CATEGORY: The Blisscast Journal

TAGS: Otome Adventures

The Journal, Page 88:
Is it Real Love, or is it just an Act?
Lover Pretend

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PUBLISHED ON: February 1st 2024

Written By:

Blisscast

Edited By:

Blisscast

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Introduction:

Hello everyone, and welcome to the second Otome Page of the Journal; in case you missed the previous one about Norn9 Var Commons, you can check it out right now via this handy link here!

But first, your usual recounting of my weekly events; I finished Lover Pretend (otherwise, this Page wouldn’t have a reason to exist) and, since it was so short and I was waiting for Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth (or as I always call it at this point, Yakuza 8) to come out, I decided to start yet another Otome game, one that I had in store for a while, called Period Cube. What’s funny about this is that I originally intended to play this instead of Norn9, but got the two names confused somehow (is it perhaps a sign that I’m becoming old?); thus now, it’s finally time to play it for real! It’s not too amazing so far, but I am definitely into its plot and setting, as it’s one of those MMO isekai, somewhat similar to Sword Art Online.

Though, what about Like a Dragon 8? I haven’t played much of it so far, but it seems to have further perfected what we saw in 7, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to Ichiban and his friends!

Enough about that, it’s not time for that game yet, as we first need to talk about…

Lover Pretend

This is an Otome game developed by Otomate and published by Aksys Games in 2021 for Nintendo Switch; we finally got an English localization at the end of 2022, and, as a huge fan of this genre, I understandably had to pick it up at some point!

We follow the adventures of Ueda Chiyuki, a college student whose primary dream is to become a screenwriter like her mum, who passed away some time before the events told in the story. This ambition of hers will also perhaps let her achieve her second dream, and make her find out what exactly happened to the dad she never met; in fact, she gets the chance to work as an assistant for a certain film which is ultimately connected to her quest, as her mum worked on a drama script just before dying, and many of the troupe in that drama had sons or relatives who are now working on that same new film. Thus, by talking to these people, Chiyuki might be able to find some information about what happened to her father, and maybe even find her significant one…

What’s unusual about the situations she’ll get involved in, though, is that more often than not, after getting acquainted with these people, she will have to fake a relationship with them, usually to prevent trouble for the love interest; even so, lying to others won’t be easy, and sometimes we’ll be faced with a mystery-like interrogation because someone gets too nosy! To clear their suspicions, we’ll enter Pretend Time, a mode where we’ll have to convince someone of something by answering their questions quickly before the timer runs out. While it’s nothing special per se, it sets the game apart from your usual visual novels with only non-timed choices and, at the same time, it sets the game’s mood; what’s also fitting is that the game also deals with acting and modeling, and those have to do with pretending as well. Worry not though, because even if at the beginning it’s all pretend, eventually love will blossom for real, and we’ll get our own deserved amount of cuteness.

Thus, it’s now time to see what this game has in store for us in the form of love interests; we have five choices, with one that is supposed to be a secret (the game is hilariously bad at hiding it, though, so I’ll be mentioning him outside of a spoiler dropdown), and they cover various jobs in the entertainment industry, offering us the chance to discover more about each of them. This time, unlike what I did for Norn9 Var Commons, I will be covering them in the order I played them in, so let’s get started!

The first one is Kamikubo Kazuma, Chiyuki’s childhood friend who’s an apprentice hair and makeup artist and ends up working on that new film along with Chiyuki. While he’s your usual cheerful, energetic, and outgoing guy, he’s not just like some other usual “childhood friend” types, as he might have a couple of secrets. Nonetheless, I extremely enjoyed his character, both in his route and in all the others, as he kept trying to protect Chiyuki from all the “wolves” while failing miserably at it. Something that I also enjoyed is how realistic his relationship with Chiyuki felt, as you could clearly see that they spent a lot of time together even if the game doesn’t necessarily tell you. Plus, he’s even voiced by Furukawa Makoto, who also voiced Allan in Cupid Parasite, so I couldn’t help but like him as well!

Secondly, we have Sena Yukito, an immensely popular fashion model who applied for a lead role in the film, even if he had never acted before, and is the son of a TV producer who worked on that drama with Chiyuki’s mother. At first, I found him quite annoying, as he’s the usual womanizer who seems ready to reject every woman who ends up falling in love with him just like a toy; yet, the game gladly proved me wrong, as he was the opposite of what I imagined! His womanizer attitude was mostly a facade, and it was forced upon him by his agency; I was glad to see that beyond that attitude Yukito was actually a serious and confident guy, who truly wanted to become an actor despite the complaints of his agency. Chiyuki will have to assist him in his quest as his assistant and fiancee, and who knows, something nice might happen. 🙂 This was probably one of my favorite routes of the game, and I admit it increased my standard for the upcoming routes I played.

