Omokage Railback
Entry posted by Clephas
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First, I should mention that this review is split into two parts. One covers the free prequel VN released back in May and the second covers the main game, which was released last week. My personal advice is that you play the prequel first. Both games are written in a really odd fashion (multiple narrators with the prequel and third-person with no insight into the protagonist for the main game).
Prequel
The prequel covers the events eight years before the main game, filling you in on how Juri and Masashi (portrayed as the child, Koma) met as children and how Juri ended up on the path that led her to head up the Yoshioka Corporation. To be blunt... this game is kind of frustrating. The story is actually pretty fascinating, beginning as it does with a guy being asked to have sex with his best friend's beautiful wife (said guy being Koma's father, a vicious yakuza with an excessive fondness for fighting and drinking). The story is told with varying characters being interviewed by a reporter serving as narrators, and they are, quite naturally, non-omniscient, knowing only their own viewpoints on what happened. The biggest similarity in style between this and the main game is that you are never treated to the protagonist's stream of consciousness in either. Both protagonists are the silent type, only rarely speaking their minds.
There is some violence in this one, and it deliberately skirts around the edges of the yakuza activities involved. However, this, quite oddly, did not detract from the experience for m. I can say quite honestly that the main game would be a lot less comprehensible if I hadn't read this.
Main game
Omokage Railback's main game is set eight years after the incident portrayed in the prequel, and Koma (Shimizu Masashi Jr) has become Yoshioka Masashi, having been adopted into Juri's family and made CEO of the company (though because of the unique structure of the conglomerate, the real power lies in the hands of some really warped older people and Juri). His first job as CEO is to make a deal for development of the resources of Yagurana Village, a small town that once faced off against the exploitative tactics of the Yoshioka corporation and won.
I'm going to be blunt... the storytelling style of the main game is uncharacteristic for the VN medium in that it gives you almost no insight into the protagonist's inner workings or feelings. The fact that I still found the game enjoyable is a measure of the writer's skill, but it was kind of weird playing a VN where the viewpoint kept switching between heroines and side characters rather than primarily revolving around the protagonist's point of view.
This game is kind of short... and, in my mind, this harmed the game's quality somewhat. This game could have used a far more extensive stretch of slice-of-life character development, but, instead the game hurries things along in a way that felt a bit hasty.
Surprisingly, this game tackles some concepts that otaku media tends to avoid, such as transgender (non-comedic) and homosexuality (non-idealized), though obliquely through the acceptance of the said characters for who they are. I did rofl repeatedly at the fact that the two hulking African-American bodyguards Juri has along with her were in love with Masashi. The fact that you never get to know whether Masashi is actually aware of the fact that they've been stalking him (on Juri's orders) since he was taken in by the Yoshioka family was one of the many mysteries of the rather warped human relationships in this VN. More serious is Asuka, the transgender maid who appears midway through the story. Apparently, Masashi's reaction (or lacking of it) when finding out she was transgender was one of the major factors that led to her infatuation with him. I don't call her a trap because she doesn't really fall into that 'moe-moe' characterization.
Getting back to warped relationships... there are very few relationships in this VN that aren't warped. Juri is obsessed with Masashi to the point of psychosis, Lemon gets high on housecleaning (not housecleaning products, but the actual act of cleaning the house), Juri's mother... well, let's avoid spoiling that one. Even the seemingly innocent Iroha has Aya (another heroine) as her 'poison taster' (who is also required by Yagurana custom to 'test' a prospective lover first).
Overall, it is impossible to fit this VN into a single genre. It also breaks Japanese VN conventions in about every way possible without abandoning the otaku style entirely. That said, I enjoyed this VN, despite the isseus I also had with it.
- Kenshin_sama, SaintOfVoid, RedK and 1 other
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