing they typically do.
Seri says she doesnāt know what language heās speaking, but she can feel it in her heart. SERI-CHAN, ITāS NOT EVEN REAL LATIN. HIS ASS DID NOT GO TO SEMINARY SCHOOL. Although the thought that Keidai himself is just faking knowing Latin is very funny.
[TIP Church: they hate holy places]
Keidai gives them their mission briefing. Thereās about 20 of their targets hiding in the mountains to the west. Despite it being a tourist area, there havenāt been any reports of attacks. Shuichi gets his turn as game master and jokes he now understands the power of prayer.
[Choice] Seri thinks they must stop the vamwolves doing harm butā¦
-Feeling nervous
-Capturing themā¦
-Glad thereās been no victims
She then asks how they know there are vamwolves in that area if there havenāt been any reports, but they change the subject. Cut to the woods again where Ryu is attacking a vamwolf with his katana. Except instead of using teeth and claws, this one takes Ryuās sword. Nagisa jumps in with his gun drawn and tells Seri to shoot from the left. She misses. Keidai and Seri go in for the follow-up attack, but Keidaiās knife hits first. Then Yuya uses his uhā¦..string weapon thing to tie the creature up.
When Seri looks at the trapped vamwolf, she just sees a person. Yuya talks about how this was all an elaborate ruse to lure it into a trap. Seri is glad to know she wasnāt a burden this time (presumably she was meant to miss that shot earlier). Nagisa threatens the vamwolf into submission and Seri thinks they look like they know each other.
[TIP Hyper-sensitivity: they can pick up on even small things]
The vamwolf then starts to talk to them like a normal human man (previously weāve only heard growls and snarls). He says he knew they were sent to capture him, not to kill him. Heās seems to know their codenames and is revealed to be a former hunter himself.
Heās whatās known as a ādhampirā with the kanji literally spelling āhalf-vamwolfā (written as ååøč”ē¼ but read as ćć³ćć¼ć«). Dhampirs are an actual mythological figure in the Balkans, it turns out. But those are formed when a male vampire mates with a human female. We learn that in the Vamwolf universe, dhampirs are formed when a human is filled with a large amount of vamwolf blood. Itās an occupational hazard for hunters, apparently.
Keidai pulls his knife out of the dhampir who starts bleeding out. Seri says they need to stop the bleeding, but Ryu warns her that her being covered in blood will bring out the vamwolf urges. Shuichi then goes on a lecture about how theyāre always dealing with these risks and asking if Seri wants to quit. He thinks sheās too hesitant and not decisive enough for this job.
Mid-tirade, Nagisa yells at Shuichi to watch out. The dhampir has taken out a small glowing grey rock-like thing, about the size of a 100 yen coin. This is known as an ashen crystal, essentially the core of a vamwolf. Apparently theyāre quite difficult to retrieve. Seri has the urge to hold it, but Ryu warns that touching it will turn her into a dhampir. Keidai takes out a pair of tweezers and stores it in a small glass bottle to give to the Association. The dhampir laughs menacingly and says that there will come a day when that crystal proves necessary.
Yuya states that, in his scientific opinion, the whole thing about touching it turning someone into a dhampir is all just urban legend (thanks for the fake news, Ryu!). He also mentions that thereās been talk of a serum extracted from ashen crystal to turn vamwolves back into humans but itās not yet been successful. (Back? Were they all originally humans??)
Handing over this crystal seems to have been the dhampirās main goal. Keidai is sympathetic to his situation, but says they canāt let him go. I donāt know if all of this is supposed to feel as morally grey as it does to me or if weāre supposed to be fully on-board with all this. Just handing over a non-violent sentient humanoid creature to some powerful and nebulous research organization for testing. Surely nothing could go wrong in such a scenario! Ethics boards all over that place for sure.
Since there were no kills for this game, MVP goes to Shuichi for the work of managing the mission. He and Keidai are responsible for delivering the dhampir to the World Federation. Seri feels bad watching them drag the guy away, but resolves that if they kill all the vamwolves, tragedies like these will no longer happen (uhh...). Ryu is also told he needs to rest off his injury from the fight earlier.
