The main cast for the game
Tokyo Chronos is a Visual Novel developed for VR by MyDearest Inc. and released in March of 2019. The story is primarily a mystery with science fiction elements and a heavy focus on character interactions, featuring multiple endings and key choice moments during the course of the story.The player takes on the perspective of an average Japanese high-schooler, Kyosuke Sakurai, who awakens to find himself alone in an empty version of Shibuya, Tokyo with no memories of how he got there and why. Not long after he awakens, he's confronted by a mysterious delinquent named Lowe who claims to be an old childhood friend of his, though not only is he quite hostile to Sakurai, but Sakurai has no memory of who he is. Not long after encountering Lowe, Sakurai meets up with seven other students also trapped in this empty world, whom he does recognize as his old childhood friends—Yu Momono, Karen Nikaido, Yuria Togoku, Sai Kamiya, Ai Morozumi, Tetsu Kageyama, and Sota Machikoji. Although all of them drifted apart for one reason or another as they grew older, Sakurai is pleased to have them here with him in this strange situation.
Yuria, who hails from a family of genius physicists, quickly deduces that they are all trapped in a phenomenon known as the Chronos World, an alternate dimension that is formed out of strong emotions and traps its subjects inside until they solve a particular mission. As everyone wonders what the mission could be that they were summoned for, a billboard up above suddenly flickers and displays an ominous phrase:
"I am dead. Who killed me?"
Trapped in this world with the bare minimum of supplies and a potential killer on the loose, Sakurai and his old friends must unravel the true meaning of the Chronos World and its mission. As the story progresses, they learn that not everything is as it seems and each of them must learn lessons in friendship and self-growth.
This visual novel contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- Sai Kamiya's father is implied to be very strict and forces his expectations on his son, to the point that he forced his illegitimate daughter Sae to live as Sai when the latter was killed.
- Nikaido's mother is described as being impossible to please and harshly critical of everything her daughter does, dishing out constant verbal abuse.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Karen Nikaido is set up as this trope, as she's dark haired, beautiful, and hardly ever shows interest in what's going on around her, to the point that Sakurai describes her as a "cool beauty". This trope is deconstructed by the latter half of the game, however. Rather than having many admirers, few students try to even talk to her because she seems so disinterested all the time; this behavior also makes it easy for them to believe the rumor that she's a heartless monster who killed Rin, despite it being far from the truth. Furthermore, it's revealed that she's not aloof at all, but suffers from low self-esteem thanks to facing extreme emotional abuse at home. She has learned not to react to anything or show interest because she's afraid of bothering people by her very presence. In the past this led her friends to think she didn't care about them when in reality she valued their friendship, especially Sakurai's, the most.
- Ambiguous Situation: While Rin claims that she spent the "whole time" in Yu's body, it's not specified if this includes the first playthrough as well, or if it's only meant to include the New Game Plus playthrough. Her changes in dialogue and behavior between the two playthroughs supports the latter, but the Ground Hog Day Loop nature of the playthroughs are themselves unexplained in-story, making it unclear. If the former, it would have some horrifying implications, as Yu can intentionally enact one of the worst endings in the game if you pick her over Nikaido.
- Big Brother Instinct:
- Sakurai mistakenly thinks that Yu's protective nature over him is because she sees herself as a big sister to him, but it's more due to her having an unrequited crush on him.
- For his part, Sakurai looked after Rin in the real world and protected her because of how frail she was. Losing her caused him to enter a deep depression, and being led to believe Nikaido killed her filled him with so much rage that he manifested a whole other personality just to hate her with. Subsequently, this personality, Lowe, only cares about Rin and avenging her death.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Since hearing the rumor that Nikaido killed Rin instantly gave Sakurai something else to focus on beyond his depression, Nikaido decided to fully live up to the rumor and pretended she really was at fault for the accident, acting like she didn't even care that Rin was dead and that she never liked Sakurai or the others. Unfortunately, while this did in a way get Sakurai to move on from Rin's death, it still caused him a great deal of mental anguish and he loathed himself for hating Nikaido so much.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Rin does this in the True Ending. She thanks You the player for watching over everyone and remarks that you are practically best friends with every one of them
- Closed Circle: Sakurai and his friends have all been trapped in this world and are not allowed to leave or receive outside help until they complete the world's mission. This is due to the nature of the Chronos World as a naturally occurring phenomenon; it only includes that which is strictly necessary to complete the mission and excises anyone and anything that doesn't fit that purpose.
