Trivia / Tokimeki Memorial

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• Acting for Two:
  • In Tokimeki Memorial:
    • Yuji Ueda voices both Yoshio Saotome and Yukinojo Sotoi (Rei's butler). He was only credited for Yoshio.
    • Narumi Tsunoda voices Rei Ijuin and Saki's mother. She was only credited for Rei in the game, though in the Drama Series spin-off's first volume, she would be credited for Rei, Saki's mother and the boutique shopkeeper.
    • In addition to voicing Mira Kagami, Rei Igarashi voices Yukari Koshiki's mother in the radio drama.
    • Shiho Kikuchi, Miharu Tatebayashi's voice actress, also voices Noriko in the radio drama's 10th episode.
  • In Tokimeki Memorial 2:
    • Miho Yamada voices Maeka Kudanshita, Koji Yotsuya and the part-time Bancho.
    • Emi Motoi voices Sumire Nozaki as well as a housewife and a grandmother.
    • Besides voicing Hitomi Akai in the main game, Motoko Kumai voices Homura Akai in the Substories spin-off's second volume.
    • Norio Wakamoto voices Kaoru Ichimonji, Ko Kidokawa and a komuso.
    • Takehiro Murozono voices Sakunoshin Mihara, Chota Sakuradomon, Akiba Kanda as well as a policeman.
    • Akio Nojima voices Strelitza Nozaki (Sumire's father) and Tekiya in the main series as well as Osawa in the Substories spin-off's second volume.
    • Masaaki Okura voices Mitsuru Iizuka and has some minor roles as a postman, courier and a delinquent.
    • The late Gorō Naya, who voiced Kazumi Batsuretsuzan, also has a minor role as a shrine god, a grandfather and Matagi.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: This series was one of Konami's cash cow back in the late 90s, especially the first game. It had so much merchandise, it even had books detailing said merchandise. Here is a page for a Mad Scientist in the game called Yuina Himoo. And she's not even the main girl, nor the top 3 popular. Yet just her alone spawned so much merchandise, including utensils, albums and pillows.
• Colbert Bump: Tim Rogers did one of his Action Button reviews on Forever With You, which heavily increased interest in the series in the west.
• Creator Couple:
  • Koji "IGA" Igarashi met the woman who would later become his wife during the development of the game, as he would frequently visit the Castlevania: Rondo of Blood team she which she was working on at time, to playtest the game in his lunch breaks. She eventually ended up having a significant impact on the writing of Tokimeki Memorial as Igarashi frequently consulted with her for how to write dialogue for the female characters.
  • With Omi Minami voicing Tamami, both husband and wife, both voice actors by their own right, have now worked for the TokiMemo series. Her husband is Yuji Ueda who played Yoshio in the original Tokimemo game and later Motoharu in the Girl's Side: Second Kiss game.
  • With Show Hayami who voicing Goro and his wife Rei Igarashi who played one of the main datable girls Mira Kagami in the original TokiMemo game, another husband and wife voice actor team have now both appeared in the Tokimemo franchise.
• Executive Meddling: Back then, Konami organized a character poll on the famous magazine Famitsu, in which the readers would decide which character will become the heroine of the second Drama Series game, the would-be Irodori no Love Song. Despite the poll results giving a large victory to Miharu Tatebayashi, for various reasons the producers decided to go with the poll runner-up, Ayako Katagiri. They still later recognized Miharu's popularity by making her the co-heroine of the 3rd Drama Series game, Tabidachi no Uta.
• Fan Translation:
  • The SNES version of the first game is sadly notable for having lots of attempts at creating a translation patch; all of them invariably went to stall for a reason or another. Finally in March 2022, hell has frozen over; the fan translation of the SNES version got released. Added to this, they used the MSU-1 chipset to add the PC Engine intro, fully subtitled as an optional extra.
  • Fans did extensive work on the first Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side game for the Nintendo DS during 2010, and a full, bug-free translation patch was released in December 2010. The Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2 translation was finished and released in May 2011.