Once theyāre home, Seri thinks all she wants is a nice hot bath and to massage her feet. She walks into the bathroom (without knocking or anything??) and finds Ryu there apparently stark naked. She apologizes repeatedly, although he doesnāt seem startled. She just stands there looking at him (Seri, please be normal) and notices heās more muscular than she thought.
VAMWOLF MISSION START
[Select] Super Strength
God, okay, prepare yourselves for this one. To my knowledge, the LI you get for this second vamwolf mission is dependent on who you picked at the start of the chapter so you must pick going to Ryuās room for the sunlight thing to get this one. Seri has gone from following him into his bedroom and staring at him closing a curtain to walking in on him naked in the bathroom and once again, staring. And thinking this is entirely normal behaviour, for some reason???
So Seri zones out while staring at his body, thinking about how vamwolves do have super strength. Ryu finds it odd that she didnāt run off screaming at walking in on a naked guy in the bathroom. He says heās used to it though from modelling and that being wanted for his body isnāt such a bad feeling. Seri tells him not to take it the wrong way (how else is he supposed to take it??) and that she was just surprised how muscular he is. He says this is a pretty normal amount of muscle for a hunter. Seri says she needs to gain muscle too, but Ryu seems apprehensive about the thought of her getting ripped (okay coward). She laughs and says sheād be concerned about it too (support buff womenās rights!).
Since Ryu is a model who has to maintain a certain sort of figure, she asks him how to do it in a more balanced way. He then offers to give her āhands-onā trainingā¦in the bath. She whines for him to stop teasing her. Then he says that she seems to feel pretty comfortable with seeing him naked and wonders if sheās used to seeing naked men. Seri adamantly refuses and says this has all been a misunderstanding (THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM ALREADY, YOU PERV)
He says the way sheās refusing him so loudly is kinda sus and that she seems interested in his body. She finally goes to leave to let him take his bath, but he says heāll let her have the bath first. Until he then turns around and says that actually if he waits then heāll fall asleep late. So maybe instead he should have Seri get undressed and get in the bath with him~ She gets all flustered. āIt doesnāt sound like youāre jokingā āThatās because Iām not.ā But after that he laughs it off and leaves, asking her to let him know when sheās done with the bath. Honestly, I canāt even be mad at him for coming onto her so hard in this situation. Assuming she's interested is a pretty reasonable conclusion here. Seri seems to have zero self-awareness for how her behaviour might read to someone.
Anyways, she takes a bath in whatever fancy soap Ryu had added to it. Nothing weird happens, although she does start to wonder if she maybe did something wrong. She knocks on his door to let him know sheās done. He was already starting to doze off, but he comes to answer the door. He leans in and says she smells nice. She sneezes and he tells her she should go back to her room. Or~ heād be happy to let her keep his bed warm for him. āIām not a hot water bottle!ā āOh thatās notā¦what I meant but okayā (GIRL DID YOU JUST DROP OUT OF A COCONUT TREE??) God, I think Iām beginning to see why Soichiro was so protective.
As they say goodnight, Ryu brushes past her and she gets all dokidoki. She says she doesnāt know how to read his behaviour. Maybe he treats everyone like this. Maybe sheās reading too much into it and this is just how he is with girls. holding my head in my hands.
Sadly, Seri seems pretty oblivious to most things. Maybe the others are right in being concerned about her being a hunter beyond the whole typical 'must protect the delicate girl' thing. Sheās a very strange character to me because sheās presented like a generic self-insert type. Yet she does stuff like this which comes across as so deeply weird and socially awkward. I donāt feel that was the intent because itās not how sheās written in general? Sheās written mostly as āfriendly cute college girlā. I honestly struggle to even assign her a personality. I guess weāll see if this is a pattern or not. She doesnāt really show up on screen, but this is her sprite for reference (from VNDB)
Anyways, next update will be our last chapter of the common route. The chapters are getting longer with the vamwolf mission segments so I'll see if I should break it up into two parts or not. Thanks to anyone who has read this far!
Video link to Kappa Ebihara's playthrough for those who would like to watch along with music and voice acting. We're picking up from Chapter 1. Generally trying to stick to one chapter per post, but we'll see how long they are. Part 1 link for the prologue.
