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Ojousama wa Sunao ni Narenai


Clephas

1892 views

This is yet another VN from Ensemble, the company specializing in trap protagonist infiltrations and ojousama-ge.  For the first time in a while, the protagonist in this one is actually not a trap and the game actually has something approaching a good story... which was nice.  However, if you ask if it met my expectations for it, that's another story entirely.

First, this VN starts with the protagonist, a part-time bodyguard from a family of such individuals, transferring into a school to secretly serve as additional security for Kuon, the daughter of the head of the powerful Hikami family.  There he meets his osananajimi, Natsuki, who is Kuon's open bodyguard, Kuon's friend Erika, and the wise and somewhat playful senpai Miku.  In addition, his brocon little sister Rikka transfers later on, unable to stand the idea of him being surrounded by other women, lol. 

Anyway, the first thing I should say about the protagonist is that he is very close to the 'classic' protagonist type that plagues charages in most ways... he is sincere, kind-hearted, dense, and indiscriminately compassionate.  However, he is also a trained bodyguard, with all the observational and martial arts skills that go along with that.  Unfortunately, there are rarely few times in the VN where he actually acts as a bodyguard, because most of the VN is slice-of-life focused on reviving the Shuvesta tradition at the school, with him and Kuon at the center of it all, as the first Shuvesta pair. 

Kuon... isn't exactly what you'd expect from an ojousama heroine.  She's bright, enthusiastic, and 'sparkly' (her personality is extremely... bubbly).  She is also highly intelligent, but she has a tendency to jump to conclusions that can drag those around her in her wake at times.  I liked her as a character, and she is one of those rare heroines who actually makes ichaicha romance fun, if only for a brief time.

Erika is your average serious and straight-laced school president heroine, with the usual tendency to be a devoted and adoring lover that comes along with that type.  To be straight, I thought that they could have done more to show off that side of her, since the best part of heroines like her is seeing the mask fall off completely as the story goes on.  This is a rare case where I think they moved from lovers to the endgame a bit too quickly.

Miku is... a compassionate, playful, and mischievous older 'oneesan' type.  Her type is less and less common in recent years, primarily because over 90% of VN heroines are of the same or lower age than the protagonist in non-nukige VNs (in nukige, really older women are making a comeback, for some reason).  As a character, she was invaluable in and of herself, providing a powerful support in the other paths.  In her own path... she's very aggressive.  Very AGGRESSIVE (it needed to be said twice). 

Natsuki is the protagonist's osananajimi and Kuon's personal bodyguard.  She and the protagonist are reunited after ten years apart in this VN, and she is quite obviously dragging her puppy love for him behind her like a lead weight, though she covers it up with occasional tsundere-isms and excuses, lol.  Her path was primarily interesting because it was the first one I played that actually dug into the protagonist's origins (I won't spoil it for you).  I can't really say I'm fond of her type of heroine (I have negative feelings about half-assed usage of childhood friends/osananajimi settings), but I did enjoy her path...

Rikka is the protagonist's younger sister by adoption (he was adopted after his parents' death).  She is a genius, to put it bluntly.  So much so that she has actually already completed her education and is working as a full-fledged bodyguard, while the protagonist is still moonlighting as a student bodyguard.  She adores her oniisan in a way that is rather obviously more 'a girl in love' than an imouto's affection for her oniichan (as portrayed in VNs, as opposed to rl, lol).  Though she manages to cover it up with her acting skills, she is actually very slow to trust and has difficulty getting really close to non-family members.  Her path was probably the most predictable of them all...

The biggest negative point of this VN, besides the fact that it doesn't provide enough action to take advantage of the bodyguard setting, is the lack of comprehensive endings and/or after stories.  To be blunt, the 'drama' at the end of each path feels too obviously like it was made up specifically to wrap the routes up and provide an excuse for a fandisc.  Worse, the 'after-stories' that come after each path are basically just h-scenes... usually based less than a week after the route ends (c'mon, Ensemble... I want to see what happens ten years down the road, not what happens after school the same day!). 

Overall, this turned out to be a standard charage for the most part, if one with a bit more solid of a story than you see in most.  While it is amongst the better games made by Ensemble in recent years, it is pure crap when compared to Koi no Canvas or Gokigen Naname.  I can't help but wonder if this company will ever figure out that it contracted with the wrong writers when it was deciding who would be in the main staff roll...

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