Visual Novel / Aoi Shiro

Watery slumber in the Lapis Lazuli palace...

"My grandmother, who passed away long ago, loved to travel. Strange landscapes. Unfamiliar people. She loved meeting new people…She would say, those raised under a high ceiling will grow taller—and seeing the world makes a person bigger. During the summer vacation of my second year in high school, I too went on a trip far away. It was a training camp for extracurricular activities, but it was by no mistake a trip. By train and car, we headed to the southern sea. With our swords and gi packed, we headed to teh temple gate of the cape overlooking Oniga Island. It was there I met—. The waxing and waning of the moon, the ebb and flow of the tides, the cycle of destiny that disturbs the surface of the water. I will resist the storm brought about by the dragon who slumbers within the azure shrine."

— Opening Narration

Aoi Shiro (アオイシロ), officially known as Blue Castle in English, is a supernatural Yuri mystery visual novel created in 2008, that takes place within the same universe as Akai Ito, also made by Success.

This time the protagonist is a girl named Syouko Osanai, the new captain of the school kendo team. The kendo team goes to a temple for a training trip by the beautiful Japanese coast, but things become grim when dark forces gather, especially when Syouko seems to remember coming to the place some time ago...

Like its sister-game, Aoishiro is known for its scenic atmosphere centered around the pure blue depths of the ocean, and challenging Nintendo Hard "gameplay".

Originally for the PlayStation 2, Aoi Shiro was eventually ported to the PC in 2009.

A Remastered "HD" version of the game is set to be released on May 25th 2023, on Nintendo Switch and Steam, alongside its older "sister-game" Akai Ito. The remastered version of the game will also offer a full English subtitle option for the first time.