We start chapter one back in Seriās room where Keidai finds her asleep at her desk. He checks in on how sheās doing after the whole dead dad thing. Then he says heāll show her around the place as the new building manager (Iām confused, hasnāt she been around here a lot in the past to help clean?? Did she never go through most of the house? Maybe itās just a formality).
As a quick run-down, the first floor common area has a dining room, kitchen, bathroom, lounge area, and rooms for the building manager, Keidai, and Nagisa. The second floor rooms are for Ryu, Shuichi, and Yuya. I have no idea if this is relevant to anything but theyāre going out of their way to explain it so may as well. (This is also why I assume the background we have for Seri's room is actually Soichiro's old room).
Thereās a sense of suspicion through the conversation. Yuya doesnāt feel they should be overly trusting of each other when someone so close to them was just killed. Shuichi thinks Yuya is hiding something.
(If I actually commit to this project beyond just Ryu's route, maybe I'll finally figure out how to set up a Vita emulator to take better screenshots. But for now, these rough ones will have to do, sorry!)
Seri then reveals to them that she knows about the vamwolves and wants to join them in hunting them, but they say itās too dangerous.
Keidai says that as members of The Association they canāt outright refuse anyone who shows a strong will to be a hunter, but he offers an alternative. He shows Seri a bottle of perfume called āmissingā (in katakana English) but spelled é éé¦ (lit. hide demon smell).
From what I can tell, this more or less functions like that neuralyzer light device from Men in Black that makes people forget what they just saw. Except instead of wiping all memories, it only wipes memories related to vamwolves for some reason. Convenient plot device! Thereās a pretty limited number of them though and theyāre only given to the senior members (Keidai, Yuya, Shuichi).
Weāre finally presented with our first dialogue choice. For Ryuās route Iām following this guide so we pick āmust defeat the vamwolves.ā
Keidai suggests that Seri joins them on a mission to see if itās something she wants to commit to. He tells her that simply forgetting all this would be much easier, but she takes the offer and decides to join in on the vamwolf hunt. There were some reports on the news of vamwolf spottings so the mission will be that same night.
Also just a note in case anyone might be trying to read along with the Japanese, Ryu tends to give everyone nicknames. Shuichi is Shuuchin, Yuya is Yukkii, Keidai is Fujicchi (one of the kanji in his name can be read like āfujiā). He uses a lot of these.
That night before they depart, Keidai comes to Seriās room again and says she needs a weapon if sheās going to join them. He offers her the knife he usually uses. Then he drops the fact that they are part of the Wilhelm Association and that heās the director.
They take this name quite literally as the words āwillā (intent/desire to do something) and āhelmā (protective headgear). I didnāt think this was the actual etymology of the name but apparently it is? According to the wiki page at least. So altogether their goal is to āprotect people with the helmet of willā
Keidai said that he considered Soichiro like a dad to him and doesnāt know what heād do if anything happened to Seri. Seri then reveals that she has her dadās gun. Keidai thinks that would be better than his knife probably so they stick with that. Granted, Seri has never fired a gun before, but sheās confident sheāll figure it out uh, somehow. I see no way this plan could backfire.
Cut to said murder woods. We see the guys talking back and forth on walkie talkies using codenames based on gemstones. One would think they might have explained any of this to Seri before the mission, but I guess weāre learning on the job.
I compiled my own list for reference:
Carnelian - Nagisa
Tanzanite - Keidai
Amber - Yuya
Azurite - Shuichi
Jade - Ryu
Coral - Soichiro
Topaz - Seri
Seriās codename was given by her dad when he was still alive. Topaz is said to contain multiple colours and has the Greek etymology for āsearch/hunt forā ę¢ē“¢ (the closest I could find on this says it was named after a small island in the Red Sea and that island might have been named with that meaning, but it might also be folk etymology. The word might not even be Greek in origin).
They also keep referring to it as a āgameā which Seri asks about too. Keidai says thatās the term they use to mean āhuntingā because originally in English it referred to hunting animals (again, this is debatable. It doesnāt seem like the actual origin of the word but it is at least related in some way? Thatās maybe the best we can hope for here).
Etymology tangents aside, they then explain the rules of this āgameā. Thereās a game master assigned on a rotating basis. They seem to take precautions to prevent vamwolves from determining their power structure, not speaking in honorifics and never having a consistent mission leader. Tonight the game master is Keidai. Shuichi says his turn is up next.
