YMMV / Slow Damage

A-C

• Adorkable:
  • It's not often that Towa gets flustered. So whenever it happens, he ends up coming off as both fragile and adorable, and the embarrassed expressions that he shows in his tender moments with his love interests — all of which are thankfully captured in CGs — help make him look even cuter.
  • Taku can be surprisingly endearing, what with someone his age actually getting shy whenever he and Towa accidentally touch hands and how he starts fumbling whenever Towa teases him.
  • On top of being a friendly, excitable and affectionate Rose-Haired Sweetie, Rei tends to get easily embarrassed, which just makes him more lovable than he already is.
  • Fujieda gives the impression of being prim and proper and perfect at all times. But as Towa gets to know him better, the man is revealed to be capable of being clumsy and awkward at the most surprising moments.
  • Fans have a hard time denying that the way Mayu rolls himself into a cocoon whenever he sleeps is rather cute.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: When Towa calls to Fujieda for help in the latter's Madness ending, one possible way to look at the scene is that Towa knows he's beyond saving, and is actually asking for Fujieda to kill him.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: During an Exploration, whenever the player goes to Kouou Street, chances are a certain track will play in the background. Most players find this track catchy yet rather silly. What they may not know, however, is that this is a parody of an actual song that plays from what is (in)famously known as the "Vanilla Truck", which drives around Tokyo to recruit women into the sex industry.
• Anvilicious:
  • It never reaches the point that it feels exceedingly heavy-handed, but more than one route in Slow Damage still doesn't hold back in telling the player that if someone has a terrible parent, they have more than every right to hate said parent, wish them dead, and even cut off all ties with them—regardless of what their culture or their sense of filial piety has to say about it. Most Japanese fictional works tend to paint even some of the more notoriously abusive parents in a sympathetic light and even have the narrative absolve them to some degree due to Japan's priority on family and blood ties (to the point that adoption is, while not illegal, highly frowned upon and is even considered a social stigma in the country), so it's telling that Slow Damage doesn't waver once in its stance on this lesson.
  • The visual novel's setting has the narrative — in a somewhat subtle way — caution players every now and then about the dangers of getting in monetary debt, or getting addicted to the things that are likely to lead to them being in debt (e.g. gambling and drugs), even when living in a harsh dog-eat-dog world run by corrupt organizations.
• Awesome Art: Uiro Yamada, one of Nitroplus' long-time staff artists, finally gets to take the helm as the lead artist for Slow Damage and show off their artistic skills in full, as seen in the character designs, the background scenery and the color schemes.
• Awesome Music: It's par the course for the soundtrack of every Nitro+CHiRAL visual novel to get praised, and Slow Damage is no exception. See here.
• Base-Breaking Character: With the exception of Rei, where it's more of the aspects of his route than anything about him per se that become a point of contention among the players, Towa's three other love interests are more divisive, especially in the English-speaking fandom.
  • A considerable number of fans like Taku for his complex characterization and for being an interesting subversion and/or deconstruction of the tropes commonly associated with a mature-aged love interest. But there are other fans who are turned off by either his flaws or his 20-year age gap with Towa, and that isn't even without mentioning the questionable actions that he takes or is willing to take to protect Towa. One may not mind it much and think it adds to his Hidden Depths, while another may see it as reason to decry him as utterly selfish, inconsiderate and Beyond Redemption.
  • Majority of the fandom is heavily split in their opinions on Madarame, and it all ties to the brutal nature of his route and the fact that it's mainly his actions that drive Towa to completely cutting ties with both Taku and Rei. Though there are others who love him because he's meant to serve the role of the problematic love interest who expresses his love through violence and encourages Towa's harmful tendencies; then there's a third party that stands in between: they appreciate both Madarame's characterization and his dysfunctional relationship dynamic with Towa, but also understand why he has his fair share of haters and aren't going to defend him when questioned of their opinion of him.
  • Fujieda's route is universally liked for exploring Towa's backstory and Hidden Depths, and for tying almost every possible plot thread together in a satisfying and meaningful way. Fujieda himself, however, isn't regarded as favorably.
