#list26

SHIODOME B:

its so enjoyable when ooe uses the visual novel medium well to cause anxiety. i control the rate of the text and the images onscreen are usually static. going through different routes with similar beats steels my expectations. so when i receive a moving shadow skittering across the screen towards me during a moment ive experienced before in which there WAS no shadow my heart drops to my ass. i knew oosaki was hallucinating but it was scary lol. i loved seeing mei on the ceiling! and the group hallucinations of funeno and the green sky!!

felt really really good that this route is the one in which the man oosaki is with is depicted as revolting and scary in oosakis eyes too. oosaki KNOWS hes killed funeno, he sees him distorted and terrifying, he thinks hes crazy but its too late to run away because shiodome is his safe haven and ariake is bleeding out beyond the walls of the kitchen. that scene and the choice to say shiodome is crazy was really fun. i liked having a choice that meant nothing. oosakis hair changing color is so stupid but i love it so its ok. AND I LOVE HIM SEEING HIMSELF THROUGH SHINKIBAS EYES... UGH!!

of course shinkiba and shinagawa hate shiodome. he ATE oosaki. but it crushed me to watch oosaki say hes inhuman and shiodome is inhuman too and they can never be with humanity. crushed me that oosaki hates his teacher because how could he teach shiodome about human love, human touch, human kindness, when this monster can never fully appreciate or experience it? you taught shiodome how to be lonely and the only person that can fix it and be fixed by it is oosaki. even SHIZUMA is like Wow i fucked up bad. i like shizuma trying to look out for him though. like, i really really really like it. everyone knows this is bad. and this is the first time oosaki and his partner have been so close. its sweet but terrifying. the whole post-island sequence is eating a bunch of sweets and going Damn yum but you know your tummy is gonna hurt sooo bad in 5 minutes

also this was another route where i felt the sex scene was really useful to the characterization. i loved them wanting to eat each other yes!!!!! and oosaki trying so hard to feel good/make shiodome feel good but he cant stop thinking about shinagawa trying to kill him UGH. PERFECT. CINEMA. shiodome talking a lot is good too also congrats shiodome youre the first man with visible pubic hair! yippee!

SHIODOME A:

it charmed me a lot how oosaki finally wanted to talk and vocalized that. even if it was to bait toyosu out. im so glad we got to finally confront toyosu about the phone MAN!!! its been a long time coming. hilarious juxtaposition to shijoumae route with shijoumae in this one being so stupid about the phones. hate him

ive been enjoying how funeno’s discussion of “no fires after lights out or itll Get You” has not come back tangibly but is evoked to cause fear briefly. same with the scratching oosaki hears the first night at the mikazuki. adelta really understands what the player is thinking very very well. ariake coming in with the candle made me SCREAM i thought we were gonna go into it because!! shiodome B was so supernatural through the mass hysteria!!! but nope

i adore toyosu. his voice acting is so incredibly good. ever since aomi first said his name was toyosu rouren i was like... “rouren is so close to lauren... thats weird. thats Weird” and then here comes LAURENCE!!! ugh fantastic. oosaki can only shoot the gun when toyosu tells him there are no more bullets. he shoots to prove he can, but all he actually does is reinforce that toyosu can play him EASILY. and of course he would try to shoot again. now im even more interested in why toyosu is doing all this, what his crime is... it must have to do with the death of children and the war. im also hoping he is in fact a doctor and was doing abortions

speaking of having very particular knowledge i didnt even think about komuse recognizing hinode thats so scary. because like, id just assume hed recognize shiodome. but then he recognized aomi too. toyosu knows aomis full name. he has to be super super connected to the organizer even higher than shizuma. maybe he IS the organizer like the game wants you to think but i do feel like he is working with hinode considering how close they are. but i bet adelta knows im thinking that. toyosu probably knows oosakis first name huh...