Moving on, we have Makino Harumi, who’s a University student and the son of the current film’s director; I admit that among the least spoilery ones, I left his route as the last one because it didn’t seem he had much going on for him, as the game just presented him as a really reserved guy who barely ever spoke during the common route, apart from the bits where we discover that he’s working on his director skills. That all changed when I reluctantly started his route and discovered that he’s actually an anime otaku (why did the game literally hide his top selling point?); I ended up really enjoying his route as it dealt with Chiyuki also becoming an otaku and helping Harumi open to his peers and father about his true passion. While I wouldn’t necessarily see him as someone I’d date, his route was extremely satisfying to read, and I’d rate it among the best ones in the game.

Now, after three satisfying routes, I was finally ready to play the two characters who I knew I would like; the first one is Nishijima Riku (voiced by Maeno Tomoaki, who also voiced Lupin from Code Realize), who is a young yet talented actor, flawlessly playing any role with ease, and the son of the lead actor of that same drama Chiyuki’s mother worked on. Unfortunately, I ended up not enjoying his route as I expected, due to various reasons; first of all, while he looks charming and prince-like, he’s actually just pretending (I mean, yes, he is an actor, but even so…), and is often mean to Chiyuki. Secondly, he engages in… questionable activities during most of his route, only to keep Chiyuki by his side (such as recording Chiyuki in a certain moment of the plot so that he can then blackmail her); to say that it didn’t remind me a bit of my least favorite character of all time, Toma from Amnesia Memories, would be a lie, and that’s why I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t help but dislike him. Even if he later gets better and we see that he had his own reasons, that was not enough to make me truly enjoy him… Truly a pity, seeing how the story ended…

Lastly, we have the extremely secret route, where we can finally date Asagi Eiichirou, a young and popular screenwriter and University lecturer, who is Chiyuki’s mentor. I was immensely looking forward to his route, as I absolutely love these types of characters, who are wise, kind, fascinating, and have so many intriguing things to tell; plus, it was the final route, so I was finally going to get my well-deserved reveals! Luckily, the story didn’t fail to make me enjoy their adorable romance (once again, it’s clear that these two are made to be together, and it’s weird that he wasn’t the “poster boy”, seeing how the game already fails at hiding him), and I enjoyed every single moment of that route; we even got our reveal at the end, and it ultimately was such an adorable route.

The huge problem in it, though, is that his route, for some absurd and ridiculous reason, only lasted a single chapter, instead of the four chapters we had in other routes! Even if their relationship was already established and didn’t feel too rushed, any resemblance of a plot was abandoned and relegated to short summaries clearly meant for whoever had finished all the previous routes, and the reveal at the end was quickly spoon-fed to us, and even if what we got was indeed satisfying, it still ended up making me feel quite annoyed and slightly betrayed. You see, I truly liked Asagi, and the game had little to no reason to make his route so short; I could see only one possible reason, and I’ll leave it under a spoiler dropdown below.

Spoilers for Asagi’s route

Link to the post

I finished reading Asagi’s route yesterday night, and while I really loved it for what it was (not the best pacing and length, but I love those kinds of characters, so), it got me thinking. Why was it so short? Because they ran out of time / got bored / are evil / whatever?

Then I also considered the fact that the whole game is about pretending to be in love with someone for some reason, then falling in love for real, though Asagi’s route had nothing about that, as it entirely skipped that conflict. Even its Pretend Time wasn’t about Chiyuki pretending, but telling the truth.

What if this route is short simply because there is no need for too much conflict, as Chiyuki never had to pretend to begin with, and being truthful is what ultimately leads her to the truth?

Maybe I’m wrong, but it might as well be! What are your thoughts on this?

Now, with these speculations aside, it’s time for the fabled question; should you play this game? If you are a fan of stories set in the world of the entertainment industry, definitely do give it a try, as you’ll definitely discover something new about it! One note, though, even if you don’t fancy Riku, don’t let that scare you off playing this, as you’ll still have lots of fun even if you don’t fully enjoy his route!

With that said, thanks for reading, and I hope I’ll see you in next Thursday’s Journal Page!

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