Samurai Love Ballad: Mitsunari Routes
Oct. 28th, 2019 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollToday is the day that I have to choose my ending and I am dithering about it. One thing I like about this game is that for characters who were killed in history you get to choose if you want the historical ending or an AU happy ending. I was planning all along to choose the AU but now that I am here I'm not sure, I think I might need a good cathartic cry more than a wish fulfillment fantasy.
So I will delay by writing some thoughts about the game and the routes so far.
The game mechanics are very similar to Ikemen Sengoku: half a chapter a day for free, some upsells for premium routes. The big difference is that it is *much* easier to get free or cheap extra chapter tickets and such. Also the premium routes are word for word identical, you just get a cg. I've spent some money on it, but this is more out of a sense that this is a very good game and I want to give it money than out of any real necessity.
Another big difference: some characters have two routes and the second starts when you are already in an established relationship. I finished Mitsunari's first route and then immediately started his second route, which I am near the end of now.
In terms of content: the characters are much darker. There may be LIs in this universe who aren't terrible people but if so I haven't met them. I guess if they weren't terrible they'd be doing something other than warmongering. But they are all interestingly terrible and terrible in different ways.
Also, this game assumes that same-sex relationships exist in this universe, and you get references to past m/m relationships for LIs. Which is nice.
These routes been very emotionally affecting, to the point that I've had a hard time writing about them. There's a lot in them to engage with, both intellectually and emotionally, and sometimes no clear resolution.
At the beginning of the first route, the MC (who is a cook dressed as a man), meets two people who look very similar. One is Mitsunari, who is rude and abrasive but loyal. The other is Saki, who Mitsunari says is his sister: a tall, beautiful woman who is kind, gentle and likes to go to the Temple. The fairly obvious spoiler is that they are the same person, and the riddle of the first arc is, what is going on with Mitsunari/Saki's gender? Crossdressing? Closeted trans? Non-binary? Mitsunari owes the MC a favor (she saved Hideyoshi's life by throwing herself in front of an assassin) and she asks to be allowed to befriend Saki. So Saki and male-disguised MC develop a sweet friendship. Meanwhile Mitsunari, when male-presenting, continues to be harsh and cruel to the MC. Eventually Mitsunari figures out that MC is a woman and is horrified and rejecting towards her. But then when Saki next sees the MC she's so happy to be friends with the MC because the MC, as a woman who dresses as a man, is someone who might be able to understand her. It's quite lovely, and also quite painful.
The backstory that we get about halfway through the first route: Mitsunari/Saki was a child of rape and his/her mother was thrown out of her husband's home for bearing a bastard and had to go live in the temple. She is triggered by men and raised her child as Saki. Mitsunari always knew that he wasn't just Saki, but he also loved his mother and as Saki had a close relationship with her. Hideyoshi was the first person to really appreciate him as a man.
What MC makes out of this is that Mitsunari's mother suppressed his gender identity and he dressed as a woman for her sake. I am not sure I agree. He's much kinder and more able to connect as Saki, which makes me think that Saki represents something authentic in who he is rather than something that was forced on him. So I am not sure what to make of it, except that I have intense feelings about it. Mitsunari does continue to cross-dress after his mother's death, but usually he has an excuse like hiding from an enemy. Still, it leads to some very cute moments. Like when he and the MC exchange hairpins as a sign of love before he rides off into battle dressed as a woman. (awww) Or: Mitsunari's retainer Sakon has a crush on Saki and wants to marry her and for most of the route we assume he doesn't know that Saki is Mitsunari, but towards the end Mitsunari just plain tells him and Sakon looks at him and says, in so many words, 'I love you anyway.' Historically Sakon died defending Mitsunari, and oh.
But I think Mitsunari never really completely figures out who he wants to be. His mother wants him to be a woman and Hideyoshi wants him to be a man (and so does the MC). Near the beginning of his route he says that living for others is what gives him strength, and that sounds lovely and heroic except for all the ways that it is terrible because it deprives him of his own identity. Hideyoshi (who I am furious with right now) was very happy to accept his unquestioning, boundaryless loyalty and devotion and was content to let Mitsunari live for him. As a result, I think, Mitsunari never figures out how to live for himself or as himself in any aspect of his life.
Since Hideyoshi is a love interest they AUed his son out of existence. I was all geared up for Mitsunari to go into hopeless battle for the sake of Hideyoshi's son, which would've at least had some integrity to it. Instead, Hideyoshi names Mitsunari as his heir, and Mitsunari goes to war more or less because before dying Hideyoshi told him to. (Also, to be fair, because this Ieyasu is a horrible human being who shouldn't have power over anything.) He's about to face Ieyasu in battle but he doesn't have any vision for the country and his only real dream is loyalty to the people close to him. He also *still* hasn't married the MC, even though they've been together since the beginning of the second route, because he wasn't able to be sure enough in himself to commit to her.
So this is where we are. If I choose the historical ending, apparently he reincarnates as a history professor and the world's greatest expert in Hideyoshi. If I choose the AU ending I have no idea what happens.
What I would like to see happen is for Mitsunari to have some space to figure out who he is and what he wants, without having to be what anyone else wants him to be. But that might not happen, and in some ways it seems like not even something he wants, since he defines himself as someone who lives for other people.
And look, I may be overthinking this, but thematically maybe it makes sense that they gave the guy who lives for others a crossdressing and gender-ambiguity arc. Since living for others is kind of a feminized virtue. The MC in this route doesn't really have goals of her own and I've seen her called a 'doormat' in fandom, but she's no worse in this respect than he is. Maybe in the end they can be happy together in their conventionally-feminine virtues, with no other goal than being there for each other and the people they care about. .
