fuck it, i'm playing vamwolf

Seri wakes up still thinking about the vamwolf in their midst and deciding she needs to figure out who it is. This then brings us to a game mechanic tutorial yayyy.

The way it works is that Seri has been gathering a list of facts in the ‘TIPS’ menu on what she knows about vamwolves. Essentially there’s a pretty straightforward investigation system where you assess the guys based on known vamwolf traits to see if they match the description or not. We’ve collected a few of these here and there during the common route and I’ll start noting down when we collect new ones. This is what we have so far:

Sunlight: they dislike it, especially morning sun Red pupils: if you get a good look, you can see the eyes are red Silver: touching silver burns them Fangs: very sharp teeth Super strength: they are exceedingly powerful physically

At various points we’ll be given opportunities to check the chosen LI for vamwolf traits. This is called a “Vamwolf mission”. Seri simply assesses whether they match the description or not. But there are times when this can change to more active questioning if she makes her suspicions known. This is called uh….'Sadistic Time’ (in katakana English).

I’ve yet to trigger it in this chapter though. Unfortunately with the way the game is set up, certain tips only unlock after finishing other character routes. I tried to see if there was one that would make sense to play first with the least restrictions but honestly they’re all mixed in there. Which means that the game essentially expects you to play through every single route twice to unlock all content ahhhh. So because this is my first playthrough, I might not have the other tips I would need for the ‘sadistic’ questioning?

Also worth noting that some tips seem to influence the ending. These are marked with yellow stars. You also choose whose room you visit at the beginning of each chapter to determine who you question. You should always pick your target LI for this. It’s marked with a pink diamond which raises the affection levels (I can’t find any way to check where your affection stats are at in-game so you have to go by either a guide or just…hope for the best). The contents of the ‘sadistic time’ questioning also changes depending on the affection level.

Okay so! Since this is a Ryu playthrough, we choose to visit his room (note: the video playthrough chooses Nagisa in this part but this other video includes his scenes ). Seri finds Ryu in the hallway, just getting back to his room while very tired. She follows him into his bedroom (Seri, you’re being weird) and notices he seems to be avoiding the light. VAMWOLF MISSION START! [Select] Sunlight

(damn, he's pretty neat for a teenage boy)

Seri watches Ryu close the window curtain with an exaggerated gesture and thinks he was trying to avoid the light. She opens it again (rude!), to which he retorts “hey, I just closed that.” She tells him he needs to get up and ready for school. He says the clear sky is too bright on his eyes and he doesn’t want to go to school today.

Getting a bit annoyed, he says he’s worn out from the ‘game’ last night, implying that he had to work harder than usual to watch out for her. He means it as a joke but Seri starts blaming herself for being a burden so Ryu flicks her on the forehead. She says it kinda stings so he apologizes and kisses her on the forehead while saying a common Japanese chant like “pain, pain, go away” (いたいのいたいの飛んでけ). Seri says normally when people say that chant they just rub the area rather than kiss it. But Ryu says kissing gets a cuter response so he’ll keep doing it that way. The scene ends with him telling her to wake him in an hour so he doesn’t sleep the whole day away.

I’m very confused by the whole thing about sunlight with Ryu considering the very first time we’re introduced to his character is outdoors in broad daylight?? Clearly she has seen him be in the sun, probably a number of times. Yet when he’s tired and has a headache it’s suddenly suspicious to want a curtain closed? Seri, calm down.

It jumps to her cooking a meal for them all (hamburg steak with eggs or something?). Nagisa starts separating his meat and vegetables and tells everyone that people can survive on meat alone like he’s about to start preaching about the damn carnivore diet. Shuichi is upset over soft-boiled eggs, saying men eat hard-boiled eggs. Keidai says that’s just him, because he likes soft-boiled personally (I’ve never heard of gendered egg preparations??)

They then ask Seri what her decision is on becoming a hunter. She says that she can’t help but feel terrified of the vamwolves, but she still wants to be a hunter. In her mind though, she’s still wondering about the traitor. It’s basically a game of Werewolf now where we have to find the culprit before anyone else dies.

She tells them about the vamwolf she saw yesterday and they explain it was what’s known as a ‘stray’ はぐれ. Stray vamwolves reject their vampiric urges and are outcast by the other vamwolves so they become loners. They do not attack people, but Yuya says that vamwolves are still vamwolves and they all must be killed. Keidai justifies this by saying they curse their own existence so taking them out is actually compassionate, saving them from a living hell.