(Yes, they do have different hunting outfits and no, I don't know why Yuya's makes him look like a casino dealer.)
They have a marking system based on the number of vamwolves they each take out. The VIP who lands the most kills gets hunter points from The Association which they can cash in for various sorts of bonuses. Game masters tend to get fewer points since they have to be more mindful of everyone else in the group which is also why they do this on a rotating basis.
They then finally broach the topic of teaching Seri how to actually hold a gun (little late for that isnāt it?!?). Fortunately, she has protagonist powers of plot convenience and knows how to naturally hold it right away due to her dad playing a bunch of light-gun games with her at the arcade. Itās giving āguy whoās really into Call of Duty who thinks heād be a military action heroā levels of delusion. But weāre rolling with it, weāre rolling with it. Anyways, the gun is loaded with silver bullets, the perfect weapon against vamwolves. Thanks Dad!
Ryu then senses a vamwolf presence and breaks off from the group to chase after it. Then Shuichi chases Ryu. Then Keidai chases the both of them. Seri is left to choose if she wishes to pursue the three who ran off, stay with Nagisa and Yuya, or question is the vamwolf is actually one of them. For Ryuās route, we follow after the other three.
We find Ryu right in the middle of a fight, wielding a katana (each of them have their own unique weapon types). He yells that itās his third kill.
When watching the battle happen and seeing the blood splatter on Ryu's coat, Seri suddenly freezes up and finds it hard to breathe. Ryu calls out to her to watch out before taking down the second vamwolf behind her.
(Behold the terrifying vamwolf creature!)
Ryu tells Seri off for zoning out like that and tells her that acting like that will just get in the way. She apologizes and then runs off, feeling bad that sheās being a burden to them. She resolves to fend for herself and not hold them back.
She walks for quite a while until she spots another vamwolf. This one is different from the rest. Itās not fighting back and makes a human crying whimpering noise. Despite just making this resolution to herself to fight, she hesitates and asks why itās crying. It runs away into the woods. Seri thinks it seemed oddlyā¦human.
The hunt ends and we return to Seriās room. Everyone made it through the hunt fine (although Iām not sure who won). Seri searches through her dadās things again, wondering if maybe thereās something else she missed. In a small hole carved into the back of the journal, she found a tiny rolled up piece of paper. Itās another message from her dad which simply reads:
āIs there a vamwolf hiding among us?ā
Seri doesnāt want to believe this could be true but she knows her father wouldnāt lie or joke about such a thing. Her mind starts to run through the possibilities as she wonders if her dad died in his search for the traitor.
Then, another sudden tone shift! Ryu calls her and tells her to open the door in 10 seconds then hangs up. Cue the upbeat music! He sneaks his way into Seriās room by hiding on the other side of the door. He claims he sensed she has a ārestless auraā and he was worried about her.
Ryu seems to sense she feels suspicious towards him but she denies it. Then he jokes that he can sleep next to her to help calm her nerves. She gives him a firm āno thank you!ā so he calls her stubborn then leaves and wishes her good night. (I thought Ryu was a psychic not a mind-reader? Perhaps he is just that crazy perceptive??). Seri is left feeling conflicted whether she can trust him. He seems considerate but she canāt get that question out of her mind.
-End of chapter 1-
Who is the secret vamwolf among them? Theyāre described as having red eyes and long canine teeth but perhaps they have ways to hide those to appear more human? Weāll find out more in Chapter 2: Wolf of Betrayal oooh
For anyone who skipped over the Part 0 intro stuff, welcome to the world of Vamwolf! Essentially, your middle-school Twilight fanfic come to life in visual novel form. Please join me in experiencing one of the most infamous otome games you've never heard of.
When you boot up the game youāre greeted by the most edgy 2010-era opening. Sadly the official video is region-blocked for some reason but it was uploaded to bilibili
And you can watch a video playthrough version for a full experience with the voice acting and background music (credit to Kappa Ebihara and big thanks to her for posting the only gameplay footage I can find of this game on the entire internet). These screenshots are off of those videos so apologies for wonky cropping and quality issues. Perhaps it adds to the authentic Vamwolf experience.
