Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Tsukihime Remake | review + plotdump

 After 3000 years the waits finally over.... Tsukihime.. is here.. Now is it actually as good as all the gamers say it is is the real question.

Tsukihime
-A piece of glass blue moon-

Creator: TYPE-MOON
Released in 2021

Tohno Shiki is your average plain glasses wearing guy, doing his best to live a very regular and bland life regardless of the fact that he's the only son of an uber rich mega family and also can kill anything he touches if he wanted to (long story). But being boring wasn't in the cards for young Shiki, and his life is turned upside down after his bro-con sister, nuns, and also vampires suddenly enter his life...or is it he who entered their lives...  

Full game description and attempted plot dump under the cut

[Notes to know before reading this:

  • I've never read the original Tsukihime, and everything I know about it is from Fate, FGO, or memes
  • As noted on this blogs title I'm very opinionated and reminder I have poor tastes
Okay that's all. Enjoy reading!!11]

Synopsis

In the normal regular ass city of Souya. Tohno Shiki strives to be a regular ass guy in this regular ass town and for the most part is managing, but that's just because nobody knows that he has a cool party trick where he can obliterate almost anything by tracing its insta-death lines. And hopefully they stay not knowing, because even Shiki wishes he didn't have such a power. 

Regardless of what he'd prefer however, his life takes a turn for the eventful after he gets a call to return to his family's home, meets vampires, and then nuns, all within the span of a week. With all that's going around him, is he gonna lose his v-card too!? Only one way to find out...

This story dives into the mysteries of what the fuck is going on in this city, what the fucks going on with Shiki's weird family, what the fucks going on with vampires?? huh, and what the fucks going on with Shiki himself since he's such a weirdo. 

This game is the first half of the Tsukihime Remake series, where only Arcueid and Ciel are dateable. 

Main Cast 
+ some randos I like

Tohno Shiki

Shiki is in possession of the 'main character seat'

Shiki is the eldest son of the rich as hell Tohno household, but the title doesn't mean much as he essentially got the boot when he was 10 years old. Even if he can see the lines of 'death' in all things and may or may not hold back a deep subconscious desire to be a serial killer, he is perfectly normal and a well-adjusted polite young man.

Arcueid Brunestud

local choroi idiot vampire

A beautiful blonde foreign vampire who has come to this town on a personal mission. With the air of a mysterious and hot cool girl, could it be... she's actually the immature girl-next-door type!? Cheerful and friendly(?), this babe could snap your neck in two if she sneezed while giving you a shoulder rub.

Ciel

Just your completely average senpai who doesn't carry weapons to school

Shiki's senpai at school with a penchant for curry. Popular on campus for being a social butterfly and generally helpful senpai, she's as regular and out of your league as normie senpais get. Senpai spends her free time 'volunteering', and also may or may not be moonlighting as a nun.

Tohno Akiha

I-It's not like I care about you specifically as a person, Nii-san...

Shiki's younger sister and current head of the Tohno family. Determined to whip Shiki back into shape of someone worthy of being the 'eldest son' of their family, she takes great efforts to be the strict over-bearing mom Shiki never had. Not that her efforts mean anything as Shiki is incapable of obeying basic directions. 

Maids 1 and 2

"They seem to look somewhat alike... maybe they're related?" -dumbass Shiki

Hisui and Kohaku serve the Tohno household and totally aren't important or anything. Hisui is the quiet serious one who cares about you, and Kohaku is the genki cool one who keeps drugs in her room and would probably sell your soul for a cornchip.

Satsuki

Who is this.

Noel-sensei

There's a thin line between the 'cool sexy teacher' and 'fired'

Substitute teacher who's about to get banned from the school district for crossing the line.

Doctor Arach

Why is she like that

The Tohno family's private doctor with huge melons. Was besties with the Tohno family dad man or something. She's not important(?) I just wanted to show her.

General Review

STORY: B| The story is pretty entertaining for what it is. It's over-convoluted with a lot of Nasu fantasy bullshit science but if you like that kind of stuff, it's a fun ride. For the most part the story is interesting and each character has a lot going for them, even the supporting cast. The story is filled to the brim with little pieces and details that make the world come alive, and as you progress through each of the two routes, it's like getting a free extra pizza with your order of ice cream. Downside is, after you eat it all and had a good time, you realize you've only been eating carbs and now have to digest it, maybe even resulting in a stomach ache.

The VN is fun to read and has some epic moments, but it also has its fair share of un-epic moments. Still, this is just the beginning... The whole game felt like eating a meal that was just ok, and then learning it was just the appetizer for the final boss dinner. Probably. If far side (the upcoming next game) turns out to be disappointing I'm going to be really upset.

CHARACTERS: B+| I quite like the cast and enjoyed the banter that happens with supporting characters as well. The heroines have quite a lot of depth, and even if it all bubbles down to 'falls for Shiki for some reason', well... there's an entry price for recieving the goods I guess. Some characters I felt have a lot of potential so I'm hoping to see more of them in far side inb4 that doesn't happen. I have to admit Shiki is technically a very interesting character but... well let's just say some parts being stuck with his POV felt kind of lacking.

ART: B| The artwork is all very well drawn, and the detail placed into backgrounds is great. There aren't many CG's however. Like at all. A lot of scenes just reposition the sprites to make a 'CG' which is kinda cheap lol but overall it's fine since it looks good. Also this is just a me problem, but some of the design choices IMO just don't fit with my aesthetic sense at all. Like the fantasy battle clothes of the female characters look stupid af... and Dr. Arach's ugly hair... go bald bitch. Also some of the male characters could have afforded to be sexier. I'm not here to play around, I want hotties only.

DOKIS: D| I ain't getting dokis from this game. I don't know if anyone is really. The romance is not the strong point of Tsukihime in my personal opinion, but maybe it gets better in the next game's routes, who knows! The relationships and romance are very... they like each other now. Great! Okay, back to the plot.

MUSIC: B+| Some of the tracks are real bangers imo... Vlov's themes are pretty good and I love Arcueid's theme too. There's some great tracks, but the downside is the OST repeats songs over and over and over again, and some are defs better than others. I wish more characters had themes but I guess you can't have everything. Doesn't Ciel at least deserve a battle theme...? I guess not. Also the VN is like uber long but some tracks only played like once or for not very long so I probably forgot about them... haha oops. The only songs that really made an impression on me and played enough times or had enough alternate versions to stay in my memory are Shiki's, Arc's, and Vlov's themes. 

UI ETC: B| The look and feel of this VN is very smooth, and it doesn't quite play like most other VN's I've read. The text is all sorted into pages kind of, so you can go backwards by page and look through them through the backlog as pages. The audio playback only plays the last heard voice clip, so if you want to go further back you have to rewind to that scene (which is easy enough to do but I never want to). Also, skipping scenes skips literally through scenes one by one, so it'll ask every scene whether you want to skip it which can get annoying when you want to skip through 10 scenes in a row. There's a lot of cool SFX and special visual effects used to enhance the reading experience, though when playing the game on TV I found a lot of special effects made things way too flashy which hurt my eyes. Some special effects are very like lights flashing level so that might be difficult for some people.

OVERALL: B| It's a decent VN, and definitely waters the appetite to dig into the next installment, whenever the heck that's coming out... The later half of this VN is definitely more compelling and interesting than the initial chunk though. I still have my qualms with how some things were, but being a remake I guess Nasu can't diverge too far from the original. Also some parts dragged like hell. It's a miracle I finished reading at all


CONTENT WARNINGS:

So some of the things that may or may not trouble the average reader would include:

  • Graphic depiction of a bloody murder that gets shown to you repeatedly
  • Imagery using VERY neon colors and exremely flashy special effects that can hurt your eyes
  • Some kind of rapey-vibed segments (but no actual sex-crime content) I gloss over it in my plot dump but if you actually read the VN it might make some people uncomfortable
  • Adult women behaving inappropriately towards a minor (the mc)
  • I think that's about it really.. fantasy anime violence and girls falling for the male lead inexplicably for no reason etc, the usual


Anyways, I saw there was a group that's fan translating the game so that's cool, since haha you know how it is... official Eng release never amiright. So don't read my plot dump if you wanna read it yourself. Honestly I didn't find the VN to be that much of a must read unless if you one of those people who've been looking forward to it for forever so yeah.



Okay silly spoiler filled plot dump from here on~ Remember, I'm not a type-moon professional so I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about most of the time. 

The game has a kind of 'order' to things, so I'll just list everything post prologue as Arcueid route first and then put differences and Ciel content from common route in Ciel route section.


ARCUEID ROUTE

[The routes branch pretty early so I'll just add all the common route stuff to this Arcueid route summary

Also important note: The game doesn't allow screencaps and I don't have a modded switch so I had to improvise for the pictures]

Once upon a time, there was a young 10-year old boy named Shiki. After a freak accident of sorts that nearly killed him, he ended up comatose in the hospital for a time, and when he finally awoke, there was something different about the world. He could now see these red 'scribbles' decorated across all the beds, walls, curtains, and people within his line of sight. After dragging a plastic knife along the line on his bed, it was spliced into two... that's a little odd.... the doc was of course like "Ummm why did you break the bed little boy? Uh oh, we got a trouble kid on our hands /rolls eyes" as if you shouldn't be calling an EXCORCIST WHEN A LITTLE BOY DESTROYING METAL THINGS WITH NO TOOLS??? EXCUSE ME??? Everyone's just like "umm this kid is problematic" like YA THINK??? Call an exorcist please god. Anyways, Shiki comes to realize that he can 'kill' anything that he traces the lines of, and is a little shookened at the thought that this 100% probably applied to human beings too... It made him feel sick to look at people and seeing these lines... 

Because Shiki can't stand the people around him and being trapped in a small room like this, he easily just... walks out of the hospital? Nobody stopped him? He just starts sprinting and ends up at this grassy hill at... somewhere or wherever... thought he lived in the city. Anyways he conveniently meets a super awesome wizard woman who makes him call her 'Sensei', and after multiple days of sneaking out to meet her, he tells her his secret. The lady immediately is like "kid I know thats a sick party trick but what you're seeing is the lines of DEATH in all things... it's DANGEROUS." She then unloads on him some life-changing life lessons such as "only use your power when you've thought about it hard and don't think you'll regret it" or something like that, and 'be responsible' and etc etc. "Try to live a normie life as a good normie person" basically. She then gives him some magic enchanted glasses that make his vision normal, before disappearing from his life forever. From then on Shiki decided to try to be the most normie bitch in town for the rest of his life.

Shiki meets sensei!??

The day he was finally discharged from the hospital, he received word that daddy wasn't gonna pick him up... Why? Because Shiki was now booted from the Tohno family. Apparently being hospitalized and having his healthy body permanently made into that of an asthmatic boy, Shiki is no longer seen as worthy of being the family heir by his daddy and his then shipped off to live with the Arima family, whoever they are. Shiki never sees his little sister Akiha ever again. For now that is.

7 years later, Shiki wakes up to news on TV that Tohno Makihisa (his dad) has died of oldness. He also gets some mail that says "Get your ass back to the Tohno estate, you're moving back in." The Arima family who he's grown to love like a real family is sad to see him go, and Shiki mails his like 1 belongings to his new house (Shiki is not a fan of owning things since he always felt like he shouldn't get too comfortable in the Arima home... for some reason... aka kid got issues) before heading to school.

On the public transit ride to school, he encounters a wild Ciel-senpai who immediately is like oh heey Shiki-kun fancy seeing you here~~~ And of course Shiki's like who are you... before remembering OHHH OFC THIS IS CIEL-SENPAI! Yeah. For whatever reason Ciel is carrying a large bag that's full of her... secrets... and she claims to be on the way to school after volunteering that morning. Great. Anyways they go their separate ways and Shiki enjoys a regular day at school. 

For the most part, he keeps to himself and is your typical loner boy. His only friend is the class delinquent and his childhood friend, Inui-kun, who confirms in passing conversation that Shiki is indeed hot, because apparently he's caught the eye of Inui's 25 year old older sister. Another notable classmate is Satsuki, who is an amicable girl who is well liked by her peers and for some reason has a very blatantly obvious massive fat crush on Shiki. Not obvious to him, however, as his glasses block a lot more than just the lines of death apparently. Everyone has a very cheerful conversation about the recent 'vampire serial killings' that have shaken up Souya. There's been bodies found completely drained of all their blood. That's totally normal tho right, haha... luckily vampires aren't real so it's just some kind of psychotic chain murders! That definitely makes everyone feel better right!?!??!?? ?! ??!?! ? Ciel-senpai also weirdly seems to want to spend time with Shiki... for some reason... so he has the chance to go to the  tea-ceremony club which Ciel is apart of and overshare to her at her command. Like, Shiki barely even knows you what is your deal girl... is Shiki just THAT hot!?? Attracts women like flies, for real.