The ‘game’ for tonight is a request from The World Federation for the capture of a live vamwolf. The Federation is some big international research organization investigating vamwolves. They aren’t formally connected to the Wilhelm Association, but they tend to cooperate sometimes due to having similar aims. Their research is to find if there’s a way to turn vamwolves into people, which Shuichi calls preposterous. Anyways, they plan to meet at the church at 6 pm and then split up until then.

Seri goes to class and comes home quite tired. Between university, landlord duties, and being a hunter, she’s pretty busy. She finds a bunch of books scattered through the common area. They’re an odd mish-mash of assorted topics (practical kabbalah? cyberpunk almanac?). Yuya says they’re all books he’s read. He tries to read 2-3 books a week to “relax”. Seri asks him then if he has any books on vamwolves she could read. He passes her one but warns her some info is out of date. There’s information he can’t share with her until she becomes an official hunter. To do this, she would have to earn a hunter point by being the MVP on a hunt. [TIP Garlic: seems they don’t like it]

She reads until it’s suddenly 5 pm. One hour before the hunt. Her choices are to: -learn more about vamwolves -go about her manager duties -go shopping

For Ryu’s route, we’re going grocery shopping. On her way out of the store, she sees Ryu getting mobbed by a few fangirls who are being A Lot. One asks to shake his hand and then exclaims she’ll never wash it again, that kinda thing.

He spots Seri and waves her over, talking like she’s his manager and whispering for her to go along with it. She notices with his face up that close that he is actually quite pretty. They lie convincingly enough to say he has a shoot to get to soon so they have to head off and hail a cab. They’re both a bit relieved to have gotten away from the girls.

Then we cut to the church that evening. Keidai is praying except, well…. So the first line of this prayer sounds like a thing one would actually say in a church in Japanese. It’s essentially a prayer to God for guidance in their salvation. Rather formal language, but definitely the sort that would be plausibly used, especially since Keidai is supposed to be a Catholic priest.

Then the prayer changes. The rest of the prayer is written in the Roman alphabet, like what we use for English. He says “Gloria patri, et Filio, et Spiritui sancto” which is the Latin version of a short Christian hymn. I don’t speak a bit of Latin but even I could tell at a glance this means “Glory to the father, the son, and the holy spirit.”

The last part though is “Ameno, omenare imperavi Ameno, dimere dimere matiro, Matiremo, Ameno” I looked this up. This isn’t Latin. It’s a pseudo-Latin song from a French new-age band released in 1996???

No idea why this is what they went with. Did they think it sounded close enough? Did they just want to sneak in a reference? So many questions. Shuichi is questioning why they’re even praying at all since it’s not a thing they typically do.

Seri says she doesn’t know what language he’s speaking, but she can feel it in her heart. SERI-CHAN, IT’S NOT EVEN REAL LATIN. HIS ASS DID NOT GO TO SEMINARY SCHOOL. Although the thought that Keidai himself is just faking knowing Latin is very funny. [TIP Church: they hate holy places]

Keidai gives them their mission briefing. There’s about 20 of their targets hiding in the mountains to the west. Despite it being a tourist area, there haven’t been any reports of attacks. Shuichi gets his turn as game master and jokes he now understands the power of prayer. [Choice] Seri thinks they must stop the vamwolves doing harm but… -Feeling nervous -Capturing them… -Glad there’s been no victims

She then asks how they know there are vamwolves in that area if there haven’t been any reports, but they change the subject. Cut to the woods again where Ryu is attacking a vamwolf with his katana. Except instead of using teeth and claws, this one takes Ryu’s sword. Nagisa jumps in with his gun drawn and tells Seri to shoot from the left. She misses. Keidai and Seri go in for the follow-up attack, but Keidai’s knife hits first. Then Yuya uses his uh…..string weapon thing to tie the creature up.

When Seri looks at the trapped vamwolf, she just sees a person. Yuya talks about how this was all an elaborate ruse to lure it into a trap. Seri is glad to know she wasn’t a burden this time (presumably she was meant to miss that shot earlier). Nagisa threatens the vamwolf into submission and Seri thinks they look like they know each other. [TIP Hyper-sensitivity: they can pick up on even small things]

The vamwolf then starts to talk to them like a normal human man (previously we’ve only heard growls and snarls). He says he knew they were sent to capture him, not to kill him. He’s seems to know their codenames and is revealed to be a former hunter himself.

