Rant: Togainu no chi

    Breaking my review-only based posting for a new kind of post. Because I don't want to do only one thing in this blog, that would be boring, and there are some games that need more talking than just a short review. Case in hand, and the primary reason why I'm starting this new section to begin with: Togainu no chi.

    Fair warning before I get started, this will be a long post detailing my thoughts about different aspects of the game, and it will have lots of spoilers for all of the routes. If you don't want to read spoilers, I also wrote a spoiler-free review that you can read here. To be clear, this is mostly me nitpicking, I really liked the game despite all I complain in this post. Also, I'm no expert on anything, and these are just the opinions and impressions I had as I played the game. And keep in mind English isn't my first language, this post has a lot of text and some grammar might be off, nobody's perfect and I'm doing this for funsies. Alright, with that out of the way, let's get started!

    Nitro+ Chiral is known for being the development team behind some of the most notorious BL games in the visual novel genre. They're the ones behind widely known titles such as Lamento -Beyond the Void-, Sweet Pool and, considered by many as the crown jewel of their catalog, DRAMAtical Murder, among others. Well, Togainu no chi was their first BL title. 

Visuals

    As I mentioned in my review, Togainu no chi is an old visual novel. It was released in 2005, and honestly, it shows. It oozes early 2000's dark edgy aesthetic in every visual and dialogue, it's in the long black coats, the aspect ratio, the synth based noisy OST, the 3D rendered background pictures with heavy textures. It's everywhere. And yet, this made it quite charming for me. While the art style was something I had to get used to, the edgy visuals did bring me a sense of nostalgia, and they fit the brutal story too.

    Now, my main problem with this game's visuals weren't the edgy aesthetic or the art style used for the characters... It was the designs. They're so basic it's almost infuriating. The main character designs were very obviously made to fit the character archetypes. The cute boy is blonde and has blue eyes; the older, roughed up man has tanned skin, stubble and needs a haircut; the childhood friend has the most basic design you could ever think of; and the "cool" character is fully dressed in black leather, together with a black coat and a katana in a nice little edgy anime boy starter pack. These designs are wildly uninteresting for a set of main characters, but I'll get into each of these more in depth later.

    But then you see the designs for the villains. The villains are equally designed after their archetypes: 

    Without getting too much into the story just yet, there are three main villains: Arbitro, who looks like a minor villain mostly written for comedic relief; and Gunji and Kiriwar, Arbritro's main henchmen, who are designed to be opposites of one another. Gunji is skinny, his skin is pale, his hair is blonde; Kiriwar is big and muscular, his skin is dark, his hair is black. Gunji has tattoos, Kiriwar has scars. Gunji's weapon of choice is a pair of claws with three blades each, so he attacks by slashing his opponents; Kiriwar's weapon of choice is a big pipe, so his attacks are based on blunt force. Gunji is a knife, Kiriwar is a club. What I'm saying is, this duo is well designed. They're not novelty concepts, but they embrace their archetypes in an interesting way. As opposed by the main characters.

    And then there's the secondary characters, or the extras. Cases such as Takeru and Kau. These characters are pretty unimportant, they have some weight in the story, but if you were to take them out, not much would change. And yet their designs don't reflect this.

    Takeru's design feels almost overloaded, unnecessary. With the bright colors, the edgy-but-not-really black leather clothes, the accessories. He looks like he belongs in a different game. It's not until you see his flashback (in which he looks like the most regular guy ever) that it makes sense. They never explain why he's wearing an eyepatch, or why he dyed his hair. But it doesn't matter, because the objective of his design is to tell you that he left his home long ago, and that he's changed a lot during that time. His design alone tells you this bit of him. And while the design itself isn't especially good, it does add depth to the character.

    Kau is a different case. The one single reason for Kau (a character that appears in only a few scenes) to have such an intricate design is pure shock value. His design includes several body modifications that strongly remind the reader of hardcore BDSM together with his "outfit". He is quite literally introduced as a dog, before Akira can see him more closely and realize that he's actually human. He is barely a character. He acts like an animal, he doesn't say a single word ever as his eyes and vocal chords have been removed. His few scenes with Arbitro, together with his design, exist only to give more depth to Arbitro as a character. Kau is there to shock you from time to time and remind you of what Arbitro, though he's a weak and ridiculous man, is capable of doing.

