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Charon, also known as Studio Charon in recent works, is a doujin circle primarily lead by individual Kaoru Nekofuji, creating freeware, narrative-focused Visual Novel games. These are mostly made with Tyranoscript at present, but primarily used RPG Maker in the 2010s. They sometimes use other engines like Wolf RPG Editor and Unity as well.

The games she has made, with their own pages, are:

Some of her other games are:

  • Fake World's End - Episode 1
  • PARANOIA (Japanese only)
  • Vanilla - Garden Of Judgement-
  • Kaleido Stella
  • Yumemi Melancholy (Charon's first Web Games)
  • Haitoku Shirene
  • Kubitori Sarasa
  • Asami Escape (Japanese only)
  • Traumermaid (Charon's first Crossover game, collaborating with Tsubasa Heaven)
  • Healing Rain Sounds – Amayadori –
  • Operation Kiyu-pitto (Japanese only)
  • Runaway Girl
  • ''I want to cheat!'"
  • Princess Cage
  • Yona Yona (Japanese only)
  • Yanderain (Japanese only)
  • Shiniisogu Bokura (Japanese only)
  • Pachinka's Road (Japanese only)
  • Fake World's End at 4 am

Charon also created a Web Animation called Yandere Opera, which is available on her YouTube channel here.

Her website can also be found here as well.


Tropes common to Charon's works include:

  • Attempted Rape: In Makoto Mobius, The Dark Side of Little Red Riding Hood, You, Me and Empty Words, its sequel You, Me and Secrets, and Vanilla -Garden Of Judgements-.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Since a majority of her characters are Yanderes, the True Ends often end with them getting away with murder.
  • Character Overlap: Ever since Bokko Youchien, Charon had commonly started adding characters from her previous works as cameos in her recent games.
    • Ayano of Mix Ore had appeared in Bokko Youchien as a Kindergarten teacher at Mitarou and Kotomi's school.
    • Mikoto of the titular Mikoto Nikki had made an appearance in Bokko Youchien as well in the playable epilogue, where she had revealed to have married Matarou and had a son named Mitarou.
      • She also appears in the Mobile Phone Game, Utsuro Nikki, as a younger version of herself.
    • In Fake World's End, pretty much the entire cast from the previous Charon games appears all together as students attending the same school, including the very much alive Yukimaru and Sanae.
    • Rikana not only did have her own spin-off and made an appearance in the said-above game, but she made a guest appearance in the web series, Yandere Opera.
    • Yukimaru is the most recurrent character in the Charon universe, despite being a minor character. He first appeared in Mikoto Nikki as Mikoto's deceased boyfriend and later, appears in Menherefflesia (as Itarou's best friend), Fake World's End (as one of the students in Taro's school), Dice Psycho and Vanilla: Garden of Judgement (as Soyo's lover when she was alive).
    • Tsukimi appears in the recent game, Kaleido Stella, where she is still alive and had married Utarou, but Utarou still died from his illness.
      • Angelica and her sister Demonica from The Cradle of Ruin also appear in Kaleido Stella.
    • Somehow inverted with former mascot, Misato, from Paranoia, where she made her debut in Menherafflesia during the epilogue. This could count as an Ascended Extra, due to her prominent role in Charon's next game. However, Paranoia was stated to be in development from prior to Menherafflesia, but just never had an official release.
  • Curtains Match the Window: Most of her characters have the same color for their hair and eyes.
  • Driven to Suicide: Some characters will have suicidal thoughts and may or may not attempt to take their own life. It is worth giving a trigger warning for those who may be sensitive to the dark subject.
  • Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Most of her characters will have this at least once when they encounter something painful or something that they don't like.
    • The male leads typically have these eyes. It's unknown if it's to reflect their blank slate for the player or if they're just stoic.
  • Four Is Death: She seems to like using this trope.
    • In Yanderella, both True Ends have the Woman Scorned kill Yatarou and the girl he gave the bunny to on the fourth day.
    • In Mix Ore, Kantarou or his selected girl will die horribly on the fourth day. However, depending on the ending, Kantarou might live.
    • In Utsuro Nikki, all of the free Day 4 endings are bad endings, with 2/3 involving somebody's death.
  • Kid Hero: Typically, especially so in the older games, the player characters are teenagers. There's a few exceptions, such as Mitarou and Hotarou being children, or Katsurou and Tetsurou being grown adults.
  • Last-Second Ending Choice: Especially common in older games, but becomes less common in later games.
    • The only thing that all the choices in Mikoto Nikki do is add small character moments. It's the choice when you go into the closet that sets up the ending.
    • Most of the choices in Yanderella don't really matter. True, you can choose which girl you get to see each night. However, the choice that really determines your ending is who gets the stuffed bunny.
    • While the choices in Mix Ore determine what kind of character Kantarou is, the only choice that influences the ending is how you respond to your respective girl.
  • Multiple Endings: Her games almost always have at least two endings available.
  • Not Quite the Right Thing: In some of the earlier games, the "Bad Ends" are actually the happier endings in comparison to the True Ends. However, this became less common later on.
  • Odd Name Out: There are a few male leads that have names that don't end with "-rou:"
    • Blanco from Vanilla -Garden Of Judgement-. Averted as his real name is revealed to be Shirou.
    • You, Me And Secrets had the male protagonist being named Aoi - a far-cry from the traditional "-tarou" namings.
    • Kaleido Stella introduces Manako, the lead male of the game with just the "-o" or "-ou" being the only thing that was partially close to being part of Charon's name theme.
  • Series Mascot: The bunny that always appears as a save point in and every one of Charon's game.
    • Prior to this, however, Misato from Paranoia was essentially a mascot for Charon's, appearing in several games and loading screens.
  • Signature Style: There are a lot that stand out with this game maker:
    • The protagonist almost always has a name ending with "-rou".
    • A bunny icon is used as a save point for most of her games.
    • Primarily tragic endings. Endings are commonly categorized as "bad" or "true", but different types of endings such as "if" and "good" can be found in recent games.
    • At least one character is a Yandere or menhera of some sort.
  • Smurfette Principle: Most of the player characters are male. Exceptions to this include Misato and Parasa from Paranoia, Little Red Riding Hood from The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood, fandiscs, and the unnamed girl from Visiting Shrine at Night. Shiniisogu Bokura also includes both Shiki and Katsurou as protagonists.
  • Together in Death: There's often endings involving both the protagonist and the heroine dying. Examples include Yanderes trying to pull a Murder-Suicide so that this can happen for them and their loved one, or some other form of tragedy striking.
  • Story to Gameplay Ratio: A good portion of Charon's works are heavily story-centric with minimal to no actual gameplay. Earlier games included "gameplay" focused on moving the player character around a map and either selecting an item or going to a certain location, whereas later games cut out gameplay entirely. The only works that are styled like traditional games are Mikoto Nikki where Matarou explores Mikoto's house and uncovers her diary scraps in specific areas, and the 2018 version of Fake World's End, which even included boss fights.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • According to Word of God, there were games that unfinished during development, such as Suicide Soda -Depressive World-, Good Night Sleep, I Will Curse You and The Dark Side Of Rapunzel.
      • As of 2024, The Dark Side Of Rapunzel has resumed development.
    • She was also collaborating with the same maker who did Millefiori with another game called Shizuku Symmetry, though only the BGM has been made available through Niconico.
  • World of Technicolor Hair: Most of her characters tend to have unusual hair colors like reddish-purple, blue, gray, purple, pink, and other colors.

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