Hey y'all. Welcome back to my impressions of KoiChoco. I started up the Michiru route and enough was different to follow the original Isara route play structure. Let's Jam!!!
Here are the rules for my play so you know what to expect from this portion:
- If I didn't talk about it much in previous routes, I will only reference it here when needed - around 1 hour of this session was almost exactly the same as the others (up to the point I ended at)
- There will be one plot point that might be triggering that I want to talk about because how it was revealed was pretty damn solid
- I'm only showing off screenshots from the 2-4 hour mark of this play session; most of what happened in the first 2 hours, I'm not discussing or touching (to avoid majorly spoiling things)
- These rules may apply to other routes
General Thoughts
Almost nothing of this route so far was adapted by the Anime. That could change once I move towards the end, but this one deals with an element that barely made any mention in the other routes or the adaptation: the supernatural undertones of the setting. It also diverges quite a bit early on from the other ones I've played with most people probably not able to activate it without a guide. It's a bit tricky to choose the right options.
Michiru Sure Can Blow
One of her subplots (that was adapted) was her love of a harmonica that she carried around with her. The scene of her playing the song her close friend, Kana, taught her may not have had a complex musical backing track but the visuals were nice here. The background image was mostly painted with her sprite overlaid on top of it and the foreground (bottom section) was actually an animation where her face was sliding from right to left. It was slow enough that taking a screenshot was no issue but most of these cuts prior were there to show fast motion. Was a good change of pace and something I've wanted to showcase about the presentation for a good while.
Hazuki is a Trash Teacher Part 10
In this particular route, he broke off their "relationship" (as in, he feeds her and she lets him enjoy the comfort of her embrace). This was the only time it was brought up and she was being a brat here. I found it amusing while also noticed how other relationships changed in a similar fashion.
Two Back to Back Divergences
In the other routes, Yuuki only baked 20 Oojima Rolls. In this one, he baked 40 total under the context that he may have gained extra practice from the other routes. There's an undertone that kept coming up in this session that the other routes occurred on this timeline (which is possibly the writers being trolls, but still amusing nonetheless). I hope that the 40 rolls comes back into play later on since the campaign should now be better funded than the previous ones.
Also, Chisato becoming immediately friendly with Isara and then later being the only club member outside of Yuuki to call Michiru by her first name, that's just weird. Typically, she did it almost as a sign of disrespect (you don't use first names unless you're close to a person in Japan), but here, it's been shown that she genuinely is mostly ok with Isara hitting on Yuuki and Michiru claiming Yuuki as her "scratching post." (that's not been used yet but there's plenty of cat puns and comments that it should)
A Joke Turned Sour (Trigger Warning)
This particular scene was a missed opportunity in the adaptation, in my personal opinion. My youngest sister is a war veteran; with how Michiru's dressed here along with the text, one could read this as a commentary on PTSD from being a soldier. For the first time, she was speaking in fast, long sentences and screaming from a trauma that I'll talk about in the next paragraph.
This happened at the Training Camp during the Kimodameshi (test of courage) event when Non-chan's monster machine was going around scaring the club. In other routes, it was just an annoyingly goofy nuisance that was played as more surreal than anything. This time, it became the demonic representation of her abuser that beat her for attempting to be a normal girl. Not much information has been given yet, but I had to pause on this scene, take a breather and come back because it was shocking for me. It was handled tastefully and maturely to me but still was hard to get through.
Michiru is Probably a Shiki (Garden of Sinners) Reference
In this same scene (and briefly brought up in the adaptation towards the end), it was revealed that she could see the colors of all living things. Those colors allowed her to understand their emotions in that moment. It was played off as just a very casual thing that didn't bother her that much, but I can only imagine the overload that an ability like that would have on her. Imagine for a second having one of your senses always being active and processing information at every moment of your life with no way to turn it off. I can as someone who has a brain that works like that with a hyper active sense of smell and a brain that just won't relax most of the time.
The Aftermath
Of course Monkey 1 would be a pervert and think of Yuuki and Michiru "sleeping" together. With that face, I kind of wanted to punch her. My tolerance for both Monkeys on this route has been fairly neutral but could go in the negative if this keeps up. They're lovable idiots after all!!!
I'm glad this was as wholesome as it was. At first, I thought the game was going to take a turn for the worst but Non-chan brought it back to a good place after seeing Michiru at her worst. She's just adorable!!!
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts here, and I'll be continuing to post in the future as I go. What were your thoughts? Are you also playing this? Leave your comments below, vote and reblog. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful night.