He’s what’s known as a ‘dhampir’ with the kanji literally spelling “half-vamwolf” (written as 半吸血狼 but read as ダンピール). Dhampirs are an actual mythological figure in the Balkans, it turns out. But those are formed when a male vampire mates with a human female. We learn that in the Vamwolf universe, dhampirs are formed when a human is filled with a large amount of vamwolf blood. It’s an occupational hazard for hunters, apparently.

Keidai pulls his knife out of the dhampir who starts bleeding out. Seri says they need to stop the bleeding, but Ryu warns her that her being covered in blood will bring out the vamwolf urges. Shuichi then goes on a lecture about how they’re always dealing with these risks and asking if Seri wants to quit. He thinks she’s too hesitant and not decisive enough for this job.

Mid-tirade, Nagisa yells at Shuichi to watch out. The dhampir has taken out a small glowing grey rock-like thing, about the size of a 100 yen coin. This is known as an ashen crystal, essentially the core of a vamwolf. Apparently they’re quite difficult to retrieve. Seri has the urge to hold it, but Ryu warns that touching it will turn her into a dhampir. Keidai takes out a pair of tweezers and stores it in a small glass bottle to give to the Association. The dhampir laughs menacingly and says that there will come a day when that crystal proves necessary.

Yuya states that, in his scientific opinion, the whole thing about touching it turning someone into a dhampir is all just urban legend (thanks for the fake news, Ryu!). He also mentions that there’s been talk of a serum extracted from ashen crystal to turn vamwolves back into humans but it’s not yet been successful. (Back? Were they all originally humans??)

Handing over this crystal seems to have been the dhampir’s main goal. Keidai is sympathetic to his situation, but says they can’t let him go. I don’t know if all of this is supposed to feel as morally grey as it does to me or if we’re supposed to be fully on-board with all this. Just handing over a non-violent sentient humanoid creature to some powerful and nebulous research organization for testing. Surely nothing could go wrong in such a scenario! Ethics boards all over that place for sure.

Since there were no kills for this game, MVP goes to Shuichi for the work of managing the mission. He and Keidai are responsible for delivering the dhampir to the World Federation. Seri feels bad watching them drag the guy away, but resolves that if they kill all the vamwolves, tragedies like these will no longer happen (uhh...). Ryu is also told he needs to rest off his injury from the fight earlier.

Once they’re home, Seri thinks all she wants is a nice hot bath and to massage her feet. She walks into the bathroom (without knocking or anything??) and finds Ryu there apparently stark naked. She apologizes repeatedly, although he doesn’t seem startled. She just stands there looking at him (Seri, please be normal) and notices he’s more muscular than she thought. VAMWOLF MISSION START [Select] Super Strength

God, okay, prepare yourselves for this one. To my knowledge, the LI you get for this second vamwolf mission is dependent on who you picked at the start of the chapter so you must pick going to Ryu’s room for the sunlight thing to get this one. Seri has gone from following him into his bedroom and staring at him closing a curtain to walking in on him naked in the bathroom and once again, staring. And thinking this is entirely normal behaviour, for some reason???

So Seri zones out while staring at his body, thinking about how vamwolves do have super strength. Ryu finds it odd that she didn’t run off screaming at walking in on a naked guy in the bathroom. He says he’s used to it though from modelling and that being wanted for his body isn’t such a bad feeling. Seri tells him not to take it the wrong way (how else is he supposed to take it??) and that she was just surprised how muscular he is. He says this is a pretty normal amount of muscle for a hunter. Seri says she needs to gain muscle too, but Ryu seems apprehensive about the thought of her getting ripped (okay coward). She laughs and says she’d be concerned about it too (support buff women’s rights!).

