For various reasons, I had high hopes for this VN. For one thing, it is by the same company that did Reminiscence and for another, I just liked the basic concept. However, there is one issue that is more than a little irritating... they used an entirely new main staff (new writer, new artist) and tried to maintain an aura of similarity to the Akagoei series without the heart and soul that made that series interesting.

First, the protagonist is obviously a knock-off version of Kaito, with all the same basic qualities... except intelligence. They deliberately made him something of a bird-brain, and the combination with Kaito's free-spirited behavior and a 'spoiled brat' image doesn't really work very well. The fact that he really is exactly the way he appears most of the time makes this all the more irritating.

There are serious hidden elements to the story, but a big problem with that is that the most important one is easy to figure out because of the first scene of the VN. In addition, while they maintained a similar theme about the stratification of society due to inequality of wealth and adding on a caste system, there is no explanation given so far about how things ended up like that. I'm unsure of whether it was deliberate or not, but there are some really big holes in the setting so far.

Making it worse is that the protagonist is legitimately disliked by three out of the four heroines... heck, Yoshiko says from the beginning that she hates him and the only one that is actively friendly is Akari, who is nice to everyone. This is a bit hard on the stomach, as the protagonist is undeservedly arrogant.

Ruriko

Ruriko is the protagonist's maid, the girl in the pic above. She is the only one of the heroines who doesn't attend the school, and her personality is caustic, especially toward the protagonist. Her path is really lackadaisically designed, though it is both amusing and interesting in the sense of filling in some of the details. Unfortunately, the drama, which should have had a great deal more impact, was weakly presented and solved far too easily. Given a choice, I would have advised them to completely rewrite this path, giving it more intensity and a nicely tragic feel. Unfortunately, they failed in the attempt to fuse the serious with the funny in this path, and it shows.