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This game contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Arguably quite a few characters but most prominently Migiwa fits this trope.
• All There in the Manual: Wanna know about Momoko's secretly withheld romantic feelings for Yasumi? Want to see the oft-mentioned former president and vice-president of the kendo club? Better read the prequel manga found in Yuri Hime then, because you won't get any of that from the game.
• Always Identical Twins: Yasumi and Nami. Before Nami became a white-haired immortal, she looked exactly the same as Yasumi.
• Artifact of Doom: <<Sword>> drives the people who wield it insane. Which is the fate of Osa in many endings.
• Ax-Crazy: The result of using too much power from the cursed sword.
• Back from the Dead: Kaya, AKA Natsu-nee-san.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Syouko and Migiwa in several routes - including Migiwa's happy end.
• Badass Normal: Syouko, but especially Munetsugu, an old man with the swordsmanship to behead bulls in a single stroke and take on superpowered oni moving at speeds even he can't follow. Only twice is he ever defeated in one-on-one combat: the first time is in the climactic fight against Kaya in her good end (for all of two minutes, after which he continues kicking ass); the second is in the Grand Route (entirely offscreen by Kaya, quite quickly).
• Barehanded Blade Block: Syouko in the Grand Route. It helps that her right hand was actually the <<Sword>>.
• Berserk Button: The only way to ruffle up the cool and cocky Kohaku if you're not Yasuhime? Call her the sekiganki. "The one-eyed onmyouji is that person! Oniichi Hougen! Ba Rouryuu!"
• Beach Scene: Almost every route has one, they serve no real purpose but to put the girls in bikinis and make for awkward situations.
• Big Bad: Ba Rouryuu, who kickstarts the plot by abducting Nami, and seeks to claim the Sword and releasing the Sea-Dragon.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the Grand Route, Kaya, Migiwa, and Kohaku all appearing just as Munetsugu heads towards Syouko.
• Big Eater: Half of Momoko's dialogue is complaining about the lack of food, and when she eats it's mentioned Yasumi needs to make extra portions just for her.
• Bittersweet Ending: In one of Yasumi's bad ends, Yasumi decides to jump into the Gate with the <<Sword>> in order to close it... and to her complete shock, Syouko jumps in after her, embracing her as the glow of the Gate surrounds them. Her bad ends are actually pretty sweet compared to her normal ends.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official English release is teeming with errors; wrong pronouns for characters, awkward dialogue/narration, sentences/words that seem transliterated and misspelled menu options. Some fans were turned off by the subpar translation, giving up on the game entirely
• Cool Old Guy: Yuukai is pushing sixty, but he's very approachable for a monk, is a Kendo ace himself, and gets along swimmingly with the girls. Munetsugu, too, when he's actually on the good guys' side.
• Continuity Cameo: Turns out Sakuya from Akai Ito went to college with Aoi-sensei, in a less obvious one Aoi-sensei also mentions that an acquaintance of a friend has spiritual powers and is grade school age; Tsudura anyone?
• Censor Steam: In the bath and Kenki Kaya's wisps of miasma.
• Cute Mute: Nami can't say a word except for baby-like noises, but she's adorable.
• Cute Sports Club Manager: Yasumi due to her illness is forced into the role of a reliable club manager since she can't do anything else.
• Demon Slaying: Migiwa job is this as an Onikiri exorcist.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In many an ending the heroes manage to beat supernatural forces beyond their comprehension with kendo skills.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In an interview the director admitted the blood-sucking scenes were intentionally made to resemble eroge sex scenes, with heavily sensual and romantic blood-draining, all the while a soft-porno piece of music plays in the background.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Kohaku would like you to remember that her name is not Torahime (not that Rouryuu listens). On a sadder note, she no longer uses Kurou-sama, either.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Sea God can be considered one; you can even go mad just by looking at him.
• Evil Sorcerer: Ba Rouryuu known Shinto Black Magic and can summon forth hordes of demonic Oni to do his bidding and harry the heroes.
• Eyes Always Shut: Kohaku keeps her left eye closed to hide her magic eye.
• Eye Scream: Syouko stabs Ba Rouryuu's mystic eyes at Grand Route finale.
• Fairy Tale Motifs: In Nami's arc, like in the original The Little Mermaid story, she forgets to speak after she was found in the beach at night.
• Faint in Shock: During Yasumi's route, Kohaku thinks Yasumi fainted out of fear. Turns out Yasumi was merely sending out her soul to save Syouko.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Yasumi is the designated chef for the trip and the most traditionally feminine of all the path girls. Syouko can cook too, though, albeit not quite as well.
• Finger-Suck Healing:
  • Yasumi is very displeased when she catches Nami doing this to Syouko.
  • Inverted in Migiwa's route, since blood can revitalize pretty much anyone.
• Flower Motifs: White Camellia (tsubaki) grow all over the island, although they insist on calling them Sal trees (Shorea robusta), probably due to religious significance and its meaning in the language of flowers. They're also considered interchangeable because authentic Indian Sal trees wouldn't actually grow in the location the game is set in anyway. Red tsubaki are an equally important motif.
• From a Certain Point of View: How Yuukai justifies being able to drink alcohol, despite being a Zen Buddhist monk.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: Yasumi and Nami end up being this. Osa will confirm either them to the ones in her memories in each of there route, only for it to be confirmed it's both of them in different memories in the Grand Route.
• Genki Girl: Momoko is pretty much jumping off the walls throughout the whole game.
• Ghost Memory: Syouko sees Yasuhime-sama's memories during Kohaku's route.
• Godiva Hair: Yasumi and Nami in the bath, and Yasumi in spirit mode. Even Kohaku sports it at one point.