After school, Shiki eventually finds his way at his brand new house, the giant Tohno family estate. It's on private land with its own private woods, and is surrounded by a private gate that can only be opened by residents. He's welcomed inside by friendly maid Kohaku, who's all like omggg you're finally home Shiki~<3 This is your new home... but also half of the estate is off limits ^^ You can't go in this room or that room or that room or blablablablablalbabshlsdag Awesome. Anyways, she takes him to the family head's study... AKA Akiha's study, since little sister Akiha is now the head honcho. Shiki is taken aback by how beautiful his cute sister has become over the years... while Akiha immediately makes it clear that Shiki is the ELDEST SON, and thus it only makes sense that he should live HERE in the Tohno estate. How it was so strange that daddy would give him the boot, and that he belongs HERE WITH AKIHA!!!! Also, in order to make living more comfortable for him, Akiha had all the other branch family and distant relatives and side hoes whoever the fuck kicked from the estate and forced to find their own lodgings elsewhere, since Shiki would be more comfortable with less unfamiliar people right? She also assigns Hisui, Kohaku's sister maid, as Shiki's personal maid. Shiki's like wow omg... Akiha is so serious and strict. I'm sure she doesn't like me much anymore so I'll do my best not to get in her way. You think, Shiki? YOU THINK SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU??? 

Life continues on as normal. Shiki has a hard time adjusted to being looked after by Hisui who keeps appearing in his blindspots when he thinks he's alone, but it's no big deal. Also each morning he sees Akiha who of course acts all prim and proper all like "Good morning dearest brother. What plans do you have for the day? Please, partake in the breakfast Kohaku has specially prepared for us this fine morning." And Shiki being like "Hey. Ya I'm cool, I don't get hungry often. K' bye!" for the most part. Like... Akiha does so much for you and is trying to reconnect in the only way she knows how: by being a strict Asian mom. And you act like THIS in return!???!??? Give her some respect.. compliment her more, eat breakfast with her I don't know... but who can stop Shiki from doing... whatever he's doing... Anyways, meals they do share together are always kind of awkward, but they don't have to be, y'know... be nicer to your sister, Shiki!!??!??! Okay honestly Shiki hasn't committed that many transgressions at this point in time, but you'll see what I mean.

So Shiki goes to school as normal and everything seems normal except there's a new substitute homeroom teacher... a foreign woman named Noel-sensei. She's flirtatious and of course all the boys in class like her immediately and ask her invasive questions while the girls hate her because obviously that's how high schoolers act?? I guess??? If I (female aligned) had a hot young lady sub who said she worked part time as a nun I'd go bonkers but who am I to judge. Anyways it's heavily implied their previous teacher probably got mauled by vampires... probably. Shiki gets caught by Noel-sensei in the hall and she straight up puts the moves on him. All like "Hey~ .... >:) Look into my eyes Shiki-kun~~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~  You don't wanna turn out like ur homeroom teacher do u... so don't stay out too late... :)" something like that. So Shiki's like okay that was a little odd but nothing to write home about.

On the way home he blacks out and finds himself in a sussy dark alleyway deep in the city past his curfew which is never explained by the story. How did I get here he wonders. ???? What??? Anyways by the time he gets home, Akiha is really disappointed in him obviously but what can she do. ???? ? ? ?? ?  

The next day (as you can see a lot of days pass where nothing the fuck of importance really happens I guess for realism how'd I get through all this) the maids mention that some belongings from his old home had arrived for him? Shiki is like what because he doesn't own anything since he has no personality, so what is this... Kohaku insists that apparently it's something left for him by his father? I guess? And inside he finds a pocket knife. Shiki shits on it saying it looks like a worthless piece of shite while Kohaku's like omg I think it looks epic though... There's some Kanji engraved on it which reads "seven nights" or something? What could that possibly mean??? Maybe even read as... Na..na ya..perhaps? Well clearly it doesn't mean anything so Shiki puts away the knife while automatically assuming that his dad probably thought little of him. Sounds legit.

Shiki heads to school as normal, but he starts to feel rather ill during class. The school nurse deems him sick enough to get out early. Awesome.

While wobbling home like a man on his deathbed, Shiki plops down in the middle of the bustling city to catch his breath, before catching sight of the most beautiful blonde bombshell he's ever seen in his life. As soon as he lays eyes on her, he feels his heart stop... It's as if a demon has suddenly seized control of his body, and forces him to lock his eyes onto her ethereal form. Overcome with... some kind of bizarre desire, Shiki does what any normal guy would do and stalks the woman all the way to her apartment complex. Upon watching her enter her apartment, he rings the doorbell and awaits her... He also thinks "hm these glasses are totally in the way rn... for some reason I feel something in the back of my head telling me to not take them off but I cannot be arsed right now about that!!"

shiki's creep instinct activates

Anyways, as soon as the door cracks open, he breaks in like any normal teenager would do and immediately slices her into 17 pieces as easily as slicing a stick of butter using his trusty new pocket knife he conveniently had and has mastered using immediately. Satisfied with his work, he immediately comes to his senses and starts freaking the absolute fuck out, projectile vomiting to add some color to the sea of red beneath his feet. Great. NO NO NO NOOOO I COULDN'T HAVE... WTF... in complete denial, Shiki basically blacks the fuck out in his delirium.

oops

He wakes up perfectly fine in the Tohno estate. "Hmm uhh Hisui did I come home covered head to toe in blood last night?" he asks, and ofc Hisui is like "ummm I don't think so." Nice. It was all just a dream! According to the reliable Kohaku who would never lie, Shiki walked home last night in perfect shape, and retired to his chambers early as he was feeling under the weather. Nothing odd at all. Great. Awesome. Shiki, in good spirits after learning he did not in fact murder an unsuspecting blonde woman, heads to school.

Only to find the blonde woman waiting for him... Scared as all fuck, he starts speed running his way to who knows where while the blonde makes chase. He stupidly runs himself into the corner of a secluded back alley, and the lady of course is like "Hey why did you kill me bitch boy ^__^ Answers? You with the church? Huh???"

girl meets boy!?? boy meets world!?

Shiki's like "I don't know what a church is also I am sowwee >_<" and gets on all fours dogeza like the pitiful rat he is, so ofc the lady is like "omg... umm you really fizzing out my blood lust... you seem like an honest lad ig I will go easy on you for now... as long as you cooperate with me xD use your badass knife skills to help me kill vampires :) PS. also I'm Arcueid and I'm also a vampire that's how I'm like not dead... bcuz I'm immortal <3" And Shiki's like oh cool that makes sense I guess.

Except it's NOT cool. Of course being a whiney bitch Shiki's like "ummm madam Arcueid miss please I am incapable of helping you... I am but an average little skinny twink who cannot harm another... how could I possibly help you hunt vampires?" Like... ARE YOU HEARING YOURSELF??? YOU SAYING THIS TO THE BITCH YOU MADE SLICED CHEESE OUT OF??? Of course Arcueid is pissed the fuck off and is like okay idiot you come with me or I detach your head from your neck. So Shiki joins the party! 

Arcueid kidnaps Shiki to a hotel room, since apparently after spending 24 hours restoring her physical flesh body she has been severely debuffed and needs even more continuous sleep. Since vampires are in town and probably want to kill her, she assigns Shiki bodyguard duty to keep a watch and make sure to wake her up if any would be assassins appear. Of course Shiki's like girl I literally just assassinated you yesterday why are you leaving me with a job like this all of a sudden... but whatever she doesn't think this far. 

Shiki has nothing better to do, so instead of keeping watch he just takes a nap also. Girl you had one job. One job. Anyways Arcueid wakes up hours later and ofc is like... um.. you had one job??? You can't even stay AWAKE??? Either way she decides to give Shiki a full on exposition dump class lecture on vampires, white board and all, and explains everything one could possibly need to know in a matter of minutes.

TL;DR uhh honestly I don't really get it myself but you got the super vampires called the Dead Apostles or whatever, and you have the True Ancestors who are natural super mega vampires... True Ancestors create Dead Apostles by succing anyone, Dead Apostles meanwhile can succ people and they will either turn dead or into a zombie? Zombies can level up through ranks until they digivolve into a super vampire? Something about 'Idea Blood' also? I think you need one to upgrade to a Dead Apostle, like Pokemon that need a specific item to evolve. Also if a vamp like kills a True Ancestor they will also further their evolution or something. A vamp's minions will collect 'energy' (by succing) and automatically like email it to their master, so a vamp boss will normally create hoards of minions and hide somewhere and just relax and suck up the free juice. ??? Something like that? Fuck if I know.

Shiki's like wow I understood all that totally I'm going to retain this for the rest of the VN even if the reader does not. Awesome. Anyways most importantly it's made clear that Arc has come to this town on a very specific goal of killing a very specific vampire who has been living in Souya and being a major little asshole. She is enlisting Shiki as her little helper in accomplishing this task.

Either way while wasting their time, Arcueid shows off how she's like actually legit pure immortal during the night due to her vampiric status. Taking off his glasses and looking at her in the moonlight, she is without a single line on her body!!! This is... pure... and beautiful.. true immortality... effervescent. Chef's kiss. Shiki ogles the site while Arcueid tries to cajole him into letting her try to break his glasses. Why would you do that Arc... jk she can do whatever she wants.

While totally not flirting or anything, suddenly a vampire attacks the hotel and starts setting each floor on FIRE one by one. Yet none of this is setting off the alarms or alerting security?? It's like it's magic bullshit vampire fire or something? Shiki runs out there to scout out the premise, and witnesses as the elevator door opens and some demon dogs jump out, spontaneously combusting the other civilian on the floor. Here comes our first boss fight! Some dude named Vlov! He's come to eat Arcueid's heart or something since he sensed she was in town and wants to upgrade his vampire stats. Somehow or other, Arcueid and Shiki manage to fend the dude off until the sun starts to rise, forcing him to retreat. However Arcueid is hurt and sleepy, so Shiki carries her back to her apartment since as we know, he knows where she lives. 

Instead of calling home or leaving any notice about where he's gone for his sister who is probably worried sick about him, Shiki decides to start planning with Arcueid on how to kill Vlov. The incident at the hotel is all over the news of course since literally everyone inside DIED. Arc insists Shiki probably will die if he gets too close to Vlov since apparently he has some kind of like magic bullshit that will kill humans in a certain radias? Or something? I don't remember. Either way he has like some kind of bullshit curse magic and Arc has to like... deactivate it or something which will let Shiki approach him and poke at his death lines. If it's not deactivated then Shiki will just die probably. Vlov has super bullshit fire powers so Arc prepares an anime dress with the proper stats to counteract him. (??? How does that make any sense is this a jrpg) 

The two do indeed just wait till night and then charge Vlov while he's recklessly murdering people in the streets I guess, and the battle between him and Arc is so crazy they literally end up fighting in a legit crater? Final destination? Shiki almost pussies out but he musters up some courage to literally throw himself into death's cold embrace. I say cold because of course it turns out Vlov not only can use fire, but his real specialty was actually ice... go figure. Never would've guessed from his extremely pale pallor and blue color scheme. Regardless Shiki notices he feels like someone is supporting him from the shadows, but either way he manages to help Arc weaken Vlov, allowing him to see his 'death point core' or some shit. Like the point in him where if Shiki pokes that then he'll blow up. Shiki does so and Vlov literally is just deleted from being alive. Yay. Arc says bye to Shiki and ditches him. Goodbye forever.

Arc's fire resistant anime dress

Life returns to normal and Akiha tries to interrogate him on where the fuck he been the past few days, but of course Shiki dodges the subject and worries her more than necessary. Shiki tells her and literally everyone else he knows that the vampire serial killing murders will stop since the perpetrator is no more <3 Of course it's not like there's been any reports of the killer being caught so even Akiha's like bro what... He assumes since Vlov was killed, Arc probably has already returned to vampire Europe or wherever. Life will return to normal <3

NOT!!!!! Of cousre the fucking vampire murders still happen!!! Does Vlov look like he succ people and leaves them for dead.. NO!! HE SETS THEM ON FIRE!! STUPID!! DUMBASS!! Shiki soon realizes somethings wrong and tries to find Arcueid again, but to no avail. Where is that beautiful yet mysterious girl... SHE'S IN HIS HOUSE!! He comes home to find that Arc has literally stopped by his home and is telling Akiha how she's his good friend, and that Shiki had 'done some terrible things to her and she still hurts all over' so he needs to repay her with some tender companionship. Girl what... Shiki just about keels over just as he sees Akiha looking like her soul has left her body. 

He drags Arc out and interrogates her, and of course the truth comes out. Vlov was just some dude. The real target of Arc's extermination is still at large. She just felt so bad after Shiki tried so hard to kill Vlov that she planned to just leave things at that... but as time passed.. she got lonely and bored so she came to find him again haha. Shiki feels a lil stupid but he's like it's okay girl I promised you I'd help right!! So I'm gonna help to the very end!!! They then make plans to go vampire hunting every night at fucking 10pm which is past Shiki's curfew. AKA Akiha gonna be pissed af until the elusive evil vampire is exterminated. 

