Not one of my favorites, but very interestingly structured, in that you don't find out what it's about until the second last chapter.

ExpandIf you want to know, click here for spoilers. )

I guess this brings out another reason that SLBP Hideyoshi always makes me feel somewhat nauseous, his route (and every ES I've seen) are set before the horrible things that he ends up doing. So you know his character arc is going nowhere good, because unlike IkeSen this isn't set in an AU fluffy universe. Or is it? SLBP isn't always *completely* historically consistent, so you don't know what's going to happen to Hideyoshi, or just how awful he's going to get.
Ah, another opportunity to have my gut wrenched by a Mitsunari story, how fun.

The thing about Mitsunari is that so many of his problems are deeply personal and not really solvable in the context that he's in. Expandspoilers for his route and for this ES )
...again posting my notes.

Continuing to be convinced that playing this route after Mitsuhide's was a poor life choice, since it's hard for me to read this route as anything but Mitsuhide's tragic arc. Expandspoilers for both routes )

So, I am finding a lot to think about in this route. Unfortunately I'm not enjoying romancing Nobunaga very much. I might be in the wrong place for it. I had the same feeling the first time I did the Hijikata route from Hakuouki, he's another Bad Decisions Bear and I was just mad at him through the entire route. But then the second time I was in a different place and overidentified with him and cried a lot. So maybe I'll need to do Nobunaga's route again in a few months.
Mostly writing this as notes for overthinking later...

It's chapter 3 and Nobunaga is talking religion with the (evil) monk Kennyo. It's already been established that Expandeveryone and everything is terrible in this universe )
That was a disconcerting route and I am feeling disconcerted. Nobunaga is every Bad News Boyfriend and Bad Decisions Bear rolled into one, and yet I can't deny the appeal.

Expandspoilers, including spoilers for Mitsuhide's route because I am not over him )

So yeah. Addictive, horrifying, terrible, and also got me mad at my favorite dude in the game. But I'm not going to stop now. On to act 2.
So far I'm mostly getting myself through this route by enjoying the moments with Mitsuhide and reminding myself that MC gets to live happily ever after with him in a different route. Because so far Nobunaga is kind of a horror.

ExpandJust one comment that I need to make at this point: Hades/Persephone what are you doing here and WTF )



I'm just gonna remind myself, I'm just here for the history. And if I hate this route I can replay Mitsuhide's when I'm done to make myself feel better.

ETA: And this is such mood whiplash coming right after Nobunaga's Caged in Desire ES, in which Expandthings are different )That's not at all how things are going down in the MS and it is disconcerting me.
It continued to be a very oddly structured route, right to the end. And I loved it. I've seen it called boring and confusing in fandom, and I can understand why, but I think I'd prefer to call it subtle and thoughtful.

Expandspoilers, I guess, but there's very little plot )
I thought this was the best-written of the routes I've read so far, and it was definitely fun to read. The writers did a great job of showing-not-telling that Nobunaga is smart, determined and a great leader. They also filed off enough of his rough edges to make crushing on him feel like something a modern woman would plausibly do. Most of this route is a dubcon fantasy that they managed to write as silly rather than squicky. Expandspoilers, I guess, although this game isn't very plot-heavy in general so it's hard to spoil )

There's not much to overthink here but it was fun to read.

I just started the Hideyoshi route and I'm liking it so far. It seems like it's going to be about Hideyoshi trying to make space for love in his life when he's so overwhelmingly devoted to Nobunaga, which is a kind of character arc that interests me. One thing I liked a lot in this route Expandminor spoiler for the second chapter ) Hideyoshi himself seems sweet and earnest, and well, I have a type.
This is a kind of oddly structured route. Expandspoilers, but there are no real surprises in this route so far, and the major plot twists are historical )

Meanwhile in the ES: Scytale asked me how Mitsuhide is terrible (because all the LIs in this game are) and I think this event story gives a pretty decent answer. ExpandAnd I don't think it's what it looks like )
The most enjoyable of the SLBP routes I've done so far. Mitsuhide is lovely to spend time with *and* kind to the MC (most of the time) *and* has an interesting character arc that speaks to my interests but doesn't personally attack me.

Mitsuhide, in this version, is a kind, ethical, honorable man. The man he serves, Demon King Nobunaga, is more interested in power than in morals. But the honor of a Samurai lies in loyal service to his lord, even when he's acting badly. Mitsuhide has to navigate between his ethics and his honor, knowing that he won't ever be able to be true to both and might not be able to be true to either. We know - historical spoiler - that it is all going to end in painful death for both him and Nobunaga, but that's for act 2. This part Expandspoilers )

So yay, this game is actually capable of giving me a route that makes me happy and doesn't just turn me into a curled-up ball of complicated thoughts and feelings. They may have done this just so that the inevitable angsty death in Act 2 hurts even more, though. I'm a little worried about that. But I can always pick the AU happy ending in which no one dies. I might do that.
Just came across this article in the New York times about different meanings of cherry blossoms in Japanese literature and art, and also the political implications of the image:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/t-magazine/japan-cherry-blossoms.html

It got me thinking because in Hakuouki falling cherry blossoms definitely have political implications, but I think they are different in Hijikata's route and in Saito's route.

