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Bokuten - Why I Became an Angel is now available on the MangaGamer store and Steam!


NowItsAngeTime

Favorite girl?  

10 members have voted

  1. 1. Favorite girl?

    • Aine
      3
    • Naruko Nakizaki
      4
    • Yuri Hisaka
      3
    • Minamo Wakamatsu
      0
  2. 2. Favorite route?

    • Aine
      6
    • Naruko Nakizaki
      2
    • Yuri Hisaka
      2
    • Minamo Wakamatsu
      0
  3. 3. Favorite Common Route Chapter?

    • Chapter 1
      0
    • Chapter 2
      3
    • Chapter 3
      2
    • Chapter 4
      2
    • Chapter 5
      0
    • Chapter 6
      1


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7 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Is the ntr for the side character only?

Well, there are some certain circumstances regarding one of the heroines, but you can't really call it NTR/cheating/whatever. If you want me to clarify and don't mind some spoilers:

Spoiler

Basically, one of the heroines has to choose between:

1. Having a normal, loving relationship with the protagonist, that will eventually lead to a guaranteed breakup due to some supernatural elements at play (that I won't bother to go into any details about here).
2. Have sex with the protagonist's male friend once in order to counteract those previously mentioned supernatural elements, so she can have a relationship with the protagonist without that guaranteed breakup later on.

There's a choice you as a player will have to make during the route, but no matter what you choose, she ends up not sleeping with the friend, meaning she's never actually unfaithful in any way.

 

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lol, a setup to include ntr if i ever saw one. Completely ridiculous.

 

Sorry, for some reason i didnt read the last part. /facepalm. Scenario sounds stupid regardless though. Im sure they could have made better solutions for that magical problem than sex...........

Edited by Stormwolf
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I think I liked chapter 4 the most, simply because it deals with stuff that's rarely present in other VNs (or at least the ones I've read). The other chapters didn't really stand out to me in the same way, since they revolved around more classic love story issues, like age difference, love triangles and whatnot. (I'm not taking a certain previously mentioned chapter into account here.)

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I guess if you find Bokuten reastically portray the love stories, then good for you. Although I still on my opinion though that the author did have problem with the love himself just like Tomoe (And almost same view), especially if we look at the setting (While arguably it's realistic because it reflect the real life to a degree, I still find that it's pretty much reflect what author think about love). By the way, if the author didn't open the discussion about no romance in the band back at Deardrops and explore it in Riho's route I'm probably wouldn't be that nitpicking to Bokuten here.

In the end, it's up to each of their own on how should someone view Bokuten. Also if I may say what I think in more objective view, then perhaps it would be a work where the love concept is deconstructed and on how it'll affect the people, and that not all love will end happily.

 

But reality shouldn't have all of the love story are ended tragically like in Bokuten.

PS - By the way in case some people still not catch it, Bokuten and Deardrops are written by the same person.

Edited by littleshogun
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7 minutes ago, littleshogun said:
Spoiler

But reality shouldn't have all of the love story are ended tragically like in Bokuten

 

I think you should spoiler mark this. But yes, I know what you mean. The author seems pretty cynical, honestly. Not all love stories end happily, but

Spoiler

it feels kinda forced that out of 13 endings, there wasn't a single truly happy one.

 

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Spoiler

True, I wrote the wrong amount, but it was actually fewer than intended. I was including the chapter 1-6 endings, but seem to have suffered a brain fart and momentarily forgotten that there are several in each of those chapters. It should be 20 endings in total; 2 each for chapter 1-5, 3 for chapter 6, and then the 7 for the heroine routes.

 

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Well, fine, if you want to nitpick. I don't get the point of starting a discussion about something like this, though.

Spoiler

Doesn't really matter if it's 7, 13 or 20 endings; I still think it feels a bit forced that they had to end every single one on a sad/bittersweet note. But that's utsuge for you, I guess.

 

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 Finally finished the VN! Spoiler thoughts below.

 

Alright now that I have finished Bokuten, I have a lot to say...cuz well there is a lot to say about this VN in general.

