Gensou Rougoku no Kaleidoscope | Review + Plot Dump

I'm sick... sick in the head for buying this game. Anyways for once in a long time I'm reviewing something that's not homosexual, so prepare yourselves...

Kawaii anime girls about to have a kawaii time

Gensou Rougoku no Kaleidoscope

[Kaleidoscope of Phantasm Prison] AKA Gerokasu

creator: 07th Expansion

released in 2020

Once upon a time there were four best friends who all grew up happily together. For whatever reason, one day they wake up inside a death game torture chamber and have 5 minutes until death. What could possibly happen within that 5 minutes?

Brought to you by Ryukishi07, aka the Higurashi and Umineko guy. And those other odd games like Iwaihime and Higanbana etc etc... you get the gist of it.

WARNING: This post includes caps of anime girls with unseemly facial expressions

General Synopsis

Four girls who've known each other for like forever find themselves trapped in a small square dungeon, each with a metal collar on that's connected by a chain to a torture chair in each of the four corners of the room. In the middle of the room dangles a metal cage with a little boy inside with a dead fish expression. A mysterious voice tells them that it's time to go through a trial... one which will expose their true faces... 

TL;DR You watch 4 girls yell at each other until they escape/get barbecued/die/wtvr in their 5 minute time limit. The game revolves around you viewing every single possible scenario from the torture chamber game until you run out and learn what the game is about.

How the torture chamber game works

Since the entire game revolves around this torture chamber game, I'll clarify it here to give a better idea of what you're in for.

Passing out cards

Passing out cards for the nth time

The 'trial' involves 4 roles which are divided amongst the 4 girls by way of 4 cards that the boy in the cage has on him for some reason. These roles are 2 Judgement cards, 1 Pierrot, and 1 Prisoner. 

The prisoner immediately gets pulled by their chain into their respective torture chair in the room's corner, where the 2 Judges can then decide whether she is 'guilty' or 'innocent'. Whichever judge makes the decision, it becomes that only she can make the decisions on guilt, while the other judge receives the role of lifting the 'torture lever'. If judge 1 says 'innocent', then the prisoner and pierrot will switch roles, thus causing the pierrot to be pulled into her torture chair while the other is let free. If she says 'guilty', then the torture lever will unlock. Whichever judge says guilty/innocent first gets full reign on deciding which girl to have tortured basically. However at the end, it's only the 2nd judge who can pull the torture lever.

In order to escape the room, they must have the prisoner tortured. After pulling the torture lever, the chains for everyone except the prisoner will unlock, and the door to the elevator will open. Regardless of all this, in 5 minutes the barbecue beneath the grid floor will light up and kill everyone. The heat gets progressively hotter each minute, and once time runs out, basically a bunch of flamethrowers spew out and block the way to the elevator so they all die regardless of if they've managed to open it or not. That's the gist of it.

CAST

I don't remember anyone's last names but it doesn't really matter.

Karin

Karin: I..., even though I love Fuuka so much... and was so kind to her... and thought of her as my best friend... 

Karin loves Kamen Kendo (basically kamen rider) more than anything, and loves to dish out sweet JUSTICE on school bullies and evil-doers. She doesn't have a lot going on upstairs, but her heart is in the right place at least. Having been raised in a family of boys, Karin feels self-conscious about her tomboyish nature. She loves her best friend Fuuka more than anything in the world, since Fuuka is the pretty girl that she aspires to become. 

Fuuka

Fuuka: EEeeEEEEAAAaAAAAAAAAAA!!

Fuuka is a fancy princess like girl from a well to do family. She's graceful, smart, elegant, and good at everything. Perfect, one could say. But she's just doing her best not to let down the expectations placed on her, it's not like she wants to be so perfect haha! Even if she can be a little devilish on the inside, Fuuka loves her best friend Doremi more than anything in the world, since Doremi is always there to hear all her troubles.

Doremi

Doremi: So it was something like that. Aah, stupid, that's seriously stupid

Doremi is a quiet and strange girl who generally keeps to herself. But even if she's a girl of few words, she's perceptive and always there for her friends. Empathetic and thoughtful, she supports everyone without asking for anything in return. She's from a very poor family, but does her best regardless. Doremi loves her best friend Mina more than anything in the world, since Mina is always there for her in those moments when she's feeling down.

