…and a new contender for worst Ikepri parent.

I just finished Azel’s romantic ending and wooooow. Not what I was expecting at all. My first introduction to him was some event where he kept calling Emma his slave, which totally put me off. I didn’t hate him but I didn’t like him. I wasn’t even planning to read this route too soon either, but some of the screenshots I saw captivated me and I was intrigued when the EN devs compared him to Mitsuhide.

The Ikepri main routes alwaaaaays piss me off in some way until half way through. Usually the princes are just not respectful to Emma at all (because they are meant to be a “beast” at that point, but still) and Emma persists anyway and they fall in love blah blah blah. I was expecting this to be some situation where he is a heartless con-man and tricks Emma and uses her selfishly and no one believes her about it because he’s their smiley god, but then he grows to love her and change his ways a la Silvio. But he really never is disrespectful to her at all. He is sassy and shifty, but from the beginning he is kind to Emma. It’s easy to see the compassion behind his actions, even when he is being sneaky. He loves his people and his brothers so much, but he is so traumatized that he doesn’t understand what love really means anymore because of his father’s abuse. So he never ever admits his true feelings for Emma, except for a few times it slips out, even as he begins to fully realize them.

In the Romantic Ending it’s pretty much confirmed that he fell in love with Emma first and pretty much at first sight. He’s just didn’t understand it. This made the whole route so much more fun. Rather than fighting each other over ideals, they just bantered with each other and discovered the meaning of true love together.

Silvio always makes a grand entrance and is hilarious whenever he shows up. I also love that Emma has so much personality and is so much more strong willed here. She said she went through a lot as Belle but used what she learned to become stronger, and she did. She’s a bit of a pushover still about some things but she sasses Azel back while still being a hard worker to pay off her “debt”, she’s knows she needs to speak her mind in order to not be trampled on, and she still maintains her pure heart. She’s not dumbed down to make Azel seem smarter (which I have to say, there are quite a lot of genius princes running around at this point). She’s naive and inexperienced when it comes to love, but not in her understanding of the world which was always a problem for me in her other routes. I think somewhere in Gilbert’s route she says something like “this is the first time I’ve considered others had different viewpoints than mine” which is just unbelievable for a 20-something year old woman, commoner or not. She is ignorant of Tanzanite culture, but is respectful of it and seeks to learn more. She doesn’t try to shame the people for not thinking for themselves, and I was pleasantly surprised when she asked to work with Azel on his plan rather than talk him out of it.

I always hate seeing bad things happening to Emma, but I like how they handled the aphrodisiac situation. It was just the right level of unacceptable, but without malice or lasting harm. Azel calls her stupid for not noticing what happened and protecting herself, but then back tracks because he didn’t realize it was possible not to know what an aphrodisiac oil was since people have been trying to use it on him for so long. He doesn’t shame her and instead helps her, which was especially meaningful after learning about his own trauma with palace women being drugged and chasing after him, which was the starting point of this whole con as “god’s favorite”. While Azel later punishes them, Emma never blames the maids who drugged her perfume and put her in a revealing outfit before sending her to Azel. They were trying to be helpful in a way they thought was appropriate for their own culture as part of the harem (which was created by the Apostle), but was wildly uncomfortable and inappropriate for her especially without her consent or Azel’s.

I especially loved seeing Azel freak out at her just taking his nonsense, and she responds by saying she isn’t mad at him because she doesn’t actually blame him for her situation. Which is especially meaningful for him because he has had to bear the responsibility of the entire nation for his entire life, so everything is literally always considered his fault, good or bad, by all of Tanzanite. She brings a new perspective to him as well and it’s so funny seeing him do romantic things without realizing because he has been isolated for so long. They have a nice balance in their relationship even though he is a prince and she is a commoner, and that he is a “god” and she is in his “debt”. She never really lets that act as a barrier in their relationship and neither does Azel, which is also unique to his route.

I was curious how much politics would be included since the most we know about the alliance is from the sequel stories of the other princes. I was confused about the weapons deal, and thought that the Apostle was the one controlling them so the explanation at the end of the RE was helpful and uncovered Obsidian’s true sneaky goals while still keeping the other countries goals secret for now. Obsidian is planning revolutions in all these other countries, but Azel was already working on his own plan to bring change without violence, which I think is an amazing contrast to Gilbert’s plan and shows that these other countries aren’t necessarily blind or powerless to corruption and don’t need Gilbert’s intervention. However, Cybird can say whatever they like but I really am determined to dislike Achroite and I hope they get a good revolution too.

This part really broke my heart. He has suffered and sacrificed so much for so long. Even if he pretends he isn’t, his actions are all guided by his compassion for others and not wanting others to suffer. That’s why he wanted the people to stop believing in god and think for themselves, so they could be free. Despite his true nature being kind, he still said that he’s afraid of being like his father. He is sooo much like Qamar, who he loves and is inspired by, with the cheek squishing and swearing so from the outside it’s obvious he could never really be abusive and cruel like his father, but he isn’t so confident in himself. ☹️ I like how they both talk through and establish what kind of relationship they are expecting to have with each other. I’m usually a bit annoyed when Ikemen MCs need everything spelled out for her in other routes and games, but this time it felt appropriate.