    • The primary reason involves the scene where Fujieda rapes Towa in a fit of misplaced rage and grief, to which he later says that he won't apologize for what he did. While he rationalizes that there's no excuse for his actions, the remark also ends up giving the impression that he also doesn't feel any remorse for them, which doesn't sit well with some of the players. In addition, there's how he can be awfully insensitive towards Towa for a good two-thirds of the route, such as when he presses both Towa and Taku about the former's true name, then immediately interrogates Towa as soon as the latter regains consciousness after suffering a panic attack.
    • His more questionable actions aside, some players feel that Fujieda doesn't have as much chemistry with Towa due to their lack of a shared personal history, which consequently causes them to find the pair's Commonality Connection of having a terrible history of Parental Abuse to be somewhat middling as a basis for their romance. On the other hand, his fans like the way that he and Towa slowly warm up towards each other after realizing that they have similar upbringings and tragedies, and believe that Fujieda's faults are vital to the themes of the route and are meant to prove that he's no more prone to making horrible mistakes than rest of the main cast is. Though there's another smaller but existent camp that don't think that what Fujieda did is the epitome of the Moral Event Horizon, but still find him too bland to get invested in him as a character.
• Broken Base:
  • Because of Values Dissonance, not everyone is united in their opinions towards how the narrative resolved Rei's identity crisis in his route. Some think that the plotline is handled perfectly fine and successfully conveyed the message that one's gender identity isn't always synonymous with their personal preferences, while others think that the writers took the easy way out and didn't make use of an opportunity to delve more into the concept of gender dysphoria and, by extension, gender fluidity. Additionally, there's also significant debate about what gender Rei's friends actually identify with. Because the original Japanese text rarely makes use of gendered third-person pronouns, whether Rei's friends are transgender, non-binary, simply camp, or something in between any of the three can lead to a long (and depending on who you're asking, heated) discussion.
  • The Reveal of Maya's diary at the ending of Fujieda's route. Some fans think that it's an excellent narrative touch that helps give Towa more closure and humanize Maya's character without justifying her villainy or even absolving her of it. Others think that the scene was unnecessary, feeling that the narrative was attempting to make the player sympathize with someone who was an abusive mother and a ruthless psychopath through and through— something that a leaves a bad taste in their mouths.
  • Fans are never in complete agreement with regards to how JAST BLUE handled the English translation of the visual novel, since there's a side that is vocal about many of the questionable liberties taken with the translation (with changing the narration viewpoint being one of them) while another side will openly defend the translation anytime someone even so much as gives constructive criticism about it.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: By the time it's explicitly revealed that Towa was greatly abused by his mother, which led to his current outlook and lifestyle, not everyone will be all that shocked. But at the same time, they're still left speechless and emotionally gutted by The Reveal as a masterful build-up in the narrative allows said revelation to perfectly nail the emotional impact that writer intended to leave on the player, which greatly mitigates the predictability factor.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • In Taku's route, it's hard not to cheer for Towa when he manages to give a solid beating to one of Toono's more belligerent subordinates who keeps giving him trouble simply for talking to Lisa. Though this does earn him a broken arm, Towa does get to complete his payback in the Euphoria ending by choking the man into unconsciousness before leaving him Bound and Gagged.
  • In Rei's route, after a few scenes of other characters trying their best to not just beat the shit out of the man already or attempting to do so before getting stopped, Towa finally gets to land a solid hit on Rei's father once he can no longer tolerate the man's scummy attitude, and he punches hard enough to knock the bastard off of his feet. It's more satisfying since that's about the most the slimeball ever gets.
• Crack Pairing: Though it's in the very minority, said minority has people who usually want at least one Les Yay couple in a fandom. As such, they tend to pair Lisa and Hasegawa together, even though they never encounter each other once in any route.
• Crossover Ship: Some tend to pair Towa with Aoba's Superpowered Evil Side by virtue of both characters being sadomasochists of the highest order.