Mina

Mina: Lies... that's a lie... it's a lie...

Mina is a very child-like and silly girl who likes to talk in 3rd person. She's from a very rich family, but that comes at the cost of having strict parents that make her go to piano lessons and stuff like that. Dainty and cute, she's frequently targetted by her male peers to be teased. Luckily, Karin's always there to save the day! Mina loves her best friend Karin more than anything in the world, since Karin is the superhero to Mina's heroine.

BOY

Boy

It's a boy.

REVIEW

PLOT: F| The plot is....well... If you expect something deep and interesting for why they're in a torture chamber, please don't. If you just want to see the experience of being in a torture chamber, then sure go for it.

CHARACTERS: B-| To be honest, I actually like the four girls. I found them interesting, though with the material we're working with there wasn't a lot of room to flesh them out too ridiculously deeply with. I would have ranked higher if any of them were gay, but alas there's no gay implications in this story. The voice work however is VERY entertaining. I enjoy hearing seiyuus screaming nasty things at each other.

GENERAL WRITING: C| It's a little repetitive. The game jumps a lot between the torture dungeon segments and flashbacks giving tidbits about the four girls. You're supposed to piece things together as you watch their drama go on and on but yeah it gets a little old. Also the general payoff for going through all this is...not great. Reveals and big moments mostly fall flat, though this is just in my personal opinon.

ART: B| I am a fan of Hinoue Itaru's work. What can I say... the big bug-eyed anime girls are cute. I found their gero faces really funny, and the very few CGs were nice. But yes, there were very few CGs. Most scenes rely on narrative and use the same stills over and over and over again, so yeah it get's a little old! I do find the designs for the main cast quite nice though, and I enjoyed looking at them.

MUSIC: B-| Coming from the sound team behind Umineko, I expected better. Though to be fair, the game does only have like 10 tracks and repeats them over and over and over again. The few tracks are nice, though you do mentally think "wow I sure have heard this 300 times" whenever a track starts playing. There's even a popup in the corner telling you the name of the track so that you can know which one it is, even though you really don't need it since it's the same 2 tracks.

OVERALL SATISFACTION: C-| I don't regret reading through the game. It was an experience, I suppose. Some parts were really fun to read, some parts dragged, and some heavy-handed morals REALLY rubbed me the wrong way, but well... it was something. It was a visual novel. Yeah. That's all I really have to say about it.

Reasons to play this game: You like seeing anime girls yell at each other and have the money to spare reading some Ryukishi07 nonsense. Also you don't mind a shallow experience every now and then.

Reasons to NOT PLAY THIS GAME: Backwards and old-fashioned notions of gender drive you nuts. And you don't like repetitive stories with little to no payoff.

According to my game timer, it took me about 11 hours to read through the entirety of the game. For a 40 dollar visual novel...well.. it's up to you whether you think that sounds like a good deal or not. 

I expected better from Ryukishi but... the subject of gender touched on in this game is really grating, to say the least. I could physically feel my blood curl at times. But besides that, it was a fun read I guess.

PS. The game features torture chairs and all, but the torture and stuff in this game is very light. There's nothing particularly graphic, and every instance of murder is vague at best.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Rather unwoke narrative focus on gender issues, non-graphic implications of anime girls dying, and anime girls making ugly expressions. So yeah nothing absolutely horrific. This game is pretty tame overall.

DISORGANIZED SPOILER FILLED PLOT DUMP

The game opens pretty abruptly into the torture zone. The girls are confused, and a mysterious voice immediately explains all the rules to them. The dead-fish looking little boy stares at nothing while the girls prod at him to no avail, and he then does as commanded by the mysterious voice to pass out the role cards.

Honestly my memories are blurred together since you go through all this nonsense 12 times. Each segment is split into flashback sequences, where you see a scene relevant to the girl you choose as prisoner, torture dungeon segment, where u see the shenanigans unfold, and then more flashback whiplash to show you how the bonds between these girls used to be before all this happened. Over and over and over again until you have all the pieces of the puzzle.