• Golden Ending: Each route has one of these, (and you will work for them) but the Grand Route's Good Ending is considered this for the game as a whole.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: (manga only) Aoi-sensei calling her college buddy Asama Sakuya, and the Senba oni-hunters mobilizing to answer the call from the Suten, which at that point are recovering from Kaya's attack. Basically, in the manga version, the Akai Ito casts are The Cavalry for the Aoi Shiro casts.
• Good Is Not Nice: In Yasumi's route mostly, Kohaku has a nasty habit of needlessly killing (directly or indirectly) Syouko, Yasumi, and anyone else who gets between her and the <<Sword>>. (Her way of dealing with a sinister ritual of human sacrifice, for example, is... to kill the sacrifices first.) Turns out in other routes that she's actually Migiwa's backup. Both Kohaku and Migiwa have their Kick the Dog moments, as well.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Chaos inside the titular Blue Castle is responsible for corrupting the Sword, Ba into evil obsession, but is never directly fought.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Several endings, like Munetsugu in Kaya's good end and Yasumi in one of her ends.
• Hide Your Lesbians: Despite advertising and playing up its Queer Romance, the game plays itself fairly coy regarding any relationship confirmation. Yasumi's feelings for Syouko are blatant, and all of the main characters have some suggestive interactions with Syouko, but the closest Syouko ever approaches to romantic attraction is with Kohaku of all people!
• Hime Cut: Ayashiro is even nicknamed Hime by the other kendo team members because of this hairstyle and its associated characteristics.
• How Would You Like to Die?: To Syouko and Yasumi, Kohaku gives two options: crushed by Oniwaka or cut down by her.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Kohaku and her familiar and older twin brother, Oniwaka.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: The oni version, with Kohaku and her foster father Rouryuu, who turned her into an oni. Their first meetings always include her complaining about how her faulty body requires such length periods of sleep.
• Idiot Ball: Not by her own fault, but rather that of the player, Syouko holds this quite often. She wanders around on sinking rocks, runs about in raging storms, and falls into the ocean... many, many times.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ba Ryouryuu, complete with lots of blood.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: Nami's outfit straddles the border between this and Pimped Out Kimono.
• Improbably Female Cast: There are only five male characters in the entire game; two of them are rarely seen, one is only heard, one of them is a Cool Old Guy, and the final one is the Big Bad. Somewhat justified by how it's a trip for a girls' sports team.
• Indirect Kiss: Osa gives Nami one after she cuts herself with a knife, causing Yasumi much grief.
• Intertwined Fingers: One of the final shots between Yasumi and Osa in her good ending cuddling in the ocean. It's as adorable as it sounds.
• Intimate Healing: Blood is power, and there are some suggestive ways of extracting it, from Yasumi's naked out of body vampire sessions to Kohaku preferring Syouko's breasts to her neck. Even better is when Nami and naked-ghost-Yasumi do this at the same time.
• Kendo Team Captain: Syouko, having inherited the position from the previous President before the events of the game. She's quite the hardass, but remains a Father to His Men.
• Kick the Dog: Migiwa and especially Kohaku do this in many endings, usually killing someone irrevocably possessed by the Sword or some other sort of bad mojo. If you screw up your previous choices, Migiwa kills Yasumi (a rampaging vampire spirit at the time) in Yasumi's route.
• Kimodameshi: Momoko organizes one of these for the club.
• Kiss of the Vampire: Although Aoi Shiro is not an eroge, all the blood-drinking scenes are EXTREMELY obviously stand-ins for sex. There's even have a special soft, romantic-porno style BGM track reserved for those scenes only. (This started with Akai Ito).
• The Klutz: Kaya, of all people. Kendo is pretty much the only thing that she's not clumsy with.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Syouko has a case of this; she doesn't have many memories of her childhood due to a terrible accident when she was younger. As it turns out, that "accident" turns out to be getting her head partially chopped off.
• Lesbian Vampire: Well considering it is in the same universe as Akai Ito...
• Let's You and Him Fight: Expect to be killed by good-intentioned, but misdirected, characters. A lot.
• Little Miss Badass: Kohaku is often mistaken as being younger then the rest of the cast, and wears the clothing of a noble boy from the feudal era, but she carves through opponent like a blade through wheat and is one of the single most dangerous warriors in the entire series.
• Lighter and Softer: While having more "bad endings" then Akai Ito, its , quote unquote, so called "Good endings" are severely less depressing then Akai Ito's. Though the Normal Ones are just as sad. And the mood of the game is overall less dark. (Shown in its Motif. Akai Ito's is Blood, while Aoi Shiro's is water.)
• Load-Bearing Boss: Matamu's defeat in Nami's route causes the sanctuary to start collapsing, for whatever reason.
• Male Gaze: One of the beach scenes spends an awful lot of time zoomed in on Yasumi's breasts.
• The Man Behind the Man: Munetsugu is presented as being the Big Bad, only for it to be revealed Ba was using him as a pawn to acquire access to the Gate./
• Mayfly–December Romance: Kohaku and Osa are set as this in their ending with the start of a blossoming romance (with an age-gap of 800 years give or take).
• Mini-Game - Getting the final happy ending unlocks a 2D Hack and Slash minigame in the main menu that has no apparent connection whatsoever to the main story.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • While Aoi Shiro is a rather tame game and Kaya is much much more than a pair of walking breasts, she never does learn how to button her shirt properly. At the end of Migiwa's route, she even fights Migiwa topless, with only a convenient miasma floating over certain areas.
  • Also, Yasumi, who ends up naked or wearing revealing clothing a lot more frequently than one would expect.
• Multiple Endings:
  • Fifty-six of them, in fact! Each route has one Happy End where you resolve the conflict, Normal Ends where Syouko survives, and Bad Ends where Syouko dies. (The normal "Possessed by the <<Sword>>" end in Kaya's route is the odd exception; every other time Syouko is irrevocably possessed, it counts as a bad end.) Completing all of the other routes unlocks the Grand Route, where all of the characters team up.
