Flowers review discussion thread

[Fred the Barber]

http://fuwanovel.net/reviews/2016/09/19/flowers-le-volume-sur-printemps/

Of course I didn't just choose that header image because it was a little racy. How could you even suggest that?

[akaritan]

Great first review, I had a lot of fun reading it.  Do yo thing this is going to become a regular thing?

[Eclipsed]

3 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

http://fuwanovel.net/reviews/2016/09/19/flowers-le-volume-sur-printemps/

Of course I didn't just choose that header image because it was a little racy. How could you even suggest that?

didn't bother with the review, the header image sold me, ty

[Dergonu]

Quote

A fair amount of fanservice...

Why is this on the negative side?! This just made me more interested!!!

Erhem, anyways... Nice review Fred. I look even more forward to reading it now. (Because of the review, not the fanservice thing. Mostly )

[Decay]

I may go into this in the review I plan on eventually writing, but the fanservice and pandering comes in both visual and written forms, and feels inappropriate considering the tone of the work. Obviously I play and enjoy all sorts of VNs that pander like crazy, I don't have a problem with the concept itself, but in Flowers it felt like they were just doing the standard amount of yuri ecchi for no other reason than because they felt like they had to. Fred makes a valid point about the characters' sexual awakening causing unexpected feelings to arise within them, but this feels more like an excuse than a justification. Other works like Kindred Spirits have explored this area without being kind of creepy about it. And it feels weird and creepy specifically because it's in contrast to the tone the rest of the work takes, which is pretty serious and down to earth. It always takes me out of the work a little bit when in the midst of some serious melodrama the game pauses to have the reader ogle the girls more. Maybe it would have worked better if it was more subtle, less in-your-face about it.

Basically what I'm saying is that Flowers feels like an eroge that was neutered, and they should have just went all out with it instead of half-assing the sexual aspects. That, or tone down the sexual aspects or make them subtler, but I know which you all would prefer. 

This isn't an especially major complaint, btw. When I made my initital remarks on twitter about this a few days ago I was only half done with the VN. The second half doesn't lean into this stuff as heavily. So it's really just a minor issue at most, I don't mean to make a mountain out of a molehill here.

[Dergonu]

1 hour ago, Decay said:

I may go into this in the review I plan on eventually writing, but the fanservice and pandering comes in both visual and written forms, and feels inappropriate considering the tone of the work. Obviously I play and enjoy all sorts of VNs that pander like crazy, I don't have a problem with the concept itself, but in Flowers it felt like they were just doing the standard amount of yuri ecchi for no other reason than because they felt like they had to. Fred makes a valid point about the characters' sexual awakening causing unexpected feelings to arise within them, but this feels more like an excuse than a justification. Other works like Kindred Spirits have explored this area without being kind of creepy about it. And it feels weird and creepy specifically because it's in contrast to the tone the rest of the work takes, which is pretty serious and down to earth. It always takes me out of the work a little bit when in the midst of some serious melodrama the game pauses to have the reader ogle the girls more. Maybe it would have worked better if it was more subtle, less in-your-face about it.

Basically what I'm saying is that Flowers feels like an eroge that was neutered, and they should have just went all out with it instead of half-assing the sexual aspects. That, or tone down the sexual aspects or make them subtler, but I know which you all would prefer. 

This isn't an especially major complaint, btw. When I made my initital remarks on twitter about this a few days ago I was only half done with the VN. The second half doesn't lean into this stuff as heavily. So it's really just a minor issue at most, I don't mean to make a mountain out of a molehill here.

(Since I'm a bit of a creep, I tend to like fanservice like this, so no complaints from me  ) but I get what you mean. I see how that can be annoying, especially if it goes away from the tone of the game. 

[wyldstrykr]

as i dont read flowers yey, no fanservice is better than has a fanservice at all. if i want a fanservice, then i read a 18+ moege, charage, nakige or something

[Fred the Barber]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about the fanservice. Like Decay, I would've rather they toned it down a bit, but I can kind of understand the line they're treading here.