Basically, it turns out that while each girl loves one girl... that girl HATES THEM BACK. Its a love and hate circle. (Circles play a big theme in this game) 

Karin LOVES Fuuka, but she HATES Mina, because to her, Mina is just an animal who lives to please others and use her cuteness to get what she wants.

Mina LOVES Karin, but she HATES Doremi. Because Doremi lied one time. Okay this one was pretty weak...

Doremi LOVES Mina, but she HATES Fuuka, because Fuuka is a two-faced selfish spoiled bitch.

Fuuka LOVES Doremi, but she HATES Karin. Because Karin is a dirty liar who doesn't understand the human heart.

Here's one example of a round. 

Karin is prisoner and Mina is Pierrot. Karin immediately notes a loose piece of metal on the wall and claims they should switch her with Mina so that she can use her muscles to pull it loose. Mina is weak after all, so Karin would be more useful. Fuuka refuses to let Karin have her way because she reveals that she HATES Karin. "I can't trust what you say because you're a liar who broke a promise with me before! Fuck you bitch.' Karin's like HUH.

Anyways, Doremi intervenes all like yo yo none of that right now... I'm gonna trust her. So she says 'innocent' and swaps Karin with Mina. Karin pulls the loose metal from the wall and pries the elevator open, but she has no way to unlock their collars... She asks Doremi to say 'Guilty', because maybe the chains will only unlock after judging the prisoner? After Doremi says 'guilty' and unlocks the torture lever, Karin smacks Doremi in the neck with the metal, knocking her to the ground. Doremi is dead? Incapacitated? Who knows.

Fuuka ofc is like KARIN WHAT THE FUCK... And Karin is like now you can't return me to prisoner. The only way out now is to kill Mina! Pull the torture lever, Fuuka! Fuuka however refuses because she hates Karin ofc... she'd never kill Mina. Karin is all like even now I still love you... we can make things right. Mina has no worth as a human being anyways since she's just a dirty animal. Mina: HUH. Anyways Karin tries to incapacitate Fuuka in order to use her hand to pull the lever, so Fuuka strangles Karin with her chain. She then holds Mina's hand as they get barbecued to death. 

The end.

Now imagine this amount of psychotic behavior but with everyone else. 

Have some scenes with barely any context.

Karin: I've hated you since a long time ago!! I hate hate hate hate you you animal girl! Aah to finally say this, I feel so refreshed!

Mina: Didn't I say something sooo praiseworthy? Doremi-chan is seriously just a slave! Hyahahahahahahahhaha!!

Fuuka: Don't say it! When will you, hAAH?! So say it!!
[I don't remember the context so I have no idea wtf she's going on about here but she's probably talking to Karin]

Mina: Help me mama, mamaaaAAaaAAAAaAAA!! *gets barbecued*

Fuuka: Haha, haahahahahaaahahahaaahahhahahahaha...

Fuuka: AAAAAAAAAH, AHAGAGAGAGAGAGAAAAAAAAAGAGAAAG!!!!

Mina and Doremi trying to kill each other

text: it looked like Doremi wasn't dead yet

*Doremi strangles Karin and Mina by wrapping their chains together before swapping the prisoner's role*

Fuuka: Thank you, Doremi. Now fall into hell

Doremi strangling Fuuka

As you can probably guess, none of the 12 possible iterations of the torture game end well. No matter how good things seem to be going, one girl will inevitably give into her blood lust and get someone killed.  Half the time they even prefer to choose death rather than let a friend kill their favorite friend or wtvr etc etc it's a lot of drama. 

Interestingly enough, the game is programmed to have the girls reveal more details on the reasons why they hate the girl they hate based on how many iterations you've gone through already, so you won't know the full picture until at least a good few rounds in. Still, that doesn't make it any less repetetive.. some rounds were definitely a lot more exciting and spicy than others, as most rounds have no CGs but a few get some unique ones for whatever reason.

Anyways fun facts time. On a scale of murder crazy I'll rank the girls from most wild to least.

Doremi>Karin>Fuuka>Mina

Fuuka and Mina are real hateful bitches but they definitely aren't as proactive when it comes to killing people who aren't the prisoner.  