A day or two pass of him being extremely evasive around his concerned sister while running out and going on dates vampire hunts with Arcueid. Satsuki also kind of stops showing up at school but I guess nobody cares?? Arc even shows up at Shiki's school at one point cuz she wanted to get a good look at the student life <3 and causes trouble for him. Like bro who cares... if she wanna use her vampire eyes to brainwash the teachers and students into thinking she's a proper teacher there like just let her. She's hot and sheltered just let her live her life you uptight prick.

Anyways one night Shiki gets assaulted by a nun?? A nun that turns out to be NOEL-SENSEI?!??!?  She says some things along the lines of "what're you doing so late at night, huh Shiki-kun~<3 Sussy...so very sussy...  I know what you realy are lil sussy-kun <3" like girl WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKIN ABOUT. Either way Shiki forgets about this completely since it can't be that important why tell Arc about it... bro your memory. Is your head okay??? This seems like something you should tell Arc about??? YOU GOT ASSAULTED BY A NUN???????????????????

To be fair this probably because the next day he feel completely out of wack. Akiha gives him the choice of having either Dr. Arach or Kohaku to take a look at him, and I'll just let you know Dr. Arach basically sexually harasses him verbally and is an inappropriate person in general while Kohaku is kind funny and talented. What's better. The former, amiright? 

Just kidding, anyways Shiki spends the day wandering the house aimlessly and goes to the courtyard to reminisce about his youth. He finds a gazebo with the names Shiki Shiki Akiha carved into the wood... like why is Shiki written twice haha that is so weird right. Anyways, he then sees Hisui walking into the woods?? Why tho? He tries to follow and ends up at a strange clearing and sees a strange building... before being assaulted by ptsd memories from his childhood of a bloodied up child's body alongside a crying baby Akiha. 

He wake up to find Akiha grilling the fuck out of Hisui for letting this happen. Letting what happen? Allowing him to go to the place of his ptsd??? So they know something about this!?? Either way Shiki's too stupid to ask more about it so Akiha just insists he stay sleeping tonight instead of going out at ass o'clock to see his galpal. Just letting you know, if Shiki sneaks out at night anyways to see Arc, even she reprimands him since he shows up looking like shit... and also the next day he collapses at school from exhaustion and Hisui locks him inside a drawer? For his own good? What. I'm scared.

Clearly that doesn't happen though, as Shiki properly stands up Arcueid and gets a full night of rest. He wakes up to Arc literally pinning him to the bed and hovering over him... girl how did you get in here. She's PISSED, but apparently she been staring at him like this >:( all night long and by the time the sun rose the anger started to fizz out. Hearing that he was beyond ill, she decide to forgive Shiki for his transgressions if he goes on a date with her <3 She then leaves so they can properly meet up at a meeting spot since going together would remove the date vibes.

Shiki meets up with Arc who is dolled up all cute tho <3 He then takes her to one of three places (player choice), the movie theater where he learns Arcueid loves B-grade romance films, a sussy back alley where he begs her to get back into her battle anaime dress so he can take photos of her (which turn out to all be blurred since vampires can't be caught on film apparently?), or lastly, take her to the park where they literally always meet up and just chill and do nothing. The first option feels the most legit imo. 

date night arc

They eat a romantic dinner together at fucking mcdonald's basically? (really shiki like at least take her out to sushi or something IDK) And also have a nice evening tour of Shiki's school. Arcueid asks Shiki to take her on another date like this maybe if they get the chance after the vampire she's after is dead.

Returning to the park they always meet up at when night falls, they mess around and flirt more and talk about how Arcueid doesnt drink blood since she not like those wussy ass normie vampires... She's a True Ancestor so that shit's beneath her. In fact she's actually SCARED to drink blood. Apparently blood thirst has ruined a lot of True Ancestors before her sooo ya the thought can be a lil spooky I guess. She plays around and pretends to drink Shiki's blood in an attempt to show off how much she wouldn't actually ever do it... but............GOD HE SMELLS SOOO FACKN TASTY SHIT... 

just do it

Shiki's like ummmmm A-Arcueid...? /breaks out into a cold sweat/ and when he starts to feel Arcueid's for real legit blood lust he literally borderline pisses himself. He tries to push her away when a weapon comes hurtling at Arc, forcing them apart. It's Noel-sensei and her church superior!!! There's this lil brat named Mario who's apparently a super top hot shot from the church and is here as like.. the stand in for the pope himself (who is his grandpa or smthng??) or some shit. He's Italian of course that's why his name's Mario. Obviously. Anyways they start calling Arcueid a monster and other names and Shiki tries to defend her saying OMGG ARC WAS JUST KIDDING SHE'D NEVER!! While Mario's like "umm says the guy who just pissed himself -_-' like honestly he has a point.

Arc feels really really bad about it so she skedaddles. Shiki feels really bad since he didn't have the chance to try to sort things out with her. Mario lectures Shiki and tells him how Arcueid's literally a liar. She HAS had blood before... the vampire she's after is a bitch named MICHAEL ROA BALDAMAYUANGGU and HE'S ARC'S MINION!! She drank his blood like a bajillion years ago and that's why she wanna off him so bad! Also his vampire specialty is pursuing immortality by way of reincarnation,  so he keeps reincarnating whenever she offs him. She's been goin at this forever and can't get her essence back from him cuz he keeps escaping with it to his next life forever. Also Arc's literally like falling apart since she hasn't had more blood in years. Blood addiction... it last forever. There's no fixing this one scoob she's donezo. Shiki of course doesn't give a rats ass since Arc's a GOOD vampire and would NEVER fall to blood addiction, so he tells off Mario and Noel-sensei for ruining his hot date night and runs after Arc. 

When he finally finds her in the conveniently placed dark sussy alleyways of the city, he finds trails of BLOOD and Arc lookin almost demonic... licking at the blood on her fingers... OMG (I think the implication is it's vampire blood and she was mauling some like low grade vamps? Probably? Otherwise this probably would've been a much bigger deal right) So Arcueid turns and looks at him with that crazed demonic look in her eye... and he's hit by her magic vampire eyes which freezes Shiki and turns him CRAZY horny.... wait what? He's WAHT!?? He like attacks Arc and pins her to the ground and Arcueid comes to her senses all like omgg nooo Shiki no... :'( Unu :'( If Shiki give in to his uhh... unwoke horniness he uh... SLICES HER INTO ANOTHER BAJILLION MEAT CHUNKS. BRO. GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF YOU PSYCHO. And then he gets eaten by a dog? What?

Well obviously that doesn't happen since he gets ahold of himself since he LOVES HER!! All like OMG.. no.. I would never hurt Arcueid she's a badass banging hot bitch it'd be so wrong :'< Uwuuu. Anyways Arc is basically like we shouldn't see each other anymore. It's not meant to be. Mr. Its-a-me Mario's right it would NEVER work out... my blood thirst gonna give out someday and that'll be it T__T This is goodbye Shiki... And Shiki like... he's so stunned he don't say anything and she ditches him... bro... you're useless. All you do is fuck up you... you glasses wearing little fuckup. 

So Shiki goes back to his normie ass regular life since Arc told him to forget about her... it's the only way... T_T He was a skater boy... she said see you later boy... except there was no later for reals. Fuck. JK Shiki can't skate for shit he's basically anemic. Anyways for some reason all his classmates have forgotten who Ciel-senpai is (remember her from the beginning), and Shiki finds this somewhat odd but doesn't worry too much about it. Wandering aimlessly, he heads to the place where he helped Arc stab Vlov to death, and runs into Ciel-senpai!! Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Huh... what.

So Ciel randomly gives an exposition dump to Shiki about.... you guessed it. Arcueid's entire life and backstory. HUH??? FROM CIEL?? You don't even hear this from Arc it's just Ciel just .... dumps all this. Okay. So basically Arcueid was apparently a princess amongst the True Ancestors. Like she was created by the other TA's to be the most perfect one, and she was literally designed to be like.. the janitor. The cleanup. If a TA went awol and started succing that yummy yummy blood, it was her job to clean them up and dump them in the afterlife. She had NO personality and basically NO soul, living like a stone-faced robot who only lived to KILL. Whenever she didn't have a hit to work on, she just slept within her Germanic European castle in who the fuck knows where anime Europe. 

But ONE day, there was a horny little priest named MICHAEL... Michael Roa Baldiemyongieo, who like.. don't know how the fuck he managed to get in there but he took one look at Arc while she was vibing in the flower fields of the anime castle and he FELL HARD. He like... he dropped every last one of his marbles and knew at that moment he had to live forever if he wanted to ever even understand the tip of this beautiful stone-cold hottie's toenail composition. So he literally seduced her into succing on him even though Arc back then didn't even know what blood sucking WAS. Bro... that sounds kinda.... ya. Jail for you. If anyone could CATCH HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111

Shiki's like wow thanks for this information Ciel-senpai I'm not gonna question or ask where you got it from. Ciel then just dips out since her purpose in this route has been fulfilled I guess? Deciding that he really wanna dedicate himself to his hot vampiric waifu, he goes home and talks to his maids and Akiha as if he trying to set off all the death flags he can. Thanks for everything you guys :) 

When it becomes dark, he hovers around the park where he always meets Arc and lo and behold Arc really shows up... of course she still thinking of him since she down bad just as bad as he down for her... omg. He tells Arc that he'll do anything for her and they go back to her apartment and BONE. Arc's like Shiki u kno I really like like you <3 I've never felt like this toward anyone before. In fact I never felt anything towards anything before since I didn't have emotions until you broke me that night you cut me into 17 pieces <3 What? Idk how that works but great I guess. 

PG13 smooch followed by fade to black


Anyways at Ass O' Clock Arc gets up and basically tells Shiki goodbye forever. For realsies this time. We never gonna see each other again... it's for the best. I really liked you <3 Shiki's SO fucking delirious he thinks he's having a DREAM? BITCH WAKE UP. So he wakes up HOURS later and is like fuck that was real. It's too late now though she's long gone. For whatever reason he goes to school and gets attacked by... uh... this weird dude? Shiki recognizes him as SHIKI!!! Ok so it was like implied this entire time but there was a boy from Shiki's youth... named Shiki. There was two Shiki's. So our Shiki is actually adopted and after the REAL Tohno Shiki died in an incident, our Shiki was used to replace him and conveniently forgot all these details. Sounds legit. Apparently the real Tohno Shiki was the reincarnation of Roa and he been seething in JEALOUSY about how Shiki STOLE his life so he came here to like... try to kill him. I guess.

[[To make things clear, honestly idr if it's explained here but who cares. So the real Shiki apparently something went wrong when he started to feel the Roa influence and it caused him to go berserk since apparently it didn't mesh well with his demon blood (yes the Tohno's have demon blood don't ask) and he tries to kill our Shiki?? Shiki probably tried to defend himself fuck if I know. Either way I think this was the incident that got Shiki his near death experience which had him hospitalized. The dad covered up everything and even though family policy was to kill kids who'd gone berserk, he was a softie and kept raising the real Shiki in a secret side house so now here we are. He conveniently had our Shiki so he replaced his Shiki with ours in order to avoid a public scandal.. kind of extra and strangely convenient but okay ]]

After shanking him, apparently since his life's wish was completed it gives Roa full control in possessing the body so he fully transforms into Roa. Also it turns out Roa's secret hideout was under this school the entire time? That's why people around here weren't getting attacked because he didn't wanna draw attention to his hideout. I guess. Anyways Shiki survives this because he conveniently gets his ass saved by Ciel-senpai who is ALSO a nun. But unlike Noel-sensei, Ciel is like a badass super epic nun and gives off the aura of a reliable grizzled war veteran.

Ciel carries him home and of course Akiha is really really worried about him since he's like... been STABBED?? Also it seems Akiha hates nuns. Wonder why!! Ciel's like okay Shiki if you try to go after Roa you will like... die probably. But I cannot stop you. Shiki of course is dead set on going because he loves Arcueid <3, so Ciel accepts his resolve and... carries him to school where Roa is. Ciel tells him that she'll just back them up from the shadows since all she care about is ending Roa's reincarnation with her super epic church mega gun knife which is apparently the only thing that can prevent him from reincarnating? AKA She gonna do absolutely nothing until Shiki and Arc weaken Roa. Weirdly enough though after separating, Ciel's attacked by a weird mutant spider beast so that happens.