D-P

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Asakura is often speculated by fans to have pedophilia obsessive-compulsive disorder (POCD). He's already been rumored to be a pedophile back in the mainland, and since he doesn't deny that he has soft spot for children, the possibility of him actually having an unhealthy attraction for them greatly disturbs him. Needless to say, there's also the desire that he's been harboring for some time: to make his own angel by literally sewing wings onto a person's back, and he associates angels with children.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Among the four art models Towa encounters, Ikuina is easily the most well-liked because of his personality, his darker Hidden Depths, and his "euphoric session" with Towa (which is recognized to be one of the Signature Scenes of the visual novel). Many even wish that he had joined the main character line-up as a fifth love interest.
  • Much like Gunji and Kiriwar and Virus and Trip, Kotarou and Mayu are fairly popular for their entertaining interactions and for being an interestingly refreshing subversion of what fans expected given the background of the aforementioned two duos.
  • Eiji also has fans due to being a sprightly tech nerd and an eccentric explosion enthusiast. The Reveal about him being The Mole for Madarame, Sakaki and the mainland police all around the same time and how he does what he does purely for amusement's sake has only increased his popularity with the fanbase.
  • It's hard to find someone who dislikes Igarashi when his cordial and courteous personality leaves no reason for anyone to have a negative opinion of him— something that even applies to the In-Universe cast's opinion of the man.
  • Rei's trio of friends-slash-Deathmatch teammates are also beloved by fans, especially Western fans, because of how they're both highly camp and very friendly while still being anything but simpering wimps when push comes to shove.
  • Although Lisa only shows up in Taku and Fujieda's route (with her screentime being far more diminished in the latter route), she is liked by many for being an attractive Action Girl who also serves as a helpful ally to both Towa and Taku.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Both Maya and Sakaki have made it clear that they gave Mei the death sentence, and there was no reason for them to lie about killing her to either Towa or Fujieda. That being said, some fans still like to speculate that Lisa is actually Mei all grown-up, since their designs are identical enough that anyone who didn't know any better could make a similar assumption upon seeing them side by side. What also supports this theory is that while Towa feels uneasy around most women, he never once felt that way around Lisa.
  • There are some fans who point out the possibility that Maya shared her son's Aura Vision. One of the excerpts in her diary had her mention her son's "color", and Towa has the ability to see the auras of the people around him. He uses this ability to better talk to people and coax what he needs out of them— something that was also Maya's specialty, implying that she possessed the same ability, which allowed her to read others so well.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Towa, Taku and Rei are oftentimes referred to as the "Clinic Trio" since they work in the same clinic and often hang out together as established early on in the story.
  • Similarly, Kotarou, Mayu and Eiji are called the "Takasato Trio", given that they work for the Takasato-gumi and the fact that they're often seen together.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans weren't pleased about the scene where Fujieda rapes Towa at the park, and would prefer to imagine that all Fujieda did was beat Towa up and strangle him to near-death.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • While it's a niche pairing, there are some who like to imagine Sakaki and Toono together, what with their mutual disdain with each other resulting from their differing ambitions and opinions on how to run the Takasato-gumi.
  • They may not interact that often, but both Madarame and Fujieda's routes establish that the two are ever unlikely to find any common ground with, let alone even take a liking to, each other. It's also for this very reason that many are intrigued at the idea of shipping Taku and Madarame.
  • There's a lot of fans — whether they like Madarame or not — who like the idea of shipping him with Kaga. This is due to their status as Vitriolic Best Buds, with Kaga being the only man who Madarame begrudgingly respected and didn't mind the company of even when they had no history of being Friends with Benefits. This, combined with Madarame's motives for returning to Shinkoumi and attacking the Takasato-gumi being hinted to have more to do with Kaga than with Towa, only makes them more appealing as a pairing for the fans.
