Otome Game Review: Nise no Chigiri

Intro: Mana Shiraha goes looking for a shota who ran away from his foster parents. She falls through a puddle-portal into feudal Japan, where a spirit tells her to save Masatora. She stops an ambush on Masatora’s life and he decides to take her in. She adopts a ferret-thing called Shiro and now must protect Masatora while snatching an ikeman.

*Each character (except Kansuke) has 14 chapters for only $4.99. Gorgeous visuals and music. No voice.

Final thoughts below.

Akatsuki: tsundere cinamonroll who’s deredere in disguise. Despite being in the middle of a war, he buys her hair accessories and falls for her. Rurimaru takes Mana to watch Akatsuki train and a shuriken nearly kills her. Akatsuki’s pissed they thought sneaking around was a game. Mana decides to apologize but falls out of a tree and kisses him rofl. One day, Akatsuki collapses from his wounds. He has severe PTSD but she snaps him out of it. The next day he’s super dere and makes her a firecracker since she wanted to celebrate Ruri’s bday with one.

When she tries to confess her feelings, the idiot misinterprets her confession and assumes she’s afraid of the war. Suie’s his bro fo lyfe until he betrays him. Bad End: Akatsuki confesses to her and she kisses him before he dies. Happy: She returns to her world and later, he finds her trying to rescue a kitten stuck in a tree. She jumps into his arms and they bump heads. Normal: Akatsuki mans up and kisses her. Because raging hormones, she chooses to stay. Which is stupid because in the Happy End it’s revealed that she was gone for 4 months and her family thought she died. If she stays she might die for reals and women’s rights were nothing back then.

Kojima Yataro: feels Mana up on his horse and she turns around all TOUCH ME AGAIN YOU DIE (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑  He’s like 40 and owns all these animals. Ruri’s too weak against their opponents so Mana takes the hit for Kojima. His previous lover died cuz her health was weak so he flips tables when people he cares about are hurt. They end up fighting together in the war and Tsuyano dies. She doesn’t want to go home and Kojima’s all I’m old enough to be your dad but she kisses him to shut him up. And hey, lucky Mana because he suddenly loves her now!

WTF was this route for???? But wait…it gets better…

MMMMMM dat ojissan yo rofl

Togi Kanehisa: Ever wanted to romance a grandpa? No? Well too bad-now you get the route you never wanted. I thought Kojima was pushing it but not only are you romancing a 60 something dude there’s NO POINT TO HIS ROUTE. I shit you not all that happens is him reminiscing about the past, talking about the Nokizaru, and how he’s scared of animals cuz he doesn’t want to kill them. Bad End: He takes the death blow for her. Normal End: Mana doesn’t go back and lives with him instead. Happy End: Mana goes back and discovers her relative is Rurimaru and the statue of her says Togi Kanehisa which makes her cry.

Suien: the traitorous flute bishounen I was looking forward to, but his route was this dude staring into the sky and emoing about his life. He’s a teacher and when one of the kids dies he freaks out because it reminded him of when he was captured and tortured he heard some chick’s voice telling him to live so he did. He says he only sees Mana as a sister but Akatsuki says he’s just stupid and probably likes her back but doesn’t know it. Probably?! WUT.

Suien’s sister, Tsukino, was taken by Shingen so that’s why he betrayed Masatora. But she’s been dead for a long time so when he’s all wtf did I betray everyone for. I felt sorry for the dude but it’s like the writers hated Suien so he dies regardless what ending you’re going for щ(ﾟдﾟщ) But since you can’t have a true “bad” end in otoge, she returns to her world and falls in love with his reincarnation.

Shuya: another cinamonroll who loves cookies. Mana’s like dayum he cute so she works for him in his clinic and gets bit by a bug. He sleeps beside her to share his body heat and help her get better sooner. This cutie doesn’t understand he’s falling for Mana so when she starts asking about Suien he gets super jelly. He asks everyone what’s wrong with him cuz he can’t cure this illness. Mana forgives him the next day and he’s all stay away I have a disease and gives her his symptoms to which she goes U HIGH BRO? During the tanabatan festival Shuya finally realizes what his “disease” is and goes FFFFFF because they’re in the middle of a war so he doesn’t tell her. He rescues her when she’s captured but because of the war, he’s forced to reject her confession. She doesn’t give up so he kisses her to slip her some drugs so he can save all of their lives and when the war’s over, he confesses like a moe man and the two live in the Sengoku era as medic ninja.

Masato: is the lil punk Masa that Mana was looking for in the beginning. Turns out he tried to stop her from falling into the puddle but Minawa flung him farther into the past than she did so he’s been there for like 15 years. She finds out he’s Masa from a painting of her high school on his wall. He explains what happened and she’s all ok cool. Then she gets captured but he burns the place down and rescues her…but Togi dies. He regrets he couldn’t thank him for all he’d done for him.