Besides all that,  Shiki finds Arc battling Roa, but she's sooo weakened omg!! Apparently since she been pushing herself all these nights to impress Shiki, she's still extremely debuffed... Roa like literally drags on her just like omgg you SUCK SO MUCH!! You like lvl 1 compared to normal, wtf happened. How did you become such a scrub omg. Shiki gets offended but Arc's like ya he kinda right I'm way weaker than normal because of a certain someone haha! Oops! She then dies in Shiki's arms dramatically and he's like NOOOO ARCUEID NOOOO TT_TT I LOVED YOUUUU UWAAAAGH. This entire segment Roa literally just stands there politely and allows them to go off for like 15 minutes while Arcueid tell's Shiki her last words.

my friend told me roa looks like a stripper and she's not wrong

Afterwards, Shiki duels Roa and Roa makes fun of him all like umm you thought you the only one who can see death? Well surprise bitch  I can too. :) It's over. But it turns out that Roa's death eyes are like... inferior. He can only see death in living beings, while Shiki can see death in everything. He 'kills' the building they're in and forces it to collapse, and while Roa's confused and loses his balance Shiki cheaply pokes him in his death spot. Roa's like OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU BAKAAAAAAAA I can feel the DEATH.... Shiki also weakened af tho since as established he still has a stamina stat of like 2, but thankfully Ciel shows up to poke Roa's weakened body with her mega ultra super giant mega gun knife whatever the fuck. Yay.

Life returns to normal relatively and Shiki tries to go on as normal. He never sees Ciel again and he keeps thinking to himself... omg if only I could see Arcueid again... you broke your promise baka you said we could go on a date but you're dead... He goes to school late in the evening and miraculously he runs into ARCUEID!!!! WHAT! Apparently she faked her death. She apparently she has to break up with Shiki but didn't want to make it hard for him so that's what she came up with... but in the end she still wanted to say one last goodbye. Apparently she's seriously reached the limits of her blood thirst and must return to transylvania or wherever the fuck to enter another eternal slumber. This one, most likely eternal for realsies. Shiki's like omgg nooo we can be together you can fight it :'( But Arc's like naw it's impossible. Even right now I'm itching to succ on your tasty neck like right now, but I wanna go while I'm still human (adjacent) <3 I really loved you Shiki I wanna stay human (adjacent) like this until the end so I have to sleep to preserve myself and prevent myself from like going crazy. She then leaves for realsies. Shiki never sees her again but prays that one day he and her can be reunited once more (which probably won't happen) <3 

last moment together and they don't even bone


The end <<333333333333

Okay...  so basically Arcueid could have helped fight Roa more but she literally threw the fight cuz she felt like Shiki could take him and wanted to dip out in the most dramatic way possible? Girl... you're valid. Sure. I guess.... NGL after finishing the route I just felt like... what the fuck lol. It sucks. She's gone forever... okay. Also she only fell for Shiki cuz he's literally the only dude she knows after learning what emotions are. Honestly sure I really like Arcueid and feel her chara got some potential even with all the weird fuckery going on so sure whatever.


CIEL ROUTE

[I'm sorry in advance for anything you regard as slander.. Also I took a like 4 month break halfway through Ciel's route. I'm sorry. Actually that's why this post is published so damn late after the game released.]

Ciel's route runs almost the same as Arc's route, except Shiki, after falling head over heels at first sight with his cute and awesome senpai, starts trying to hang with her every chance he gets. She's frequently found at the school's tea ceremony club room, so he's always headed there to see what Ciel-senpai's up to~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ He continues to shoot his shot and Ciel generally gives the vibes of a senpai who kinda likes him so she keeps letting his shots through... So.. she likes him. Okay. 

 Life continues as normal until the moment where Shiki cuts Arcueid into a pile of sliced salami. Instead of blacking out and going into denial, he instead tries to come to terms with his actions. He thinks to himself... I'm a murderer. I'm going to jail. It's over. He wobbles into the park and it starts raining on him, but he's too dead inside to care. He's found by Ciel-senpai who is clearly concerned about him! Apparently his body is MEGA cold, so she's worried he gonna straight up die out here. However, Shiki refuses to go home as he's a murderer, so Ciel takes him to her place instead...

Ciel finds homeless wet dog basically

At her apartment, she warms him up, changes his clothes, ogles him while he's ass naked (this is not mentioned nor realized by Shiki but she mentions it later), and basically carefully tries to take care of him for some reason. Shiki, even though he's a murderer and knows the cops are coming for him now, is confused and moved by senpai's overwhelming kindness.

The next morning, he heads home early morning to have breakfast and get his clothes and stuff, and apparently Ciel told Inui to call home and tell them Shiki was staying with him that night. Great. Shiki enjoys his morning knowing it'll be his last, as the cops are coming for him. He's a little concerned about how the cops aren't here yet, but surely they'll be here soon.

On the way to school, imagining the cops waiting for him there, he instead finds Arcueid waiting for him just like in her route since this is actually all still the common route, so he starts sprinting like he did then. 

Things progress exactly the same until the morning after Vlov set the hotel on fire. Shiki, not wanting to let Vlov live for a second longer than necessary, rushes off to his lair while Arcueid's asleep since he's an idiot. Vlov's HQ is in a shopping mall in the city btw, and apparently there's been rumors about people luring people in here for a sussy 'job' that'll pay out tons of sussy 'cash'. This is actually a scam run by Vlov's vamp minions and they're luring people into a secret zombie farm kept deep in the shopping mall??? What? Shiki is led by some vamp minions while posing as an unsuspecting job hunter and gets literally dumped into a fucking zombo filled dungeon lair??? How is any of this inside of a shopping mall. It's apparently all on a like hidden 'floor' of the mall building??? What construction company made this place. It's just like.. what. 

Anyways while running from zombies, he finds NOEL-SENSEI!? Who is running and SCREAMING for her life. He rushes in to save her, and she has a complete panic attack telling him that they're all gonna fucking die. Apparently she came here following a female student since she felt like it was her obligation as her teacher to see what sussy shit she was up to, and ended up being dropped here... "OMG I abandoned her, Tohno-kun... I'm a horrible teacher.. agh.. she's probably dead by now..." stuff like that. Noel-sensei just like cowardly losing it, complaining, screaming and going crazy feeling guilty and wanting to get out of there all at the same time. Honestly it's effervescent.. love you Noel-sensei.

Hot

Being a goodie two shoes Shiki tries to find the other female student and cleaves through the zomboes while Noel struggles to keep up. They eventually find a really bizarre like altar room??? It's like a very wide room with circular indentations in the ground leading to an altar in the center. Like the type where clearly you kill the sacrifice in the middle and the blood will probably travel and fill up the circular indentations to make a huge picture or whatever, that kind. The girl is lying in the middle, and being crazy Shiki of course runs in there to save her.

SURPRISE the female student is Ciel-senpai. She's actually an undercover nun who came here to investigate the vampire. Also Noel is her PARTNER, and she was pretending to be worthless the entire time because she was just fucking with Shiki, waiting for her moment to jump out and shine. The zombies all attack since Shiki made a ruckus trying to save Ciel, and Ciel of course is like bro you kind of ruined my entire plan. (AKA Noel ruined it for letting Shiki get here?? Tho in her defense she did not expect Shiki to charge towards the altar that stupidly) 

Anyways Noel reveals herself and confidently tries to show off before immediately getting grabbed by VLOV HIMSELF, who appears and SUCCS on her supple 27 yo OL neck. Shiki rushes in and tries to save her, and cuts off Vlov's arm by seeing his cut lines. Shiki tries to go in for the kill, but sensing the danger, Vlov activates his freeze powers... you lost your chance Shiki. Remember the information from Arc route? Vlov can't be approached that willy nilly until you deactivate his whatever the fuck thing. Ciel ends up having to haul ass to save everyone, and the mall like completely collapses on itself. Shiki dives towards Noel to try to protect her since she defenseless compared to Ciel, though of course it turns out to be Noel protecting Shiki as she keeps him safe in some kinda magic bubble under the rubble after the ceiling falls on them. Noel's just like whelp guess we just gotta wait here until Ciel-senpai digs us out (Ciel is her work senpai just like how she's Shiki's school senpai). Shiki gets a little hot and bothered being in such close quarters with Noel-sensei, but thankfully gets extracted as Ciel uncovers them from the rubble.

Sadly enough, Ciel is COLD AF towards him... seems she's not happy about how reckless he was. Fighting vampires is her job, so Shiki should stay out of it. Shiki's like... um.. but senpai.. I wanna help. I can poke people. But she's like no. I'm gonna have to wipe all your memories of me since this shits all outta ur league. Shiki: Oh fuck.

Well she lets him off for the day, so of course he do what any sensible guy does and tries to ask Arcueid for help. Arc's like wow you went and done some stupid shit huh. Well I originally planned to help kill Vlov BUT if THAT BITCH is there, then NO THANKS!!! I ain't touching anything where CIEL'S been cuz... I hate her. And she hates me. Fuck the church. Shiki's like HUH!?? What... why. Just team up one time you literally share the same goal here. But no, its impossible.

Arcueid ends up taking Shiki to the crater where the Vlov bossfight happens , except just to a tall building where they look down on it from up high. Ciel's activated some kinda cube magic cage where she going all out at Vlov with her unlimited Black Keys works or whatever. Arc's basically just like ya see they are out of ur league Shiki. Also I'm not gonna help it's the church's problem now fuck them. Shiki gets REALLY upset at Arc because... HE WANNA HELP CIEL SENPAI!! So he runs down all 3219807532 flights of stairs and rushes to the battle field. He finds Noel outside of the cube and she just like 'wtf do you actually wanna go inside there... u are crazy u kno that little boy' and he's like I don't care I wanna help senpai.

Either way the cube shatters at some point and Shiki charges in there, where he finds Ciel wearing one of the ugliest anime girl battle suits I have EVER seen. I don't remember honestly how it went, but somehow he helps Ciel kill Vlov after a really fierce and difficult fight since they weak af compared to if Arc was there, and also ogles like crazy how 'beautiful' Ciel looks while battling to the death so confidently against Vlov. In that outfit? I think Shiki needs some new eyes because I don't think so. Anyways even though Ciel got pretty banged up, she heals up pretty much instantly. It's a little weird, but I guess Ciel-senpai just isn't quite like other girls...

GIRL WHAT R U WEARING!!!

Ciel is clearly moved and impressed by Shiki's assistance in the fight, but she gotta keep acting professional about it. Meanwhile Shiki passes the fuck out from exhaustion. 

Also meanwhile there's some odd scenes of like Mario approaching Arc to talk about immortality since it turns out Mario's actually here on orders from the Pope to find the secret in order to prolong the Pope's life. The church actually don't got any intentions of killing Roa lol... Ciel wants to do that on her own. Wild. I think this was mentioned in Arc's route too but whatever I'm saying it now.

Life continues as normal again, and of course Shiki once again assumes the vampire killings will be over since the vampire was defeated <3 NOT!! STUPID!! ! Also something about how passionate Shiki is about Ciel rubs Arc the wrong way even tho she's literally only known him for TWO DAYS. Since she's not debuffed at all as she got proper rest instead of using it all to kill Vlov in her route, she's already at basically full power again. She corners Roa and easily kills him, much to Mario's dismay. "Girl how will I get the secret of immortality outta him now ToT", but Arc don't care. Mario didn't think much of her since she so friendly uwu~ but she starts to show a side that freaks him a little... Mario mentions how none of this is gonna cure her blood lust and she's gonna weaken and snap sometime, but Arc's like y'kno what I think I've thought of some ways around it. She then EATS Roa's heart like its a pack of gushers and talks about how shit it tastes. Mario's like... what O_O;; uhhh girl... you aren't gonna go batshit or something are you... and of course she's like lol it's none of ur business bitch!!!! ! Honestly you go girl. Sure whatever.

[[I think there's more deep like smart stuff going on in this convo explaining plot stuff but honestly it was a lotta mumbo jumbo to me. Sure call me stupid, but that's what I am]]

For some reason, Shiki starts having some bizarre dreams at night. Memories of the past... memories of like where Roa was born, where he lived and conversations he had. Wonder what any of this could possibly mean. Whatever, it doesn't matter!! The city is free of vampire so he tells everyone he knows (again) that the vampire killings will surely end now! He goes back to school and of course runs into Noel-sensei and Ciel... seems they still gotta stick in town to clean out the zombie remnants or whatever so they sticking around for a while. Ciel tries to make him stop getting involved and threatens to wipe his memories but Noel's like omggg she can only wipe memories within 24hrs so you're already in the clear <3 Okay cool.

Shiki gets visited by Arc who he finds in his bedroom??? Cuz she just breaking and entering decided to come here like okay. Anyways, she enlists him to meet up with her on nightly dates to clear out vampires in town <3 When they meet up at night they banter like silly high schoolers as usual and Arc drops the bomb on him that Vlov WASN'T her target. It was ROA!!! Silly head!! But Shiki taking on Vlov with Ciel did her a favor and let her recuperate, so she was able to smudge out his life easily <3 Shiki's like wait what... Either way, Arc just wants his help clearing out the remnant vamps and zomboes left behind by Roa. AKA more time to date... <3 tehe. She also of course mentions how watching Shiki fight Vlov was so cool~ He was sooo like determined and epic... In her route she was knocked out half the time so she couldn't get a good look, but in this route she was just sitting in the audience so it was a lot more entertaining.

