Kamidanomi Shisugite Ore no Mirai ga Yabai.

Hulotte’s previous game Yomeyaba was an unexpected surprise. It wasn’t anything special but it appealed to readers with a fondness for charage with lots of ichaicha and some drama. Hulotte’s newest entry, Kamiyaba, treads similar grounds with identical structure and writing. But Kamiyaba is either too similar or in some case not as good as Yomeyaba and those expecting more of the same might want lower their expectations. Not like the expectations were very high for Yomeyaba anyway.

Our story begins with Hajime and his quest to find a girlfriend. The poor guy even goes to every marriage related shrine he can find, visiting and buying good luck talismans... All in the hopes to finally find a girlfriend for himself and maybe even get ‘lucky’ in the end. As it happens his life is turned upside down when a cute kami Urara takes pity and decides to help him with his fateful encounter. Urara picked 3 partners for Hajime and tells him he needs to get his “fate-counter” with each of the girls to hit zero. It’s an interesting premise actually and can lead to lots of interesting and even hilarious situations.

The thing that makes this game interesting and keeps it a few levels above other similar titles is that the female cast is interesting and have great personalities, it’s a must for people who are into this genre.

Nanami is Hajime’s classmate and she is also the daughter of the prime minister of Japan. It’s a premise we’ve seen many times before. The girl is a snobbish high nose tsundere who thinks she’s better than anyone but the protag wins her love…. Oh wait. What?? She’s NOT??? Well, that was quite a surprise. You see, she is actually a nice girl and pretty awkward at times. Her father is concerned about her as well and wishes for her to live the life she really wants and for her to be happy and has no problems with her dating and socializing. Hajime starts to care for her and tries to ease her loneliness, which is bad enough that she eats her lunch alone on the schools building’s roof (with the other two girls, the roof is their sanctuary). She gets a good development in her route. Unfortunately, the potential drama in her path, the usual 'introduction to the father', never happens, resulting in it sort of falling flat in the end.

Suzumiya is a clumsy senpai of the group. Hajime’s first encounter with her was when she fell down the stairs on top of him.  Little did these two know that fate had bigger plans for them. She is also a very popular idol in Japan. She is good at cooking and spends time making benrous for everyone once a week. On other routes she even teaches the girls how to cook. So she’s a pretty nice and interesting character. Hajime’s fate counter with her is the closest one to  zero, as it is down to 15 (Nanami had 900 million). Her route is about her dealing with being an idol and dating someone at the same time, a common theme in idol heroine routes, and by the end everything is resolved. However, out of all the girls she is the only one who changes little throughout her route. Nonetheless, the ending was very beautiful and shows them together in the future.

Yukari is the mischievous kouhai of the group. She is also a detective but they never say why she wants to be one. She just does. Perhaps they tried to give her some special quirk, but it is never explored much, with means it ends up just being 'flavor' for her character. Her fragile body doesn’t mesh with her detective occupation. Most of her route is her and Hajime spending their time in the school infirmary and many scenes have Hajime carrying her there. There aren’t any real conflicts like Nanami and Suzumiya routes. The ending was nice too, but I couldn’t help but think that something was missing.

Urara is the kami that took a liking to Hajime and wanted to help him find a girlfriend. They were not supposed to be partners in fate. But Fate seems to be perfectly happy breaking its own rules sometimes. She doesn’t change much in her route, but that might not matter much, since she’s best girl in Kamiyaba. She is a hyper energetic girl and says ‘maji’ too much (Clephas: gyaru kami heroine?  lol). She also demands a reward for every good thing she does (usually ice cream), and she is very cute when she’s embarrassed. She really is best girlfriend material our of all the heroines in Kamiyaba. She is disguises herself as Hajime’s imouto,7 and this causes problems when it leads to them dating. However, things are resolved with the usual ease seen in the average charage. I don’t want to spoil her route because it’s the best one.

All the routes are full of ichaicha and any focus on something dramatic is resolved very quickly before anything really major can happen.  There are two shorter side routes as well, but they are also just ichaicha with one h-scene each. Overall the characters were great and enjoyable but they don’t do too much with them, which is a little disappointing. Yomebaba wasn’t highly rated and Kamiyaba is scored a few notches lower so don’t expect the same quality from this game. But if all you want is ichaicha this game is good for consumption. Did I say icha icha already?