    And this is why the basic designs of the main characters make me so mad. The people who designed these characters obviously knew what they were doing. They knew how to make interesting designs that told stories by itselves, that complement the character. Yet it seems like the less lines a character had, the more they tried to convey with their design alone, I suppose it could be to make up for the lack of dialogue. Whatever the reason, it makes it hard to relate to or even like the main characters sometimes, while the secondaries or the extras catch your attention a lot more easily.

    Sadly, the designs are not the only issue with this game's visuals, though they're the only issue that's hard to ignore.

    As I mentioned, part of the game's charm comes from its age. The popular aesthetics of the early 2000's have become quite iconic 20 years later, and nowadays we look back at them with a mix of cringe and nostalgia. The dark aesthetics did seem to be even more popular on Japanese media, where animes/mangas like Death Note or Darker than Black became popular because they featured such dark visuals. Togainu no chi takes most of its visuals directly from this trend, and in the process... Doesn't seem to pay much attention to how good the result actually looks.

    While it worked well for the most part, there was one element that didn't take the aesthetic choice well, one element that, being unique to videogames, had way less places to take inspiration from: the UI.

    You just have to take one look at this hell of overly saturated unnecessary patterns and crammed save icons to see that they didn't have much idea of what they were going for here. Much of the game's UI is overloaded with information, and can be distracting. Most likely aiming for a dark visual that reminded the players of blood, the main color of the interface is red. All, or most, of the menu elements are red-on-black or white-on-red. The high saturation of the tones, together with the lack of shading or ornaments in these elements, don't do this game's UI any favors.

    Luckily, you don't usually see the save screen too much at all, and the design choices for the UI don't pay off so terribly in the rest of the menus. They're still not good looking, but they're not as awful. So, not as bad an issue as the basic main character designs.

Story

    It's safe to say that this is the first long visual novel that I play from beginning to end, unlocking all endings and CG's. I have played VNs for many years, but I have never finished any of the long ones. I would play the routes of the characters I was interested on and leave it at that. The fact that the vast majority of long VNs I've played are otomes (so they had a female MC) doesn't help. But the differences between otomes, bishoujos and BL's are a subject for another post.

    Story wise, Togainu no chi can only be described as brutal. The majority of the game takes place in a lawless wasteland of abandoned buildings in which people are actively encouraged to kill each other. People live in constant tension, paranoia. The worldbuilding in this game is written specifically to justify the constantly tense atmosphere.

    The story development was one of the things I enjoyed the most. TnC starts with a fairly easy premise: Akira has to survive and fight his way through Igra, get the right tags to challenge Il Re, and defeat him. Then he can come back home to his life. And for the first hours of the story, it goes exactly like this. He learns how life works in Toshima, he meets friends and enemies, fights some people. But then there's a turning point: Akira and Keisuke have a fight, and Keisuke leaves Akira's side. From this point of the game on, Akira's motives change drastically. He forgets about his mission, and all of his efforts are centered around recovering his friend. He will then go on to find out that Keisuke wants to kill him. This is the point where the story divides into different paths, depending on your prior choices. At some point in my first playthrough, I noticed that Akira's mission, or the tags, or Il Re hadn't been mentioned in a while. The evolution of Akira's motives and objectives was very well executed.

    Some of the main villains' motives are weak, though. We don't know why Nano uses Shiki as a middleman to distribute Rein. Shiki looks utterly disinterested in the drug or Igra as a whole, and we can only guess he's looking for a worthy opponent to fight, or something like that. Shiki also looks pretty set on killing Nano, so... Why does he only do it at the end of his route if they see each other regularly? Why do Gunji and Kiriwar serve Arbitro? They're said to seek the thrill of the chase, but what stops them from just being regular fighters with free will? If Nano is said to have given up on life, why doesn't he allow Emma to kill him? There are many unanswered questions.

    Still, the characters were probably one of the best parts of the game. Visual designs aside, the main characters were generally likeable and didn't feel plain. However, even though the game has a long play time, the story isn't particularly long. I never counted the days that pass in game, but I don't think Akira spends more than one or two weeks in Toshima. Because of this, none of the romances in any route can develop properly, and they mostly feel quite forced. Each route is different, though, and each has its own good and bad things, so let's take them apart one by one.

Characters and routes

Akira

    Akira is the MC, or main character, of the game. The first scene in the game presents him as a tough guy, the undefeated champion of Bl@ster, as he is shown knocking his opponent out with a single hit. At the beginning of the game, Akira doesn't give a shit about anything at all. Not others, not himself, not his life. It can be kind of frustrating, because the guy doesn't seem to have any ideas of values of his own at all, but the truth is that this gives way to a nice character development. His time on Toshima will teach him to care about things. He will see love, hate, lust and death up close, and he will be taught harsh lessons that will soften his stone heart. His fight with Keisuke will teach him how much he had taken his friend for granted, Takeru will teach him to be passionate, and Takeru's death will teach him that death is more than a mechanical process. In the end, Akira becomes a totally different person. Some part of this transformation is almost funny: he starts as a tough, ice-hearted guy, and ends as a textbook tsundere.