• Fridge Horror: In Fujieda's route, Hasegawa reveals that Maya's child prostitution business had gotten her plenty of customers, with most of them being people of import, from politicians to celebrities to professors, and adds that there were times that they even had foreign guests. This leaves the implication that even with Euphoria shutting down after Maya's death, most if not all those depraved people are still at large. If there's anyone who eventually got caught indulging in their sick fetishes, they're more than likely to be greatly outnumbered by those who got away scot-free.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The part where Taku defiantly tells Toono that he will never be able to win against Sakaki may sting a lot more after the true route, since the player knows by that point that Taku was unknowingly speaking in defense of a man who was complicit, even if indirectly, in the abuse Towa was forced to suffer in the past.
  • Once the player has finished the entire game, only then will they realize that in Rei's route, Towa had unknowingly dodged a massive bullet by winning against Sakaki in what seemed like a harmless poker game.
  • In the game's intro, Japan is said to have entered a major economic trouble sometime in The New '20s. And then Japan enters a recession in Real Life in early 2024....
• He Really Can Act: The voice acting overall is given nothing but high praise by fans. Though when it comes to a specific performance, it's Ichirou Tanaka (Rei's voice actor) who tends to get singled out for acclaim, with his performance capturing Rei's wide range of emotions due to the character being the most expressive of the cast.
• Genius Bonus: There is a pleasant-sounding piano piece that plays sometimes in Yanagawa Café and in the beginning scene of the prologue chapter, although interestingly enough, it can't be found anywhere among the instrumental tracks. However, classical music aficionados can identify said piece as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", an excerpt from a cantata (Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben) composed by famed German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Nobody is arguing that Toono, Sakaki and Maya have committed many despicable crimes, but there's still some fans that Love to Hate them and/or appreciate their roles as loathsome but nevertheless well-written villains. Rei's father, on the other hand — despite not being an outright villain — is universally disliked both by the fans and the characters themselves for being completely slimy, selfish and cowardly, with not one positive trait on his bone whatsoever.
• Jerkass Woobie: Nozomu Kirihara is one violent and unstable individual responsible for the brutal beatings of numerous civilians. However, once his backstory is revealed, it becomes apparent that he's a textbook example of someone who has been abused for so long that it has permanently warped their sense of thinking and made them crave for more of the same cruel treatment from their abuser. It may not justify his actions, but it goes to show how some monsters are made rather than born. It gets worse since the liner notes confirmed that it doesn't matter whose route you take, as Kirihara will always die in the end.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: It's practically canon that Towa has an entire harem of his own, comprising of his countless unnamed one-night stands, his art models and his four prospective love interests. Even then, fans also like to ship him with those who he has not done it with yet, and it sometimes extends into Crossover Ships featuring him and someone else from any of Nitro+CHiRAL's other visual novels.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • While the situations and motivations of both characters are notably different from the other's, some fans in the West nevertheless like to poke fun at Taku's predicament by comparing him to Walter White. To a lesser extent, fans would add to the joke by likening Towa, Fujieda, and Toono to Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman, and Gustavo Fring respectively.
  • Many have joked about how Towa's new hairstyle in Taku's good ending resembles a Motherly Side Plait (also known as the "dead anime mom hair").
  • More than one fan has commented that Inada's character design makes him look like someone who came straight out of My Hero Academia.
• Moe: You will find yourself melting at how sweet and adorable Towa was as a child, which makes it all the more heartbreaking when you find out what he was put through in his younger years.
• Moral Event Horizon: While some of the love interests' morally dubious actions are a popular subject of debate among fans, none of them will have any arguments about how the villains' actions and motivations are nothing short of abhorrent.
  • The fact that Maya was behind most of the unsolved deaths in Shinkoumi and also ran a brothel where people can vent their sickening desires on children, her own son included, is already crossing multiple lines. The cherry on top is how she also had Mei killed and later attempted to kill Towa when he found out and confronted her about it, and when that backfired, she left a final contingency to have Towa groomed into becoming her successor, showing her utter lack of either morals or remorse.