Expandlife, death, politics, seasons )

What about other routes? I am not sure. But interesting to think about.
Now that I've been playing for a bit, a roundup of spending money in these app games.

SLBP: $1=1 pearl, but there are big discounts if you buy in bulk, so $50=80 pearls. Also you can get them free in-game.
IkeSen: $1=100 coins, no real bulk discounts. The only way to get them for free is by watching ads and downloading apps, and to get any substantial number of them this way can be time-consuming.

Things that cost money, ranked from most to least worth it to me:

SLBP:

1. Side story epilogues, 4 pearls. I've found the side stories so far generally engaging. The epilogues aren't essential but they are a nice character developing or relationship building scene. I've bought I think 7 so far and of them only one was a total dud and a couple have been truly excellent.
2. Extra chapter tickets, if you get them on a good sale. They have sales where you can get them at 20 for 15 pearls with a bunch of other things, and after buying pearls with the bulk discount that gets them down to a somewhat reasonable price of about 30-40 cents each. It's nice to not have to wait for the next day to resolve a cliffhanger. Not worth it for the normal price of $1/ticket.
3. Premium scenes where you pay extra pearls for voice acting, a cg and the ability to replay. These are pricey but I've enjoyed them. Price varies, I think 5-15.
4. Premium scenes where you just get an extra cg. 8-12 pearls. The cgs are sometimes mediocre and sometimes gorgeous but there's no way to tell in advance and in any case I don't want to spend that amount of money on a cg.
5. Extra clothes to dress up the avatar, extra closet space for the clothes. I'm not here for that.

If all you need pearls for is the occasional side story epilogue, you can get enough of them through the game and shouldn't need to spend money.

IkeSen:

Premium scenes cost $3 to $9. If you get the premium scene the writing is more detailed and you get to keep it and replay it. The pattern seems to go like this:

Scene 1: $3, you get more detailed description of UST. I've found these worth it.
Scene 2: $4, more UST. Also good.
Scene 3: $5, you get more detailed description of the first kiss. I've found these meh, most of what's good you also get in the normal scene.
Scene 4: $6, you get more detailed description of a first-time sex scene. Very much depends on personal taste.
Scene 5: $9, you get more detailed description of the end-of-route sex scene. Ditto.

I found chapter tickets worth it at a steep discount (50 cents or less) but I only was able to get discounts that deep in the newbie sale and haven't seen them since.

The side story epilogues might be worth it if you are very invested in a character but I haven't bought one yet. The side stories are mostly smutty fluff.

You can also spend money on clothes and storage for clothes, but again not what I'm here for.


How much I've spent:
SLBP: When I started I spent $75 on 120 pearls and spent about 80 of them on discounted chapter tickets. After three routes and 13 side stories I now have 19 pearls and 70 chapter tickets left. Most of the things I bought I enjoyed.
IkeSen: After two routes I've spent about $33 on premium scenes and heavily discounted chapter tickets. Many of the things I bought weren't worth it.
As I expected, it was a lot of fun at the beginning and horrifying at the end. I did *not* expect to have such a strong desire to yell at the MC to RUN RUN RUN. While I appreciate this canon's commitment to letting horrible people be horrible people and not Reformed By Love, I think there are certain kinds of horrible that I don't want to date and this was one of them.

Expandspoilers )

Short version: IkeSen is giving me too much fanservice and too little plot. SLBP is giving me lots of plot and character development, but is it too much to ask for a *little* fanservice? Enough to make me happy that the MC is in a relationship with this dude at least?
I guess this is the problem with the AU setting - what do you do with a character who has been AUed out of everything that made him interesting? Since in this universe Nobunaga lives Ieyasu doesn't get to do much conquering, empire building or governing. What's left in this universe is a highly competent, ambitious and violent warlord with an angsty past as a child hostage. The romance arc was Expandspoilers ) So, it was fine, pleasant to read, but not that engaging. Probably worth the $3 I paid for it.