As is abundantly clear from the review, my gold standard for "relationship-oriented melodramas about Japanese all-girl Catholic high schools" is MariMite, which Flowers shares a lot of similarities with, but the biggest differences between the two are the physical nature of the relationships and, correspondingly, the amount of sexual content depicted. MariMite is extremely minimal (except sometimes in the ED videos, I suppose, if I'm being perfectly honest...), and always respectful about it (again, except the ED videos...), and I love that (and, who am I kidding, I kinda like the fanservicey ED videos too). Since the focus of the drama in that show isn't sexual relationships (except in exactly one case), the show pretty much doesn't show any kind of sexual relationship (except in, surprise surprise, that exact same case).

Now with Flowers, in contrast, they actually were trying to tell a story about sexual, romantic relationships. So I get why there was a need for the main character to periodically reflect on her sexual attraction to the people around her. But the story and the characters are still very innocent, so it isn't going to go tread into full-on H-scene territory, and I respect that (though I expect I'm in the minority in this forum...).

But to be completely frank, nobody will read this and then seriously argue that even a single thing that happens in the ballet room is anything less than pure, gratuitous fanservice.

Edit: I forgot to answer @akaritan's question. Currently plan is for this to be a regular gig, not a one-off, but it mostly depends on me finding the time. I'll do my best to make time for it, though, since people have been quite supportive.

[Chuee]

I didn't really have a problem with any of the CGs as much as I did the narration. The one scene that stood out in particular was the scene with Sister whatsherface in the water. There was like 30 some odd lines of Suoh just commenting on every single inch of her body. It felt a little awkward to say the least. 

[Kawasumi]

On 9/20/2016 at 11:55 AM, Decay said:

I may go into this in the review I plan on eventually writing, but the fanservice and pandering comes in both visual and written forms, and feels inappropriate considering the tone of the work. Obviously I play and enjoy all sorts of VNs that pander like crazy, I don't have a problem with the concept itself, but in Flowers it felt like they were just doing the standard amount of yuri ecchi for no other reason than because they felt like they had to. Fred makes a valid point about the characters' sexual awakening causing unexpected feelings to arise within them, but this feels more like an excuse than a justification. Other works like Kindred Spirits have explored this area without being kind of creepy about it. And it feels weird and creepy specifically because it's in contrast to the tone the rest of the work takes, which is pretty serious and down to earth. It always takes me out of the work a little bit when in the midst of some serious melodrama the game pauses to have the reader ogle the girls more. Maybe it would have worked better if it was more subtle, less in-your-face about it.

Basically what I'm saying is that Flowers feels like an eroge that was neutered, and they should have just went all out with it instead of half-assing the sexual aspects. That, or tone down the sexual aspects or make them subtler, but I know which you all would prefer. 

This isn't an especially major complaint, btw. When I made my initital remarks on twitter about this a few days ago I was only half done with the VN. The second half doesn't lean into this stuff as heavily. So it's really just a minor issue at most, I don't mean to make a mountain out of a molehill here.

this is actually a concern for me, since fanservice was the reason why I left anime in favor of VNs

[Vorathiel]

I just wonder how hard this fanservice is. Even Steins;Gate had one fanservice'y CG and it wasn't a problem for me at all. Well, I'll see in next week probably.

[Decay]

Like I said earlier, it's not particularly intense. Much more prominent than Steins;Gate, much less than some moege. It encompasses a middle ground, employing a good number of the common ecchi tropes of yuri fiction. 

[ChaosRaven]

Hmm, I think I've progressed pretty far, but if there's any fan service it either comes very late or it's hidden pretty good behind the millions of choices, since I certainly haven't seen anything of it yet. 

I wouldn't even call it a yuri VN so far since there was hardly any romance interaction worth mentioning. It's more about friendship and facepalm dramas tbh.

[Fred the Barber]

Yeah, like I said in my review, it's an episodic sequence of melodramas much more so than a romance. The fanservice is at its heaviest in the middle of the game, probably? And the romance is heaviest at the end, though even then, I didn't feel like it was a focus. But the story is mostly a melodrama.