    Design wise, Akira is... Some guy. The cold color palette fits him well, but apart from the gray hair and blue eyes, he really has no defining features except, maybe, for his jacket. I really believe he should have something else, a scar or a set of scars would probably be ideal, seeing as he's basically a professional fighter, and he was put through experimental procedures as a kid.

    In general, I would say Akira is a pretty enjoyable main character. He doesn't feel basic, which is a pretty extended issue in visual novel MCs, and reading how his opinions and values evolved so strongly over the course of the gameplay made him feel pretty three dimensional as a character.

Keisuke

    Keisuke is Akira's childhood friend, because every visual novel needs a childhood friend. He's a kind, sweet guy that's been secretly in love with Akira for years, but has always been too afraid to tell him about his feelings. He cares so much about his friend that when Akira tells him about his secret mission in Toshima, he decides to secretly follow him and join him without asking. Keisuke is caring, but he's also weak and clumsy. So when Akira finds himself stuck with him in a lawless wasteland, he isn't very happy. Eventually, they will have a fight that will push Keisuke to take Rein, and the drug will turn him into an aggressive maniac and a serial killer. This is the main plot of the second half of the game, regardless of the route that's being played.

    I'd argue that Keisuke's route is the "main" one, since he is a very important character, even in other routes. The first playthrough is likely to have a Keisuke ending (there are three), because most choices of the common route are about him. This route is probably one of the best ones, because of Keisuke's character evolution. Much like Akira, Keisuke is basically a different person at the end of his route (in the good ending anyway). He starts as a shy klutz that Akira sees as a burden, but because of the story, by the end of the route he's a lot stronger and more confident, but just as kind and caring.

    Keisuke's design, however, doesn't match the quality of his route. He has the most basic design of the game, he is the prime example of what I was complaining about earlier. The earth-toned colors definitely fit a humble, quiet but kind guy like him, but he's got no defining features whatsoever. Short brown hair, brown eyes. That's it. Other characters refer to him as "the guy in blue coveralls", because he really has nothing recognizable in his design, and it's super frustrating.

    Still, Keisuke is my favourite character, his evolution from awkward wimp to homicidal maniac to strong gentle boyfriend was one of my favourite things in the whole game, and his route was also the one I enjoyed the most. Extra points for having the most gory ending, too.

Rin

    This is a long one because I have a lot to complain about, so buckle up. Rin was done dirty in this game. Despite being one of the main love interests, and being an important character up until the point where the common route ends, he is basically a glorified extra after said point. But let's start from the beginning.

    Rin fills the role of the "cute one" in the roster of characters with their own route. His route is based on the apparearances can be misleading trope, which is honestly not surprising. It's not really a shock or a plot twist when it's revealed that his friendly demeanor is a cover, because Akira has been suspicious of him from the moment they met. He's also the only openly gay character, save for Arbitro (and Shiki, I guess). Personality wise, he's an absolute mess of a guy. Constant moodswings and a desire to die with a purpose due to a deep feeling of guilt, which makes the love story part quite... Bumpy. When he isn't having a mental breakdown, though, he's the energetic, cheerful one, and something tells me that if his route gave him two seconds to breathe, he'd be one sassy bitch.

    Rin's route has a tight connection with Shiki's, but it is the most detached from the main story of them all. In this route, Akira never finds out about the origin of Rein, or what the deal with his blood is, or about Nano, or his childhood. Rin's route is kind of... "closed off" to the rest of the story, which annoyed me a little. Rin feels like an afterthought, really.

    My main problem with Rin is that he is introduced as a very important character, he's the one that helps Akira and Keisuke out at first, and it really feels like he's gonna have some weight on the story. But then, when you reach the point where you leave the common route and start following a specific path, Rin just... evaporates. No, he doesn't die to be taken out of the way of other characters. He is literally never mentioned again in most routes. I only remember Rin being mentioned once in passing in Shiki's route, when Shiki comes back from killing him. Keisuke dies in all routes that aren't his own, but at least he does die. Motomi isn't mentioned in all routes, but he does make an apperance in some of them, even surviving until the end. Shiki is also not mentioned in other routes, but that's because Shiki has one scene in the common route, and you won't see anything of him unless you're pursuing his route, so it wouldn't make sense for his character to get closure in other endings. But Rin just... disappears. One route, one ending, that's all he gets.