ETA: I went with the AU happy ending. So far I'm glad I did.
So I will delay by writing some thoughts about the game and the routes so far.
The game mechanics are very similar to Ikemen Sengoku: half a chapter a day for free, some upsells for premium routes. The big difference is that it is *much* easier to get free or cheap extra chapter tickets and such. Also the premium routes are word for word identical, you just get a cg. I've spent some money on it, but this is more out of a sense that this is a very good game and I want to give it money than out of any real necessity.
Another big difference: some characters have two routes and the second starts when you are already in an established relationship. I finished Mitsunari's first route and then immediately started his second route, which I am near the end of now.
In terms of content: the characters are much darker. There may be LIs in this universe who aren't terrible people but if so I haven't met them. I guess if they weren't terrible they'd be doing something other than warmongering. But they are all interestingly terrible and terrible in different ways.
Also, this game assumes that same-sex relationships exist in this universe, and you get references to past m/m relationships for LIs. Which is nice.
These routes been very emotionally affecting, to the point that I've had a hard time writing about them. There's a lot in them to engage with, both intellectually and emotionally, and sometimes no clear resolution.
At the beginning of the first route, the MC (who is a cook dressed as a man), meets two people who look very similar. One is Mitsunari, who is rude and abrasive but loyal. The other is Saki, who Mitsunari says is his sister: a tall, beautiful woman who is kind, gentle and likes to go to the Temple. The fairly obvious spoiler is that they are the same person, and the riddle of the first arc is, what is going on with Mitsunari/Saki's gender? Crossdressing? Closeted trans? Non-binary? Mitsunari owes the MC a favor (she saved Hideyoshi's life by throwing herself in front of an assassin) and she asks to be allowed to befriend Saki. So Saki and male-disguised MC develop a sweet friendship. Meanwhile Mitsunari, when male-presenting, continues to be harsh and cruel to the MC. Eventually Mitsunari figures out that MC is a woman and is horrified and rejecting towards her. But then when Saki next sees the MC she's so happy to be friends with the MC because the MC, as a woman who dresses as a man, is someone who might be able to understand her. It's quite lovely, and also quite painful.
The backstory that we get about halfway through the first route: Mitsunari/Saki was a child of rape and his/her mother was thrown out of her husband's home for bearing a bastard and had to go live in the temple. She is triggered by men and raised her child as Saki. Mitsunari always knew that he wasn't just Saki, but he also loved his mother and as Saki had a close relationship with her. Hideyoshi was the first person to really appreciate him as a man.
What MC makes out of this is that Mitsunari's mother suppressed his gender identity and he dressed as a woman for her sake. I am not sure I agree. He's much kinder and more able to connect as Saki, which makes me think that Saki represents something authentic in who he is rather than something that was forced on him. So I am not sure what to make of it, except that I have intense feelings about it. Mitsunari does continue to cross-dress after his mother's death, but usually he has an excuse like hiding from an enemy. Still, it leads to some very cute moments. Like when he and the MC exchange hairpins as a sign of love before he rides off into battle dressed as a woman. (awww) Or: Mitsunari's retainer Sakon has a crush on Saki and wants to marry her and for most of the route we assume he doesn't know that Saki is Mitsunari, but towards the end Mitsunari just plain tells him and Sakon looks at him and says, in so many words, 'I love you anyway.' Historically Sakon died defending Mitsunari, and oh.
But I think Mitsunari never really completely figures out who he wants to be. His mother wants him to be a woman and Hideyoshi wants him to be a man (and so does the MC). Near the beginning of his route he says that living for others is what gives him strength, and that sounds lovely and heroic except for all the ways that it is terrible because it deprives him of his own identity. Hideyoshi (who I am furious with right now) was very happy to accept his unquestioning, boundaryless loyalty and devotion and was content to let Mitsunari live for him. As a result, I think, Mitsunari never figures out how to live for himself or as himself in any aspect of his life.
Since Hideyoshi is a love interest they AUed his son out of existence. I was all geared up for Mitsunari to go into hopeless battle for the sake of Hideyoshi's son, which would've at least had some integrity to it. Instead, Hideyoshi names Mitsunari as his heir, and Mitsunari goes to war more or less because before dying Hideyoshi told him to. (Also, to be fair, because this Ieyasu is a horrible human being who shouldn't have power over anything.) He's about to face Ieyasu in battle but he doesn't have any vision for the country and his only real dream is loyalty to the people close to him. He also *still* hasn't married the MC, even though they've been together since the beginning of the second route, because he wasn't able to be sure enough in himself to commit to her.
So this is where we are. If I choose the historical ending, apparently he reincarnates as a history professor and the world's greatest expert in Hideyoshi. If I choose the AU ending I have no idea what happens.
What I would like to see happen is for Mitsunari to have some space to figure out who he is and what he wants, without having to be what anyone else wants him to be. But that might not happen, and in some ways it seems like not even something he wants, since he defines himself as someone who lives for other people.
And look, I may be overthinking this, but thematically maybe it makes sense that they gave the guy who lives for others a crossdressing and gender-ambiguity arc. Since living for others is kind of a feminized virtue. The MC in this route doesn't really have goals of her own and I've seen her called a 'doormat' in fandom, but she's no worse in this respect than he is. Maybe in the end they can be happy together in their conventionally-feminine virtues, with no other goal than being there for each other and the people they care about. .
ETA: I went with the AU happy ending. So far I'm glad I did.