Since Ryu is a model who has to maintain a certain sort of figure, she asks him how to do it in a more balanced way. He then offers to give her “hands-on” training…in the bath. She whines for him to stop teasing her. Then he says that she seems to feel pretty comfortable with seeing him naked and wonders if she’s used to seeing naked men. Seri adamantly refuses and says this has all been a misunderstanding (THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM ALREADY, YOU PERV)

He says the way she’s refusing him so loudly is kinda sus and that she seems interested in his body. She finally goes to leave to let him take his bath, but he says he’ll let her have the bath first. Until he then turns around and says that actually if he waits then he’ll fall asleep late. So maybe instead he should have Seri get undressed and get in the bath with him~ She gets all flustered. “It doesn’t sound like you’re joking” “That’s because I’m not.” But after that he laughs it off and leaves, asking her to let him know when she’s done with the bath. Honestly, I can’t even be mad at him for coming onto her so hard in this situation. Assuming she's interested is a pretty reasonable conclusion here. Seri seems to have zero self-awareness for how her behaviour might read to someone.

Anyways, she takes a bath in whatever fancy soap Ryu had added to it. Nothing weird happens, although she does start to wonder if she maybe did something wrong. She knocks on his door to let him know she’s done. He was already starting to doze off, but he comes to answer the door. He leans in and says she smells nice. She sneezes and he tells her she should go back to her room. Or~ he’d be happy to let her keep his bed warm for him. “I’m not a hot water bottle!” “Oh that’s not…what I meant but okay” (GIRL DID YOU JUST DROP OUT OF A COCONUT TREE??) God, I think I’m beginning to see why Soichiro was so protective.

As they say goodnight, Ryu brushes past her and she gets all dokidoki. She says she doesn’t know how to read his behaviour. Maybe he treats everyone like this. Maybe she’s reading too much into it and this is just how he is with girls. holding my head in my hands.

Sadly, Seri seems pretty oblivious to most things. Maybe the others are right in being concerned about her being a hunter beyond the whole typical 'must protect the delicate girl' thing. She’s a very strange character to me because she’s presented like a generic self-insert type. Yet she does stuff like this which comes across as so deeply weird and socially awkward. I don’t feel that was the intent because it’s not how she’s written in general? She’s written mostly as ‘friendly cute college girl’. I honestly struggle to even assign her a personality. I guess we’ll see if this is a pattern or not. She doesn’t really show up on screen, but this is her sprite for reference (from VNDB)

Anyways, next update will be our last chapter of the common route. The chapters are getting longer with the vamwolf mission segments so I'll see if I should break it up into two parts or not. Thanks to anyone who has read this far!

We start chapter one back in Seri’s room where Keidai finds her asleep at her desk. He checks in on how she’s doing after the whole dead dad thing. Then he says he’ll show her around the place as the new building manager (I’m confused, hasn’t she been around here a lot in the past to help clean?? Did she never go through most of the house? Maybe it’s just a formality).

As a quick run-down, the first floor common area has a dining room, kitchen, bathroom, lounge area, and rooms for the building manager, Keidai, and Nagisa. The second floor rooms are for Ryu, Shuichi, and Yuya. I have no idea if this is relevant to anything but they’re going out of their way to explain it so may as well. (This is also why I assume the background we have for Seri's room is actually Soichiro's old room).

There’s a sense of suspicion through the conversation. Yuya doesn’t feel they should be overly trusting of each other when someone so close to them was just killed. Shuichi thinks Yuya is hiding something.

(If I actually commit to this project beyond just Ryu's route, maybe I'll finally figure out how to set up a Vita emulator to take better screenshots. But for now, these rough ones will have to do, sorry!)

Seri then reveals to them that she knows about the vamwolves and wants to join them in hunting them, but they say it’s too dangerous. Keidai says that as members of The Association they can’t outright refuse anyone who shows a strong will to be a hunter, but he offers an alternative. He shows Seri a bottle of perfume called “missing” (in katakana English) but spelled 隠魔香 (lit. hide demon smell).

From what I can tell, this more or less functions like that neuralyzer light device from Men in Black that makes people forget what they just saw. Except instead of wiping all memories, it only wipes memories related to vamwolves for some reason. Convenient plot device! There’s a pretty limited number of them though and they’re only given to the senior members (Keidai, Yuya, Shuichi).

We’re finally presented with our first dialogue choice. For Ryu’s route I’m following this guide so we pick “must defeat the vamwolves.” Keidai suggests that Seri joins them on a mission to see if it’s something she wants to commit to. He tells her that simply forgetting all this would be much easier, but she takes the offer and decides to join in on the vamwolf hunt. There were some reports on the news of vamwolf spottings so the mission will be that same night.

