Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!

Well, I finally went and tried Majikoi (at least, I went for the translated routes. Been thinking about using a machine translator to go through the other routes, since I can't wait for translations).

I went for Chris first, since I figured I would like her the least. I actually like her a bit more now because of her route. Liked the whole dynamic between Yamato and her. And I swear Chris' dad sounds like a certain mobile suit pilot...

As for her H-scenes, I can see where people would be uncomfortable with it, but I was okay with it.

Went for Wanko after that. She's heart-stoppingly adorable for me. Which made the middle of the route a bit devastating for me. Also, I can't blame Chris, since she didn't know what would have happened. And you knew it was bad when Momoyo started panicking. Which made the scene where they finally meet again all the more heart-warming.

And thank god for her H-scene in her route, because Yamato didn't have to come 5-6 times before ending it.

Momoyo's route was next. Honestly, the only thing that I liked about it was the whole Kawakami War part. Reminded me of Samurai Warriors. And the fight with Momoyo against Mayucchi, Ageha, and Otome was fun to read, as well as listening to the music at that part.

Mayucchi's route was last, and it seemed to combine what I had felt in the other routes. I liked it the most. Hehe, that naked apron...

Tsubame patch out. The timing is suspicious, but it's apparently legit.

Yeah, pretty sure I can see where this is going already. Well, Majikoi has never really tried for subtle writing, so that's okay. Such an odd side of Yamato.

edited 1st Apr '13 10:30:18 AM by Arha

You know, after playing the "routes" of S, I thought, "You know, I'm not really sure why I'm reading this series. I can't really remember a point where it was anything other than okay." So I went back to the original.

Okay, never mind. Kazuko and Yukie are pretty legitimately good. Not masterpieces, but they know what they want to do and they do it well. The former, in particular, contrasts against the others in a good way. Momo's is solid, but I can't judge Chris's route, because it contains that scene and what do you even say to that? The True End sounds interesting as well, even if we'll never see it in English.

Regardless of your feelings on the original, though, you should not read S. I've spent like five minutes trying to articulate why I don't like it, and all of it keeps coming back to "soulless." I can't articulate what's wrong about it, but I don't care about anything that happens or care about any of the people. Tsubame is a neat concept! I liked her better when she was named Yamato and didn't fight. At least the impact of the branch split in her path was nicely done and made a surprising amount of sense. Some of the clones could be interesting! But injecting new characters isn't enough to make things interesting. It feels like a sales-based continuation made without any real path forward.

I've invested enough into it that I'm going to read through the rest, just in case there's something that can salvage it, but I really can't recommend it to anyone.

edited 4th Apr '13 12:03:49 AM by Einander

Yeah, it's not nearly as good as the original. Still, it has Benkei in it and I can hope that she'll amount to something eventually.

As far as Tsubame goes I didn't actually read the 'Tsubame lead the relationship' branch yet. I'm just not that interested.

Agree with the 'Not interested in Tsubame leading' portion, mostly because I think it would just exaggerate the only real flaw with the route: Tsubame being Tsubame seems to prevent Yamato from being Yamato.

And Yamato is interesting just because he's not your typical VN protagonist.

Started the original a few days back. Just finished Momoyo's route. In the afterstory now....

I'm new to this and all, but those H-scenes are taking really long. O_O I called it quits when a new one started in the bathroom.

First VN. First H-scene. A bit disappointed that the H-scene has Momoyo breaking her character. -_-" Talk about 180... -sighs-

Definitely hoping the others manage to hook me as much as this route did. Though the romance was lacking — and gratuitously made up for later on — the Kawakimi Battle arc got me to stay up until dawn.

Though, I will admit that there's been a bias towards "Onee-sama" type characters from the get-go. I just want some So L since that part of the romance felt lacking.

How bad can Chris ero be...?

edited 31st Aug '13 11:53:16 AM by Jigaboo

Chris' first H scene made me highly uncomfortable.

Yeah, Chris' scenario makes a lot of people rather uncomfortable.

And yes, that H-scene is very long. Maybe the longest of all VNs I've played. The scary part about her character there is that it's about average or more consistent with her regular personality than most H-scenes in VNs. If you're actually looking for porn, VNs are not the place to go to. Way too much story for some rather bland and usually badly written porn.

Mostly, I think this game is for humour. It's made me laugh more than any other VN, and most other anime.

