Do you remember our promise?
The time for us that was put on hold is beginning again.
Dreamy Days in West Tokyo is a Romance Game Visual Novel from Voltage, Inc. for iOS and Android devices. It tells the story of a young woman, the player character, returning to her old neighborhood after moving away ten years ago when she was a young child.
Upon her return, she finds that many of her childhood friends still live in the neighborhood, and they still remember her. After ten years, however, they've grown up into young men. As she rekindles her old friendships, she begins to see unexpected sides to the guys she's known since forever, and old childhood crushes just might blossom into romance...
Dreamy Days in West Tokyo contains examples of the following tropes:
- Affectionate Nickname: Takeshi calls the protagonist "Little Duck."
- Always Second Best: Ichigo has an uncomfortable relationship with his older brother Togo, in large part because, unlike Ichigo who has trouble expressing his feelings, Togo is good with people, and is easily welcomed back by their parents and the rest of the neighborhood despite having previously abandoned them to travel the world.
- Attempted Rape: On Ryuzo's route, the protagonist runs afoul of a stalker who simply will not take "no" for an answer. It's a surprisingly dark plot in what is, overall, a light-hearted game.
- Beneath the Mask: In season 2, the protagonist comes to think of Rei Arisugawa as a "dependable big sister" thanks to his feminine manner of speaking and how unfailingly he's willing to listen and give her helpful advice. On his route, she eventually learns that "Rei" is a persona that Reiji Uraga deliberately created to hold others at arm's length and discourage women from throwing themselves at him. His real self, although still genuinely kindhearted, is more masculine and a lot more jaded.
- Big Brother Instinct: As the oldest of four children, Ryuzo naturally big-brothers everybody. On his route, it takes him a while to stop seeing the protagonist as a little sister.
- Bland-Name Product: "Shonen Hop" magazine.
- Career-Ending Injury: In his "Three Years Later" sequel, track star Takeshi injures his leg in an accident. Unusually for a Voltage game, the damage is permanent and Takeshi has to give up his goal of competing in the Olympics.
- Childhood Friend Romance: All of the guys. It's pretty much the point of the game. This includes Johji, who the protagonist knew as "JJ" back then.
- Childhood Marriage Promise: Referenced in the opening.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Ryuzo, who is kind of heavy on the "clueless" in regard to most things.
- Comically Missing the Point: Ryuzo can be rather slow on the uptake, particularly when it comes to matters of romance, with this trope the frequent result.
- Delinquents: Ryuzo isn't one, but he looks the part, which throws the protagonist for a bit of a loop and makes him a target for their high school's strict and overzealous vice principal.
- Did You Just Have Sex?:
- In Haruki's sequel, he and the protagonist stay overnight together at a hotel, leaving their friends to assume the obvious. Nothing actually happened.
- At the end of Ichigo's sequel, when Rihito's flirting with the protagonist fails to provoke the usual jealous response from Ichigo, his friends immediately become suspicious and speculate that he has "become a man." In this case, their suspicions are accurate.
- Disappeared Dad: Rihito's parents broke up before his mother knew she was pregnant, so it's just been mother and son for sixteen-odd years. When his father shows up in the first season sequel, Rihito is initially less than thrilled.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: When they were friends as children, the protagonist mistook Rihito for a girl. She doesn't find out otherwise until they meet again as teenagers.
- Dude, Not Funny!: An in-universe example occurs during Ryuzo's route. When the guys find out about the protagonist's stalker, Rihito makes a playful, poorly-considered comment that she's so pretty that he can understand wanting to watch her stealthily. Ichigo immediately rebukes him for it.Rihito: I'm sorry. I was just joking around.Ichigo: There are some jokes you can make and then there are others that you shouldn't.
- Easy Amnesia: Haruki sustains a blow to the head during a tournament on his route, which when combined with the emotional strain of beliving the protagonist has chosen Ichigo as her boyfriend, leads to him forgetting the whole of his route's story. The memories make a comeback before the story ends.
- Empathic Environment: During Ichigo's route, it rains on the night of the meteor shower, reflecting the protagonist's sorrow over the rift that's formed between herself and Ichigo. When the two of them reconcile and admit their feelings for one another, the sky spontaneously clears, allowing them to see the meteor shower in its full glory.
- Everyone Can See It: Basically nobody is fooled by Ichigo's tsundere behavior towards the protagonist. On his route, the other guys cheerfully agree that it's because he likes her and that he's been that way since they were kids.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Most of the guys undergo some kind of hairstyle change to help indicate the three-years-later Time Skip to the Season 2 sequels, with Ryuzo the most dramatic example.
- Family Theme Naming:
- All of the men in the Hatta family have names beginning with "Ryu" (Ryuzo, his father Ryuzaburo, and his younger brother Ryunoshin) and both of the daughters' names begin with "Ri-" (Rika and Rino).
- The men of the Sato family are Ringo, Togo, and Ichigo.
