Koi Suru Kokoro to Mahou no Kotoba

Entry posted by Clephas June 3, 2018

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This is the latest charage from Hearts, a company specializing in 'yurufuwa' charage with nakige elements. This company's works have a tendency to make me want to puke waves of sugar, but, in my experience, this is one of the better 'yurufuwa' companies out there.

This game focuses on a kind-hearted young man named Harutoki Narumi as he suddenly (and by accident) summons a high-level spirit named Haruharu, and, as a result, he gets dragged into the world of witches and magic users whose duty is to keep the balance of nature by conversing with such spirits. Narumi is generally your classic 'good guy' protagonist that everyone at least likes, and this VN doesn't have any real confrontations in the sense that you might see in another VN, so he doesn't really have a combative side at all.

Haruharu is the spirit Narumi summoned, a generally cheerful and lively young woman who lives in the moment and is driven obsessively to help others. Her spirited and cheery manner generally warms the hearts of those around her, and it is hard even for me not to like her, since she is basically like an embodiment of pure good with no negative elements whatsoever (except a lack of modesty, if you use some standards, lol).

Kazane is an iinchou-type who is the head of the Garden Club, which serves as a front for the activities of the school's small community of witches (the heroines and the protagonist, essentially). She is ambitious, in the sense that she wants to be a Grand Witch, but her essential nature is that of a person who can't help but want to help others (seeing a pattern here? hahaha).

Mashiro is your classic fushigi-chan genius... the most skilled (versus Haruharu being the most talented) of the heroines in magic, she always has a high-level cat spirit named Bastet riding on her head. Despite her brief period as a seeming kuudere (it ends almost immediately) she is, in fact, just as much as a goodie-goodie as Kazane and Haruharu, and her only really unusual quality is her sense of humor.

I'd be tempted to call Mikana a dojikko, in any other VN... but Hearts really hates to include negative personality traits in its heroines, so she just happens to be the least skilled of the heroines. She likes baking and is generally a sweetheart and something of an innocent... and just like all the other heroines, she likes helping people (it is almost amusing that they unified the heroines to this degree, lol).

Now, the charage of this VN has a lot of cheap feels and cuteness... and that is pretty much all there is. The girls and Narumi go around solving minor issues (not incidents) while practicing their power to speak to the spirits of the world, and generally you can expect that any event is either going to result in some kind of low-level emotional scene or lots of cuteness. Given the fact that it was well-written and paced enough to affect me, I have to wonder how the people who eat this up will feel playing this.

The heroine routes... are all about at the same level. Oh, Haruharu's route is the most emotional by far, but I can honestly say that the routes are basically extensions of what I experienced in the common route... lots of low-level feels and cuteness, with h-scenes added in. I'm not saying this is a bad thing... if anything, this game is pure crack for the lovers of the genre. If you want a low-stress, cute as a fuzzy bunny game, this one is ideal.

I will say that you should probably leave Haruharu's route for last... since the feels leading into her ending are the best in the VN. However, I can also say that you could probably play this game just for Haruharu's route and come out feeling quite satisfied if you like the genre. Given my tastes, I'll probably forget this game ever existed by the end of next month, but I felt a need to mark that this game is a rare ideal production for those with a taste for the fuzzy-feely and adorable.