So they go on a night tour around town hunting zombo lairs, while flirting and bantering excessively, and she actively promotes and pushes Shiki to use his super death eyes and cut through some zombo swarms. After a destructive night, Shiki feels tired af and is stricken with some horrible headaches... Arc has a bizarre look on her face, but ends the night by telling Shiki not to over use his eye powers since it'll destroy his mind probably lol if he overdoes it. 

It also turns out Ciel-senpai been spying on them... she watches from afar with dead fish eyes...

Shiki goes to school the next day to flirt with Ciel-senpai. Bro are you two timing... geez. Anyways he feels ill af and ends up collapsing, and has horrible nightmares about this raging impulse to kill everyone or something like that. He wakes up to Noel-sensei inappropriately shooting her shot at him, so he of course puts her down in favor of Ciel-senpai. He learns Ciel's gonna go out on town to investigate vampire lairs or something so he stalks her. Immediately caught, they go together and he learns a bit more about her nun job before she treats him to Indian curry since Senpai is also a huge curry freak. 

That night Shiki once again meets up with Arc, and she berates him for cheating on her with Ciel... Shiki doesn't understand why they can't just get along!?? And of course Arc's like bro it's me or it's her there's no in between. Shiki can either adamantly insist that senpai is important to him <3, or he can say that he likes senpai but it's true Arcueid is harder to leave alone <3 bro what are you doing... You can't just lead on a girl like this. YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH. THEY HATE EACH OTHER THERE'S NO POLY END HERE.

Anyways he has more bizarre dreams about like Roa being a priest and his meeting Arcueid or whatever.. he has visions of the beautiful Arcueid way back then and stuff like that normal stuff to dream about. Shiki doesnt think much of it and continues life as usual. For some reason Dr. Arach is giving out flu shots at school today??? Is that allowed? She isn't even a real doctor is she. Either way Shiki's shook af when he walks in and sees her. She asks, do you want the shot that is effective and doesn't hurt, or the shot that hurts like a bitch and doesn't work at all? If you pick the latter, Dr. Arach starts acting BEYOND creepy and borderline horny, and shoots him up with the most creepy pink sussy looking vial I've ever seen. But of course Shiki doesn't do that and gets his normal flu shot... probably. Sussy af.

After another day of flirting agressively at Ciel-senpai, he gets summoned by Noel-sensei to an abandoned building??? HUH? When he gets there he finds her in her nun gear... torturing vampires. Apparently she does this to destress. She shows him an example of torturing a vampire and stuffing him in a box and is like ok now you try! And Shiki either has the option of 'showing her how it's really done', or...being NORMAL and just being like bro wtf I'm going home. Which is of course what he does. 

Afterwards Noel-sensei, who to be fair has been going through a lot lately where Shiki can't see, starts ranting about how much of a monster Ciel-senpai is. Like, she respects her but she's a literal monster. She's an un-aging cold killing machine. Apparently one time in order to kill a paranoid vampire she hid in the shit filled sewers for an entire month until the dude's guard was down enough to go outside and she one shot him from under the manhole. Ciel-senpai is legit a maniac killing machine. Apparently Noel's been partnered with her for 5 years and she hasn't aged a day. She's immortal and fakes all her emotions.

Hearing all this, Shiki's like... okay... and that has to do with me how.... bro get the hint. Anyways Noel's like well I won't waste more of your time so bye I guess~<3 Okay. Get some help, Noel. For my sake.

Honestly I don't remember when it happens so I'll just put it here, but randomly throughout the route we're given some little segments of Noel POV moments where she's seriously going through it. It's heavily implied that she's concerned about being infected with vampiritis after getting nommed on by Vlov (even though Ciel directly told Shiki that this isn't something to be concerned about since the church checkups supervised by Ciel herself said she'd be fine, but what can I say Noel must think it was a false negative). Mario is upset with her work lately and says that she's gonna get shipped back to HQ in Europe, and Noel in her anxious panic convinces herself that if she goes back as she is now she'd be dissected and tortured... as would happen if she really was a vampire. But is she. Either way just letting you know she is mentally unwell. 

On his way to his nightly date with Arcueid, CIEL shows up. Apparently she RLY wants him to not go, and Shiki fails to shake her off. So he ends up showing up to the park... with Ciel. Awkward... Ciel and Arcueid immediately get into a cat fight and Arc literally goes straight up full power crazy on Ciel. The fight is legitimately like wildin', and the ground literally turns into a sea of blood?? I think from Arc's like super magics or whatever. Either way things get wildly out of control, and seeing Shiki try to defend Ciel just pisses Arc even more. Either way he pulls a "I'LL HATE YOU IF YOU KEEP THIS UP BAKA" which makes Arc do a tsuntsun >__< ugyuuu and forces her to back off. Shiki and Ciel then engage in a very gross OMG SENPAII ARE YOU OKAY, and Ciel being like omg Shiki.. r YOU ok... mushy gushy disgusting display, which causes Arc to get really pissed off, thus forcing her to leave. Ciel's surprised that worked out, but she insists to Shiki that Arcueid is a crazy and unreasonable psycho vampire who cannot be reasoned with and he should cut all contacts with her. Honestly I get it but I think it's a little late for that.

Anyways, Ciel is upset that Shiki put himself in danger to protect her, so she gives him a cold reminder that she's fucking immortal so she doesn't need him to do that. By slitting open her own throat and splurting out a blood fountain. It all goes back inside though so it's no problem. Shiki's shooked but he don't really know what to say to salvage the situation... It's tough trying to two time two women who are immortal and can kill you huh!

Next day Shiki is concerned thinking Ciel-senpai gonna vanish from his life again so he rushes to school early...but fails to catch a glimpse of her... where are you senpai. Of course, he finds her at lunch in the cafeteria chowing down on curry. Of course. Life continues as normal with him flirting with Ciel, mentioning how much of a lovely curry freak she is kya <3 Ciel's like... okay... but she likes the attention there's no doubt about that. They end up ditching classes to chill in the tea ceremony room where he ogles her and showers her in his verbal affections since talking with senpai is so lovely and awesome! He finally gets to the meat of the conversation, discussing what they should do about the vampire situation, and Shiki drops the bomb that Arc already killed Roa and that his base was under the school. Ciel's like WHAT!??!???! And tells him to stay here while she investigates the place.

If Shiki acts like a good boy and stays here, he gets captured by Noel who then tortures him to death and stuffs him in a box since she loves to do that so much... girl get it together. Anyways that doesn't happen as he follows Ciel to investigate the underground. They find the sewers under the school completely empty save for Roa's (OG Tohno Shiki's) very much unalived corpse. Ciel has a very serious expression on her face as Shiki's tryna just be like ummm things are fine right cuz he's dead right... but it turns out things AREN'T fine.

Noel appears and announces some very interesting information. If Roa was TRULY dead, then his zombo minions that were integrated into society should have all collapsed into real corpses and caused a huge ruckus in society. But that didn't happen. There's only one place Roa can be alive.. inside the host body of Tohno Shiki... if this Shiki is dead then the only answer is he's lurking inside OUR Shiki now. He's already turning into a vampire and he just hasn't NOTICED IT!!??! Noel tries to murder Shiki as is only right, but Ciel stops her and strikes back, poking a hole in Noel's shoulder. Not having expected Ciel to protect Shiki, Noel starts to freak out and runs away while begging for her life.

Ciel tells Shiki that it's not possible for him to be possessed by Roa and that he shouldn't worry about it. Shiki says thanks, but he can't help but feel like there could have been some truth to Noel's words...

That night there's another Noel POV sequence where you learn in her vain attempt to avoid her boss (Mario), she's been living homeless in the abandoned ruins of the shopping mall... girl you're pathetic enough as is why go this far. She's extremely upset about how human Ciel has become recently and how it's making Noel very hard to forgive her... How could things have come to this... Some of the building collapses and crushes her under the rubble and she starts wailing about how upset she is about life when... a certain someone appears. DR. ARACH!??!?? 

Dr. Arach's all like I can make you stronger girlie~<3 Just say the word... even someone pathetic like you can get upgraded... After making fun of and degrading Noel, the doctor announces that Noel is also stupid, since apparently she's not a vampire at all. She's just anxious and has a cold... Bruh. Noel's been mistaking her cold symptoms for an insatiable 'thirst'... girl that's just sad. Either way, Arach tells her that Noel has her head way too far up her ass, since apparently she doesn't even have the natural potential to become a vampire to begin with. Even if she was bitten by a vamp in an attempt to turn her, she'd just be a corpse probably... No vamp potential whatsoever... pathetic. But Arach has the mean sto bypass that. "If you use my Idea Blood injections even a worthless person like you can become a high ranked Dead Apostle <3 With this you can become strong~~~" The idea of becoming a vampire to Noel is SO horrifying that she starts desperately screaming and whaling for help, but to no avail. She's injected by Dr. A's sussy pink juice shots and undergroes a horrible writhing pain... yeesh. By the time it subsides and she's given time to rethink her life... Noel starts to think... maybe this isn't so bad... maybe being strong really does come at a sacrifice.... so convincing herself, she accepts even more doses from the sussy doctor....

Meanwhile, Shiki has some more bizarro dreams about uhh I dunno France and some other weird stuff. He has some dreams about being a young girl locking herself in a room as Roa overtakes her body and shit, y'kno nothing too out there. And more dreams about murdering people in cold blood... bla bla. Honestly some of these dreams might've happened earlier or later fuck if I know. When he wakes up, Shiki feels like absolute shit. He drags himself to school where he's greeted by Satsuki?? She'd been missing school for a while but apparently it was just because she got injured? She also said while out in town a few days ago she saw someone who resembled Shiki, but thought to herself the vibes were too different. But seeing him today once again thought that maybe they were similar after all... Thinking back to the day she mentioned Shiki realizes it could have been the day he was out on the prowl to murder Arcueid. Could it be he giving off the vibes of a killer now???? Bruh.. you saying he giving off killer gives even at school now...

He gets home and finds Hisui trying to move heavy furniture. He offers to help, but after stubbing his toe he just like OMG THIS CHAIR THIS CHAIR and smashes it to smithereens. Hisui comes back and is like o__o ummmm Shiki-sama....? Are you okay... and Shiki's like haha why are you looking at me like that? Omg and why am I so sweaty haha wait wtf happened to this chair. He goes to bed but he ain't feeling much better...

That night he dreams about prowling town and seeing people getting murdered and running for their lives... haha did I do that??? Anyway while clearly dream walking home he runs into Mario who's like WAKE UP BALDAMYONGIE isn't it about time!???? And Shiki's like haha u mean me no way... and wakes up from this totally a dream. Haha.

If having gotten injected by Dr. Arach's sussy pink juices way back when, before he even gets home Shiki is completely overtaken by Roa and just goes on a mad murder rampage... so that's a funny bad end that I totally didn't get on accident 😅

Anyways the next day after having vivid dreams of a blood filled home, Shiki goes to school as normal. He feels really relieved to see Ciel-senpai still acting normal and of course continues to shoot his shot. He loves his daily life with Ciel-senpai and would hate to lose it... is it wrong to think that maybe Ciel-senpai feels the same way...? She promises him that even though Roa is gone, she still has to stay in town to clean up so he doesn't have to worry about her disappearing until after she graduates from high school. They make plans with Inui to get lunch together, and Ciel jokingly tells Shiki to be there with his wallet (which he left at home) within 30 minutes. He stupidly mad dashes home and collapses from exhaustion... idiot. When he wakes up he rejects Hisui's offers of help and struggles to mad dash back to the curry place, somehow making it in time?? But of course passes out on the spot... idiot. Ciel has him sent home to recuperate.

(Alternatively if he doesn't try to make it to curry, he stays at home and Akiha is clearly concerned about him but he kind of blows her off rudely like... bro I am going to wrangle you Akiha does so much for you you little inconsiderate brat)

The next day Shiki is like completely overwhelmed with blood thirst and violent impulses, and refused to let anyone into his room in a last ditch measure to protect them from himself. By the time night falls, he'd run out of energy from hunger, so Kohaku ends up using a master key to enter the room, a little shooked by how much of a mess he's made, but acts otherwise normal. For a second Shiki thinks of it as how she's probably feigning calm in order to not stress him out or agitate him as he's obviously in a very distrubed state, but it's to no avail as he eventually loses it and starts stabbing at Kohaku... Pulling himself together, he screams at the sight of what he's done and absconds out the window...

Alternatively, if Shiki had given in to Noel's offer to torture people way back when, at this point the whole previous day instead of Hisui being the maid who generally greets him its just Kohaku? Also he keeps seeing blood in the corner of his eye... for some reason. At this point when he stabs Kohaku, she stands up again but as a lifeless zombie, so he rushes to Akiha's room while screaming, where he finds her and Hisui's bloodied corpses. He comes to realize that he's the one who killed them and that he'd just pushed the memories back in denial... he's a real bonafide serial killer now... Wild.

