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Kami-sama no You na Kimi e is the latest game by Cube, and it is based in a near-future setting where AIs run just about every aspect of society. In this society, people have gotten past that raw terror of AI horror stories and have pretty much accepted the the ease and luxury of having AI run most of the important things that make civilization possible. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist, Kaito, is hacking into Central AI, the AI based on the Moon that runs most of the world's infrastructure. Triumphantly, he succeeds, essentially gaining control over the AI that rules the world... and the one thing he asks for before getting out of the system is for it to find his ideal girlfriend, which the system then says doesn't exist. Kaito, quite naturally, is a bit down after this, but he goes to sleep more or less normally... only to answer the door in the morning to find his ideal girl standing outside. Quite naturally, this ideal girl is Tsukuyomi, the game's flagship heroine and the embodiment of Central AI in girl form. As requested, she is already completely deredere over him, and a great deal of the common route has him running from her excessively sexual approaches. In the days after this, like dominoes falling in a row, he meets a number of attractive heroines, and he shows off the usual donkan protagonist routine almost constantly when it matters. Now, just from this, you'd think this was your standard charage... but in actuality, it is a lot closer to a plotge in structure. The heroines have real issues, the protagonist doesn't flake out or become less interesting as you proceed, and the paths actually have solid stories that involve most of the game's cast of characters. For someone who wants an SOL plotge with some decent drama in a futuristic setting, this game is pure crack. Tsukuyomi I probably should have left her for last, but I played Tsukuyomi's path first. Tsukuyomi is the game's obvious main heroine, the girl who is most prominent on the package and in the advertising, and in general is the one most central in the common route. In most cases, I don't like 'no common sense' heroines, but Tsukuyomi manages to pull it off without it feeling excessively contrived, which is actually a feat, considering she is a robot heroine. It is helped along by the fact that Kaito generally accepts that Tsukuyomi is what she is, has no illusions about her nature, and is perfectly fine with her being a different existence from himself. Her story is your usual deredere heroine romance at first, but it quickly goes dramatic about midway through, for reasons that should be fairly obvious. While the templated turn of events in this path is not revolutionary, it is well-executed and interesting. There is even a truly surprising and emotional moment near the end that had me crying. That, in itself, makes this path a success. My only real complaint is that this path lacked an epilogue to tie off the story. Rein Rein is the cold-hearted student council president, an honor student with a black heart and an overabundance of pride. Her path branches off from Tsukuyomi's path and is a great deal weaker, at least in my opinion. To be honest, this path was kind of 'meh' for me, since it never revealed anything important about the details of what was going on with Rein beyond the basics that were revealed in Tsukuyomi's path, which is a huge weakness in a plotge or a charage. While the protagonist remains a cool and interesting character, the failures of this path are really glaring. Worse, the same as Tsukuyomi's path, there is no real epilogue, meaning you don't get to find out what happened after. Rana Rana... Rana is the heroine on the cover dressed like Sherlock Holmes, a cosplay uniform she wears nearly constantly. As it indicates, she is a private detective and extremely intelligent... but also fairly perverted (she has a thing for Kaito's butt). Her path... let's just say it is surprising and diverges widely from the events in Tsukuyomi's path (I didn't really like how Tsukuyomi almost became a non-entity in her path, but meh...). This path... is a bit depressing, to be honest. Oh, if you choose the Rana-only good ending, it is actually pretty good and heart-warming at the end, but the process you go through to reach that point is pretty hard if you came to like Rana. Sophia/Sophia & Rana At first glance, Sophia seems like your standard 'yurufuwa oneesan', but she is actually a fairly intelligent adult (yes, she is the adult heroine in this game). She is Rana's older sister and one of those involved in developing the S-CHIP, an AI chip designed to be implanted into the human brain as an aid to those who have brain diseases. Sophia's 'path' diverges from Rana's during the darkest period of Rana's path, and... to be honest, while it is easy to understand why it happens, this path is fairly unusual/stand out for a modern VN for reasons I'm not going to spell out here. Anyway, toward the end of Sophia's path, you have to decide whether you want the protagonist to be with just Sophia or with both Sophia and Rana... of course, after a seriously awkward set of events. Generally, I recommend the Sophia and Rana choice... the guilt-trip you get from choosing just Sophia is pretty awful. Kirika Kirika is the protagonist's fellow loner, a girl who accuses him of stalking her because they keep meeting whenever they are trying to find places to be alone. Her secret comes out relatively early in the common route, but I'll keep it quiet since it is funnier if you don't know in advance. Her path actually begins very much like a charage path. It is only toward the end where it becomes as deadly serious as the other paths above. Indeed, in some ways it is the grimmest and most shocking of the paths, even compared to the depressing aspects of Rana's path. It is also the path where the other heroines showed the least amount of relevance, a fact that I have mixed feelings about, considering how powerful the characters are. Similar to most of the paths above, this path's greatest weakness is the fact that while it does have a conclusion, it doesn't have an epilogue or after-story to tie off the last few loose ends. For that reason, I'm pretty sure they are planning a fandisc, as I can't see them leaving things as is. Airi Airi has the dubious honor of having the single weakest path in the game. She is a net idol that the protagonist meets in the course of interacting with Kirika, and her main focus in life is on her work, despite being the youngest heroine. Unfortunately, she is also the least unusual personality in the group, meaning that her character is by far the weakest... and her path follows suit. Where the other paths had somewhat grandiose episodes that showed off the darkest aspects of an over-connected society, Airi's path's drama feels like an extension of internet trolling, so I had trouble getting into it. Conclusion A good game with a solid setting and characters, this is probably a good choice for those who want a decent near-future sci-fi plotge who have already played Komorebi no Nostalgica and Missing X-Link. Tsukuyomi is an above-average AI heroine, though she falls short of the genius of Cinema and Fluorite from Komorebi or the raw emotions experienced with the AIs in Missing X-Link. It's greatest flaw is how it handles the endings, a common flaw in modern VNs that seems to be born of the bad habits of the fandisc-loving charage companies. It's greatest strength lies in the way it manages to keep the protagonist, the heroines, and the story interesting while balancing it with enough SOL to make them feel real in the first place.