We boot up the game to a typical name selection screen. MCās default name is Seri Shirakawa (ē½ę²³ć»ćŖ) so Iāll be referring to her as Seri throughout this playthrough. Sadly, sticking with the default name doesnāt get you any extra voiced lines so they just use generic terms to refer to her. (Side note: Iām going to put all names into first-last order for this playthrough)
Our story begins with a sepia-toned flashback of Seriās dad, Soichiro.
This man is supposed to be 44 but he looks more like 30 to me personally. Anyways, this part is written like a diary entry of him thinking about Seri coming over often to help out with cleaning. He seems sad that she grew up quickly and took over so many household tasks after her mother died long ago. He wishes for her to be happy. Doesnāt seem like a bad guy.
We then jump back to Seriās room in colour.
She looks down at the journal in her hands and asks how all of this could have happened.
This journal comes up a lot. Iām not sure what the lettering says. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to comment and let me know!
We then have yet another jump in time (yes, it is confusing!). Theyāre smashing together a journal entry flashback and a āyouāre probably wondering how I ended up hereā jump cut in about a minute of reading with very little explanation of anything. Narrative parkour!
Seri has just gotten out of one of her university classes (sheās 20) and is thinking of visiting her dad for a bit. Sheās in some sort of urban centre with one of those huge TVs outside of a building. Suddenly a news broadcast starts playing.
The news anchors cheerily recount the story of a teenage girlās mysterious corpse as the happy slice-of-life music continues to play through the entire scene. The girl was found to have died of blood loss yet only had two small puncture wounds on her neck dun dun.
This is the third in a series of āvamwolf murdersā. The male news anchor then goes on a tangent about how it must be vampires under the iron-clad logic that vampires existed in the bible so they must still exist now. WHat?? Iāve heard some wild bible theories in my day, but this was a new one even for me. Maybe Mr. News Guy is on some weird-ass conspiracy forums. His female co-anchor thinks heās nuts. Anyways he recommends not to walk alone at night and to keep garlic on-hand. Seri thinks all that couldnāt be real.
Then our first love interest (LI) enters the scene!
This is Ryunosuke Tokiwa, the character whose route weāll be pursuing this playthrough. His name is kinda long so Iām just going to call him Ryu. All the main LIs have notable voice actors so Iāll include little summary blurbs for other roles otome players are likely to recognize as well as their Wikipedia pages.
Ryu is voiced by Daisuke Kishio whose notable roles include: Neji from Jack Jeanne, Azusa from Diabolik Lovers, Fuyuhiko from Danganronpa 2, and Nimura from Tokyo Ghoul.
Heās a rich kid, high-schooler (18), supposed top-class fortune teller, and occasional model. Honestly, his voice is pretty similar to Nejiās, being another energetic teasing prankster type. Heās also a bit of flirt. He starts to tickle Seri and she protests that he shouldnāt do that outside in public. āOh, so I should do it indoors then~ā Smart-ass.
But Ryuās teasing is soon stopped by our kuudere character, Nagisa Shinonome (22).
Heās the quiet but dependable and cool type. Heās worked mostly as a bodyguard and security-type jobs. Her dad said something about him having trained with a special police force overseas.
He's voiced by Tomoaki Maeno whose notable roles include: Lupin from Code:Realize, Red Riding Hood from Taisho x Alice, Houou from Kenka Bancho Otome, Kino from Diabolik Lovers, Nishijima from Lover Pretend, and Camus from Uta no Prince-sama
Taking the whole situation quite seriously, Nagisa threatens Ryu if he doesnāt leave Seri alone. Seri says she doesnāt mind, but Nagisa warns her that will only egg Ryu on even more.
We then cut to Seriās dadās house where we see a guy tending to the garden.
His name is Keidai Nitou and heās the oldest LI (28). Apparently heās a Catholic priest who leads mass, but Seri notes that sheās never seen him go to church. She isnāt too sure how to read him since heās sometimes serious and sometimes not.
Keidai is voiced by Hiroyuki Yoshino whose notable roles include: Heisuke from Hakuoki, Heishi from Norn9, Helvetica from Bustafellows, and Takumi from Chaos;Head
We also get a sprite for Seriās dad, Soichiro.