Also just a note in case anyone might be trying to read along with the Japanese, Ryu tends to give everyone nicknames. Shuichi is Shuuchin, Yuya is Yukkii, Keidai is Fujicchi (one of the kanji in his name can be read like ‘fuji’). He uses a lot of these.

That night before they depart, Keidai comes to Seri’s room again and says she needs a weapon if she’s going to join them. He offers her the knife he usually uses. Then he drops the fact that they are part of the Wilhelm Association and that he’s the director.

They take this name quite literally as the words ‘will’ (intent/desire to do something) and ‘helm’ (protective headgear). I didn’t think this was the actual etymology of the name but apparently it is? According to the wiki page at least. So altogether their goal is to “protect people with the helmet of will”

Keidai said that he considered Soichiro like a dad to him and doesn’t know what he’d do if anything happened to Seri. Seri then reveals that she has her dad’s gun. Keidai thinks that would be better than his knife probably so they stick with that. Granted, Seri has never fired a gun before, but she’s confident she’ll figure it out uh, somehow. I see no way this plan could backfire.

Cut to said murder woods. We see the guys talking back and forth on walkie talkies using codenames based on gemstones. One would think they might have explained any of this to Seri before the mission, but I guess we’re learning on the job.

I compiled my own list for reference: Carnelian - Nagisa Tanzanite - Keidai Amber - Yuya Azurite - Shuichi Jade - Ryu Coral - Soichiro Topaz - Seri

Seri’s codename was given by her dad when he was still alive. Topaz is said to contain multiple colours and has the Greek etymology for ’search/hunt for’ 探索 (the closest I could find on this says it was named after a small island in the Red Sea and that island might have been named with that meaning, but it might also be folk etymology. The word might not even be Greek in origin).

They also keep referring to it as a ‘game’ which Seri asks about too. Keidai says that’s the term they use to mean ‘hunting’ because originally in English it referred to hunting animals (again, this is debatable. It doesn’t seem like the actual origin of the word but it is at least related in some way? That’s maybe the best we can hope for here).

Etymology tangents aside, they then explain the rules of this ‘game’. There’s a game master assigned on a rotating basis. They seem to take precautions to prevent vamwolves from determining their power structure, not speaking in honorifics and never having a consistent mission leader. Tonight the game master is Keidai. Shuichi says his turn is up next.

(Yes, they do have different hunting outfits and no, I don't know why Yuya's makes him look like a casino dealer.)

They have a marking system based on the number of vamwolves they each take out. The VIP who lands the most kills gets hunter points from The Association which they can cash in for various sorts of bonuses. Game masters tend to get fewer points since they have to be more mindful of everyone else in the group which is also why they do this on a rotating basis.

They then finally broach the topic of teaching Seri how to actually hold a gun (little late for that isn’t it?!?). Fortunately, she has protagonist powers of plot convenience and knows how to naturally hold it right away due to her dad playing a bunch of light-gun games with her at the arcade. It’s giving “guy who’s really into Call of Duty who thinks he’d be a military action hero” levels of delusion. But we’re rolling with it, we’re rolling with it. Anyways, the gun is loaded with silver bullets, the perfect weapon against vamwolves. Thanks Dad!

Ryu then senses a vamwolf presence and breaks off from the group to chase after it. Then Shuichi chases Ryu. Then Keidai chases the both of them. Seri is left to choose if she wishes to pursue the three who ran off, stay with Nagisa and Yuya, or question is the vamwolf is actually one of them. For Ryu’s route, we follow after the other three.

We find Ryu right in the middle of a fight, wielding a katana (each of them have their own unique weapon types). He yells that it’s his third kill.

When watching the battle happen and seeing the blood splatter on Ryu's coat, Seri suddenly freezes up and finds it hard to breathe. Ryu calls out to her to watch out before taking down the second vamwolf behind her.

(Behold the terrifying vamwolf creature!)

Ryu tells Seri off for zoning out like that and tells her that acting like that will just get in the way. She apologizes and then runs off, feeling bad that she’s being a burden to them. She resolves to fend for herself and not hold them back.

She walks for quite a while until she spots another vamwolf. This one is different from the rest. It’s not fighting back and makes a human crying whimpering noise. Despite just making this resolution to herself to fight, she hesitates and asks why it’s crying. It runs away into the woods. Seri thinks it seemed oddly…human.