Well obviously that doesn't happen. Anyways Shiki runs around town in a desperate attempt to find a means to appease the blood thirst, and ends up texting Ciel-senpai begging for help. Ciel tells him to meet her where the destroyed shopping mall is, and when he gets there, he's greeted by a very battle ready Ciel, dressed in a battle suit that is much better looking than the one she wore to Vlov's fight. She then announces that he's posessed by Roa and that all along she was luring him into a false sense of security in order to observe him, so that she can kill him when the time was right. All this time all their anime fun dates and good times were FAKE. She was just ACTING. It's all a LIE. She is now going to KILL him like the heartless robot she is... like okay after all the curry dates I wouldn't believe it either if I was Shiki.

[[Okay more details, the reason why Shiki is posessed by Roa is because apparently when real Shiki basically killed our Shiki in that incident when they were kids, it like... marked Shiki as a potential backup host for Roa??? Honestly not quite sure how that works, but basically they are intrinsically linked, and if real Shiki ever dies without having Roa truly eliminated he will transfer directly into our Shiki and start tryna take over him. Awesome]]

Shiki runs towards her in an attempt to resist... sort of. But refuses to fight back. Because he loves her too much. It ends up with just him running from her and her being like TAKE OFF YOUR GLASSES ALREADY!! WHY WON'T YOU FIGHT BACK!! She ends up cornering him and is like... bro if you don't take off your glasses you're going to make me feel bad. How am I supposed to kill you when you don't even hate me even a little bit. You're just... sitting there. And Shiki's like well y'know what I don't care how much of it was a lie. I love you Ciel-senpai <3 if you have to kill me so be it... I'd do anything for you... even die I guess. I mean I am turning into Roa anyways.

Of course it turns out Ciel is not a cold blooded machine and she rly doki doki loves Shiki so this has put her in a really difficult position. She starts to cry and confesses that she can't bring herself to do it if he keeps acting like a fool like this. The two then decide that they'll find some kinda way to cure him of his Roa-itis. Somehow.

Their lovey dovey nonsense hour is interrupted when a mysterious someone attacks... Lo and behold it's NOEL-SENSEI!?? But she's a VAMPIRE!?? WHAT. And she's like... baby now. What... My god... Her lovely OL aura, all gone. Apparently her vampiric transformation took her back to the time she was happiest, AKA when she was 14. Noel's had a very hard life battling anxiety and depression and look where it's brought her. She announces that all she's ever wanted was revenge on Ciel-senpai, so she's here to get it. And while she's at it she'll kill Shiki too to take out Roa, who was the vampire that ruined her life. Amazing.

girl what are you wearing

Apparently the Idea Blood she was injected with granted her the power to like use roses and flowery aesthetics and shit, and has a magic eyes that lets her entrap people in illusions and visions and stuff. She uses her magic eyes to trap Ciel and Shiki within a play by play replay of her traumatic past...

Long long ago, Noel was a 14 yo cute little girl who lived in France. Her birthday was coming up on Christmas, and her family ran like a little cafe. There was an older Japanese exchange student she had a huge fat crush on, and in gen it seems she had her own silly tween drama with her schoolmates. On Christmas night AKA her birthday, she was in a bit of a bad mood so she locked herself in her room and hid under the covers with her headphones on... eventually curious about the festivities, she looked out the window only to find the exact opposite of a jovial night. It was just a bunch of people running and screaming basically.

She heads downstairs and finds that her father is DEAD alongside others and huge pools of blood. In a daze, she runs outside, only to find people being killed by monsters and zombies. What on earth. Also apparently the entire city has been encased inside some kind of giant walls?? She sees crowds in the distance trying to find a means to climb or break through the walls, but the vampires atop the walls just summon another wall to trap them between the two, squishing them all to death. Noel saw her mother amongst those people, who made eye contact with her and screamed for help before getting squished... Yeesh.

The exchange student guy appears and grabs Noel, telling her that they should go hide somewhere for safety. Completely shooked, Noel just lets him lead her while in a daze, taking in the sights of murder around her... The dude finds a church that seems mostly untouched by the violence, and they go inside, finding a bunch of other people hiding in there. Sadly enough, a COMPLETELY ASS NAKED girl drops from the sky. A girl who ... you guessed it... looks IDENTICAL TO CIEL. Because it is Ciel. Ciel was Roa's previous host. Besides that tho god Roa PLEASE PUT ON SOME CLOTHES. Anyways, completely pussy out, Ciel-Roa starts chowing down on the people in the cathedral as if biding time while waiting for something. Noelle realizes the vibes is similar to when she sat in front of the TV mindlessly eating chips... CielRoa barely even thought of them as people... they were all cheetoes to him.... CielRoa eventually leaves the cathedral, and the dude tells the people there that he wants to at least let Noel escape, since she's just a little girl. The people work together to help push them to the top of the dead people pile where they manage to get out I think a window or something. As soon as they get out of the cathedral, the dude pushes Noel in front of some zombies and starts yelling "Here's a tasty girl to eat!!!!" before he bolts it. Yeesh. Sadly enough, zombies in this game are the types who can't see shit and react mostly to sound so of course they go after and eat the dude. Noel just sits there... she doesn't even blame the guy, thinking that she's lost everything so she isn't even worth saving. She looks up and sees Arcueid murdering CielRoa, and drops CielRoa's body right next to Noel. They stare at eachother while CielRoa bleeds out until they's dead... yeesh.

is there any reason why she got a WOMB TATTOO!???

So Shiki wakes up and is like damn thats some trauma alright. Noel's like ya :) I hate Ciel. Ciel didn't take the vision well however, as it brought up a lot of bad memories, so her body remains lifeless as if she's refusing to wake up since she hate remembering all that blood spilled by her underaged nudist hands... damn.

Anyways tl;dr Noel apparently associates Roa mostly with Ciel, as that's how he LOOKED y'know... and when in the church she was made to pair up with her she couldn't help but loathe her, but working together... she also grew to respect her. Ciel worked so hard and was so talented, and Noel found she could forgive her since she was just a husk of a person. Someone who was also damaged by Roa... but seeing Ciel become so alive recently by having mushy doki doki times with Shiki, it just felt so UNFAIR. It didn't feel right. How could Ciel have the right to become a real living person, when Noel was just like... this. Ciel was already perfect... and now she has everything... yeesh. Neol blames all her trauma and everything at this moment on the Ciel right in front of her. She claims she doesn't even give a shit about Roa anymore. She just wants that brief satisfaction from killing Ciel. She doesn't want to think about the future anymore. She doesn't want anything anymore. Now that she's a vampire she can just live forever with no need to fear anything... She doesn't have to be afraid anymore... she doesn't have to worry about tomorrow anymore...

Girl is SERIOUSLY going through it. IMO she clearly never wanted to become a vampire and never wanted things to come to this so she's coping the only way she knows how: mega violence. 

Anyways Shiki literally uses the power of love to wake up Ciel like for realsies, and Ciel finally gets up to team up with Shiki to take down Noel. Noel dies miserably at their hands, being all like why why why. RIP. Ciel feels really bad afterwards as she was partners with Noel for a whole 5 years so she feels like they really kind of knew each other even if they barely talked. Maybe in an ideal parallel universe they could've been friends.... whelp too late for that.

Meanwhile Arcueid was watching the whole thing.... Mario approaches her to ask wtf she's up to, and she reveals that she'd actually plotted a lot of this all along. I'm not sure if she really predicted that Shiki would be the next target host for Roa, but either way she wants to take advantage of this situation. Since she realized that Roa technically belongs to her, she wants to monopolize the one she hates and the one she loves... if Roa is Shiki, then Shiki can belong to her... girl. Okay y'know what sure go for it. Sounds legit. Mario gets kind of concerned about the situation and Arc attacks him and the other church people. They're surprised that she's a LOT stronger than they'd predicted... "Shouldn't you be debuffed from your blood thirst!?" says Mario. Arc's just like "Hehe you would think so huh :)" Honestly it's probably more power of love. Girl is down bad. 

Anyways Shiki and Ciel go to Ciel's apartment where Ciel really starts dropping hints she's down bad for Shiki. All like, "you want a shower? Or you wanna eat? Or..." and Shiki has the balls to just be like ohhh senpai your outfits nice and all but it's giving me ptsd since you tried to kill me in it... do you plan to change? So Ciel feels bad and leaves to change back into her school uniform. Bruh. Well they talk about everything that happened and honestly idr where it was revealed but I'll just dump the whole Roa Ciel info here:

So basically Ciel was Roa's last incarnation and her real names Elesia. She was raised by bakers in France and when she was like 12 she felt Roa awakening inside her. Lost and confused, she fell under his control and watched from inside as he controlled her body and killed all her friends family and various other people. He later held a bizarre ritual in France and invited all his vampire friends, AKA what happened in Noel's traumatic flashback. I have no idea what the ritual was about but I think it was another one of Roa's bonkers attempts to reach the next stage of immortality or whatever the fuck who knows. Arcueid crashed the party on her regular quest to kill Roa and unalived him before the ritual could be completed. Roa's soul left Ciel's body and moved to his next destination, Tohno Shiki, leaving just Ciel's body behind. The church recovered Ciel's body and took it in for research, but miraculously it woke up some years later and had conveniently aged a few years during that time so that she wouldn't be a loli I guess. Though honestly ass naked Cielroa did not look 12??? Vampire Noel who is apparently 14 actually looks 12 compared to CielRoa so I am confused about that. Anyways after waking up she stopped aging conveniently and was initially tortured by the church extensively as 'research', where they tested the limits of her immortality. Apparently, her immortality is due to a 'logic error' kind of in the universe, since her body is still regarded by the universe as being Roa's, but Roa's soul is still alive since he keeps reincarnating? So by that logic her body has to stay alive. AKA As long as Roa's still alive in spirit, her body will remain eternally regenerating and immortal.... HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE??? LIKE AT ALL??? Well whatever. After running out of experiments to try I guess, the church allowed Ciel to work for them, so she spent the next 6 years working for the church. And here we are now. Though FYI it was her decision to join as she wanted to find a means to 'make up' for what she did to people while under Roa's control? Girl why do you even care you weren't in control also the church literally tortured you extensively I'd want to get outta there personally. I get she has horrible survivor's guilt and uhh being the body of a murderer guilt but... well I dunno.

Anyways, Shiki confesses his undying love to Ciel, and after she tries to reject him like 6 times because she's emo and hates herself, she finally gives in and they are officially a couple <3 To celebrate, Ciel says they can share the bed tonight....<3

THAT'S RIGHT. IT'S TIME. For them to chastely lie a foot apart while sharing a blanket and just chat. For hours. That's it. God... Shiki you HAD your chance. WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE IT. YOU'VE SHOT SO MANY OF YOUR SHOTS AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO??!??? He immediately aimed for the boning in Arc's route yet he's so .... doesn't do anything in Ciel's... is this even the same person. Anyways, the next morning Ciel's like okay I'm gonna go to the church and try to find hints on how to cure you of your Roaitis so stay home please. My house is like... anti vampire barriers so it should keep Roa in control better than if you went outside. Shiki's like okay bye.

While home, Shiki is so plagued by sudden rampage of Roa trying to take over him that he ends up smashing the table and stumbling outside. Oops! While out, he finds himself in the park where he runs into Arcueid.... uh oh.

Arcueid offers him an easy solution to his problem! Since Roa is trying to take him over, he can easily be cured of his pain if he just becomes stronger than Roa. If he becomes Arcueid's man slave minion, she can help grant him that power and render Roa powerless... though that would result in Shiki basically being Roa except it'd be Shiki's personality in control. He'd be a full vampire and would serve under Arcueid... she'd have control over the part of herself she'd lost when she'd turned Roa into a vampire AND would have her man by her side so it's two birds with one stone right. Of course, Shiki's too down bad for Ciel to see this offer as any good and rudely rejects her. Bruh... I would've said yes in a heartbeat...

Anyways they get into a completely unwinnable fight, since Arcueid is literally purely immortal at night. Arc gets kinda emotional since she's in LOVE with Shiki. Ever since Shiki 'broke' her, she's been left with these emotions... what's she supposed to do with them? Shouldn't he take responsibility? In her emotional state, a line of death appears on her neck... 

CIEL NORMAL END

Being a bit of a dick, Shiki tells her that he just can't accept her offer, and slices it wide open. Geez.

He backs up, thinking she would be only mildly inconvenienced by it, but is surprised to find her collapsed as if she was a ragdoll with her strings cut. A huge pool of blood leaks out beneath her as she struggles to get up... Things don't look too hot.

bruh why u cut me open

Ciel appears and shoots something at Arc, absconding with Shiki. Apparently the church has 0 answers to curing Roaitis so she rushed home empty handed. Dang. They escape to the school, and Ciel tells Shiki to go hide as she'll face Arc here. Of course Shiki's like omg nooo I wanna help, but Ciel, while shivering from fear, is like please JUST ONCE let me follow my heart and protect you with everything I have. I'm immortal as long as Roa's alive but you'd get one shot so please just hide. Shiki concedes...