It took far too much effort to find his voice actor because I canāt find it listed anywhere online. Thankfully, the youtube playthrough included the credits. Heās voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi who has been a veteran in the otome space since 1995 when he voiced Oscar in Angelique (aka the birth of the otome genre). He has quite a lengthy credits page yet I couldnāt find Vamwolf listed even on his JP Wikipedia page (which are normally extensive. If you wanna find your favourite seiyuu playing āvillager 3ā in some obscure anime, you probably can). I canāt help but wonder if this was intentional or not on someoneās part. None of the voice actors beyond the main cast are listed anywhere. Itās quite strange.
Anyways, her dad runs thisā¦they call it an apartment, but itās clearly a house. Basically a share house kinda situation where rooms are rented out to tenants. Seri says sheās stopping by between classes to help out for an hour or so.
Then the conversation shifts to Keidai asking Seri out to lunch. I didnāt think much of this at first. I figured they all knew each other so it was probably just a casual āletās chat and catch upā lunch. But Soichiro quickly becomes protective and says she doesnāt want his daughter going out anywhere with Keidai, implying heās maybe intending something more than just casual lunch with Seri (the Catholic priest???). Look, weāre just gonna assume from this point out that any religious references are purely vibes and aesthetic-based. There are vampires in the bible now, fuck it.
So Keidai then tries to convince Soichiro and fails. We get mention of there essentially being a sort of quasi-family relationship between these guys viewing Soichiro as a type of father figure. Er, well, Soichiro does say he'd never have a rebellious sort of son like Keidai, but the sentiment is there still, I think.
Seri checks in the house to meet our last two LIs, engaged in a fierce battle of what I can only guess off of context isā¦Wii Tennis??
First we have Shuichi Aoi (24). Heās a private detective whoās good with computers and boasts about how he can find any information online. Possibly a hacker. Committed to the 00s-era emo aesthetic.
Heās voiced by Daisuke Namikawa whose notable roles include: Sasazuka from Collar x Malice, Hugh from Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk, Garrett from Red Bellās Lament, Oikawa from Haikyuu, protagonist from Persona 4, and Arima from Tokyo Ghoul
And lastly we have Yuya Kingetsu (27), the clever and polite surgeon.
Yuya is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita whose notable roles include: Ruka from Tokimeki Memorial Girlās Side 3, Gundam from Danganronpa 2, Kuroba from Olympia Soiree, Gintoki from Gintama, and Yusuke from Persona 5
Anyways, Yuya trounced Shuichi at Wii Tennis, again. Even though Shuichi tried to challenge him specifically at a time he thought he could win. He tries to force a rematch when he sees Seri and insists on them playing 2v2 with a CPU as their fourth. They argue back and forth about who should pair up with Seri and eventually play rock, paper, scissors for it. Shuichi wins but Yuya sneakily called over the rest of the cast while they were bickering and the others break up the rematch. Cheery music plays, thereās a cute group CG, they all have tea and cake. It would be a sweet found family scene if I resonated with the characters more, but I see what they were going for.
Aaaand then we cut back to Seriās room to find her dad is dead! He died a few days later off-screen! Man, the writing gives me so much whiplash I think I gotta stretch after this.
Seri says he disappeared suddenly one day just like her mom did before she started first grade. She never saw her dadās body because it was thought to be connected to the vamwolf serial murder cases and taken for a court-ordered autopsy. So they buried an empty casket instead (?? did they just keep the body after the autopsy?? can they do that?)
Anyways! Seri now has a new job taking over as property manager. The room weāve been seeing her in with these time jumps is actually her dadās old room, I think. It looks like a pretty female space to me, but maybe Soichiro was in touch with his feminine side and liked soft pink curtains and floral bedspreads, who can say!
So Seri looks around for things her dad left behind for her and finds an old diary he used a lot. When she opens it, she finds a key to a drawer which contains a letter. Specifically one of those āif youāre reading this, it means Iām deadā kinda letters. In it her dad reveals his true identity as a vamwolf hunter and that the house is operating as a hunter hideout. Which means that not only are vamwolves real, but all the characters weāve met are hunters too (gasp!). He also leaves her a gun she doesn't know how to use. Cue the opening video again! End of prologue!