The hunt ends and we return to Seri’s room. Everyone made it through the hunt fine (although I’m not sure who won). Seri searches through her dad’s things again, wondering if maybe there’s something else she missed. In a small hole carved into the back of the journal, she found a tiny rolled up piece of paper. It’s another message from her dad which simply reads: “Is there a vamwolf hiding among us?”

Seri doesn’t want to believe this could be true but she knows her father wouldn’t lie or joke about such a thing. Her mind starts to run through the possibilities as she wonders if her dad died in his search for the traitor.

Then, another sudden tone shift! Ryu calls her and tells her to open the door in 10 seconds then hangs up. Cue the upbeat music! He sneaks his way into Seri’s room by hiding on the other side of the door. He claims he sensed she has a “restless aura” and he was worried about her.

Ryu seems to sense she feels suspicious towards him but she denies it. Then he jokes that he can sleep next to her to help calm her nerves. She gives him a firm “no thank you!” so he calls her stubborn then leaves and wishes her good night. (I thought Ryu was a psychic not a mind-reader? Perhaps he is just that crazy perceptive??). Seri is left feeling conflicted whether she can trust him. He seems considerate but she can’t get that question out of her mind.

-End of chapter 1- Who is the secret vamwolf among them? They’re described as having red eyes and long canine teeth but perhaps they have ways to hide those to appear more human? We’ll find out more in Chapter 2: Wolf of Betrayal oooh

We boot up the game to a typical name selection screen. MC’s default name is Seri Shirakawa (白河セリ) so I’ll be referring to her as Seri throughout this playthrough. Sadly, sticking with the default name doesn’t get you any extra voiced lines so they just use generic terms to refer to her. (Side note: I’m going to put all names into first-last order for this playthrough)

Our story begins with a sepia-toned flashback of Seri’s dad, Soichiro.

This man is supposed to be 44 but he looks more like 30 to me personally. Anyways, this part is written like a diary entry of him thinking about Seri coming over often to help out with cleaning. He seems sad that she grew up quickly and took over so many household tasks after her mother died long ago. He wishes for her to be happy. Doesn’t seem like a bad guy.

We then jump back to Seri’s room in colour.

She looks down at the journal in her hands and asks how all of this could have happened.

This journal comes up a lot. I’m not sure what the lettering says. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to comment and let me know!

We then have yet another jump in time (yes, it is confusing!). They’re smashing together a journal entry flashback and a “you’re probably wondering how I ended up here” jump cut in about a minute of reading with very little explanation of anything. Narrative parkour!

Seri has just gotten out of one of her university classes (she’s 20) and is thinking of visiting her dad for a bit. She’s in some sort of urban centre with one of those huge TVs outside of a building. Suddenly a news broadcast starts playing.

The news anchors cheerily recount the story of a teenage girl’s mysterious corpse as the happy slice-of-life music continues to play through the entire scene. The girl was found to have died of blood loss yet only had two small puncture wounds on her neck dun dun.

This is the third in a series of “vamwolf murders”. The male news anchor then goes on a tangent about how it must be vampires under the iron-clad logic that vampires existed in the bible so they must still exist now. WHat?? I’ve heard some wild bible theories in my day, but this was a new one even for me. Maybe Mr. News Guy is on some weird-ass conspiracy forums. His female co-anchor thinks he’s nuts. Anyways he recommends not to walk alone at night and to keep garlic on-hand. Seri thinks all that couldn’t be real.

Then our first love interest (LI) enters the scene!

This is Ryunosuke Tokiwa, the character whose route we’ll be pursuing this playthrough. His name is kinda long so I’m just going to call him Ryu. All the main LIs have notable voice actors so I’ll include little summary blurbs for other roles otome players are likely to recognize as well as their Wikipedia pages.

Ryu is voiced by Daisuke Kishio whose notable roles include: Neji from Jack Jeanne, Azusa from Diabolik Lovers, Fuyuhiko from Danganronpa 2, and Nimura from Tokyo Ghoul.

He’s a rich kid, high-schooler (18), supposed top-class fortune teller, and occasional model. Honestly, his voice is pretty similar to Neji’s, being another energetic teasing prankster type. He’s also a bit of flirt. He starts to tickle Seri and she protests that he shouldn’t do that outside in public. “Oh, so I should do it indoors then~” Smart-ass.

