Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

Been a while since I was this captured by a visual novel's sense of humor. Even though the common route did in fact take a good 12 hours to read through, and it was basically all fun and lighthearted comedy, it never became a drag for me. I was just really enjoying myself.

Just quickly mentioning this, the common route is almost completely linear. There are only three choices until you get to the more important choices that actually determine how the plot continues. I didn't mind it, but if you dislike the kinetic sort of visual novel and prefer to take a more active role in how things develop that might be a problem for you.

The major cast consists of six characters. Yuuji is the protagonist and the only noteworthy male character in the entire visual novel so far. He's a total badass and kind of a Gary Stu. Gotta admit, it's satisfying not to see him lose his trout over risqué situations like most other VN protagonists, but just stay composed or play along instead.

The heroines are all as quirky as you'd expect from any highschool anime setting. Sachi is the class representative and takes her dedication to her duties a bit... too seriously. Any request from a classmate she will immediatly and instantly fulfill. Her usual attire is a maid uniform because one of the classmates once jokingly told her to wear one whenever she could. She also develops some sharp wit over the course of the common route, which was hilarious to see.

Well, at least he didn't make a song out of it and sing it together with your best fri-- oh wait...

Amane has the 'older sister' kind of personality, and does not hide the fact that she has the hots for Yuuji. In everyday interactions she's probably the most normal of the girls, and she's the only one capable of keeping up with Yuuji's conversations without being made fun of. I've actually already read her route and I appreciate the in-depth look into her character and motivations that came with it. If all the routes are like that, I won't have any complaints.

The young one in the group is Makina. At first she's really timid but once she warms up to Yuuji she becomes surprisingly sharp-witted. She and Amane have sort of a younger-sister-older-sister relationship, and she looks up to Yuuji as if he were her older brother or even father. I don't know if her route turns that into romance, but if not it'd make for a nice change of pace.

Michiru - or Chiruchiru as Makina likes to call her - is a tsundere and proud of it. Quite literally. Watching her purposefully spout the most cliché lines you could think of is funnier than I'd expected it to be. And then she's nearly constantly made fun of for being an idiot by, well, everyone else. The majority of her lines are spoken in screaming volume which got on my nerves sometimes though.

Finally we have Yumiko, identified by Makina as the "kuudere" character. She doesn't often interact with the others as she prefers being left alone and has a short fuse. First time she meets Yuuji, he manages to piss her off enough to make her attack him with a box cutter on sight for the next few days. But she warms up to Yuuji and the rest of the girls more and more as time goes on.

Sometimes it's blatant that this is, in fact, a censored version of an 18+ visual novel. You take the 18+ version, cut the H scenes, put a bra (or a dense layer of soap bubbles) on the girls when they're normally be topless, and sell that as an all-ages game; that's how the Steam release feels at times. Not that I mind it, I'm all for keeping within the spirit of the original. It's just a little strange cause I actually remember there being large complaints about the "large amount of censorship" in the all-ages version. Can't say I had that feeling but I guess the only way to check is to wait for the 18+ version to be fully localized.

So there's the common route of Grisaia for you. Certainly one of the most enjoyable common routes I've seen in a visual novel. If you enjoy some good over the top humor consider giving it a try, it might be right up your alley. Although it may be worth waiting for the uncensored version if you don't mind the adult content.