Minawa says he needed someone to guard Mana when she came here to save Masatora’s life. She confesses to him and he admits he always wanted to catch up to her in age cuz he liked her. She doesn’t want to go back so they wander Japan and he quits being a Nokizaru and becomes a painter.

$$$$Rurimaru: a rip off. Not only is he too young to have a route, thank God, it’s mostly a kind of common route. Sure, there were cute moments were they were competing to get the most fruit and he calls her nee-san, but his “route” only let you get the CGs of the other characters rofl. This isn’t a route at all why are you selling this as one? At least it proves Otomate actually thought things through about how Mana wouldn’t exist if she goes for the grandpa cuz he wouldn’t marry her grandma.

Kansuke: literally the Kazama of the game. Aka he stalks Mana because he doesn’t know how to approach her like a normal suitor. He’s Shingen’s tactician and an immortal who met Mana a long ass time ago in a village where she was named Kanade. He fell in love with her on the spot but she was burnt to death and reincarnated to Mana. Anyways he constantly wants her to go with him but she refuses. He tells Masatora Shingen’s plans and Masatora lives. As for the endings, either Kansuke kills Mana and nice boats himself or she returns to her world where he stalks her and they get married and he’s no longer immortal. Dafuq

 

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Final Thoughts: 

Less Death Hakuoki (who knew it was possible?)

Kenshin = Hijikata

Rurimaru = Heisuke

Suien = Okita?

Akatsuki = Harada (except tsundere)

Shuya = Saito

Kansuke = Kazama (4 reals tho….)

Mana is a fantastic heroine! Most otoge MC’s are either bland/stupid/too passive/no personality, or all of that and more. Mana isn’t. She talks back, does her own thing, & has a personality. I really hope that in the future (since this is from an old game) more otoge feature fantastic, spunky heroines.

Sure, she had moments where she’s all I WUV U and I must say so during the freaking war but yolo. I mean, she’s not sure if she’ll die in this era so better just try and cross your first kiss off your bucket list, am I right 😉

I did wonder if staying in their world was good because really women had no rights in that time, death during labor was a high risk, samurai often raped them etc. So I preferred the ends where she went back to her world and the guys followed her ^^

Music was really good but no op or ed songs because it’s the mobile port. Also no voices in the mobile, obviously, but I hear the PSP and PS2 versions had excellent seiyuus.

Art was fantastic but since I have a small S3 phone, the CGs were kinda tiny. Still, they were gorgeous.

Fav characters would def be Akatsuki for his adorable tsundereness and nice route, Shuuya because he’s a moe cinamonroll, and Masatora cuz he was cute. Suien was ok but they really gave him the short end and his route was kinda bland and those endings yo….

And WHY DIDN’T MASATORA GET A ROUTE OMG I WOULDA HIT DAT

Rurimaru, Togi, and Kanehisa weren’t worth the money imho and this is one of those otoge where there’s no huge plot reveal really, so you can choose whoever you like. If you want to see why I don’t recommend those 3, feel free to read my summary of their routes. 

But if you want to romance grandpa go ahead….

From the FD

If you play the mobile port, Eternal Vows, I highly suggest using some sort of guide. Unless you bookmark your stuff, you’re gonna have to go through the whole damn game again to get missing CG’s…which happened to me. And dear God the skip function is the slowest thing EVAR. Skip my ass, srsly, just use a guide and bookmark. Don’t do what I did cuz it took me a few days longer than it should’ve.

Unfortunately, not all the routes have guides yet so I found the original guide in Japanese  and it’s not too hard. Just use a dictionary like Jisho and you can easily gauge which choices you need by seeing how many are left (esp if you’re trying to get each of the endings, cuz it’s so easy to see most are in the last chapter).

All in all, I’d say it’s an enjoyable otome game with some obvious faults. Feel free to skip routes that disinterest you cuz you won’t be missing out. The routes are pretty long and filled with gorgeous art and music, so your $’s worth is more than covered.

Worried the history will be too dense? 

This isn’t like Hakuoki though there is a lot of history thrown in and war strategy. Also, it’s not so damn depressing as Hakuoki so that’s a huge plus.

Confused with some of the finer historical details?

Mana must save Uesugi Kenshin. He’s called Masatora at the start of the game but later in history became a monk & changed his name to Kenshin. Mana’s family guards Lord Kenshin’s lake, which she falls into. 

What period is she in and how did it come to be?

Financial/autonomy problems w/ the poor & the Shogunate arose, culminating in the Onin War. This led 2 the Warring Period where Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, & Tokugawa Ieyasu fought 4 control. The Tokugawa Shogunate was the result & the Sakoku era began. Mana is now in the Warring Period.

What did you think of Nise no Chigir/ Eternal Vows? Who was your fav? Do you prefer Hakuoki over this?

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