Probably I should read Nobunaga's route next, although I am considering Mitsuhide because that's the one I will almost certainly do next in Samurai Love Ballad. Historically Mitsuhide is the guy who killed Nobunaga for unknown reasons. In Samurai Love Ballad he's written as devoutly religious, honest, kind, very serious and intensely honorable. In other words, clearly going to be one of my favorites. In Ikemen Sengoku on the one hand he's devious and a little sketchy and on the other hand he *didn't* actually assassinate Nobunaga (because this is an AU where Nobunaga lives and in any case it was someone else who tried to kill him). So definitely interesting, but less written to speak to my interests in particular.
Things I loved about it:
1. The MC - her name is Shiki - is the protagonist of her own story, which revolves around her goals, choices and destiny. The LI is there to support her goals rather than the other way around. She's also highly competent at fighting, magic and governance. In her role as princess she is responsible for protecting her city and in her role as priestess she is responsible for stopping the end of the world, and her LIs are there to help her do these things in different ways.
2. The romance is slow-burn, lovely and different from anything I've seen in an otome novel before. They call each other husband and wife from the beginning, although as it turns out Expandmild spoilers )

The main drawback is that the storytelling is repetitive and the route feels overlong, and the same narrative tropes get hit over and over. But I'd say it was generally worth it anyway.

Also: The sequel/fandisk of this one is actually available in translation, yay!

I'm guessing that Kuso was not the best choice to start with because in the other routes her relationship with him is the bad marriage that she needs to escape from and that will be harder to accept now that I've seen that he can turn out to be a lovely husband in the end. So, I'll have to try to forget that I know that. I think the next route I'll do is Akifusa, the commander of the MC's armies and her childhood friend. It is the one that is actually listed first, so maybe the one I should've started with. He seems very earnest and kind.
(I posted this a while ago on a now-defunct journal, but since there's Hakuouki discussion happening here I figured I'd repost it.)

Expandvague spoilers for Saito's arcs in Rurouni Kenshin and in Hakuouki )
[personal profile] scytale asked which are my favorite Hakuouki routes. The shorter answer: every single one that I've done has been worth doing. The Harada route is my least favorite, but even in that route once I step back from self-inserting on to Chizuru and ask what Harada-route Chizuru wants I can see that he's good for her. And in a game which lets love and a happy ending look like many different things it's maybe OK that *one* of the things is kind of conventional. Also Shiranui is great in the Harada route and makes it worthwhile.

The Okita, Saito and Heisuke routes I thought were the best developed as romances. The Hijikata route was also long and elaborate but for most of it Chizuru is Hijikata's page rather than his girlfriend. It's a nicely done and very close samurai/page relationship but it doesn't turn romantic until close to the very end.

The newer routes (including Kazama, who had a very short route in the original) are shorter and less developed so I found that they required more headcanons and spacklefic. But that's not bad. I love Sanan so much that I can't be rational about him, but I did need to write some fanfic to make his route work for me. Similarly with Nagakura. Sakamoto is *great* but his route is very different from all the others. There's an untranslated sequel that has extra scenes for the new routes, and hopefully it will be translated one day, because the new routes do feel a little unfinished.

If you want more details on the routes I recommend [personal profile] alias_sqbr's excellent reaction posts.
I've been chatting with [personal profile] scytale about Hakuouki and I realized it's time for more Hakuouki posts. One thing that has been on my mind: I keep saying that Hakuouki works on many different levels. So let me try to list them.

Levels on which I read Hakuouki:

1. Kinky porn. I never was into the whole vampire thing when I encountered it in western canons but Hakuouki made blood drinking sexy to me. No shame. :)

2. Character studies. Just about every route featured a character that was lovely and worth getting to know.

3. Love stories. Let's not forget the obvious. One thing I like about the genre of otome novels is that what love looks like and means is different on different routes, so it makes clear that there's no one (or no best) way to love. And since routes keep getting added, the possible ways to love are potentially infinite.

4. Thinking about history from different perspectives. The different routes experience the same historical events but the characters understand what is happening in different ways. I find this very powerful.

5. A philosophical dialogue about the meaning of honor and the nature of the good life. Each character embodies different virtues and has very strongly felt opinions about how to live honorably as a warrior in difficult and complex circumstances and they often change over the course of the route. Since I've been playing (and replaying) Haukuouki I've often found that when I'm dealing with a tough real-life question I feel an impulse to replay a certain route, and that might lead me to realize what virtue and what understanding of honor and the good life I need right now.

6. A meditation on the consequences of war and the struggle of living with war-related PTSD. This is a topic very close to my heart and I appreciate the varied possible responses to it in the different routes. Although reading it this way is part of what makes me partial to Sanan for obvious reasons.

Any I'm missing?

I find that my reactions to the routes can go back and forth depending on which level I'm reading on and what I'm looking for. Hijikata, for example, has swung back and forth from being one of my least favorites to one of my favorites.
The happy ending was happier than I expected, the sad ending was sadder than I expected.

ExpandI am feeling personally attacked by this storyline )

Fortunately so far the Hideyoshi route is so far the opposite of this, I'm four chapters in and it's mostly been watching him clown around and flirt and manipulate people. I imagine eventually it will get dark and terrible once he invades Korea for no good reason, but so far I'm giving this game the benefit of the doubt that it will handle that responsibly. And that's a while out yet.
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