Fuuka will suuper sadistically torture Karin when Karin's prisoner, but otherwise only really kills in self defense. Even though she loves Doremi she can be willing to throw her under the bus. Fuuka cares about herself the most. 

Mina actively tries to get other people killed to protect herself, but besides her fake ass lies she is generally harmless since she has no physical strength. However no matter what she always loves Karin, even when betrayed...  though she gets pissy af about it lol.

Doremi usually is pretty passive and easy to manipulate or take out, but once she gets into the angry mood she will kill everybody with no mercy. She's willing to die for Mina when prisoner, but outside of that she'll throw Mina under the bus... also when learning Mina hates her she really does a 180 and will kill her without hesitation. Don't piss off Doremi she needs serious therapy. 

Karin will kill if needs be but she will usually try to spare Fuuka... is this romance... jk. Anyways she really is kinda heartless but she has yandere vibes towards Fuuka which I found cute. 

Flashback portions:

This is where we learn the real meat of the game. The why's. Why do these 4 girls have so much fucking drama? You piece it together throughout the many many flashbacks we get.

Here's some scenes with no context:

Mina: Karin-chan, could it be you're really a boy? You're really just a crossdressng bishounen?

Fuuka: BeEeEEEF!!! *breathes heavily* Beef, BeEEeEeEEF!!!!

Fuuka: You're really cute

These four girls get along well enough, and they have a lot of stupid antics. We get to see a lot of their happy friendship together, and even though some of them apparently hate each other, they seriously don't show it at all.

Them as 2nd graders

We eventually learn that apparently, their happy group of 4 used to be a happy group of 5. In 2nd grade, a transfer student named Sora-kun transferred in, but his family was a group of travelling performers, so he was going to move again in 3 months. In those three months however, they became fast friends. Sora apparently hates boys, and always looked up to girls for how cute and happy and friendly they are, so he loved hanging out with these girls! And these girls loved Sora-kun too. Especially Fuuka, who had a crush on him.

Kuu-chan the cat

As high schoolers, at some point the four of them found a cat. Fuuka came up with the name 'Kuu-chan', inspired by the long lost Sora-kun who they'd never seen again after 2nd grade. The four of them love and treasure this cat as a group, but because they don't want to decide who gets to own the cat, they just collectively raise him in an abandoned lot in the neighborhood. Raising a kitty together just goes to show how much these girls get along! Totally.

THE GRUDGES LORE:

Okay here are the answers to everything. What did these girls DO to each other? 

Karin's story: Karin hates Mina because one time during 2nd grade, a bully stole Mina's magical henshin stick. Mina started bawling and making a fuss at Karin, and Karin decided she wanted to go beat up the bully to get it back, and ofc she wanted Mina to come too! Mina immediately was like wait a second... no thx I don't really want to do that what if I get beat up. But Karin makes her promise to come anyways. However, waiting outside of the bully's house, Mina never showed up. It starts raining, and Karin gets totally wet before the bully finally comes out. Karin then got the crap beaten out of her by the bully.

Next day, she goes to ask Mina where she went, but instead finds Mina bragging about a new magical henshin stick she got... could it be that Mina doesn't care at all about Karin? What did Karin go through all that for? Karin decides to hate Mina forever now. Never forgive...never forget...

Mina's story: Mina hates Doremi because one time during 2nd grade, she learned that Doremi had a magical henshin stick that was just like Mina's. Mina asked Doremi if she could come over to get it, since Doremi said she didn't want it. Doremi is like okay! I'll be home today so you can drop by. However, Mina was running a little late because her strict mom caught her trying to leave the house. By the time she got to Doremi's house, Doremi wasn't even home!! She waited and waited for Doremi to come back, and it even started raining. Mina got super wet and went home.

From then on, she decided to hate Doremi forever, because Doremi PROMISED and she WASN'T EVEN HOME! What a liar! Mina will never forgive...never forget...