    Complaints about his apparent lack of importance aside, Rin also has a very basic design, though not as basic as Keisuke's. Being the "cute boy", he has blond hair and big blue eyes, and is shorter than the rest of the characters. A few details make him look more androgynous, the skirt-looking shorts being the most obvious one. His clothes are probably his most outstanding feature, and they are a perfect representation of the early 2000's alternative aesthetic. The unnecessary belts (especially the one in his neck? what is that about), the checkered patterns, the weirdly cut shirt, the boots, it all screams "emo in 2005".

    In conclusion, Rin's route and the treatment of the character disappointed me. I have a thing for cute characters so I was really excited for Rin. But even his own route wasn't too good, and he didn't have much development as a character, the story instead focusing on showing us how weak he is (which is a plot hole in of itself but oh well), and how bad (and unrealistic) his trust issues are. His only development is "I now allow myself to trust Akira enough to be his lover". But that doesn't matter, because immediately after solving the romantic tension, he leaves and doesn't come back until five years later. While this made way for an interesting ending, I did miss some fluff for a good ending.

Motomi

    Motomi is "the older guy". He is and looks more mature than the rest, and has a fatherly figure aura. In fact, his son is said to be around Akira's age. He works as an information broker in Toshima, and is not a fighter, so he's always there to help the rest of the characters out, since he's much wiser than the others, and also has more resources. His personality is what you'd expect from a father figure archetype: he's always calm, trying to keep a cold head when looking for solutions, but usually cheerful in a gentle way, as opposed to Rin's energetic kind of cheerfulness. He's also very playful and always teasing Akira, which makes for a very fluffy route that I loved.

    His route was fine, pretty basic actually. But not in a bad way. It wasn't boring, but it didn't have anything that stood out to me. It was exactly what I was expecting from a normal route from this game. Along with Keisuke's, it was probably one of the most romantic routes of them all. Unfortunately, he only had one sex scene, but the build up of said scene was so good that I didn't even mind. This is the route that gives you more details about Akira's past, and some Arbitro backstory that I appreciated. Sadly, Motomi got only one ending. The ending itself was very cute, it left me with a good feeling, but I missed a bad Motomi ending, maybe. One in which he completed his objective instead of forgetting about it to stay with Akira. But oh well. I did get more than I got with Rin.

    Motomi's design is, again, very basic. Being the older, more mature guy, they tried to give him a "I've lived for longer and have seen a lot of stuff" look by making his skin tan. They also tried to give him a "man that has abandoned himself" vibe by giving him slightly longer hair, stubble and making him smoke a lot. Apart from that, brown hair with brown eyes, you can't get more basic than that. But at least it's not as bad as Keisuke. His palette is equally basic, all the colors in his sprite are shades of brown, apart from black and white. But overall, I don't think this design is as bad as the rest. Motomi's design does tell you a little about him, at least.

Shiki

    All main characters in this game fit an spectific archetype, and Shiki is no exception. He's "the cool character". This game is from the time when the definition of cool were "black leather" and "katanas", so of course, he has both. But I'll leave that for the design section. I found Shiki to be quite an odd character, and his route felt out of place too. It's like a detour from the main story, a very... kinky one.

    Shiki's route is supposed to be "the hot one", but you can also call it "the Stockholm syndrome one". It consists on Akira and Shiki finding each other all the time, until Shiki gets kind of obsessed with Akira and kidnaps him to make him his... Personal entertainer? This route has a bunch of sex scenes, which is nice, but the whole story doesn't make much sense. For example, it's later revealed that Shiki hasn't really kidnapped Akira, and he can actually leave at any time and continue looking for Keisuke. But he just... Doesn't. Not even he knows why. The way Akira acts has little to no basis in this route, and that frustrates me.

    Shiki's route has three endings, which leads me to assume that it's one of the main routes, but none of the endings are... normal. This actually makes a lot of sense. Shiki and Akira start their relationship on some weird, toxic, codepedent, overly sexual terms, so it's obvious that that's not going to end well. Still, two of the three endings were pretty enjoyable. The last one (the "good one") was just sad. And although I undertstand why this route's endings are so... Extreme, I also missed some Shiki and Akira fluff.