Human beings are contradictory creatures, whose behaviour is rarely as consistent as we would like to see and whose motivations are often complex, to the point they’re not fully understood even by the specific person themselves. This fact is often minimized in fiction, which instinctively strives for clear narratives and characters that are ultimately possible to fully understand and assess according to some kind of moral standards. At the same time, there’s undeniable value in exploring the ambiguity of the human condition and ebi-hime is one of the EVN authors that do it with a borderline-painful consistency, often creating harsh or melancholic plots and populating her stories with deeply flawed, realistic-feeling characters. And her latest release, The End of an Actress, definitely do not break this trend. Released on Steam in late February 2020, this new title by ebi is loosely based on the last years of Marie Antoinette’s life, where she was imprisoned by the revolutionaries and eventually executed for her perceived crimes against the French people. It transfers these core events and many features of the queen’s biography into a fictional setting, closely resembling 18th-century France, but without any pretences for full historical accuracy. However, instead of a grant political tale, what plays out on this stage is a very intimate drama involving the deposed queen, Liliane, and Marcus, a revolutionary who led the assault on her palace and unwittingly became her jailor. In isolation and hopelessness, the relationship between the two will be redefined in a few possible directions, fluctuating between naïve fascination, hate and, possibly, mutual understanding and affection, making for a rather captivating literary experience and one of my new favourites in ebi’s catalogue. But what makes it this special? Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Aaaaaaah I love seiyuu stuff so I frequently read a lot about it but it's not like I save it so I can share what I remember but I sadly can't source anything. I'm only talking about male seiyuus here as I know eroge voice actresses have a total different set of rules. From what I read, for r18 game (if their agency allow them to work in r18 stuff, that is) they usually record their lines separately, get credit under an alias (but not always, surprisingly enough) and call it a day. They usually don't promote it in person nor with their personal twitter account, they have a separate one for the alias and they simply don't talk about it. It seems to be more of an entry level kind of stuff, probably because it doesn't pay as well as anime given a lot of VN developers (especially BL ones) are minuscule tiny groups in comparison with the anime industry. Not that the pay is incredible anyway, like Texas mentioned, that's why they do a lot of stuff. For drama CDs it seems to be a bit more lax, as I see some explicit shit being credit with their own names, they attend events, do radio shows about them and stuff. They also record it together, same room side by side, as I remember one seiyuu once commenting how it's harder to voice drama CD because they have to "breath in synch" for the steamy scenes or something (for the background sounds). Of course, this is only true for BL since in otome there's usually only one guy per CD. When they do mention something like embarrassement, it's usually if the one they're working with it's their senpai because "oh no, I'm so inexperienced, can't let senpai down" kind of Japanese culture stuff. A job is a job, it looks like. They audition for it knowing what they're going for, it's not like they don't know beforehand. But it's not like everyone have no shame whatsoever either, of course, but I have the impression that the ones that get a little shy aren't the most people's person in the first place. Some just want to voice shit and not really talk about it in public, I wouldn't like it either xD On the other end, a lot of seiyuus are pretty open about doing drama CDs. Taniyama Kishou (vocalist of GRANRODEO, Wilhelm from Dies Irae) and Suzuki Tatsuhisa (not VN but he voices Noctis in Final Fantasy 15 and Makoto in Free!) openly say they like doing these kind of jobs (then again, both don't waste an opportunity to say dirty shit in seiyuu events, so not surprising at all). I think I once read an interview with Midorikawa Hikaru (Shiki from Togainu no Chi and Fuminori from Saya no Uta) where he said he likes to reminisce about all the BL he did with Koyasu Takehito (Dio from JoJo) when the two meet up (they are old friends and they did a lot of r18 drama CDs together when they were starting). I once watched a video where Tomokazu Seki (Gilgamesh from FSN) did even a live improv of a more sexy passage and his translator was getting embarrassed at his side xD And then, there's Morikawa Toshiyuki (Sephiroth in Final Fantasy 7) who's known as "emperor of BL" for the overwhelming number of BL CDs he did (usually as the top role), he also openly talks about it like it's a good experience (in one interview he even mentions his favorite CD) and that nickname is even mentioned in a gag in the anime Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu. I got most of these following the seiyuus themselves since they don't really hide it.