If I were to give 3 things that stuck out in a positive way it'd be:


1) The music. Even after Chapter 1 I was enamored by the different songs. Some standouts includes the happy Let's Go, the atmospheric Crossing, the darker Painted Black, the very sad Fragile, but my absolute favorites were things like Rebirth (the arrow shooting theme), I Cry Your Name (possibly #1, usually the song of an upcoming confession or character development), In the Gentle Sunlight (usually during a very heartwarming moment), and Overflowing Emotions (during a more dramatic but very feelsy moment). One that surprised me was Snow Crystals (the H-scene music) cuz while it's romantic/sexy and all, it's actually very memorable melody wise and it has this "This is the last sex we'll ever have" bittersweet vibe to it, and many times it does end up being the last sex.


2) The common route. This is definitley one of my favorite common routes ever, if not possibly my #1. I had no expectations that there would be any couples beyond the typical 4 heroine harem, let alone having 5-6 potential ones! I've always really liked the idea of seeing more couples besides MC playing out and I really like how they integrated them into the plot/development of the MC. But most importantly, the common route chapters themselves are all mostly quite good by themselves! They could all be their own short VN/movie romance stories even without the heart shard thing. 

They all felt fairly realistic or at least had potential to actual happen. I also really like how the Shard choices feel like a true 50/50 of whether it's a good decision for the reader. And it's thanks due Aine and Tomoe's back and forth arguing on analysis on whether or not returning it is a good thing in the long run. And generally each of the endings are justifiable/understandable, since it reflects how grey area life can be and there isn't some "everything will be 100% alright" like many VN route endings end up going.

One of the flaws I have with the common route are the fact that (over) half of them involve adult/teen romance/crushes/relationships in some way. It makes me wonder if the writer either likes these a lot or he thought it would be a good/easy way to create characters with fractured hearts. The other flaw is... the last part of Chapter 6. I still like the idea of everything before the reveal of Koyuki needing a gangbang to get pleasure. Which might make sense in some girls might be that broken mentally I guess but it felt like the author added this super edgey dark reveal to prepare you for another route... but then the issue is that since Ch 6 has 3 ends, it's pretty obvious the locked 3rd one is by far the best ending. This was good since the 6th chapter was way edgey at the end and needed something good but at the same time kinda took away from the 50/50 choice factor since it was the obvious choice at the end.

If I had to rank the Common route chapters it'd be something like

Chapter 2 (Adult romance making tough career choices was super interesting) > Chapter 1 (Kinda cheesy way to end but the the running scene really hooks you into the rest of the VN) >  Chapter 3 (Insecure internet girl with her romance was super nice but not telling her friend and accidental reveal by sex in classroom was silly) > Chapter 4 (Probably the most wholesome coming out of the closet story I can think of, no preachiness you'd get from current year society and the added benefit where both endings were bittersweet relation to no resolved romance) > Chapter 6 (Broken girl and saving her from a rapist was nice, but the edgey ending/reveal brought it down a bit) > Chapter 5 (Kinda typical adult/teen romance drama but the two endings were interesting)


3) The characters. Ties a bit into the common route, but all the side character/couples were done very well, and I thought the way it was executed was way better than other series with multiple couples (like say ef imo). But most importantly, the main characters were all quite good. I'll cover them more in the actual routes below, but I like them a bunch as a whole. Tomoe had super good development that came to a climax of Aine's route which was one of the best parts of the VN, but even seeing his development in the other 3 routes was nice. I thought Aine was just alright dummy baka character at first, but she really grew on me especially when you saw her influence on the Tomoe, the characters, the plot,...and apparently the Earth itself. Naruko still has my favorite base/waifu personality. I liked Minamo's drive to do well for her mom and career... and her romantic assertiveness. Yuri was my least fav of the mains but I've known people in her position and in some ways can be relatable.


So while those things were my stick out positive... I have much more mixed feelings about the routes themselves.

I did think Minamo's route wasn't bad, it was just a little predictable. Probably doesn't help I know how the Japanese idol industry works and I heavily predicted the whole "them not being able to go out cuz idols can't date thing" but I suppose it wasn't bad. Similarly the whole "My parent was making a big sacrifice secretly for my sake but was hiding it by being harsh" is a boring trope. It doesn't helped Ive kinda experienced it myslef and dont really like that excuse. But either way, the development of Minamo's actual character was still nice. The ending where they run away felt a little over the top but considering how long it took to find Minamo's shard for some reason (obviously drawn out for drama) it was understandtable Tomoe had to do something or risk Minamo's reputation and mental health.

