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Senren Banka, Nekonyan's 2020 Valentine Prize [UPDATED]


littleshogun

Senren Banka Poll  

8 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is the best heroine?

    • Tomotake Yoshino
      5
    • Hitachi Mako
      1
    • Murasame
      0
    • Lena Liechtenauer
      2
    • Maniwa Roka
      0
    • Kurama Koharu
      0
  2. 2. Which is the best route?

    • Tomotake Yoshino
      2
    • Hitachi Mako
      1
    • Murasame
      0
    • Lena Liechtenauer
      4
    • Maniwa Roka
      0
    • Kurama Koharu
      1


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The reason for the title is obviously because they release this on Valentine days. Anyway I figure that I should open the discussion thread for Senren Banka here, even though it's still six hours early. Feel free to discuss what's your thought on this, and I'll add the VA info along with the poll later.

For the reviews, I guess we can say that Senren Banka here is pretty much like Yuzusoft previous VNs, so you better expect this as charage there. If anything, at least the MC (Arichi) here is not like Makoto from School Days. So let's go with the heroines and their VA directly, and for the routes here we'll going to have four main routes along with two side routes.

1. Tomotake Yoshino

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The shrine maiden that Arichi saw when he came to the shrine, and she's the daughter of the priest of the shrine. She also have hold some secret, namely that whenever there's evil spirit appear she'll have (Cute) cat ears. She also appear to be quite strict in her appearence, so much that she like to slap herself when she woke up even though it's very painful to her. Because of circumstances, currently Yoshino was engaged with Arichi and understandably Yoshino was confused with that. Her VA is Eri Sendai in which her roles are Inaba Meguru from Sanoba Witch (And we'll see Yoshino say 'Challo' at a certain point), Kusunoha Misaki from Hatsukoi Sankaime, Suzuki Kana from Daitoshokan, Kisaki Reina from Kirikoi, Otonashi Saku from Hello Lady, Kouzuki Io from Dal Segno, Kuroki Michi from Noraneko, and Nijouin Hazuki from Riddle Joker.

2. Hitachi Mako

95002.jpg

The female ninja who act as Yoshino's guard, and also act as her friend (Sort of like Akari and Sena from Noble Works). Although she's quite serious when it come to her job, she also like to tease someone who is quite close to her, and that included Yoshino as well. Her VA is Takamori Natsumi in which her roles are Kariya Wakana from Sanoba Witch, Patricia from Noraneko, Sorakado Ao from Summer Pockets, Higashi Mashiro from Apeiria, Inui Azusa from Tsujidou, Inui Saki from Aokana, Tachibana Ochiba from AstralAir, and Souma Ria from Kirikoi.

3. Murasame

95006.jpg

The spirit of a sacred sword that was sealed at the shrine, and the sword itself was supposed to be not breakable. At least until Arichi somehow manage to broke it and that circumstance lead him to have an engagement with Yoshino, and that Murasame acknowledge Arichi as the new master of the sword. As the spirit, she's only visible to a small amount of people (Including Mako and Yoshino). She also have some ironic trait there, namely that she's quite afraid of ghost even though she herself is a ghost. Her VA is Yamamoto Nozomi in which her roles are Misono Senri from Daitoshokan, Arisaka Mashiro from Aokana, Tsukuyomi from Baldr Heart, Satou Koutaro from Wagahigh, Shitaka Iori from Love Cube, Yuri from Uchi trilogy, Kabutoyama Midori from Hello Lady, and Nosuri from Utawarerumono sequel duology.

4. Lena Liechtenauer

95004.jpg

A foreigner who happen to like Japan and that she have some misconception, such as eating wasabi in a sizeable amount instead of bit by bit. She did transfer to Japan in order to helping at the inn which also doubled as Arichi's grandfather house, and she passed the test. She somehow also be able to see Murasame, and that she help with the evil spirit hunt occasionally. Her VA is Tanezaki Atsumi/Kirihana and her roles are Ayachi Nene from Sanoba Witch, Mitsukasa Ayase from Riddle Joker, Kodachi Nagi from Daitoshokan, Ousaka Sora from Hoshiori, Yuunagi Ichika from Astral Air, Asuhara Yuuki from Noraneko, Takakura Anzu from Clover Day's, and Ikoma Murasaki from Phantom Trigger.

I guess that's all for the heroines, and even though I didn't talk abput side heroines I'll still add those two heroines in the poll.

Edited by littleshogun
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Add the heroines info and the poll. As for my opinion on this, well Senren Banka here is more or less a charage with traditional Japanese setting. Also from what I read apparently some of the background was taken from Kyoto, so it's nice of them to do some researching there. Feel free to discuss about Senren Banka here, and congratulation to Nekonyan in regard of their newest release.

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finished reading.

Spoiler

its funny that theres only 3 routes that ends the curse.. i wonder if the curse gets rid offscreen in other routes?

also if you can see the condition in the flowchart (the diamond thingy) that would be great.

its like that one vn with OP sung by fripside. the best part is the common route

Edited by wyldstrykr
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  • 5 months later...