• Follow the Leader: It's the game series which defined the non-hentai Dating Sim genre, after all.
• He Also Did: Looking at the credits for the first game reveals that a whole bunch of Konami's more famous developers worked on it. Most prominently, Koji "IGA" Igarashi, known for his work on Castlevania and as the creator Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, is credited as one of the main writers. Meanwhile, Hideo Kojima was credited as director on the spin-off known as the Drama Series.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • All of the main series games are out of print. As a result, they tend to be sold at high prices on Amazon and other retailers, locking out players who started with the new generation of games unless they use emulators or have a friend willing to loan them a copy. While the first and second TokiMemo games are available on the PlayStation Network and the original release of TokiMemo is available on the PC Engine Mini as of 2020, the wallets of those without a PlayStation 3, a PlayStation Portable, a Play Station Vita, a PC Engine Mini or who would rather play the games on their original systems are in for a rough time.
  • The 1999 OVAs based on the first game haven't seen a re-release since the DVDs first hit Japanese shore shelves in 1999.
• No Export for You: None of the games are available outside of Japan, and only two games have had successful Fan Translation efforts.
• Playing Their Own Twin: Hikari Tachibana voices both Shirayuki twins, and as such this occurs in a few scenes where both are present (most notably the Girl with Psycho Weapon scene described above, as well as the scene where they finally reveal their switcheroo game to the protagonist).
• Portmanteau Series Nickname: "TokiMemo"
• Post-Release Retitle: The first TokiMemo game added the forever with you subtitle when it was re-released for the PlayStation in 1995, the Sega Saturn in 1996, Windows 95 in 1997 and the PlayStation Portable in 2006. For the Super Famicom re-release, the Densetsu no Ki no Shita de^note Under the Legendary Tree subtitle was added.
• Referenced by...: Being a defining and popular game series in Japan, the Tokimemo games got their fair share of those in pop culture. To cite a few works containing such parodies: Excel♡Saga, Gintama, Great Teacher Onizuka, Kochikame, La-Mulana, Gravity Falls...
• Role Reprise: In Tokimeki Memorial Online, Mami Kingetsu reprises her role as Shiori Fujisaki for the first time since Tokimeki Memorial 2 Substories ~Memories Ringing On~ (2001).
• Sequel Gap:
  • While somewhat on the lower end of the scale, it would still take five-and-a-half years for Tokimeki Memorial 2 to arrive as a proper sequel for the first game.
  • After a steady drip of new installments in both the main series and the Girl's Side spin-off series between 1999 and 2010, the franchise stalled out after the release of Girl's Side: 3rd Story for the Nintendo DS as the last "proper" game in series (not counting 3rd Story's Updated Re-release for the Playstation Portable in 2012), with the only new releases being much smaller scale spin-offs for Android and iPhone. Much to everyone's surprise, a Girl's Side 4th Heart game was eventually announced in 2019 for the Nintendo Switch with a loose release date of 2020, but complications from the COVID-19 Pandemic caused it to be postponed to October 2021. This marks a gap of 11 years between full installments in the series.
• Star-Making Role: Mami Kingetsu became famous for her role as Shiori Fujisaki and went on to have a successful career.
• What Could Have Been: According to the Japanese version of The Other Wiki, Yukari Koshiki is a shining example of this trope. Indeed, Yukari's initial name was Shouko Hoshino (星野翔子), but because the PC-Engine’s Kanji system couldn’t display the kanji 翔 (shou), her name was changed to the current "Yukari Koshiki". Even more memorable is that, in the game's development's initial stage, she was planned to be the game's second heroine at Shiori's side (and be hostile towards her), but the idea was ultimately scrapped. Her personality was also radically different: she was planned as a Delinquent instead of the Cloud Cuckoo Lander she is in the final version. Finally, there was a planned game sequence in which, when you phone her to set a date, sometimes the call would be redirected to her dad's cellphone: a brilliant idea that was also scrapped in the end. Several of those ideas would be used 15 years later in Tokimeki Memorial 4, to create Yukari's Expy, Kai Ryukochi.

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