#tea-crown

See, there are two protagonists. Initially, you have to play as the girl in the center of the above image and go down the boys' routes as if it were your usual romance otome game. There is genuine romance in these routes. After certain requirements are fulfilled, you play through the same timeframe of events but in the older brother's perspective with more lore drops. Official material on this game loves to stress that it is an otome game and a "boys" game (Not "'"Boys Love"'"! Just "Boys"). I'm guessing the routes are a collection of "male shounen friendship" stories and unraveling the mysteries that may come with the plot of this game.

The premise is that the girl, Asakura Akino, moves to a rural town and transfers into an technology or engineering school. Her brother, Souichirou, has come with her too after returning from studying in America. Akino also has two childhood friends at the school. However, one day, she learns about research and development being done on something called "Autonomous Mobile Vehicle Izuna". Her brother and the two aforementioned childhood friends are involved in this project as well, but nobody wants to tell Akino anything. What exactly is Izuna and what is the truth behind its development?

I think Izuna looked interesting when I first saw an image of it because the art style isn't conventional for an otome game. Otome game art usually likes its tall ikemens and stylish color palettes but the cel-shaded stockier character art style for Izuna feels reminiscent of children's robot anime. The artist for this game, Shiroishi Kotoni, has done a lot of comic work for mecha anime and I'm like, "Yes this checks out".

Speaking of mecha, while I wouldn't consider this a "mecha otome game" because there's no piloting of humanoid robots, the sci-fi robot anime vibe is something I haven't even considered for a joseimuke game. This image is the Autonomous Mobile Vehicle Izuna as in the title of the game and it's like a character in itself. Shiroishi Kotoni knows how to draw robots so I guess that's why he was hired as the artist because the whole plot surrounds this thing.

I want to play this but it's at a level of obscurity where I haven't been able to find any 🏴‍☠️🚢 links. I would have at least tried the trial version because the website is still up but all the file download links for the demo are dead and haven't been preserved by the Web Archive. I also think the physical version of this game is actually rare too because despite being an all-ages PC game, some of the secondhand selling prices I see are pretty expensive! Well, the game is voiced, and some of the cast members include Fukujun and Takahiro Sakurai.