Just finished last night. My overall thoughts on Senren * Banka:

Hmmm... It's definitley not bad, in fact if I had to say it's good, but not great. While it had a decent setting and decently likable characters, I don't think it really did much to stick out, especially compared to the other 2 Yuzusoft titles I read before (Dracu Riot and Sanoba/Sabbat).

I can see why people thought the common route could be seen as peak. It almost feels like that could have been it's own short VN on its own. I wouldn't say it's that much better than the routes, but at the very least it's better than the weaker ones due to interesting enough plot and a little character development.

I think it's interesting that people think this VN's route/character quality is balanced... cuz I think it's the opposite in comparison to say Sanoba. In Sanoba I really liked a few characters/routes pretty evenly. While in Senren I did overall like all the characters similar to Sanoba, the character quality disparity was a bit more pronounced.

Similarly, while the routes are all fine... none except Lena and mayyybe Murasame's were great to me. Yoshino and Mako did cover some interesting development but overall felt too dragged out and boring by the end. Koharu and Roka were good but way too short.

It does seem Yuzusoft has gotten a little better about not overusing the "calling MC a pervert for things not necessarily his fault" thing. But Senren still did it enough to annoy me, and they usually bunch it together towards the end of routes (except Lena, Koharu, Roka where it basically didn't exist).

Character rankings:

Lena > Koharu >> Yoshino > Murasame > Roka > Mako

1) Lena - Easily my favorite character in the whole VN. While she didn't get the most development, she was by far the most consistently hilarious. Her role in her route was surprisingly really cool. The only main heroine who didn't resort to calling MC a pervert as a "joke". Generally just a nice and really fun person to be around.

2) Koharu - Well what can I say? I like my dose of dererdere and she provided in spades. Kinda sucks she was relegated to a short cousin fuck route with no development since she was a likable and funny person. Not much to complain about with her.

3) Yoshino - She gets points for having good development in common route that sticks around in other routes. Other than that, I can see how people see as Nene 2.0 just with a stick up her ass instead of a masturbator in her vag.

4) Murasame - Gets points for easily the most personal emotional development in her route compared to the others. Otherwise she was... fine? Didn't particularly stick out personality wise. 

5) Roka - Her helping her restaurant was nice and her smug faces are funny. But otherwise I dunno she was fine but I just prefer Koharu personality wise?

6) Mako - While she's at the bottom, she's still good/decent. Her general personality was fine, her development was kinda interesting but the least interesting I guess? She also felt kinda static for someone who was around a lot of time.

 

Route rankings:


Lena > Murasame > Roka > Mako > Koharu > Yoshino

1) Lena - Solving the mystery was nice. But I'll be honest, it's mostly this high cuz Lena herself is just that great to me.

2) Murasame - Kinda here by default. Felt like the only other route besides Lena that had actual build up and a good emotional conclusion instead of being kinda half-assy. 

3) Roka - Higher than Koharu only cuz no incest and helping with her shamisen+restuarant idea was more interesting than MOTHAFUCKIN RICE CRACKERS. Otherwise nice enough.

4) Mako - On one hand, it covers Mako + beast development which was unique enough and nice. On the other hand, there was some kinda dumb forced development and disappointing lead ups that brought it down.

5) Koharu - The MOTHAFUCKIN RICE CRACKERS. I liked it for Koharu but I can't really call a route with basically 0 development besides getting the incest acceptance a real route.

6) Yoshino - Yoshino got most her development in common. All she had left was to develop into romance. Other than that... this route could've easily just been as long as Koharu/Roka routes and be just as good, arguably better. Especially with the cheesy way the 'conflict' ended (though it makes sense with later routes). Best I can say is uhh Yoshino's theme BMG is easily my favorite and you get to hear the Quiet Ver here only which is nice.


Other random notes:

-Masaomi is slightly above average MC. One of things Yuzusoft has done well so far, made likable enough MCs. Though I think they played up Masaomi's density a bit much sometimes. 
-Side charas were likable enough. Sanoba's stuck out a lot more to me though.
-Been trying to not spam this point, but the "humor" in unnecessarily calling MC a pervert especially in a hypocritical way has something that's really annoyed me in every Yuzusoft title. Senren softened up a little on it but the fact that almost every route (besides Lena/Koharu/Roka) eventually spammed this 'joke' towards the end of each route kind of ruins how each route ends for me, especially thats usually when the good stuff happens. Thats why it seems like some routes are lower than they should be. It's unfortunate since Yuzusoft generally has good, even great humor at times but then usually has to resort to this because?????????????? This point is pretty much the main thing holding me back from being one of the many Yuzusoft shills honestly. Now I'm kinda hesitant of how I read later Yuzusoft since this humor tends to get me angry. 

At this point.. I think for any future Yuzusoft title I read I think I'll just read my 1-2 favorite characters' routes and leave it at that to spare myself time and disappointment.

I suppose I'll give this VN a.... 7/10? Good enough and had a few standout things (mostly Lena related) but not something I'd overtly recommend in general.

Edited by NowItsAngeTime
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