Yuri's route.... ugh. So this one hurt cuz once again I know someone (and maybe me a little to some extent) who was basically a slave to guilt which to be fair was a pretty unfortunate thing that happened. But damn Momo I literally thought was the devil. However, Chapter 6s edginess was only a teaser for how...ridiculously stupidly edgey this route was. If Momo were the older sister or something I cound understand her actions more. But apparently I'm supposed to believe that a middle schooler is capable of planning indirect harassment through ripping clothes, strapping someone and beating them with a bat, and worst of all RAPING him and her sister... all because she's jealous and her parents died through an accident? Like obviously she's sociopathic and crazy in the head but I don't think these series of actions felt realistic given her age, but who knows maybe I just underestimate middle schoolers. While the good ending was cathartic in a way cuz she ended up offing herself... her "selfless" reasoning felt too convenient given what her personality was so even that didn't fully satisfy me. It just brings up the issue of a middle schooler being the main villain but just happens to have an innocent mindset at the same time?

Naruko's route... I quite liked it till the red string twist. Then I had more mixed feelings. This was when I knew the VN writer made you want to hate him for screwing over nice characters. Maybe I'm just biased since Naruko was my favorite personality wise. Like I know childhood friend romance is a hard thing to make interesting and unique. But using the "if we get together something will magically make us stop" felt like a cheap way to make it dramatic. Like it was the only feasible way Tomoe would legit care enough about Naruko to romance her when he was perfectly fine with Minamo and Yuri without red string drama. That said... I will give praise to the realism of their actions given the knowledge of the twist and it did do the 50/50 thing of both choices being grey area best compared to the other 2 routes.

Aine's route was definitley the best overall route. That said I'd consider it just good, not great. The cheesey romance scenes I actually really liked. Seeing Aine and especially Tomoe's development was super nice, especially since it explained where the title of the VN comes from (apparently Tomoe uses Boku as pronoun?). Tomoe smiling getting over his past, and him turning into angel to make Aine and everyone happy felt like the culmination he learned from his childhood wishes and everything he did in the common route. The whole thing with Earth having a fractured heart and that messing up the red threads was... kinda weird but considering how angels were prominent I guess it wasn't that bad but still an odd way to solve the plot. But even though the ending was "bittersweet", it was much happier than any of the other routes which I liked. It almost felt like a true happy ending and I thought it was a fitting way to end the story.

I do also have somewhat mixed feelings about the red thread twist since it does screw over the common route I really liked in a way. But thankfully Aine's route kinda fixed that... both in the giving hope before the TomoeAngel thing and after since the red threads being fixed turned back time to an extent made it so the Shard endings can be canon without separation (assumedly thats what Tomoe would do). And thankfully the emotions I felt during the common route stories still hold value since they're still characters and stories that happen wither way.

During the common route I was heavily considering this VN to be a potential all time favorite, maybe even a top 3 VN. The routes brought it down a bit to just "quite good" and still very much worth reading. It had really good emotional moments (heartwarming, depressing, and bittersweet), realistic grey are choices, cool angel-related themes and music, super unique common route, and great music and characters.  I'll have to think of how to shill it properly since people may have different thoughts of how the the routes turned out compared to what I thought of them.

Overall I'd give a VN like an 8.5 ish... rounded out barely to a 9 only because the characters and music themselves were consistently great.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I see that Nakura Reiji is still like dramatic writing for his stories there like back at Deardrops. Also out of those three routes, I still think that Minamo's route here is probably the realistic one (Quite ironic seeing that she have same VA as Rimu and I did criticize Rimu's route). While for Yuri's route, let's just treat it as a very overblown Soap Opera with Nakura was (Probably) in a deep depression when he wrote it and he's just cured when he about to write on how he should resolve Yuri's situation, and actually it remind me of some Indonesian soap opera very much (Some evil man/woman are always have sudden heel face turn after some big thing happened (Usually by accident/arrest/sickness)). For the grand twist perhaps weird might be a right word to it, although it might be fit for the author considering that he probably have some cynical view in love and that he's (Presumeably) in depression because of (Probably) love problem.

Edited by littleshogun
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  • 6 months later...

Shit... I didn't make it in time to get it...

It would be nice, at least for the weirdo like me, if, once the VN gets removed from Steam, publishers would offer all-ages version on their own storefronts along with the adult one.

I actually was interested in all-ages version of Bokuten... Yeah, I know, I'm a sick pervert :P

Edited by adamstan
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29 minutes ago, adamstan said:

It would be nice, at least for the weirdo like me, if, once the VN gets removed from Steam, publishers would offer all-ages version on their own storefronts along with the adult one.