  • Sakaki proves to have gone off the very deep end a long time ago by willingly aiding Maya in her crime spree and supporting her beliefs and goals, showing zero sympathy for the children trapped in Euphoria and regarding them as no more than literal goods. He's also the one who took Mei's life under Maya's orders, and he took great delight in doing so as shown in the way he gloats to Fujieda about it.
  • Toono solidifies his standing among the worst of the lot through his plan to distribute deadly narcotics as a means of extending his influence to the mainland and taking control of the Takasato-gumi, which would then turn the city of Shinkoumi into a den of brain-dead drug addicts.
• Most Wonderful Sound: One wouldn't expect the sound of stitches being pulled apart from their seams to be oddly pleasing to the ears, but Slow Damage pulls it off.
• Narm Charm:
  • Some fans find Mayu's sex scene with Towa to be more hilarious and cringeworthy than anything. Then again, the scene being cringe-inducing is also meant to be the point, since his ending is even officially labeled a "Funny Ending" by Nitro+CHiRAL.
  • While it works in the context of the scene, some still can't help but laugh in fond amusement at the way Rei's final duel in his route makes use of both The Power of Friendship and The Power of Love to give him a Heroic Second Wind— a scene that one could find in most shōnen anime and manga.
• Obvious Judas: Sakaki, while described early on to be fatherly towards Towa, is still someone without much moral compunctions, what with being the second-in-command of a yakuza group. But by the time the player gets to the final route, it's easy for them to get highly suspicious of him when his description of Maya conflicts with Towa's unease at the mere mention of her (even before he remembers her in full), and especially after he's revealed to be the one who had Fujieda's office bombed. By then, most players have already guessed that he's likely to be the Big Bad. At most, what they may still have yet to expect is how Ax-Crazy Sakaki actually is, let alone the scope of his endgame plan.
• One True Threesome: There are fans who like Towa, Taku and Rei in one collective ship, given that the latter two deeply care for Towa but also share a close friendship with each other.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: As always, the fandom creates one for the four main ships of Slow Damage, namely TakuTowa, ReiTowa, MadaTowa and FujiTowa.

R-Z

• Realism-Induced Horror: Slow Damage's setting is completely realistic, unlike Nitro+CHiRAL's other visual novels. As such, all the conflicts featured throughout the narrative are also something that's prevalent in Real Life, half of which tie to the core concept of abuse, be it physical, mental, emotional, or even sexual. As a result, a lot of its moments can end up hitting a little too close to home for some players, depending on what they have dealt with or are dealing with in their personal lives.
• Ron the Death Eater: The Reveal that Taku has been keeping Towa's past a secret for years and is even willing to cross a few lines to continue keeping him in the dark has left a sour taste on some fans, who condemn him for betraying Towa's trust. While Towa does call Taku out on it a handful of times, the narrative soon establishes that Taku's actions — while somewhat extreme — weren't done out of malice, and his fears of how Towa would react if he found out about his childhood proved to be far from unfounded. This is in contrast to Sakaki ^note  who's only helpful on the surface though his reasons for aiding Towa are anything but benevolent or even Madarame's ^note  who speaks poorly of Taku for lying to Towa, but whether he hides or shares what he himself knows is mostly for his own benefit and depends on what he believes will make Towa more susceptible to his influence motives with regards to hiding or revealing Towa's past. Yet between the three, Taku gets vilified by the fandom far more often than the other two... even though the events of the Golden Ending show Towa letting go of his anger and forgiving Taku after understanding why he did what he did.
• Ship Mates:
  • In spite of the liner notes stating that it would never happen, fans nevertheless gravitate towards the idea of Rei and Arimura getting together in the scenario where Towa and Taku become a couple.
  • Fans also entertain the idea of Taku and Rei eventually hooking up in the aftermath of both Madarame and Fujieda's routes.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • The story establishes early on that Towa and Eiji hadn't hooked up even once, with the latter declining as he wasn't interested. There's even a scene in Fujieda's route where Towa — who is mentally in shambles at the moment — makes a move on Eiji, who pushes him away in a confused panic. Nevertheless, there are a lot of fans who can't help but wonder what the two would be like as a couple.