    Design wise, Shiki has, once again, a very basic look. All in black, black hair, red eyes, a long coat to be dramatic, some metallic touches here and there. A katana. He's the definition of an early 2000's anime "dark boy". I spent most of my entire playthrough referring to him as The Utimate Edgelord. This design knew exactly where it was going. And honestly, it didn't do such a bad job. This one has a higher level of detail, and it breaks the color palette pattern of the others. Shiki's design is proof that the basic designs could work, if only they had put some more thought into them. I miss some novelty, but I do appreciate that they knew where they were going with this, and they went hard.

    I have mixed feelings about Shiki and his route. I enjoyed the route, but I couldn't stand Shiki as a character. He's too busy being cool to feel like he has a purpose, a reason to do things, or any kind of character evolution. He's arrogant and kind of a POS, honestly. I also don't undertand why or how does Akira fall for him. One day, boom, love. I feel like the whole route has a more fanservic-y tone than the others, so full of sex and so empty of a sense or purpose.

Nano

    Nano's route is the "secret" route, judging by how the achievement of his ending is a hidden achievement on Steam. It's also the route you're supposed to play last. In fact, I'm not sure about this being the case, but it wouldn't suprise me if the route is locked and unpursuable until you're done completing all others. So this route exists to wrap everything up in a pretty little bow, and not leave any threads hanging. It even clears up the minor mysteries that didn't feel that important and I was fully expecting to never hear of again, but it was nice to have that extra depth added to the characters and the story. I've read somewhere that Nano's ending is the "true" ending of the game, too. But peculiarities about his route aside, let's talk about Nano.

    Nano (also known as Nicole Premier o just n in the story, though his real name is never revealed), is essentially the guy behind everything. He's the source of Rein and the person who gave Shiki and Arbitro the idea and the possibility to fund Igra. He's also the reason Akira is sent to Toshima in the first place, and the reason why Akira's blood has the capabilities it has. Most of the main endings tell you who Nano is and what he does, though, it's not really a mystery after the first playthrough.

    Nano fills the role of "the weird/mysterious one", and his personality is... Nonexistent? His whole deal is that he's dead inside, lost, empty. He wanders Toshima looking for a purpose, and is naturally drawn to Akira in this search. Despite being a literal living weapon, the strongest character in the game, and having a desire to kill everyone and everything because he feels like everyone should suffer, he's actually not a violent guy. He just makes sure everyone has access to his blood and leaves them to kill each other. Which was nice for a change, with everyone else having such a thirst for death.

    Nano's design is purposefully bland, and while it's not a bad design, I always had this weird feeling that the visuals of the character and the narrative descriptions of him didn't line up that well. Still, while the design feels, again, a bit basic, in this case it makes sense. Nano is described as something like an "alive ghost". His color palette consists in different shades of light brown, with the exception of his eyes (that are said to change from blue to purple, but this is never shown). His design does reflect, somewhat, his dull personality, but his descriptions paint his mannerisms and movement as almost alien-like, so it's hard to imagine the character, sometimes. I also felt lke his voice didn't fit him. With a design like this, I was expecting a very soft voice, but he has an incredibly deep voice instead.

    His route was enjoyable, anyway. It was nice to finally get to know this mysterious character that made an apparearance in most routes, and he ended up being quite likeable. The evolution of Nano as a character was also good to see, to see him slowly open up, to see Akira teaching him that he can't find a purpose, but he can make one. Nano discovered that not all in life was pain, and gave life another chance with Akira. It was a pretty story to read. I also liked that other characters like Keisuke or Motomi had some more protagonism in this route, so it wasn't all about Nano.

OST and Sound design

    It's complaining time again! The OST was arguably the worst part of the game. I truly don't know if it's because of technologic limitations, or if that music style was trending at the time and I'm just looking at it through a modern lens. Now, I don't know as much about music as I do about art (so this section will be short as I really don't have that much to say), so I might just be wrong here. But I know that I didn't like the music at all.

    The game's main theme is very noisy. It's a synth party with no instrument variety through the piece, and the loop is very short. This track is fitting for action scenes (in fact, it's also the music used on some action scenes), but it's weird to hear it in the title screen, first thing after you open the game.

    Other tracks are either annoying or very forgettable. One in particular, one of the more emotionally charged ones, was specially annoying. This was a piece that mostly featured violins (maybe only violins, I don't remember any other instruments), and wasn't all that bad. The loop was long, the melody wasn't anything special, but it didn't bother me. But at some point towards the end of the piece, it has this very long build up that is suddenly cut and has no resolution at all whatsoever. This part made my ears cringe whenever it came up. I started preparing mentally for the cut when I heard the start of the build up, it was that bad.

