Awesome Music: The BGM manages to make afterschool clean up sound like a murder scene.
The vocal tracks also deserve a mention. Particularly "I'm in Blue" and "Miracles May", both of which are bound to bring forth tears from anyone who finished the game.
Broken Base: It's obvious that Tetsuo is Youji's true love interest, but between two of the four endings you have with him, fans are split on which one is the real ending: "The Red Road" or "Miracles May". While both the drama CD and the novelization follow the former ending (with even the game files stating outright that it's the true end), some prefer the latter due to the many possible implications left by the ambiguity of the last scenes, plus the fact that it's only unlocked by finishing the other three endings.
Epileptic Trees: One of the fan theories milling around is that Tetsuo is Zenya's illegitimate half-brother. Kunihito is a member of the cult, but not a host to the parasites, and Tetsuo's powerful bearing is similar to how Kunihito is described in his youth; since Zenya wasn't born with parasites, his mother may have left to seek a proper "donor" who would be as much like the man she loved as possible, but died after giving birth in secret. More significantly, Tetsuo and Zenya are the only two blonds in the story's universe.
None of the endings are given any official titles, but fans decide to name each ending based on their respective theme songs to easily differentiate them from the other.
Tetsuo and Youji's child has no name in the visual novel, though he is referred to as Junsei note This means "immaculate" or "pure" in Japanese, and said term is spoken quite often in the game, as it refers to the Pure Breed.by fans.
Franchise Original Sin: In terms of the official localization, at least. sweet pool is the first Nitro+CHiRAL visual novel to get licensed by JAST BLUE. While the translation is considered to be overall decent, there is one flaw that stands out, and it's how most of Makoto's lines always have at least one "bro" in a sentence. This won't be the last time JAST BLUE takes this particular kind of questionable liberty with the translation, as the same issue can be seen in their localization of DRAMAtical Murder, with Koujaku being the unlucky target and the usage of "bro" and other similar slang being taken up to eleven in the latter game.
Fridge Brilliance: Pure Breeds. The parasites are the disembodied souls of the damned in physical form, but a mated pair who have a high compatibility with each other may produce a child born in human form. If the entire point of their punishment is that they're no longer allowed to be "made in God's own image" because of the lustful, violent, implied-to-be-nonconsensual homosexuality at Sodom and Gomorrah, it makes sense that only a couple who truly care for each other while accepting (read, forgiving) the parasitic entities for making them what they are can overcome that punishment and produce a humanoid offspring.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The entire setting of sweet pool is essentially a bloodier and squickier version of what is now known as the "Omegaverse". Keep in mind, however, that the visual novel was released years before the "Omegaverse" became a popular trope to use in various fanworks for all kinds of media.
"Tetsuo ate him bread." The quote is a typo made in the fan translation; it's actually supposed to read "Tetsuo ate his bread," and the sentence became extremely funny to read.
"Soft plop".
Narm Charm: This is a game about a high school boy shitting meat monsters. That being said, it's still entirely successful at being the single most disturbing offering from Nitro+CHiRAL, winning out over competitors like Togainu no Chi, DRAMAtical Murder and Slow Damage. Even Gen Urobuchi, who is no stranger to creating works with dark and harrowing plots, admitted on the Liner Notes that he was shocked on how disturbing the story of sweet pool turned out to be.
Urobuchi: As I hoped, Fuchii [Kabura — writer of sweet pool] showed us all the darkness she holds inside. Like the way she ended the scene where Tetsuo takes Youji's virginity: It's nuts! You're one scary woman, Kabura!
Nausea Fuel: In a nut shell, both the plot and the setting of the visual novel functions on this trope. A prime example is when Zenya picks up a lump of living slug-sized flesh Youji had just given birth to from the boys' toilet floor and opening his mouth as if to swallow it. Fortunately, he ends up squishing it instead.
Squick: Simply put, the visual novel is chock full of the trope due to the copious amounts of Body Horror, and even then you're never able to get fully desensitized to the gore as the visual novel knows when to take you by surprise with its disturbing scenes, whether you're expecting them or not.
Tear Jerker: Where to start? There's Youji's backstory, Zenya's death, Youji and Tetsuo's death in both of their endings and Tetsuo's childhood, especially in the "Diving Deep" ending. The last one is particularly bad since you only get to hear it after Kitani had killed both of them.
The Woobie: Practically the entire cast, give or take Kunihito and Kamiya, since they're the only people who both know what's really going on and deliberately engaged in any of the plot, but Makoto probably fits the traditional bill. He's a happy, normal boy who just wants his best friend to open up to him... until Youji's pheromones pickle his brain and turn him into an obsessed, jealous, violent stalker who either kills him, eats him, and mourns him while eating his own flesh, or is driven to suicide out of shame, stuck in recovery in the hospital while Youji dies in circumstances that he'll probably never even hear about, much less ever get the truth.