I agree, but you should keep in mind that Bokuten is one of those VNs where there are some h-scenes that are actually relevant to the story. I haven't played the all ages version though, so I can't really comment on how things were handled there in comparison to the uncensored release.

As for the ban, it must be pretty aggravating to go out of your way to modify the game in order to pass Steam's approval process, only to have all your hard work invalidated out of nowhere seven months later.

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8 minutes ago, Seraphim88 said:

As for the ban, it must be pretty aggravating to go out of your way to modify the game in order to pass Steam's approval process, only to have all your hard work invalidated out of nowhere seven months later.

Yeah. People speculate that it had to be because of some troll reporting the game, which grabbed the attention of banhammer-wielding ones...

9 minutes ago, Seraphim88 said:

I agree, but you should keep in mind that Bokuten is one of those VNs where there are some h-scenes that are actually relevant to the story.

Wasn't that about Totono? I recall reading some Bokuten review which claimed that they weren't crucial. But I might be mixing things up. However I also browsed Bokuten's vndb page, and it looks like it had 15+ Japanese download edition too, so it had to work somehow ;) And while I'm often interested in all-ages version, it is also good to have +18 patch available, especially when all-ages version is made by publisher/localizer. And results vary wildly. Nekonyan's versions are brilliant - I thoroughly enjoyed Steam versions of Sanoba Witch and Making Lovers, and didn't feel the need to add h-scenes. OTOH SolPress sucked at that, and I ended up playing adult versions of both their titles I've read - Under One Wing and Sakura Sakura.

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2 hours ago, adamstan said:

Shit... I didn't make it in time to get it...

It would be nice, at least for the weirdo like me, if, once the VN gets removed from Steam, publishers would offer all-ages version on their own storefronts along with the adult one.

I actually was interested in all-ages version of Bokuten... Yeah, I know, I'm a sick pervert :P

The All Age version is still available on Discord so you can still get that version if you want to.


And with Steam I don't know what to say anymore. It's just so disappointing but I only expect more of it in the future.

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7 minutes ago, adamstan said:

On Discord? How does that work? I'm completely unfamiliar with that platform.

I am not going to lie I haven't used the Discord store myself, but you need to download the Discord program here: https://discord.com/new/download

And then use this link to join Mangagamer server: https://discord.gg/Xb28rjc

Once you are there you need to click on Bokuten under Games and should be able to buy it with Paypal or a credit card. But after joining the Mangagamer server I am sure there people that can help if something doesn't work, there are usually staff members of Mangagamer online.

 

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1 hour ago, adamstan said:

Wasn't that about Totono? I recall reading some Bokuten review which claimed that they weren't crucial.

Well, I wouldn't call them crucial per se either, but, without going into too much detail, there are some NSFW scenes that I doubt would be as impactful in a censored version.

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The ban is quite odd, considering all the H-content was removed and it was so long on Steam already. I assume it was reported by some VN haters and Valve banned it as a reaction. However, I don't really get why the same doesn't happen to other titles with a lot more questionable content. Evenicle 2 in particular seems to have some pretty rough scenes and it was actually banned in Germany some time ago at least. It's hard to believe that such a title was spared from attacks. Popular titles like Nekopara also seem to be immune to such attacks, even if their characters look very young.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if there's an automatism in play, that bans a title if the number of malicious reports exceeds a certain percentage of its owners. That would explain why the actual publishers are not explicitly informed about the ban by a Steam employee, and also why popular titles seem to be almost immune against such bans. So the victims would be mostly niche VN titles with few sales.

I'm still not sure why some titles are only banned in some regions, while others get banned everywhere. On the other hand, since Germany forced green blood into Command & Conquer more than 20 years ago, I suppose no other country takes them serious anymore concerning censoring stuff. :amane: Though, it could have been also when we started censoring Harry Potter movies, that we just lost all credibility. :wafuu:

Edited by ChaosRaven
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2 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Germany forced green blood into Command & Conquer more than 20 years ago, I suppose no other country takes them serious anymore concerning censoring stuff.

Reminds me of Turok for N64, which also had green blood, or Contra 3, which was released as Super Probotector in Europe with the main characters replaced by robots for some reason. (I assume they thought it wouldn't be appropriate for them to be humans due to the violent nature of the game, or some such nonsense)

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