    The sound design isn't much better, but at least it's not as terrible. The voice acting really was great, but the sound effects... Let's just say some of them feel like they just downloaded a bunch of free use effects last minute and went with that. It wasn't really that much of an issue, though, it's normal for sound effects to be taken from stock libraries. So most of the time, they didn't stand out to me for being too bad, because I wasn't expecting much to begin with. The UI sound effects felt more out of place than the story-related ones, but I got used to it after a while.

Let's talk homophobia

    Because this was a subject I wanted to touch. TnC is a BL game, so it's a game with graphic depictions of romance featuring only gay male relationships. This often includes sex scenes, and many of them have a more pornographic than romantic purpose. Nowadays, yaoi content is pretty stigmatized, with a group of people defending that enjoying BL is fetishizing gay men. Well, not that long ago, it was the other way around. Instead of condemning those who enjoyed gay stories in a sexual manner because it can be insensitive to gay people, they were condemned because... You know, homophobia.

    We have to remember that Togainu no chi was released in Japan in 2005. That was almost 20 years ago, and when the world wasn't as globalized as it is now. People weren't as aware of social issues as they are now, and the homophobia discourse wasn't as spread. On top of that, this was Japan, a country known for having quite conservative views. So all of this explains why this game, despite being a romance novel focused on homosexuality, has a thin layer of internalized homophobia that coats many dialogues.

    For instance, only a few characters are openly gay, and they're not painted in the best light. Rin is probably the most open one. He doesn't flaunt his sexuality, but he's the only one to mention having had male crushes before Akira. However, Rin says stuff along the lines of "I bet you think it's gross, getting it on with another guy". In an attempt to make Akira think he's scum so he can push him away, one of the reasons he gives him is basically that he likes guys, and on top of that, he likes Akira.

    Another example is Takeru's description of gay sex. Now, this situation is a bit different, because Takeru, as far as we know, is straight, and has only had sex with men for money. But as he tells Akira this, he emphasizes how "Having sex with another man leaves you stripped of pride" (paraphrasing). It sounds like he's talking more about assault than about gay sex. He feels this way because he didn't want to participate in those acts, he just needed the money, but the way he frames it feels like the problem isn't selling his body, it's doing so to other men.

    Then, there's the characters that aren't openly gay. Keisuke, Motomi and Akira are the most notable ones. They go full No Homo even while having sex with a guy, so they all put an excuse for their attraction. Keisuke says he isn't gay, he simply has never felt attracted to anyone apart from Akira, and Akira happens to be a guy (so he's demi, I guess?). And Motomi says something along the lines of the beauty of the spirit being on the inside and having nothing to do with gender (yeah okay that sounds a lot like being bi/pan but with extra steps). Akira's internal monologue says that he just doesn't see anyone in a romantic or sexual light to begin with, because he doesn't like people (so he has an aro/ace vibe until the end of the routes).

    Another instance of the internalized homophobia is how gay sex is often equated with assault. This is a common theme in yaoi, too. Out of all the sex scenes that Togainu no chi has (about 10? probably more, I haven't counted), I only remember a few that didn't feature Akira saying "no" at some point. And while I get these are fantasies and I don't judge them because we all know that videogames don't represent reality or make you a violent person, it is a good example of what I mean.

Conclusions

    So, my hot takes about the game are: Kau needed more screen time, Rin deserved better, the main character designs are uninteresting, and Shiki's route doesn't make any sense. However, Togainu no chi has helped me recover the love for both BL and long visual novels, a love that I thought long lost. I can safely say that this game has made an impact for the better in my life, and I'm very glad that I bought it and played through the whole thing. I almost wish I could forget about it so I could play it all over again.

    I have fallen in love with most of the characters, I have started drawing fanart again thanks to this game. I understand it's not a game for everyone, so full of violence (straight up hardcore gore in some instances), and kind of standing in such an unstable moral ground (as explained in the homophobia section). But I still recommend it with all my heart. I have learned things with this game, it has made me think a lot, as evidenced by the existence of this rant post. I can't wait to read other titles from Nitro+ Chiral and see how the catalog evolves. Because if this is their first BL game, I can't imagine how good the latest will be.

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If you've read this far, thank you! I hope you liked my little rant.

You can buy Togainu no Chi -Lost Blood- on Steam or on JAST USA.

Thanks for reading!

All images used in this entry are there for illustrative purposes only. Credits go to the respective owners.