Mr Shiodomes Voice Actor was really going all out this route. his desiccated voice acting after being stabbed was so funny. being angry at oosaki while in jail was so funny. and then my heart breaks when he gets out and launches himself at oosaki... how he wants to make lunch for him and shinagawa... how he wants shinagawa to have his straw hats and be a good wife even if he cant be a human or a good person

oosaki having a real house now and giving shiodome the childs room is so insanely sweet. UGHHHHHHHh my heart explodes. super happy shinagawa and shiodome are the same just that one was able to get help. LOVE AND PEACE!!! LOVE AND PEACE shinagawa please get along well with him. i wouldve loved shinkiba to meet him too i miss him a lot. havent read the shonan story yet so im really hoping its there

keeping oosaki drugged through most of it was so fun. i had no idea what i was going to think was worse while experiencing it: did everyone get picked up off the island and shijoumae stayed with oosaki? is everyone avoiding oosaki? did everyone get killed? and if they did, was it by shijoumae or was it mutual destruction? was it violent or was it another use of anesthesia?

speaking of, totally shocked me how late in the general/ariake B route it starts. props to shijoumae for reeling oosaki away from ariake somehow. also i loved how no one went to help oosaki and just stood there when he was trying to do CPR. and i love him taking the ravona. really says a lot about how suicidal he was at that moment

im aligned enough with oosaki that he started climbing down the well and i was like man of COURSE you have to climb down the well you have to check. i really liked the CG for it too because i was squinting at it before advancing the text thinking “okay, its green. theres a corpse or oosaki is hallucinating. i dont know which is happening and i cant parse whats down there” so for a bit i was thinking oosaki could be hallucinating the corpses

shijoumae is such a slimy little freak he is so HARD TO CATCH. it really does make you want oosaki to beat him over the head despite the fact that is ruining oosaki in the process. i am SO fascinated by shijoumae saying the “hinode-kun inside of him” made the paper crane. what an incredible little way to pull on me and make me think about his past, what made him the man he is today. And does that even matter because he has ruined so many lives beyond repair

broke my heart seeing oosaki reflect and think about the ariake B route he couldve had if he had just DONE something... the fact he thinks it would be a better life, the fact it really IS a better life, the fact he could have a life better than ariake B but he doesnt even think its possible. and it isnt anymore

i cheered so incredibly loud when shizuma saved him... i think its really interesting that oosaki wouldve committed suicide if it were shinkiba or shinagawa but he cant do it with shizuma. the little look we get into shizuma makes me even more excited for his route with how happy shizuma seemed and then how he claims he’ll die too if oosaki dies. i dont believe him. especially after talking to akiko and learning shizuma is sukekiyo which i 100% believe i just dont know the how or why of it. what a fascinating critter...

akiko is so funny. she is actually so awesome for trying to hook oosaki up with shijoumae again. very interested in the servants they have; it feels really really bad that they are so young. i had seen the art of shijoumae with his fam before and i thought they were his kids! i thought they were his kids when i saw them too but they... arent. which makes sense considering the relationship shijoumae and akiko have but it is a really bad look. Its a really really bad look shijoumae. especially after him offering oosaki anything he wants (even a PERSON) in this route and offering to adopt hinode in takeshibas. Massive yikes

its terrible that oosaki dies before shijoumae in this route. i love it because i know there are better worlds oosaki can live in so i feel like i can dive into this one and roll around in the mud. at the very end of his life he still couldnt get the world to see this war criminal for what he is and dies with that monster by his side

now i wanna discuss where my mind is with shizuma

so shizuma has discussed sukekiyo as someone he thought of all the time and felt that sukekiyo felt the same about him. he has hallucinations of sukekiyo and his son but rather than be rid of them he wants to not be grossed out by it. his father loved sukekiyo and not him. love comes into being once it is accepted by the other. he didnt Love sukekiyo, he just couldnt stop thinking about him and had to remove him for his own peace of mind and happiness. like sukekiyo was something in the way. his crime is that he killed his OLDER brother and son. sukekiyos wife apparently knows about this and is distant

i assume the letters are from an to sukekiyo and her jealousy of him and his wife

but shizuma is sukekiyo.

so the organizer either, like akiko, is ignoring the fact that sukekiyo is pretending to be shizuma and placing that crime as if shizuma did it... OR doesnt know. the organizer knows so many things about everyone that i find it hard to believe he wouldnt know. surely the organizer is pretending

we could also assume the organizer himself is shizuma/sukekiyo, and i do think he is VERY close to the organizer, but i just dont think he is. i dont think he has the desire to place them on the island like that... either he is working with organizer or the organizer is taking advantage of the daiba family connections to do these things

also i wonder if shijoumaes grimace when oosaki says he is shizuma is related to this swap, considering his wife knows. but akiko seems to know more than shijoumae in general

and then, why desire for oosaki to be his younger brother? he doesnt want to be sukekiyo, but he wants to be an older brother still. does he just want to try again? maybe his love for shizuma was rejected but hes hoping oosaki will reciprocate it and make it real. HMM