#otome diary

[otomeminion]

kiyohito shirakami [spoilers]

now i will do my best to not bash kiyo since i know plenty of people enjoyed his story. i appear to be of the minority(?) that didn’t. for once in my life i actually had to put my phone away and detach. which in itself is bizarre since i play games to escape reality. yet here i am running away from a fantasy.

but as a writer i know that fiction stems from reality, and inspiration can come from anything that happens in our daily lives.

my problem with kiyo is mainly his behaviour and attitude. (i hate that word, but it’s the only one that seems to fit though) he’s the type of man that doesn’t like women and has a mouth that should be sewn shut basically. somehow this type of man is popular, and my life is blessed to not know of any.

he basically treats mc like his personal project; and she literally is when he does his makeover article with her as the first ‘contestant’ or winner. i can’t quite remember how it is phrased. a major theme in the story is change, people changing. but i’m not entirely sure the mc in this story needs to change in such a drastic way as kiyo seems to force upon her. in the entire story mc isn’t given an opportunity to grieve over her marriage, which she should be entitled to since she’s just found out her husband--who she absolutely adores and has complete faith in--has cheated on her.

i’m reading about a mc who is the most loving woman that possibly exists, yet you have her love interest who bullies her into believing she caused her marriage to breakdown and that she is a coward for making all these excuses and not doing anything to change them. even if it were true: which i don’t actually believe, since we’re not given any evidence to prove this besides kiyo’s opinion: he actually has no right to insult her when she’s experiencing a life crisis.

i won’t delve too much into nitpicking kiyo’s character, but essentially he’s a trope i steer clear of. i hoped he would be an improvement on taki, but at least taki seems to appreciate the mc from the beginning of his story; whether that be because of their history, i’m not concerned.

my next issue was kiyo’s incredibly brief back story. it wasn’t at all compelled to feel anything, i almost thought; “so what he was bullied?”, then my opinion of his worsened because he should know better, because while we may excuse his name-calling because it’s a staple in voltage games, it’s also a form of bullying. and words hurt people, as insignificant as they may seem. kiyo attempts to convince mc that she should learn to filter out the negativity spoken to her, but lets be honest, for a great portion of his story all he seems to do is criticise her. it’s a bit hard to ignore.

later we learn that kiyo was tricked by a married woman when his career was hitting big. hence, why he no likey the women in the world. fair enough. i can’t quite scrutinise that besides asking myself why on earth he shows remotely any interest in the mc. what about her actually makes him consider giving her a chance...? i was so so hopeful for an answer when kiyo is asked in the final moments ‘why her?’ by a reporter.

enter disappointment. excuse the major spoiler but his answer is basically he was ‘drawn to her’, oh boy kiyo that goes way against your character trope. (which i’m not entirely against) but still, could you please let me know what exactly made you fall for her? he explains that mc is the most beautiful woman in the world. was that before or after her makeover buddy? i’m not sure what is worse, his vague answer or his superficial continuation of confusion i was suspected to.

but i’m sure mc loved to be called beautiful because she was cheated on her and her self esteem was probably all over the place the entire story. the minute kiyo says he needs her, feeding her all this lip service nonsense, i’m a little gutted she didn’t trust him less, only because i didn’t believe a word coming out his mouth.

anyway, this rant has helped me sort out this frustrations i had over kiyo’s story. if you were lovely enough to read this post in its entirety i would love you to click on the heart. i do blame myself a bit, for all this aggro, since i’ve been attempting to kickstart my various novels, my opinion on other writings has become rather harsh and i find myself displeased the majority of the time. i feel that voltage stories never truly dig deep enough into a story, at least in kiyo’s case. that or, i was on a mighty empathy wave the entire read. ^^;;

thanks again.

[otomeminion]

takeru is savage

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Love Choice, is no choice at all

ignore my title, i thought it was quirky and would help get my point across in a blunt way. i’ll explain why, but first let me say i am happy voltage is realising they need to accommodate to one of their consumer groups (whether they don’t have the money or prefer free-to-play otome game systems.) but from what i am seeing of love choice and what it entails; those of us who potentially opt to read a love choice story would have to spend an exorbitant amount just to achieve the best ending. and if you choose the option where you don’t use your hearts i am going to assume you miss out on ‘juicier’ content and any images that come with those scenes.

now here’s my issue. i play free-to-play games, and it didn’t take me long to realise any scenarios, events and the like - they cost real money. it’s a fact. but in those games, the options i pick in the game never cost me real money. (as a side note even on my visual novels on steam, i’ve already paid for the content.) from what i understand of otome and visual novels, the choices we decide on merely effect the outcome of the story and divert it to a good or bad ending. as a customer and reader i shouldn't have to empty a part of my bad account to receive the better ending. in free-to-play games, that better ending comes with gaining the right amount of affection based on the options available to me. and unless you have a walkthrough available to you, obtaining the required affection becomes a hit and miss. in arithmetic games, you are able to buy affection points and they are always rewards in events. so in reality, unless you are picking the wrong choice every time, you shouldn’t really need to buy affection for your love interest. yet here we have voltage implementing a system where you need to buy those hearts from the first choice you make (unless you want to choose the other option, but let’s be honest, most of us want to get the better ending, we want mc and her hottie to have that blissful ending). in saying that, i wouldn’t mind if voltage kept the content equal for those who opt for either ending, but the free choice route means you can’t save the images, or something. or, reward us with hearts more frequently, in a larger quantity.

this, of course, is just my point of view. i feel voltage is making a bad move introducing love choice to their overseas market; in fact their post explaining how love choice properly works, should have been posted maybe a few days before it was introduced into the love 356 app to avoid the confusion and ‘concern’ we are expressing. although i’ll admit i’m more disappointed than concerned about where my money is going, since i’m not likely to read any love choice routes in the future {she says now!}

you can feel free to agree or disagree, but sometimes it is better to get these things out in the open, and voltage is extremely lucky to have such a vocal and honest customer base.

[otomeminion]

poor yoshinari, but this is hilarious

[otomeminion]

you poor thing

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y e s, you tell him ichika

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--spoiler below--

how is this a bad ending, that is just cruel

[otomeminion]

there is a gentleman somewhere deep inside takeru