- Flashback: The "Childhood Memories" interludes.
- Free-Range Children: The flashbacks to ten years ago show the main cast, a group of children somewhere in the range of six to eight years old, roaming their neighborhood at will and without any kind of adult supervision.
- Funny Foreigner: Annan, the owner of an Indian restaurant near the Hatta family's produce store.
- Genre Savvy: Not only is everyone aware that Ichigo has feelings for the protagonist, none of them are in the least bit surprised when she returns his feelings on his route, in spite of the fact that he expresses said feelings primarily in prickly tsundere bluster. On the contrary, they were fully expecting it, and in Haruki and Ryuzo's routes people express varying degrees of surprise that the protagonist and Ichigo didn't end up together on the basis of Belligerent Sexual Tension.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: On his route, Haruki is very much attracted to the protagonist, but his inherent caution and general niceness keeps him from actually acting on it. It's not until Ichigo starts expressing interest as well that Haruki realises that, for all his rationalization, he really isn't okay with the protagonist going out with another guy.
- He Is All Grown Up: The protagonist suffers a pretty bad case of cognitive dissonance when it turns out that not only is cute little Rihito a boy, but in the ten years that's passed he's grown up to be a) so very, very pretty, and b) an incorrigible flirt.
- I Have This Friend: On Ryuzo's route, once she realizes she's fallen for Ryu, the protagonist attempts to ask Johji for advice by claiming it's a situation a friend of hers is in. She's not very good at keeping up the pretense, though.
- I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Ichigo, of all people, on Haruki's route. And again - none too gracefully and hating every minute of it - on his own route when he thinks the protagonist has hooked up with Togo.
- Last-Name Basis: Haruki usually addresses the protagonist by her last name. On his own route, others will remark that he's still doing it once the two of them are dating.
- Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: Haruki tries on Ryuzo's route, bless him, but Ryu's too dense to get it.Ryuzo: Where is this "Ronday View" place you're talking about?Protagonist: You should've known he wouldn't understand that.
- Lethal Chef: Ryuzo and his father should not be allowed anywhere near a kitchen. Should the protagonist try their cooking, the screen blacks out... and so does she.
- Lost in Translation: The protagonist's narration remarks numerous times on Rei's feminine manner of speaking. Because English doesn't have the level of built-in grammatical distinction between masculine or feminine modes of speech that exists in Japanese, however, only the narration and Rei's liberal use of diminute pet names like "sugar" and "cutie" serve to distinguish his speech from that of the other male characters, and it's difficult to notice when he drops the girly speech for a more masculine demeanor.
- Mistaken for Gay: People tend to assume that season 2's Rei has a preference for men based on his feminine manner of talking. When he and Johji are seen shopping together during Rei's initial route, even the protagonist can't help but wonder. It's a misconception that for the most part Reiji deliberately cultivates to discourage women from nursing crushes on him.
- Nice Guy: Haruki. It gets him plenty of female attention, too, judging by the crowd of girls at his family's florist shop when he's working.
- Not What It Looks Like: Late in Ichigo's route, Ichigo walks in on his brother Togo giving the protagonist a brotherly kiss on her hair. Needless to say, he doesn't take it well.
- Precocious Crush: Ryuzo's youngest sister Rino has a crush on Takeshi, as shown in Ryuzo's route.
- The Promise: On Ichigo's route, flashbacks show that, when the protagonist learned she had to move away, she and Ichigo promised to always remember each other and to remain one another's best friend. By the present, the protagonist has forgotten the promise, but remembers near the end of the route.
- The Reliable One: Haruki, who the protagonist remembers as "short but reliable" ten years ago and who hasn't changed much in that regard since.
- Romantic Runner-Up: Ichigo is the most obvious case on routes other than his own, but all five of the main guys have been in love with the protagonist more or less forever (although some of them are more aware of their own feelings than others). It's illustrated especially clearly on Reiji Uraga's season 2 route; Rei hints to the protagonist several times that any of her friends would fall over themselves to date her, and he takes undisguised glee in taunting the boys for missing their chances during his Super Happy Ending.
- Shipper on Deck: In Ryuzo's route, Ryu's sister Rika is thrilled with the idea of the protagonist and her brother becoming a couple, and quickly becomes the protagonist's personal cheerleader. Most of the guys soon follow her example, albeit more subtly.
- Snow Means Love: The "A Day in the Snow" side story gets some mileage out of this trope.
- Time Skip: Season 2 picks up three years after the initial main routes.
- True Companions: All of the guys are close friends and quick to support one another in whatever ways seem most likely to be helpful. They were just as close with the protagonist ten years ago, and upon her return she's quickly re-established as one of their circle as well.
- Tsundere: Ichigo. To hear him tell it he hates the neighborhood, his family's bakery, and the protagonist, but of course those who know him know perfectly well how important all three are to him. He's just terrible at expressing his true feelings. He appears to get it from his father, who has similar difficulty in communicating.