4 time jumps, 1 freshly dead parent, biblical vampires, we're already off to quite a start! Let's goooo!
Have you ever asked yourself why bad otome isnāt fun like bad movies? Outside of some hilariously egregious localization like the original Taisho x Alice translation, there doesnāt tend to be much in the āso bad itās goodā category. Most of the time bad otome is just the boring sort of mediocre bad not the fun kind. The fact is, the truly egregious stuff often never gets picked up for localization in the first place so there's a certain level of terrible in the otome sphere English players never get to see from Japanese otome.
Until now!
I bring to you all a rare delicacy, a true example of fun-bad otome. Imagine the purest distillation of a 12 year oldās Twilight fanfiction with some utterly baffling CGs, and an oddly star-studded voice cast. And it goes by the name:
Vamwolf Crossā
Yes, vamwolf. As in, part vampire, part werewolf. Itās somehow even dumber in Japanese than in English (åøč”ē¼ but read as ć“ć”ć³ć¦ć«ć) and I kinda adore it. This isnāt quite otomeās āMy Immortalā which many consider to be tongue-in-cheek satire. This is otomeās version of āThe Roomā being played with absolute sincerity.
It was put out by D3 Publisher in 2015 and developed by Vridge. The last Twilight movie released in 2012 so this was well past the Twilight hype window. D3 Publisher hasn't exactly had the strongest track record. Long-time otome players might recognize the name from Storm Lovers or the Vitamin series, while newer ones might be more familiar with DesperaDrops. They primarily released games on the PS2, PSP, and Nintendo DS. But by the 2010s, the PS Vita was the hot console to have in the Japanese otome world and they released several Vita games around this time. They likely put a decent chunk of cash behind this title based on the voice cast, but that's just about the only selling point, honestly.
I happened to pick up a copy of my own a few years back in a used game shop in Osaka for 500 yen out of sheer curiosity at how bad it truly was. I started playing it and every time I did, I couldn't help but roll over on my bed in laughter at the absurdity of it all. And it was in that moment that I decided the English-speaking otome community deserved to see this in all its glory. (Full disclosure, I have yet to finish a route so this will be essentially a blind react playthrough (which may go horribly awry!))
To my knowledge, there is no English version of this game. There is no fan translation of this game. I do not think a single person has ever thought to themselves āI should translate Vamwolf,ā not even me (and I might be the only person who still cares about it). The only way you would likely even hear about it is if you went on a deep VNDB binge for your favourite voice actor or you saw a Japanese otome playerās ātop 10 worst gamesā list. Over a decade since the game released and the only thing Iāve managed to find about it in English besides the VNDB page (where it boasts a score of 4.88/10) and some generic news listings is this post by breadmasterlee in 2017.
So, to bring any English readers along for the ride, I plan to stick to summaries of events with screenshots here and there. There is exactly one let's play series I could find on this game on the entire Internet which I'll be using for screenshots. Big thanks to the Youtuber Kappa Ebihara for posting it so I didn't have to set up a Vita emulator. You can find the playlist here. It only covers the Ryunosuke route so that's who we're playing! Funnily enough, he's voiced by Kishio Daisuke who also voices Neji in Jack Jeanne (among many other roles).
The game is marked as having no sexual content on VNDB and has a CERO B (PG-13) rating so Diabolik Lovers this is not. I have a hard time imagining anything genuinely upsetting coming up here with how ridiculous it all is, but Iāll give a headās up on a post if there is anything a bit much. For reference, this is their attempt at an edgy kabedon scene (from VNDB):
Pictured: Dialovers if you bought it for 50 cents off of Temu (Dialovers came out several years before this, for the record).
So that's my opening spiel done. Now, let the disaster commence!
I've been saying for ages I wanted to live post the true otome disasterpiece that is Vamwolf Cross. Are there much better things I could be doing with my time? Yes. Did literally anybody ask for this? Absolutely not. But 2026 has been a hell year and I think we could all just use a laugh at this point dammit.
I intend this mostly as a silly shitpost blog I work on whenever I feel motivated or want a laugh so I may be a fair bit snarkier than on my main blog, but I hope maybe someone will come across it and develop the sort of strange affection I have for it as well. (Full disclosure, I have not beaten the game, so this may be a horrible surprise for all in involved!)
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