Doremi's story: Doremi hates Fuuka because Fuuka uses her as a 'vomit bag'. Whenever Fuuka has something to complain about, all she does is complain it all at Doremi to 'refresh' herself. Since once she's vomited out all her negative feelings at Doremi, she feels all better! So isn't Doremi just her vomit bag? The icing on the grudge cake though, is how one time during 2nd grade, Fuuka gave Doremi a call, begging her to come over. However Doremi was supposed to stay home that day! Her parents wanted her to accept a very important package. But Fuuka was sobbing about her broken heart since Sora-kun rejected her. "If you don't come over, I'm going to die!!" Worried, Doremi rushes over to Fuuka's house. But by the time she gets there, Fuuka wasn't even home!! It then started raining, so Doremi walks home all sad and wet. By the time she got home, she found a present from Sora-kun left by her mailbox. But because of the rain, the present was completely damaged. There was even a letter from Sora-kun that was now a watery mess. Also her parents gave her corporal punishment for missing the package. 

Ever since, Doremi decided to hate Fuuka forever for being so inconsiderate and awful. Never forgive... never forget...

Fuuka's story: Fuuka hates Karin because one time during 2nd grade, Sora asked her to call Karin for him, because he wanted to see Karin privately after school. But he didn't want her to tell Karin that the one who really wanted to see her was him! Fuuka then told Karin "YOU BETTER COME TO OUR MEETUP PLACE AFTER SCHOOL. YOU BETTER PROMISE!!" Later on, out of curiosity, she went to the meetup place to see what she assumed would be Sora-kun confessing to Karin, but what do you know, Karin never showed up! It even started raining, and Sora-kun just stood there all wet in the rain... 

How could Karin do this to Sora-kun... ever since then, Fuuka decided to hate Karin forever for being a liar who left Sora-kun waiting like that. Never forgive... never forget...

Some extra toppings on this grudge cake are when we later learn that Sora-kun is actually dead. Apparently he got a cold from the rain and then choked on his own vomit and died while his parents were too busy to look after him while he was bedridden. Goodbye Sora-kun. Fuuka, being a complete weirdo, decided to keep this a secret from the other 3 girls, and went to Sora-kun's funeral alone.

Anyways, do all these stories sound a little funny? Like how all of them end with...getting wet in the rain? Well... yeah.

THE PLOT LORE AND FINAL REVEALS:

Sora's story. We learn that Sora died, yeah. And apparently, the kitty Kuu-chan was actually his fucking reincarnation. He reincarnated to see them again because he liked them so much? Huh?? Anyways, apparently one day while they were all fucking around, a car up the hill didn't have it's breaks on and rolled down, running over Kuu-chan. The girls take him to the vet, but because none of them have parental permission to raise him, they have no money for surgery. They can't ask a parent to pay because none of them actually own the cat or are allowed to own a cat at home. And they're just high school girls with no allowance. They start screaming their heads off arguing about the cat situation and things turn ugly REALLY fast.

POV you are the vet front desk employee who has to see 4 high school girls try to kill each other over a cat

Kuu-chan is so sad to hear them fighting... so he passes on...

Kuu-chan's spirit then goes to heaven, where he meets GOD??!?? HUH!?? God is like "ohh you've lived a sad life, dying young twice, damn. Because you were such a good kid I'll grant you one wish. Make it anything you want!"

So ofc Kuu-chan's like bruh... please let me reincarnate as a girl. I wanna be a girl. Girl's are way nicer and friendlier than boys, because boys are just nasty and mean and like to fight over who's the alpha etc! It's man's nature to fear being the omega (this is real fucking text in the game that said this), and I'm sick of living like that. Girl's all get to live as equals, so that sounds better.

God: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh umm I've used the internet before, and I think you've maybe seen one too many stereotypes. Anyways I can't change your gender because your gender is bound to your SOUL. Unchangeable! (HUH???? EXCUSE ME??)

But apparently, if Kuu-chan completes a 'trial', he will be able to change his soul's gender. Uh........... okay... I really don't know what to say. Feels a little unwoke.

So we see god put Kuu-chan into a human form and set him off into the 'trial', where he will have to find the 'answer'... and if he does, he can have his wish granted...

And YEAH! That trial is watching his 4 galpals in the torture room. The little boy is Sora-kun/Kuu-chan. He's lost all of his memories however, and is just left there to observe the girls fighting. As 12 rounds pass, he's the only one who retains memories of all of them. By the last one, he finally gets his brain juice together and remembers his purpose... So he calls to all the girls all like.. hold up. And just.. lays down the facts super easy.

