ChuSinGura 46+1 is a Visual Novel first released in 2011 as an episodic story, with a compilation in 2013 with new graphics and two additional routes. It tells the stories of the gender flipped 47 Ronin during their struggle against their dreaded enemy, Lord Kira Kozuke-no-Suke, whom they judge responsible for their master's death. While it includes the mandatory Fanservice scenes of the average eroge due to the Gender Flip, it also tries to be a faithful adaptation of the Chūshingura epic, with many scenes inspired by the numerous kabuki plays and movies from the 20th century.
The year is 1701, the 14th of the Genroku Era in Japan during the reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, the advisor of the shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, begins a plot in January to steal the Ako Domain belonging to the popular daimyo Asano Takumi-no-Kami. To this end, he asks the services of a shady confucianist advisor who proceeds to engineer an incident and provide an excuse to confiscate the daimyo's lands for himself: He uses a mysterious fortune slip from the Sengaku-ji temple to put a curse on the master of ceremony tutoring Asano at the time, the honorable Kira Kozuke-no-Suke, who then becomes the puppet of Yoshiyasu.
The following months shows tense relations between Asano and Kira, who demanded large amounts of bribes and nonsensical requests, while mocking and insulting her for no reason. It eventually escalates to a breaking point in March when Asano drew her sword during an important ceremony in the shōgun's very castle, after being mocked and provoked multiple times by Kira, and attacked him In the Back. This eventually causes Asano to be condemned to ritual suicide along with the confiscation of the entire Ako domain by the shogunate, by Seppuku as punishment for drawing her sword within the walls of the castle, and disturbing the shogun while she was playing with her dogs, despite Yoshiyasu's pleas to punish Kira equally. The same day, Asano is effectively ordered to die as she gives her farewell to two of her retainers who came to see her.
Some time in 20XX, the highschooler Fukami Suguha, former kendo practitioner turned Hikikomori, spends an idle life playing eroge and getting bullied by his younger sister who also practices kendo and is a huge fan of Japanese history like him. One fateful day, they visit the Sengaku-ji temple to learn more about the famous 47 Ronin of the Akō incident. Upon testing his fortune however, he draws the most unexpected of all: Enormous Misfortune (大大凶), an impossibly-rare occurrence of a fortune slip whose last "winner" was more than 300 years ago. Shortly afterwards, Suguha faints as he was watching the gravestones of the Akō Ronin...
He wakes up in a small village, having taken the place of an individual sharing his name, but without any of his memories: His consciousness was transported into the Genroku Era in 1701, March 12th. After the obligatory period of mourning, he adjusts to his new life until realizing he has come into the very period of the Ako Incident except the ronin are women, and circumstances forces him to be part of its history. He then meets the would-be leader of the ronin, Oishi Kuranosuke, and starts to live with her family after the loss of the Ako domain to the shogunate, assisting her in her attempts to restore the domain, while observing other ronin from more radical factions attempting to coerce their comrades to take action and assassinate Kira.
As history unfolds before him, Suguha begins to search for the reason he was transported in the Genroku Era, and will have to use his knowledge of the modern world to make difficult choices and fight numerous enemies, driven by his desire to save the ronin from their historical deaths at any cost. Then things gets more complicated and weird.
A sequel, Bushi no Kodou, was released in 2014, and deals with the aftermath of the true ending of ChuSinGura among other unexplained plot points of the original game. Compare Miburo, its Spiritual Successor by the same author, featuring The Shinsengumi, known for their claims to be The 47 Ronin successors, and Gikei, which shares the same concept but set in the late Heian Period.
ChuSinGura 46+1 features the following tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The story adds several fictional elements for some characters, such as an expanded backstory for Horibe Yasubee, Oishi Matsunojo and Shimizu Ichigaku albeit as a new character taking her place from the present time, Kosa Kasumi.
- Alternate Universe: Similar to the original Chūshingura epic, but with women.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kuranosuke and Yasubee's routes end with Suguha dying, prompting him to loop once again after failing to save the ronin.
- Central Theme: The overall theme of the story revolves around the concept of revenge and loyalty to its master, something a little unfit in the peaceful era of the Edo Period.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After getting stuck in the Genroku Era in a time loop for almost 10 years, and seeing all of his companions die despite his best efforts and getting through a huge Heroic BSoD, he ultimately finds an unlikely ally, Kasumi, who helps him find the true mastermind behind the Ako Incident and ends the curse placed on him. At the very end, he and the ronin are given an empty island in which they live freely as they please.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: First and foremost, the story is set in a a period where killing people was considered an everyday occurence for samurai and the ronin were at first split between several factions because of their diverging interests. After being united under the banner of Kuranosuke, they are still painfully aware of their revenge being an assassination plot to kill their enemy through trickery, but all are ready to accept their fate to die by seppuku afterwards. On the other hand, the various characters working for Kira are all Punch-Clock Villains who only oppose the ronin because it's their job, and understandably consider them to be nothing more than enraged retainers out for Kira's blood. By the end of the story, the mastermind behind the Ako Incident turns out to be the one truly villainous character: Kaguya, who wants to destroy Japan and erase the ronin from history.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: After dying at the hands of the assassin Saruhashi, Suguha discovers that he's stuck in a time loop and he cannot get back to his world unless he gets rid of the curse of Kira.
- Historical Gender Flip: Almost all of the 47 ronin are women in the story, along with several related people such as Shimizu Ichigaku, one of the retainers of Kira, the merchant Mouri Koheita, or the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.
- Honor Before Reason: In a setting where honor was more important than life itself, we have the Edo Radicals, and their primary goal is to honor their master by killing Kira immediately no matter the cost, even if they are doomed to fail because of their high number of security guards.
- Hotter and Sexier: Being an eroge, most of the ronin are depicted as attractive women and it features romance.
- Jidaigeki: The work is set within the Edo Period, and depicts the Real Life events of the Ako Incident.
- Long Game: Like history, the Ako Incident is famous from the large amount of time needed to prepare the attack, courtesy of Oishi Kuranosuke who waited for almost two years before launching the raid on Kira's estate.
- Meta Fiction: Instead of a classic Visual Novel route, the fourth route is actually a pretty long debate between Suguha and Ichigaku/Kazumi, who discuss the accuracy of the recounts of the Ako incident and its various adaptations.
- Revenge: The entire motivation of the Ako Ronin, who want to claim Kira's head for not having any form of punishment like their deceased lord.
- Time Travel: Fukami Suguha, the protagonist, is forcibly taken from his original world in the 21th century to the early 18th century, in the midst of the Genroku Era.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: On one hand, the story features many scenes and events referencing the original epic, and on the other hand it takes a lot of liberties, with the biggest being Kira transforming into a Humanoid Abomination protected by a giant snake and the presence of actual magic.
- We ARE Struggling Together: A huge part of the plot is dedicated to the Ako Ronin factional struggle between their leader Kuranosuke, who wants to peacefully reclaim the Ako Domain, the Edo Radicals who want to take revenge on Kira, and a lot of moderates unsure about their goal.
- World of Action Girls: Because of the Gender Flip, almost every female character is a dangerous swordfighter able to fight off and slice men like butter.