  • While they're never seen interacting onscreen, some nevertheless ship Inada and Eiji due to the former confirming that he seeks to surpass Eiji as an information broker, with Eiji at least being aware of Inada's existence.
  • The one time they meet face to face in both Madarame and Fujieda's routes, respectively, makes it obvious to the player that they're unlikely to ever get along, but it's also for that same reason that fans like to see what kind of relationship Rei and Madarame would have, especially since the narrative would go to show that there's a lot of differences between them as much as there are a lot of similarities that they share.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: There are a lot of fans who like both Taku and Madarame... just as there are a lot of fans who like one at the expense of the other, not just as a character but also as a love interest for Towa.
• Signature Scene:
  • Towa and Ikuina cutting each other and engaging in bloodplay, as it quickly sets the tone of the rest of the visual novel after a somewhat Slow-Paced Beginning.
  • Signature CG, more specifically, but even those who have yet to play Slow Damage are likely to already know of the CG where Towa casually smokes a cigarette in a paint-splattered restroom stall with an indifferent expression on his face.
• Squick:
  • Even if you're not a man, you're guaranteed to squirm in pain at The Reveal that Rei attempted to penectomize himself in the past in an attempt to discard his masculinity.
  • It's hard for anyone, no matter how used they are to gore and Body Horror, to not even feel a bit squeamish at the scene where Asakura cuts Towa's back and jams iron rods welded together to resemble wings into the incisions, before crudely sewing them in place. Partly because the scene is described in excruciating detail, and partly because of the knowledge that the whole time this is happening, Towa is feeling the full brunt of the pain since Asakura didn't anesthetize him beforehand.
  • The player is likely to flinch at the part where Towa gets beaten up by Toono shortly before he gets his arm broken with one hard stomp on the elbow. Both Towa's scream and the visceral sound effects accompanying the scene don't help either.
  • What makes Taku's Madness ending so disturbing is the part where Towa hallucinates bugs inside him metamorphosing and digging through his flesh. While the most that's shown to the player is the colorful "pupae" crawling out from Towa's arms, both the narration and the sound effects are still graphic enough to let the player vividly imagine what Towa is seeing and feeling the entire time, and it's guaranteed to make anyone wince, whether they have entomophobia or not.
  • Rei's Madness ending, like all the other love interests' Madness endings, include a sex scene. But in this one, to put simply, Towa's missing eye gets in on the action as well. However, a certain line in the localization might turn said scene into Narm instead. And depending on the player's kinks, they might also grimace at the scene where Rei rips off Towa's corset piercings in the throes of their climax.
  • Madarame's Madness ending is bloody overall, though it's nearly impossible to not grimace at the part where Madarame slices open Towa's chest and then attempts to penetrate it, and also when he nicks Towa in a certain other area. Both the way the narration describes the scenes in detail and Towa's screams enhance how visceral the scene is, for better or worse.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some of the English-speaking fans who are knowledgeable in Japanese were displeased when the official translation of the game changed the entire narration from third-person to first-person (in contrast to DRAMAtical Murder, which already made use of a first-person narration in the original text).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some felt that the unnamed "vampire", who appears only in the prologue, could have used more screentime as well as a backstory, especially since he lacks both, causing him to stand out as no more than a literal living plot device. This is especially in contrast to Ikuina, Asakura and Mizuno, all of whom have their own distinct personalities and pasts that give further depth and intricacy to the plot.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some of Madarame's fans readily admit that his route is a tad too rushed and could have been a bit longer for the second half of the route's plot to unfold more naturally so as to not make the ending feel contrived. Such complaints tend to be targeted specifically about Towa's abrupt shift in behavior from wanting to get away from Madarame to suddenly feeling like he belongs only with him. Likewise, they also believe that the subplot focusing on the deterioration of Towa's relationship with both Taku and Rei needed more development to make the outcome of him leaving them behind and returning to Madarame have more narrative sense.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Even with the knowledge that Japan places great value on family ties, many felt that Rei's father got off way too easily. This is because despite everything he did to Rei and the very fact that he had no qualms about smuggling children, the narrative still left him with the (albeit slim) chance of being forgiven by his son— all in all, he was given no more than a slap on the wrist. Fans also felt that the Jerkass Realization he got in Rei's route is far from enough to warrant any forgiveness from him. In contrast, both Towa and Fujieda aren't portrayed in the wrong by the narrative for choosing to despise their parents and not wanting to be associated with them, even after they got closure with their pasts. Though another way of looking at it is that Rei's decision to give his father a chance to patch things up with him isn't about his father being worthy of forgiveness as much as it is a testament to how compassionate Rei can be.