He just like... okay I know you all hate each other for stupid ass reasons but lets reason it out. Karin hates Mina for ditching her. But that's because Mina ditched her to get a replacement henshin stick from Doremi's house. She hates Doremi for not being there, but that's because Doremi got called by Fuuka who was threatening to kill herself. And Fuuka wasn't there because she got too curious about Sora-kun's meeting with Karin. But Karin didn't show up because she'd gone to fight the bully for Mina. And then Sora caught a cold and died. But that's Sora's fault because to begin with, he decided to give everyone their 'im moving away' presents separately because Fuuka confessed to him and made him feel bad so he wanted to not draw attention to anyone. Which then drew attention to karin because his present for her was showing her his theater troupe techniques. Which was why he wanted to meet her at the abandoned lot, since there was space.

TL;DR everyone hated each other for shitty reasons and it's all each other's fault and a huge shitty stupid misunderstanding. Sora-kun/Kuu-chan is just like see... you girls... have no reason to hate e/o. It was my fault to begin with for starting all this shit. And I just died like that like a dumbass. My bad. All the girls immediately make up all like, wow I feel a little silly now for holding such a long grudge since 2nd fucking grade after learning it was just a literal circle of misunderstandings. Amazing

God then is like "Okay Kuu-chan you've finally found the answer... do you still want to be a girl?" And Kuu-chan is like "NOPE! :) Now I've learned that men and women are inherently different, as GOD was trying to tell me. This world exists so that we can strive to understand each other... since we are so different.. I was a simpleton MALE, while these girls were thinking on a different level from me... if only we communicated, then nothing bad would have happened. in the end, everything happened because... Males.. and Females.. we are different. But we can be friends. Power of friendship."

HUH????????????????? Anyways, Kuu-chan decides that he doesn't want to reincarnate anymore, and instead wants to continue living as Kuu-chan. So God lets him miraculously survive the getting run over.

Time resumes at the vet, and Kuu-chan survives. We learn that the four girls arguing like crazy at the vet also ended up arguing about the whole 2nd grade incident, and apparently managed to clear everything up on their own while Kuu-chan was incapacitated. Yay. Mina also gets formal permission from her parents to own Kuu-chan.

Obligatory bath scene?? HUH???

They celebrate by going to the bath with Kuu-chan, and then tease him for being shy around them! He's a boy after all!!!!!!!! HUH!??? HE'S A FUCKING CAT.

Everyone lives happily ever after. I guess. HUH?????????????????

All the torture shit was just a metaphor I guess? They also have a long-ass rant about how... boys apparently fight the ones they hate and not the ones they love.  But girls are different! Girls will ignore the ones they hate, but argue with the ones they truly love! Because they go batshit at each other, it shows they are truly friends. Because they can hate each other so strongly... it just means... they truly love each other deep down... uh.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ryukishi... we need to talk... what was this... It was all fun and games until the heavy handed gender talk started coming in. Like it comes in REALLY heavy. It's sprinkled throughout the game. How Sora-kun just hates men apparently because the natural male nature is disgusting to him or whatever, and he idolizes girls or whatever which is total bullshit. But then it turns around to be like.. yeah men and women rly are different tho. Like how? Huh? They really be thinking boys can't be two-faced hoes also? Tf. 

Ryukishi...why. Anyways this sure was a VN. I wish there was like.. I dunno... actual plot going on. Wish this wasn't all just a metaphor. I like it when things don't have a "it was all fake! Not real!" ending. Like.. okay. Uhhh also he's a fucking cat... why would a cat get embarassed in the bath. HE'S AN ANIMAL. 

Overall, the torture chamber segments were fun (albeit very repetitive after seeing the 'i hate u bcuz xyz' for the nth time). The flashbacks were generally cute too, though most scenes with Sora-kun were boring shit because he's boring and has weird gender opinions he won't shut up about. I would not read this VN again, but there's no harm in reading it if you down for this kinda shit I guess. Like I said, the screaming psycho parts were funny and well voiced.

Okay that's it. Goodbye.