the brother who doesn't read his letters
the friends in the haunted dormitory
and the new teacher, who doesn't know anything...
Toshoshitsu no Neversista (The Library Room of Neversista) is a 2010 mystery Visual Novel made by the amateur group TARHS.
The story begins with the death of a student during a stormy summer night, a boy who leaves to take a picture of the rising waters of the river but never returns. The search party that is formed to find him only finds his camera by the riverbank, his belongings, and after several days of searching, one of his shoes. In the end, he is treated as a casualty of the river, but other, more sinister rumors about his death begin to emerge. Namely, that the five friends who used to live in "the Haunted Tower" with him — one of them, some of them, or even all of them — may have had something to do with the boy's cursed death.
Two people have set out to find out the truth about what happened. The first is the student's older brother, who receives a mysterious letter about his brother's death and sets out to investigate, only to fall into the hands of five students who surround and interrogate him and won't let him leave. The other is an idealistic assistant teacher just arrived in town, who receives a cryptic warning about the five students he shares the dorm called "The Haunted Tower" with, to "never think of those five as children". Torn between paranoia and a desire to trust his students, the teacher finds a book titled "Neversista", which holds a startling truth...
This game provides examples of
- Affectionate Nickname: Haruto is "Harutan," Renji is "RenRen," Saki is "Sacchan," and Akihiro is "Kaya-san."
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Akihiro was being abused by his older brother for several years. His family didn't bother to do anything to stop it until his brother poked his eye out.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Neversista Key. It doesn't do much...AT FIRST.
- Downer Ending: In the "Tinker Bell" ending, Makihara and Miharu bond over cooking and then Miharu poisons himself.
- Teens Are Monsters: Tying up, confining, and torturing a grown man? Check.