He waits a while uselessly before checking out the source of battle sounds, only to find Arc literally beating the living shit out of Ciel, repeatedly ripping apart her body and smashing up her organs and shit. Girl chill... Shiki realizes there's nothing he can really do against the immortal Arcueid... unless... he can CREATE a weak spot...!?

Since True Ancestors are beings that are linked to the planet, and their immortality is also directly connected to the planet itself or whatever, he just has to 'kill' part of the planet!! (!?!????? What...) He runs outside and finds a 'death point' on the ground... one of the earth's ... death.. spots... I guess... Arc realizes what he's trying to do and chases him down, but too late he pokes the ground!!! He turns around, but he's not fast enough. Arc piledrives right through him and he coughs up blood. BUT with his last strength, he also slices through Arc who's now riddled with death lines!!!! (??? how does any of this make sense... what the fuck why does the earth have weak acupuncture points just right there on the school grounds too like what)

Arc kinda comes to her senses and starts being like omgg Shiki you BAKA BAKA >_< why you gotta be like this. She's also upset that he like.. kinda dying since she literally opened a hole in him. Arc kinda finally lets her anger fizzle out and Shiki's like sorry girl but I'm Ciel's man now. Go home. Arc's like okay whatever heart breaker. Mr. Serial killer... whatever. You the one who broke me and broke my heart... I get it! Y'know what I'm over you anyways!! Ciel finally shows up, but Arc just looks at her and is like "You can have him! I don't want him anymore." She gives one last smile before heading back to Transylvania or wherever the fuck to sleep forever I guess?? Okay.

After she's gone, Roa feels that it's safe to try to take over Shiki's body again so he starts doing that. Shiki remembers what Arc said and is like... okay fuck it I'll take him out the old fashioned way. He looks at his own death spot and pokes himself before Ciel can stop him!!! Okay.

He has a bizarre dream where he living a happy daily life with his friends and Ciel, but soon realizes somethings wrong!?? Something tells him that if he wake up he gonna lose everything but... he can't stay in this dream!!! He wakes up and finds that... OOPS! Ciel used some kind of plot device magic to give up her life in order to restore his. Somehow. Roa died also btw. It's just Shiki in his body now, but also Ciel's dead.

Shiki pov dead girl lap pillow

He spends the next years of his life finishing high school, and then goes with Mario to join the church in order to be their lab rat man slave I guess?? Since apparently the church the only place that might be able to find a way to fix Ciel. Though talking with Mario and his minions it's basically confirmed that there's 0% chance of resurrecting Ciel and that this is all just some kind of bizarre self sacrificing bullshit he doing to feel like he's doing something to repay Ciel for her kindness. What? Also there's a scene of him moving out and Akiha is clearly upset about it but she lets him go. Why... Shiki you are a piece of shit you can't even make your sister happy. CIEL'S DEAD THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS MAKE AKIHA HAPPY YOU STUPID LITTLE FUCKUP. SHE'S NOT COMING BACK!! FOCUS ON WHAT YOU ACTUALLY STILL HAVE LEFT!! IDIOT!!!

The End. 

Literal shit.. unplayable. Okay next.

CIEL TRUE ENDING

So this path only unlocks if Shiki took every opportunity to butter up Arc and tell her how much he cares about her like a real two-timing misleading piece of shit.

During the fight with Arc where she's getting emotional, instead of straight out rejecting her... he says something else. "I could never truly bring myself to hate you Arc... you're important to me.... but.... NOT AS IMPORTANT AS CIEL-SENPAI I'M SORRY BUT I'M JUST NOT INTO YOU" And proceeds to slice her open. Again.

This feels like the memes about the games where the choice options are misleading AF... this is WORSE than the other one. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT.

Things are generally the same in that Arc is sitting in a pool of her own blood, except this time things feel exceptionally worse. The world begins to distort around Arc herself. Again, Ciel appears to abscond with Shiki and the whole time is just like BRUHHH WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO 😨😨😨😨😨😰😨😰 and Shiki's just like 🤷 like... bitch YOU did this.

Anyways after dropping Shiki off wherever, Ciel's like this is RLY RLY RLY RLY RLY bad news... Arc's gone straight up full blown True Ancestor Gone Wild. Like literally the world around her has started to warm and a full on huge ass Elsa's Ice Castle from Frozen starts to get built around here like what.... Arc's true power is so strong that when it's all leaking out like this it's distorting the world to suit her. The entire city has suddenly fallen asleep, as if everyone in it has disappeared... Apparently if they manage to take out Arc, everything will disappear as if none of this ever happened. Alternatively if they leave her too long her world will BECOME reality and it'll be permanent. Damn.

Anyways, Ciel is literally shaking in her boots, but she busts out some weird furry giant super bow? What? And super mega charges it up to shoot a mega laser at Arc. Which I guess hits her but it deals like 0 damage... Arc shoots out at Ciel and literally one shots her. Great. Anyways they have a crazy epic battle and Arc has clearly like... ok HONESTLY everyone says she's lost it but she seems pretty damn sober to me she just seems upset.. like a jilted lover y'know. This is all Shiki's fault. Anyways she's like why should I care about anything this world's beneath me and I'm gonna kill you Ciel cuz ur a man stealing whore. Not that I care about Shiki btw I don't need him just like I don't need any man stealing whores in my line of sight.

arc changed her skirt for some reason? Jilted lover dress?

Since Arc is like... y'kno like I said True Ancestors are like powered up by the planet itself she leaves trails of flourishing plants in her path. Honestly she's really damn sexy when she doing the walk down town to come kill Ciel. Regardless, Ciel does some kinda mega bullshit techniques and like... honestly I didn't really get it but she ends up pinning Arc doing and splitting the ground into two or something. Since Arcueid is apparently heavy as fuck especailly with her true power leaking out like this, the ground beneath her sink a lot and Ciel like uses her bullshit magic to smash her like a pancake using the... other block of ground. Like imagine tectonic plates kind of. It's like the whole damn city she just smashes her. What...? Anyways Ciel's like omgg whew I DID IT YAY!!

But the yay doesn't last long. Blasts of raw Arcueid energy seeps outta the earth as Arcueid summons her... 'light body' or whatever. Like it's the PURE RAW ESSENCE of her True Ancestor power, which manifests in a HUGE GIANT NAKED GIGANTESS VERSION OF HERSELF. Except it's made of light s you can't see anything. But it's there. Believe me it's there... There's even a light ahoge on her head. Is this some kind of fetish thing? 

Anyways the part of the city directly around Arcueid is like caught in some kinda reality marble or some shits I dunno. Shiki can't see what's going inside anymore so he's like umm I should go check it out. Randomly, Roa's voice starts to talk to him from the inside??? Apparently he's woken up and could do that the whole time but didn't bother since he was just tryna take over Shiki's body. Right now there's more important things to worry about so he asks Shiki to collab with him... Arc is everyone's problem, and the last thing Roa wants is for Shiki's body to die or something so he wanna help him get through this without fighting each other. He immediately unloads random trivia about Arcueid and her light body and all the magic bullshit, which like goes completely over Shiki's head.

They rush into the area and it's like super bizarre red colors unreal... however Shiki can still see lines of death on everything so there's gotta be a way right. Upon seeing gigantess Arcueid he is lowkey horrified, but he's even MORE horrified when he sees what she's doing.

Being the jilted lover she is, gigantess Arc got Ciel caught between her fingers and is repeatedly squishing her like a bug while laughing at her. "Haha you're like the perfect little toy! No matter how much I squish you you fix yourself <3 Haha btw it's not like I hate you for stealing my man Ciel like I couldn't care less about a bug like Shiki he's a piece of shit btw I am just vibing rn."

she should eat him

Shiki meanwhile is like, "there is no way she doesn't know I'm here with how much she's shit talking me right..." Either way he tries to sneak up on Arc to save Ciel but... that like doesn't work at all. His knife can't pierce through Arc's light body at all and she just laughs at him and flicks him away. 

There's a bad end here where he again tries to climb up Arcueid, but she immediately catches him. He then gets a very close up look at her face while she laughs while torturing him in her hands, all like "teehee I guess I finally found a reason to be glad you have a vampiric body now, since you are durable enough to play with <3" Unlimited torture works time I guess... is this a fetish thing? This has to be a fetish thing. I got straight up vibes of that episode of Dexter's Lab where giant Dee Dee undresses him in her palm. This is sick and it's wrong.

Well anyways, the right answer is for Shiki to stay low and hide while he looks for a weak point. And of course... you guessed it. There's another fucking... earth weak point.. like on the ground somewhere that he guns for I guess. I think. Something like that. However it ends up not doing anything at all?? Honestly I don't really remember how things went but Arc gets upset and tries to drop Ciel at some point into this vortex of darkness beneath her (honestly I don't know what's up with that someone nerdier can probably explain it), and being straight AF for her, Shiki drops everything to bullet dart towards his beloved senpai. Arc gets really upset upon seeing this, so before Shiki can reach her, she grabs Ciel mid-fall and literally yeets her in some random direction, conveniently shooting her at the high school. 

Roa repeatedly was like "Oh yeah Arcueid can't move from that spot don't worry about that", but suddenly Arc announces that she CAN move. She's not like those other pansy ass True Ancestors... and starts tryna head towards Ciel so she can finish the man-stealing whore off.

Roa then tells Shiki that it's not that Arc can't physically move, it's that taking any wild actions that are clearly self serving will like... break off her 'pact' with the earth. Because she as an existence exists to protect and serve the planet basically, if she just starts acting up on her own and leaves her lil vortex spot it will like cancel everything out and she will probably die instantly from being separated from the planet. Or something. Apparently because of this line of reasoning, a death spot has appeared on her light body as her attempt to leave has opened a weakness on herself I guess. Of course Roa's like let's sit and watch idgaf! Let her die then I can be free :) But Shiki's like... bruh.. no...

He then uses his hissatsu waza: "OMG but it would be like such a waste you know... the thing you been watching all these years just disappearing on its own... while meanwhile we could take her out ourselves... Roa's pride is tickled a little, and as we know deep down he's seriously down bad for Arcueid so he gives in and helps Shiki do some crazy air parkour to climb high enough to reach gigantess Arc's death spot core.

Apparently the only thing that can pierce through her light body is herself, so since Roa is technically Arcueid since her power is drawn from her since she was the one who vampire'd him, Roa uses his essence to coat Shiki's blade so he can shank her in the core. Her light body then explodes. Yay.

After waking up, he finds he's back at the school... and Roa is like gone for realsies. Since he used up his whole power to get rid of her. Also it turns out that like... since Roa's entire life goal was to find immortality only because he was seeking all the wisdom in the universe, which also turns out to be exaggerated and that his OG purpose was just to understand everything about Arcueid since he was super down bad for her and things just got twisted over the years.... once they like reached her core he like saw everything there was to know about her so he was like finally satisfied or something so he disappeared. I guess. He's dead now.

Arcueid appears before Shiki and is just like haha you got me I guess... I could still put up a fight but I'll let you off for now!! Shiki can see this is a bald-faced lie since Arc currently covered head to toe in death lines but whatever. With Roa gone forever Arc's just like... there's nothing left for me here anyways. I'm gonna go back home to sleep so... whatever! Have fun with Ciel. I'm over you. Goodbye. 

After a jovial and friendly conversation, she leaves forever and he passes out since he is actually covered head to toe in lethal injuries. He has a bizarre near death dream that has him in the Tohno household and all his friends are there celebrating his birthday except Ciel. Shiki finds it weird since this isn't his 'real' birthday as he doesn't even know when that would be since he been living as Tohno Shiki for so long... he announces he don't wanna be anywhere without Ciel, and Akiha's like bro... why you want her so bad. If you choose her, you can never come back to this house. And he's like o shit... well sorry but ya I'm down bad what can I say.

He then finds himself in a void where he meets a young version of himself... this baby Shiki embodies the past him who is like the real him I guess before he got weirdo amnesia and fully became Tohno Shiki. Baby Shiki's like bro if you wake up I'll disappear... isn't this life good enough? You can live in the Tohno house. But Shiki's like no sorry I'm down bad for Ciel!! So Baby Shiki's like okay sure fine I guess she's pretty cool so whatever.

Shiki wakes up and finds Ciel there watching over him, similar to normal end except this time she's not dead. I think they kiss or something but there's no CG so I can't remember. They happily stick together and basically run off into the sunset as a lovey dovey couple while Arc travels home single and alone.

Shiki realizes a life with Ciel means a life that can never return to the Tohno household for some reason, so he basically elopes with Ciel to live a vampire fighting life I guess. At least they are happy together <3333

Ciel last CG

THE END!!!!

Okay... they didn't bone. They didn't get a CG kiss. Ciel got done dirty. This route was just 'look at all of Arcueid's good sides you couldn't see in her own route cuz she was too busy sucking up to Shiki and acting like a goodie two-shoes' like... so you mean Arc's best girl?

JK the real best girl is Noel-sensei... I'll miss you girl.

Honestly I probably missed a lot of details...? There's too much going on in the game so it can be hard to keep track of everything. If you really wanna get into the meat of Nasuisms and all the weirdo details you're best off reading it yourself.