But Ryu’s teasing is soon stopped by our kuudere character, Nagisa Shinonome (22).

He’s the quiet but dependable and cool type. He’s worked mostly as a bodyguard and security-type jobs. Her dad said something about him having trained with a special police force overseas.

He's voiced by Tomoaki Maeno whose notable roles include: Lupin from Code:Realize, Red Riding Hood from Taisho x Alice, Houou from Kenka Bancho Otome, Kino from Diabolik Lovers, Nishijima from Lover Pretend, and Camus from Uta no Prince-sama

Taking the whole situation quite seriously, Nagisa threatens Ryu if he doesn’t leave Seri alone. Seri says she doesn’t mind, but Nagisa warns her that will only egg Ryu on even more.

We then cut to Seri’s dad’s house where we see a guy tending to the garden.

His name is Keidai Nitou and he’s the oldest LI (28). Apparently he’s a Catholic priest who leads mass, but Seri notes that she’s never seen him go to church. She isn’t too sure how to read him since he’s sometimes serious and sometimes not.

Keidai is voiced by Hiroyuki Yoshino whose notable roles include: Heisuke from Hakuoki, Heishi from Norn9, Helvetica from Bustafellows, and Takumi from Chaos;Head

We also get a sprite for Seri’s dad, Soichiro.

It took far too much effort to find his voice actor because I can’t find it listed anywhere online. Thankfully, the youtube playthrough included the credits. He’s voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi who has been a veteran in the otome space since 1995 when he voiced Oscar in Angelique (aka the birth of the otome genre). He has quite a lengthy credits page yet I couldn’t find Vamwolf listed even on his JP Wikipedia page (which are normally extensive. If you wanna find your favourite seiyuu playing ‘villager 3’ in some obscure anime, you probably can). I can’t help but wonder if this was intentional or not on someone’s part. None of the voice actors beyond the main cast are listed anywhere. It’s quite strange.

Anyways, her dad runs this…they call it an apartment, but it’s clearly a house. Basically a share house kinda situation where rooms are rented out to tenants. Seri says she’s stopping by between classes to help out for an hour or so.

Then the conversation shifts to Keidai asking Seri out to lunch. I didn’t think much of this at first. I figured they all knew each other so it was probably just a casual “let’s chat and catch up” lunch. But Soichiro quickly becomes protective and says she doesn’t want his daughter going out anywhere with Keidai, implying he’s maybe intending something more than just casual lunch with Seri (the Catholic priest???). Look, we’re just gonna assume from this point out that any religious references are purely vibes and aesthetic-based. There are vampires in the bible now, fuck it.

So Keidai then tries to convince Soichiro and fails. We get mention of there essentially being a sort of quasi-family relationship between these guys viewing Soichiro as a type of father figure. Er, well, Soichiro does say he'd never have a rebellious sort of son like Keidai, but the sentiment is there still, I think. Seri checks in the house to meet our last two LIs, engaged in a fierce battle of what I can only guess off of context is…Wii Tennis??

First we have Shuichi Aoi (24). He’s a private detective who’s good with computers and boasts about how he can find any information online. Possibly a hacker. Committed to the 00s-era emo aesthetic.

He’s voiced by Daisuke Namikawa whose notable roles include: Sasazuka from Collar x Malice, Hugh from Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk, Garrett from Red Bell’s Lament, Oikawa from Haikyuu, protagonist from Persona 4, and Arima from Tokyo Ghoul

And lastly we have Yuya Kingetsu (27), the clever and polite surgeon.

Yuya is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita whose notable roles include: Ruka from Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 3, Gundam from Danganronpa 2, Kuroba from Olympia Soiree, Gintoki from Gintama, and Yusuke from Persona 5

Anyways, Yuya trounced Shuichi at Wii Tennis, again. Even though Shuichi tried to challenge him specifically at a time he thought he could win. He tries to force a rematch when he sees Seri and insists on them playing 2v2 with a CPU as their fourth. They argue back and forth about who should pair up with Seri and eventually play rock, paper, scissors for it. Shuichi wins but Yuya sneakily called over the rest of the cast while they were bickering and the others break up the rematch. Cheery music plays, there’s a cute group CG, they all have tea and cake. It would be a sweet found family scene if I resonated with the characters more, but I see what they were going for.