I don't follow many female seiyuus as closely but yeah, that's my impression as well. If I had to guess why, I guess maybe the fanbases play a role in this? I mean, if a seiyuu in those all-girls franchises ever worked in porn I can totally imagine people burning merch of her character and switching favorites. While from what I see in all-boys franchises we all know some of them do this at some point and no one cares (or get curious about it and falls even deeper in seiyuu hell :p). One is literally treated as a shameful reveal while the other is just trivia.

I'm not sure if it's just my impression, but it feels like male VAs doing BL are less secretive about it than most female seiyuus that do eroge. Like, the former is treated like a fun piece of trivia/something to joke about and the latter like a dirty secret (outside of those few that really dedicate their careers to eroge and don't seem to give a fuck, but that seems to be a small minority)...

Chanter is your standard old-style charage... and a kusoge. Shuumatsu Shoujo is one of my favorites and a game I recently reviewed (relatively speaking). For my full thoughts: On a female friend's recommendation, I tried to play Lamento, but I lost interest fairly quickly... BL games' conventions make me sigh with exasperation even more than the ones in charage/moege. Extravaganza I made an attempt to play early in my VN-reading 'career'... and let's just say, it takes a peculiar set of tastes to enjoy anything by Black Cyc, but it takes especially peculiar tastes to enjoy Extravaganza.

The House in Fata Morgana is a recent favourite of mine, and I think it can offer a lot of content to talk about. There are choices, but it doesn't split into routes like most VNs do, being closer to a kinetic novel.