POST GAME THOUGHTS

[Warning: full of slander]

Okay so I think Shiki has a lot of potential to be an interesting character and protagonist but I also didn't feel like the game made full use of that potential? Like he has that innate instinct to be a serial killer but it literally only comes out at the most plot device moments lol. Also I don't really like how he doesn't think about Ciel AT ALL in Arcueid's route, but suddenly he's all over her while still being into Arc in Ciel's route? There's no consistency. I don't feel like there was any real moment that introduced WHY he falls for Ciel... he's just inexplicably more attracted to her in her route? I guess she does nurse him to health after he murders Arc but like he's so zoned out that whole segment and then later he's suddenly like "omg Ciel is actually SO important to me my most important person" like bro where is this coming from... why are you suddenly like this. Even in Arc's route I don't think he ever goes on tirades about how important Arc is to her. Is she just a hottie to him that he wanna hang with? Literally the only vibes I get from Shiki is if he could Fuck Marry Kill them he'd Fuck Arc and Marry Ciel. And probably Kill all the other female leads lol at least until far side comes out. 

Again this just me being picky but overall the romance felt so.... 'okay Shiki SUPER like likes her 😳!! Why? He just does. And BECAUSE he smothering her in affection Ciel like likes him back <3 Like okay. At least Arc had more of a reason to fall for Shiki. I get that Ciel like was never treated as a person before or something? So I guess Shiki made her get back in touch with her inner otome kokoro <3 or some shit but like... isn't it stated she's gone on many many undercover ops in the past? After all that is she really still mentally just a teenager lol. Like technically she's in her 30s I think, though she was in a comatose state for a while I guess, I'm pretty sure all that was just asspulls to explain why she rly is still Shiki's age. Or something. Like she's such a coldblooded killing machine but suddenly doki doki when with Shiki? I guess? Like it's clear she's just weak to romantic stuff and being barraged with love by Shiki wore her defenses down but... is this good romance??? NO!! IT'S NOT!! I DON'T LIKE IT!! The whole time I felt she just liked him because he was barraging her with love and went so far for her so she was just repaying him for that in a way. Like where's the actual chemistry? Why should I think they go together?? I'm sure some people reading this right now are probably like 'wtf they have a lotta chemistry you're just blind' well I can say that about people who think CIEL is better than ARCUEID!! YOU ARE THE BLIND ONES!!!1111111111111111 Just kidding.

Honestly out of all the girls I'm most looking forward to Satsuki route if she really do get one. I found it kinda annoying how like no matter how many wrongs the girls are capable of, in their route Shiki and the girl are like put in a morally pure light? Like... Arcueid is a GOOD vampires not like those EVIL ones... she CHOOSES to not drink blood because she loves Shiki who is sooo human <3333333 and Ciel STRUGGLES to overcome her guilt because there's no way to repay society for what she did to some people who already died a long time ago while under the control of somebody else <3 Like... I found Arc a lot more relatable in Ciel's route when she started to lash out and get selfish because she finally learned how it felt to want something and had it all taken away from her. Or Noel and her piles and piles of baggage and issues resulting in her self-serving attitude. Like that's what I call being real. Ciel is just a goodie-two shoes little emo girl who's sooo sad she did so many bad things and doesn't deserve happiness no more. Yet once Shiki's like omgg but noo you should marry me and not think about that <3 she's like okay <3 like... okay. Also the church clearly is bad too? They seem to be shit af especially with Mario having planned to let off Roa from the get go lol like... girl do you not even notice you're just being used. Are you really helping anyone.

Like what I'm getting at is there's so much darkness going on but the main heroine's routes are so like pure and full of morale purity or whatever lol. Arcueid just puts herself to sleep to avoid being bad so she won't disappoint Shiki like... we could have at least had a bad end in Ciel route where Shiki DOES become her man slave right... why not. Anyways I heard Satsuki becomes a vampire in the OG so if she does get a route, at least Shiki would have to face the issue of liking a girl who can't live without committing harm against others. Though seeing how this is going I'm already sure the game would probably end with her death or something and Shiki being like "I'll always remember you too bad we couldn't be together <3" or some shit like... be a little bad please.

Okay I feel like I'm just talking in circles here... sorry. TL;DR I felt the most interesting parts of the game were the edgier darker parts, like Shiki facing his inner darkness or whatever, Shiki coming to understand why Roa is like that, every Noel scene, Every Arcueid scene in Ciel's route specifically, the weird optional side bad ends that hint at the weird shit in the Tohno household... etc. I also liked Satsuki. I dunno something about her even though she does literally nothing the entire VN.

I'm really interested in seeing more about Akiha and the maids since things are just teased at in this game. I'm spoiler free so I'm like... what is their deal.. y'know what I mean. Something seems awfully wrong here. I'd be really disappointed if it's typical Shiki being a goodie-two shoes and sucking up to them until they're like omg I love you too I guess <3 I'm a sad broken emo girl but you said you love me so I'll get over it <3 like... please anything but that. Not sure what I can expect from Nasu but I'm probably best off not expecting anything.

Okay I'm gonna stop rabbling now...

Here's for some trivia: I caught an unknown disease (covid!?) and drew most of the pics while sick. Also wrote these final thoughts while sick. I'm not just sick in body... but in mind as well. JK!!! I'm very well. Probably.

Okay if you've made it this far thanks for reading ^^

14 comments:

  1. I snorted to damn loud while reading this review + dump. Also the drawing... girl I cannot... it's too funny 😭😂 You always make me want to play every game you review. Please never stop making those reviews (': ♡
    Lots of Love.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw thank you!! Lol thanks for reading and commenting :D

      Delete
  2. This review was awesome, from this I can tell the game got some real edgy despair going on but some good stuff too...i laughed so hard at certain parts like Ciel/Arc catfighting but wow...what an intense game it is.
    Brilliant review

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha glad you enjoyed!! Ya the game was pretty wildin a lot of the time but it was an entertaining ride at least. Thanks for reading :)

      Delete
  3. Your reviews are entertaining as always

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for this article, was quite an enjoyable and fun read although a bit too long for the Ciel route plot dump. I'm a fan of many Nasu works but agree that many of his lores and fight scenes just don't make any senses as the powerscale is just completely whacky.
    In both Fate and Tsukihime games, I had to roll my eyes a lot when reading through the abilities that characters have, like somehow Arcueid only has 30% of her power due to the rest spend on restraining her bloodlust, and because she was killed so now only 20% of that 30% is her strength. Or how she is supported by earth, so has all the power to recreate all materials, has enough reach to store all textures all earth. And then in the next fight scene, all of this god-like, super universal power doesn't matter because Shiki just cut down earth connections or something. Overall, it can be hyped and thrilling to read at first, but on second, detailed look back and all of that powerscale might as well as be thrown into a garbage to make space for plot device.

    Anyway, why did you have such a dramatic change into taste? Going from all BL, yaoi games in the past to the recent influx of galgame.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, yeah Nasu's lore can get pretty silly and contrived. Still, it can get pretty hype so I enjoy it nonetheless lol.

      I wouldn't say I had a real dramatic change in taste, I just play whatever comes out that interests me. For your reference, a new BL game comes out about once every 25 years while there are a lot more galgames out in the market. My earlier posts were all BL since there were many VN's I hadn't read yet that I'd been interested in. Now I've run out... the other BL games that exist either I've already read them before I started this blog, or they just don't appeal to me. Still, in general I just like to read a good story regardless if it's BL, galgame, or whatever else lol. I tend to like those crazy plot heavy stories with lots of violence and intrigue, so in the end a lot more galgames fit that bill than say otome games... I think that might be why I read more of them lol.

      Delete
    2. I see. I guess since Visual novels aren't all that popular, new game just don't come out that often huh.
      If you are interested in crazy plot heavy stories, then may I recommend Chaos;Head as it also feature a similar direction with what you may like. Although if you don't like the MC being an otaku that much, then just go for the Chaos;Child , which is a sequel but not really plot related and has more focus on the detective side. Also both games feature less romances than other galgames and actually try to have the female characters having personalities and motives related to the plot and make senses instead of just brainless falling in love with the MC (something I greatly dislike)

      Delete
    3. I actually read Chaos;Head a really long time ago back with the fan translation when I was a teen, though it was on my list of VN's to get back to now that it's been released officially (and now that I have better reading comprehension being older and wiser lol). I've never gotten around to Chaos;Child so I've been curious about that one too! They defs on my list of VN's to get around too... I have too many I want to read right now though. I read slow so I just get through these things at a snail's pace xD But yeah I also rly am not a fan of when the girls just fall for the MC for no reason... so yeah I definitely prefer the ones that are more plot heavy! I read Steins;Gate some years ago which I liked as well, so I've been meaning to get through more sciadv VNs, though yeah not sure when I will be able to get around to most of them.

      Delete
    4. Well, I'm surprised you actually want to go through the process re-reading the whole thing again because there's a new official release. It feels like a chore for me as I only enjoy new stuffs, although I do understand about the better comprehension and wiser stuffs as I used to read many works in English back in high-school when I was quite Terrible at it.
      BTW, why don't you read these VN in Japanese? I assumed you can do that because I think I read somewhere on your blog which mention it (not sure, so sorry if mistaken lol)
      Do you mind sharing what is your reading list? I'm curious what games you are setting your eyes on.

      Delete
    5. I usually wouldn't reread it, but my memory is very bad so I don't remember anything that happened in it... I know Chaos;Head has shocking content so I'm curious if I'll feel differently about it now that I'm older lol. Anyways honestly I'd rather read a VN in English if I can because it's easier haha, but if the translation is bad I can always read it in JP! In general the JP VN's I read are because I'm impatient and don't want to wait for an English release. I taught myself Japanese just for that reason actually, since BL VN's were not being translated back then. Even now, it takes upwards 1-5 years for even the most popular and classic BL games to get published in English... it's actually crazy... Anyways currently I'm reading 'Happy Saint Sheol' because it looked interesting. It's an indie VN I never heard of but I found it on twitter lol. I also was in the middle of reading Misericorde which is an English indie VN. On my reading list after that I wanted to read Ever 17 and Rose Guns Days. I bought a legal copy of Rose Guns Days earlier this year, so I really have to get to that one haha. The next BL game I'm looking forward to is ADELTA's next work but I have no clue when that will be released... I will definitely be reading it day 1 though.

      Delete
    6. Really? I thought that your memory is quite good given how you manage to write very detailed plot dump for the game you played after a long time.
      Well, it's quite admirable how you manage to overcome hardship to learn Japanese. I was motivated to learn as well, but I gave up after like 3 months and 100 kanji characters LOL (all of which I completely forget by this point). I don't know what's your native language but for me who use the alphabet system, it's kinda bizarre that people can remember so many kanji characters in Japanese or Chinese. Did you teach yourself or some other method?
      Yeah, it's so bad that VN can take like forever to translate. When something that I love come out, I just forfeit on waiting for a fan or official translation and resort to using Machine Translation which can be pretty bad sometimes, but it's getting better.
      Hmm, I never heard about 'Happy Saint Sheol' and 'Misericorde' before although from from their synopsis, 'Misericorde' sounds pretty interesting to me and has very positive reviews. Maybe I'm going to play it on weekends. Thanks for telling me about this.
      I know Ever 17 and Rose guns days although I can't seem to remember why I quit Ever 17 after 2/10 of the game. It's so long ago lol. I do plan to replay it though, as the same thing happened to me when I first tried Steins;Gate. Get bored at the beginning, quit, replay again after 3 years and get blown away by it. Good game haha. Definitely an example to get through the game instead of judging it too early.
      I have a mixed feelings for Ryukyshio7's works so I'm reluctant to try Rose guns days. Maybe someday when I'm bored enough :D
      As for the final point, isn't Adelta going to release the 'Ooe' game this year. It says so on VNDB

      Delete
    7. My memory is good in the short term but poor in the long term xD Also it really depends... a story I really like I'll remember pretty well but some things just get forgotten completely.
      Anyways my native language is English, but I grew up learning some Chinese as well so I think that probably helped me with starting Japanese :) I took some classes in university and used that as a base to start reading untranslated manga and VNs and it just improved from there... my dedication to the pursuit of BL knows no bounds! xD Just kidding... anyways, yeah I feel Ryukishi's works don't appeal to everyone, but I'm a big fan of Higurashi and Umineko so I want to read the rest of his works to see what's up. Speaking of, I did read Iwaihime but it was so... I dunno... it was something. I felt no desire to write a post about that one to say the least lmao. Thinking back, maybe I should have anyways though. Back when I read it I think I was more in the mindset of only writing posts for VN's that are not published in English, but I already read so little and so few so next time I actually finish a VN I'll make a post regardless of if I liked it or not or what language haha.
      As for adelta's game, yeah it should be coming out soon! No exact release date yet though, so I'm keeping an eye out for that. Either way my guess would be either late this year or sometime early next year.

      Delete