[ChaosRaven]

Couldn't find another Flowers discussion thread so I think I put my own little review here since I finished Flowers now. I probably didn't get a true end since I just ended up in the main menu without any further comment, but I was in the last chapter and that's definitely enough for me.

Overall, I think the VN really tried to be...

Spoiler

but somehow ended up more like...

Spoiler

The art wasn't bad but far too bright for my tastes. I vastly prefer the darker color tones of IG's other titles. The music was somehow pretty dull and definitely not my cup of tea and I replaced it pretty soon with my own.

Story wise it starts extremely slow with little to nothing happening except some character introductions. The protagonist girl Suou is easily hetare 3.0 with neither confidence nor any character strength. Not as bad as Takumi from Chaos,Head, but pretty close. And unfortunately, she never seemed to grow over the course of the story. She's pretty much the same super shy and timid person at the end of the story like at the start.

Most of the story is plain slice of life, solely interrupted by some micro dramas followed by some short investigation scenes that had more similarities with a look-up copy protection from the nineties than an actual serious investigation. The answers ranged from far-fetched and silly to just plain wrong. Memo to Innocent Grey: The number of christians in the USA is higher than the whole population of Italy. 

And the bad ends themselves were as crappy and cheap as it gets.

The best parts of the VN were the interaction of Suou with the Sasaki twins and Yuzuriha. The worst parts were the ones with the so called 'romance interests' Ricca and Mayuri. There was absolutely zilch chemistry between them and their whole affair seemed to consist of distrust and maliciousness with some ultra poor jealousy dramas like...

Spoiler

threatening to reveal some lesbian interests about another person without any proof and then OPENLY announcing her own 'lesbian affair' with another girl. 

I'd even dare to say that the VN doesn't even deserve the yuri or even shoujo AI tag since the whole 'romance interaction' between Mayuri and Ricca was pretty much just bitching around. Even the worst Sono Hanabira title would be still a mile better than this one in that category. That's not to say that there wouldn't have been other characters that would have worked. Yuzuriha would have been perfect and I'm really pissed that she didn't get a route. She had a great chemistry with her and she had the right personality to make Suou more confident. Mayuri and Ricca however were simply terrible matches for Suou.

And then the choices *sigh*. Meaningless and confusing choices were always a plague in Innocent Grey titles but it was never as bad as in Flowers. The majority of them were simply absolutely pointless, but they appeared so often that I somehow got the impression that their only purpose was to check if the reader is still awake. In general Flowers appeared more as a side project from IG (and it most likely was) since everything was just less detailed and more half-assed than the KnS series.

Heroine ratings: Yuzuriha >> Ichigo > Ringo > Nerine >> Erika > Suou >>> Mayuri > Ricca

Final rating: 6/10 (It only gets so much because I liked Yuzuriha and the Sasaki twins)

As should be clear from my review, I wasn't particularly fond of Flowers and it's certainly the weakest IG title I've read by a long mile. I therefore most likely skip the other parts of it, there's simply better stuff to read. Although I might make an exception for the third one since it's centered around all my favorite characters Yuzuriha, Nerine and the Sasaki twins.

[Fred the Barber]

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

A lot of things.

Heh. Yeah, I'm also looking forward to Autumn, since my character ranking is pretty close to yours, including finding those top four far and away more interesting than all of the rest.

I agree with a lot of the stuff that bothered you, especially not finding either the giant pile of choices or the mysteries to be a pleasant experience. The way both the melodramas and the romance all played out felt oddly real to me, though, especially in comparison to basically every VN I've ever read. It's no storybook romance, and it's frankly rather unsatisfying to read about as a result, hence why I've been advising people to stay away from it if they're looking for romance, but it is nonetheless somehow very believable.

At any rate, I was in it for the melodrama, so it ended up with 4/5 for me, but I'm completely unsurprised to see people who don't enjoy that shit (and, really, most people don't; there's probably something wrong with me) giving it a rating like yours.