- Driven to Suicide: At the very start if the game, a shadowed figure is shown calmly falling off a building, and Sakurai becomes especially uneasy any time a character gets near a ledge. This was his memory of Nikaido killing herself after years of bullying.
- Dwindling Party: At the end of every chapter, and then more rapidly near the climax, one of Sakurai's friends disappears without a trace. Lowe suggests that the killer is dispatching them one by one to prevent from being discovered and sacrificed. In truth, each character leaves the Chronos World once they've achieved some form of character development and thus atoned for how they acted in the past.
- Enemy Without: Lowe is a physical manifestation of Sakurai's hatred and rage after Rin died and he came to believe Nikaido was responsible. Initially manifesting as a separate, cruel personality, he has been given a body for the purpose of solving the world's mission. This is explained as being possible because the Chronos world furnishes its inhabitants with everything they need to solve their mission and nothing they don't; in Lowe's case, this means a body.
- Foreshadowing: Near the climax, Lowe attacks another character with a knife and Sakurai intervenes. When he gets cut as a result of this, the first thing Sakurai notes is that Lowe looks anguished himself. Lowe represents how Sakurai shut out everything negative into a completely different personality, so Lowe feels all of Sakurai's pain for him.
- Forgotten Friend, New Foe: Lowe, a self-professed "childhood friend" who serves as the antagonist for most of the game, whom Sakurai has no memory of. It's eventually revealed that Lowe being a "friend" of Sakurai is purely metaphorical, as he's another personality Sakurai formed in which to put all his grief and hatred regarding Rin's death. As the Chronos World excised his memories of Rin, it naturally followed that he forgot Lowe as well.
- Kids Are Cruel: In her chapter, Morozumi recalls a time when she was younger and rescued a kitten from a group of boys who were planning to torture it to death with a lighter. Said boys then turned around and accused her of their wrongdoing, which the whole class was willing to believe until Kamiya stepped in to save her.
- Meaningful Name: Lowe's name was deliberately chosen by him to be a reference to how he is Sakurai at his "lowest".
- Multiple Endings: The game's first playthrough has two, a Bad Ending and a neutral ending. The New Game Plus features one different Bad Ending per chapter, and then the game's True Ending at the end. The bad endings usually result from Sakurai's friends refusing to grow as people, i.e. not following the path that they did in the first playthrough, and feature the characters trapped forever in the Chronos World or outright dying.
- Murder by Inaction:
- Lowe explains that Nikaido is the "culprit" of Rin's death because she tossed a ribbon into the road that Rin then went to grab, causing her to get hit by the truck.
- The true ending reveals that Nikaido is actually the victim specified by the Chronos World, and all of her friends are her "killers", as due to their character flaws none of them reached out to save her from the bullying that eventually drove her to suicide.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: The relationship between class president Kamiya and class secretary Morozumi. Due to him saving her when she was falsely accused of something someone else did, Morozumi sees Kamiya as the arbiter of "justice" and defers to him even if he's lying or throwing someone under the bus, assuming it's ultimately for a good reason. This came back to bite her in the real world, where she left Nikaido to the mercy of the other students because Kamiya didn't want to oppose the majority of the student body, and growing out of this mindset is how she ultimately escapes the Chronos World.
- Teens Are Monsters: It's revealed later on that Karen Nikaido was viciously bullied by her peers from middle school to high school. This is a strange example, however, as from the perspective of most of the students Karen had killed Sakurai's little sister and then mocked him about it to his face, Sakurai being someone that most of the student body admired.
- True Companions: This is the relationship Sakurai had with his old friends, the eight of them considering themselves like a family back when they used to hang out and solve problems together. They retain these strong bonds into their teenage years despite some serious bumps along the way.
- Yandere: Yu for Sakurai, who unfortunately only sees her as a sister figure. A downplayed example, as Yu never kills anyone directly, and it's implied in the real world she feels terribly guilty for her inaction to save Nikaido, whom she was jealous of, like everyone else does. However, in the Chronos World she's shown in one ending manipulating everyone into killing each other so she can be all alone with Sakurai. Even in the canon route, she still set up a trap that could have seriously harmed anyone who came looking for them while she and Sakurai were separated from the rest of the group, and she stalked Sakurai using cameras, ostensibly for his safety.