  • There are also a couple of non-standard endings. The most obvious being if you take the option of calling the training camp off because of the weather. It counts as a Normal End in the sense that Syouko survives but the story of which ever route you were in (the option occurs in all of them) being resolved.
• Mystical Waif: Nami, who is the Trope Image.
• Named Weapons: Kumouchi, Hoemaru, Ryuugeki. Strangely averted with the <<Sword>> outside Kohaku's route, where its name is revealed to be Ame no Murakumo—not that the name gets much use there, either.
• Nerf Arm: That poor wooden sword; not much good against real steel.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Kohaku embodies this trope the most. Yasuhime and Nami also are stuck perpetually young but don't angst about it on camera.
• Not Quite Dead: On her first visit to Unasaka, Syouko was partially beheaded and fell into the water. Luckily, Yasuhime saved her. Unluckily, no one gave Kaya the message.
• Oblivious to Love: Syouko is completely oblivious to poor Yasumi's blatant feelings for her. Momoko knows but never outright tells Syouko.
• The Ojou: Ayashiro is described as being a "gentle, sophisticated, Japanese beauty" and she was raised to be like a "princess" by her parents.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Some of the BGM, especially anything involving the Gate.
• The One Guy: Monk Yuukai Yuukai is the only good guy, but there's two other male characters.
• The Promise: Syouko's promise in Yasumi's route to protect her. It's brought up quite a bit.
• Pinky Swear: Syouko and Nami's promise is punctuated by one of these in there flashback.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Ba Rouryuu. Subverted with Kohaku, who we're led to believe is a baddie for quite a while.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Migiwa and Syouko respectively; just look at their preferred colors. However, despite Syouko's cool exterior and Migiwa's playful one, Syouko's far more reckless.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Kaya is really pissed off since she thinks Syouko is dead; her mission is to kill those who she deems responsible. Kohaku also in one bad end after finding out Yasuhime and Oyasu are one and the same decides to take revenge on the Nekatas and anyone in her way. Bad end, so that means you, too.
• Rules Lawyer: Yuukai. Hence, being able to drink alcohol and eat meat in a Buddhist temple while technically not doing anything prohibited.
• Sand Bridge at Low Tide: The Oni Stepping Stones, only exposed during low tide at certain times of the year.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Aoi-sensei is prone to these when she's in the midst of a talking about a particularly gory legend or ghost story.
• Scenery Porn: The CG is undeniably gorgeous. What takes the cake, is the Blue Castle. A stunning Lapis, almost Eldritch Location. The time you first see it in the Grand Route will take your breath away. By all means a beautiful game, that's on par with most high budget animes. However, as is the fountains of blood, countless deaths of your character, decapitations, and Eldritch horrors
• Secret Test of Character: Kohaku eggs Syouko (wielding the <<Sword>>) into a duel to see if she is capable of wielding it without losing her sense of self.
• Smashing Watermelons: According to Momoko a trip to the beach just isn't complete without it.
• Spoiler Opening: In case you never bothered to watch it, in order (and not comprehensive): Kaya is not dead, there is a forest of red tsubaki that will scatter, Nami is Yasuhime, Yasumi is Syouko's childhood friend, Nekata killed Kaya, various bad ends, and the appearance of the big bad.
• Summon Magic: The Big Bad is able to summon a horde of endless Goddamn Bats and Anti-Hero Kohaku uses a single Giant Mook.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Kaya and Syouko, when completely corrupted by the Sword.
• Taking You with Me: Ba Rouryuu summons a nasty entity that consumes him in the process after Syouko stabs out his mystic eye.
• The Many Deaths of You: There's over thirty bad endings in which Syouko dies a horrible death.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Most notably used in Yasumi's route with Syouko/Yasumi.
• Tsurime Eyes: Fittingly, Kaya and Kohaku; also, much less fittingly, Ayashiro.
• Undead Tax Exemption: After the events in the game, Kaya is simply alive again in the eye of the society. She was even offered to continue her job as a cop. This despite missing for eight years without explanation, and looking exactly like she was the day she was missing , and possibly is an actual undead. Granted, there were some papers to be processed...
• Underboobs: Kaya doesn't seem to like buttoning anything more than the top button of her shirt, not that anyone minds.
• Updated Re-release:
  • The PC version. It fixed a good deal of the CG, and added two mini-routes, along with the much larger grand-route.
  • The upcoming HD remaster, which is not only upscaling the visuals, it has English language support.
• Unwinnable: Not helping Migiwa when she falls into the water in Day Two of her route causes her to glare at you afterward but apparently nothing more... until the last scene of the game, where you are suddenly hit with a bad end. There are other bad endings that result from making completely unrelated choice early in the game.
• Villains Out Shopping: Syouko and friends meet a fairly-friendly Ba Rouryuu in the shopping district, though they don't know who he is at that point.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Munetsugu is just doing his duty to prevent the Sea-Dragon from awakening from his sleep, and is fairly honorable otherwise. It just so happens said duty requires him to behead a teenage girl every decade or so.
• Wingding Eyes: Momoko's often morph into these to show her extreme hunger.
• Wistful Amnesia: Syouko in the normal end "The Gap in the Shape of You in My Heart" in Yasumi's route, though "despairing amnesia" is probably a better term.
• Wholesome Cross Dresser: Kohaku (who in her previous life was a double for her brother). Though not quite a Bifauxnen, there were some who (prior to the release of the game) were unsure about her. Considering the kind of game it is, though.
• Worthy Opponent: What Migiwa and Syouko end up being by the end of Migiwa's route—this is even the title of her happy end, in which the two end up on opposite sides of the kendo tournament bracket and promise to meet again in the finals.
• Yuri Genre: The game is not an eroge, but it focuses on the relationships between women, which are quite romantic.

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