• Values Dissonance: Because views of gender identity differ greatly in the East and in the West, there are fans from outside Japan who have some gripes about the way the plot handles Rei's identity crisis. The visual novel is clear about its Aesop of "liking and looking like the same gender isn't synonymous to having to act like the opposite gender if that's not how you really feel", which is an important message, especially given the more negative stereotypes placed on the LGBT+ community. That being said, some fans still wished that the plot went for a resolution that met things halfway and have Rei accept that he's a man without needing to completely eschew his more feminine traits.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Slow Damage shows just how much technological leaps have been made in the visual novel industry since the early 2010s, as the game boasts nothing but the highest production values with its direction, art and sound design, and makes masterful use of its visual effects to support and enhance its storytelling.
• The Woobie: Just like any other Nitro+CHiRAL game, a lot of the characters of Slow Damage have a dark and tragic story to tell.
  • Towa suffered abuse from his mother, who would have her customers do whatever they wish to her son, even if it involved torture and rape. Then later, he's befriended by a fellow captive who tried to help him get out of his predicament... only for her to get captured and killed on his mother's orders. When he learned of what happened to his friend, he defied his mother for the first time and soon killed her (albeit by accident) after a violent scuffle. Naturally, the resulting shock had him forget everything about his childhood. Even then, his amnesia doesn't stop his trauma from manifesting into a self-destructive, hypersexual and extremely masochistic behavior which he adopts as a means of both reclaiming autonomy from the pain he was helplessly subjected to, and to dehumanize himself as a means to detach himself from feeling genuine emotion. And this is all before losing an eye after protecting Madarame from what could have been a fatal gunshot in the same night that his half-brother got shot dead.
  • Taku had a relatively normal life growing up... until his parents divorced, which left him and his mother in poverty and caused his mother to turn to drugs in order to cope. Wishing to help her, Taku studied to become a doctor and was desperate enough to accept financial aid from Toono in order to complete his studies, but halfway through, his mother escaped the hospital and died in the streets. Blaming himself for not looking after his mother more carefully, Taku went into a downward spiral for some time, although he still managed to earn his doctor's license. But by then, he had already owed a great deal of money to Toono, which horribly backfired on him in the years to come. On top of this, the experience with his mother left him with a deep fear of losing someone dear a second time, which drives him to questionable extremes in his route.
  • Rei was subjected to bullying since childhood due to his feminine looks. While he already had it rough at school, he didn't have it any better at home either— his father eventually gambled all their savings away, which caused his parents to divorce, and he was left with his deadbeat father, who berated and disowned him for being gay. Rei moved out after middle school and kept his distance from his dad ever since... only for said parent to return to his life years later due to a huge debt placed on him, with his father believing that as his son, Rei is obligated to help him out.
  • From childhood to adulthood, Fujieda had nothing close to an easy life. In his younger years, he and his sister were forced to grow up with parents who abused them both physically and emotionally on a daily basis, with their mother's mistreatment getting far worse after an ugly divorce. Then one day, Fujieda found out that his mother sold off Mei in exchange for a huge sum of money, which drove him to run away from home and find her. After weeks of futile searching, he would have died on the streets had he not been rescued by the owner of a host club. With no other option, he sold his body to countless customers whilst studying his way through law school in order to earn the resources needed to find Mei and investigate her disappearance. The worst part is that in the end, he had been looking for someone who was long gone.

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