Aaaand then we cut back to Seri’s room to find her dad is dead! He died a few days later off-screen! Man, the writing gives me so much whiplash I think I gotta stretch after this.

Seri says he disappeared suddenly one day just like her mom did before she started first grade. She never saw her dad’s body because it was thought to be connected to the vamwolf serial murder cases and taken for a court-ordered autopsy. So they buried an empty casket instead (?? did they just keep the body after the autopsy?? can they do that?)

Anyways! Seri now has a new job taking over as property manager. The room we’ve been seeing her in with these time jumps is actually her dad’s old room, I think. It looks like a pretty female space to me, but maybe Soichiro was in touch with his feminine side and liked soft pink curtains and floral bedspreads, who can say!

So Seri looks around for things her dad left behind for her and finds an old diary he used a lot. When she opens it, she finds a key to a drawer which contains a letter. Specifically one of those “if you’re reading this, it means I’m dead” kinda letters. In it her dad reveals his true identity as a vamwolf hunter and that the house is operating as a hunter hideout. Which means that not only are vamwolves real, but all the characters we’ve met are hunters too (gasp!). He also leaves her a gun she doesn't know how to use. Cue the opening video again! End of prologue!

4 time jumps, 1 freshly dead parent, biblical vampires, we're already off to quite a start! Let's goooo!

Yes, vamwolf. As in, part vampire, part werewolf. It’s somehow even dumber in Japanese than in English (吸血狼 but read as ヴァンウルフ) and I kinda adore it. This isn’t quite otome’s “My Immortal” which many consider to be tongue-in-cheek satire. This is otome’s version of “The Room” being played with absolute sincerity.

It was put out by D3 Publisher in 2015 and developed by Vridge. The last Twilight movie released in 2012 so this was well past the Twilight hype window. D3 Publisher hasn't exactly had the strongest track record. Long-time otome players might recognize the name from Storm Lovers or the Vitamin series, while newer ones might be more familiar with DesperaDrops. They primarily released games on the PS2, PSP, and Nintendo DS. But by the 2010s, the PS Vita was the hot console to have in the Japanese otome world and they released several Vita games around this time. They likely put a decent chunk of cash behind this title based on the voice cast, but that's just about the only selling point, honestly.

I happened to pick up a copy of my own a few years back in a used game shop in Osaka for 500 yen out of sheer curiosity at how bad it truly was. I started playing it and every time I did, I couldn't help but roll over on my bed in laughter at the absurdity of it all. And it was in that moment that I decided the English-speaking otome community deserved to see this in all its glory. (Full disclosure, I have yet to finish a route so this will be essentially a blind react playthrough (which may go horribly awry!))

To my knowledge, there is no English version of this game. There is no fan translation of this game. I do not think a single person has ever thought to themselves “I should translate Vamwolf,” not even me (and I might be the only person who still cares about it). The only way you would likely even hear about it is if you went on a deep VNDB binge for your favourite voice actor or you saw a Japanese otome player’s “top 10 worst games” list. Over a decade since the game released and the only thing I’ve managed to find about it in English besides the VNDB page (where it boasts a score of 4.88/10) and some generic news listings is this post by breadmasterlee in 2017.

So, to bring any English readers along for the ride, I plan to stick to summaries of events with screenshots here and there. There is exactly one let's play series I could find on this game on the entire Internet which I'll be using for screenshots. Big thanks to the Youtuber Kappa Ebihara for posting it so I didn't have to set up a Vita emulator. You can find the playlist here. It only covers the Ryunosuke route so that's who we're playing! Funnily enough, he's voiced by Kishio Daisuke who also voices Neji in Jack Jeanne (among many other roles).

The game is marked as having no sexual content on VNDB and has a CERO B (PG-13) rating so Diabolik Lovers this is not. I have a hard time imagining anything genuinely upsetting coming up here with how ridiculous it all is, but I’ll give a head’s up on a post if there is anything a bit much. For reference, this is their attempt at an edgy kabedon scene (from VNDB):

Pictured: Dialovers if you bought it for 50 cents off of Temu (Dialovers came out several years before this, for the record).

So that's my opening spiel done. Now, let the disaster commence!