At this point, it's devolved into "You're XXX-ing my YYY with your ZZZ! Ahn~"

I though the H-scenes would supplement the romance nicely, but Yamato's just being weird and completely messing up the tone the relationship had throughout the route. What's this, the 4th time he's gotten it up? That even possible!? X_X

Well, she wasn't acting too out of character I guess. I'll judge it when I get through it all. (Apparently that was day 2 of 4 of it. )

EDIT:

YEP. Conflicted.

There we go.

edited 1st Sep '13 2:29:23 AM by Jigaboo

Momoyo's S after story is surprisingly good, especially considering it's pretty much nothing but happy, affectionate romance and flirting. I was not expecting that at all, so I guess now I know why people are actually looking forward to it. Granted, they're not going to get it since the translators aren't doing anything anymore.

I hope the other after stories are decent as well. Agave After might be interesting if nothing else. Not that I really like Tatsuko much when she isn't crushing skulls, but seeing what they do with the setting with Gen there and the building gone could be good.

Character popularity poll came out. Margit came out first and Benkei fourth, which is way higher than her boss got. Voted for both of those and Stacy, who only placed top twenty. Still pretty good overall for my own picks.

Rinchuu somehow managed to get third. None of the original heroines placed higher than fifth.

edited 5th Sep '14 12:49:17 PM by Arha

The original Majikoi was picked up by a new group, who have mostly completed it.

Full Majikoi patch out.

The patch's release has given me the Majikoi fever once more~

Dang. Only after playing through S and some of the A games do you really start to miss the vanilla BGM of Majikoi. Kawakami Sky and Swift Black Horse and Japanese Sword really do stand out as highlights for it.

And, am I the only whose heart breaks a little playing through any of the A routes? Benkei always seems to regret not pursuing Yamato more eagerly, which is painful since I really do wish her route was even longer. They're just, the perfect couple.

I like March of a Beast myself, though it always plays a little too quietly during the scenes when it would be really appropriate.

Heart break is a little much, but yeah, it's always sad to see her regret at not being more proactive when she had the chance. She and Yamato just fit too well together.

edited 15th Mar '15 10:27:44 AM by Arha

Is it the end once we bump A-5? I'd be sad to see this series go.

It's really starting to overstay its welcome. Sure, Benkei and Haou had great routes, but then there was garbage like Rinchuu and a few I couldn't even finish. The series as a whole has mostly seemed to lose what made it fun. I blame Tsubame for being too much like Yamato.

Well, everything on A-5 looks pretty interesting at least but my hopes aren't high.

edited 16th Mar '15 4:34:58 PM by Arha

I blame it on probably Yamato more or less becoming a blank slate. The further away from the Kazama family he strays, the worse the routes get I suppose. He's utterly bland most of the time now. Still, I've grown attatched to the characters. I'll really miss it once it's gone. Were we ever able to hear Yuko Goto as Yukie again after the first game?

What made Rinchuu's route bad? Still on the fence regarding whether I should pick it up or not. Her voice doesn't really suit my fancy so I've avoided it till now.

In other news. Majikoi S has been picked up by the same team that finished the first game! Looking forward to that. I've managed reading the routes raw, but there's just something different about going through a translated game.

edited 18th Mar '15 12:46:10 AM by Jigaboo

Her route is just badly written. Rinchuu herself turns out to be pretty unlikable plus the story is at a new level of goofiness and not in a good way. There's little good reason for her to even be around and a lot of the supporting characters just aren't very good. Youshi in particular has always been kind of creepy. The actual conflict is stupid. Well, I guess that's what happens when some minor villain somehow becomes one of the top five most popular characters and they try to write a story around her.

That said, I liked both of the maid routes from A3 and they barely even had names in the original story.

Edit: Hmm... Momoyo After, Agave After and Koyuki route are probably the things to look forward to, I suppose. Though I'm not sure why it's called the Koyuki route given that she appears about three times in total. Oh, and the Takae Tachibana thing was pretty amusing. No idea if she's like that in the anime, but after being ported back into the VN she's pretty funny.

edited 18th Mar '15 9:45:31 AM by Arha

Played a ton of Majikoi the past week.

In Majikoi:

Miyako's route was meh. I didn't really like her to begin with, but I guess the character development was pretty neat. I don't know, there's something about her that just keeps me from being charmed. Might be oversaturation. She comes on to Yamato almost all the time, so the atmosphere doesn't really seem to change when you actually get on her route.

Agave was everything I wanted it to be. It was comfortably long, complex, and had the perfect amount of SoL in it. Gen being inducted into the Kazama Family was also a nice touch. After playing parts of S, that part with Tatsuko beating down Momoyo felt a bit silly considering the sheer amount of significantly more powerful characters introduced in later installments. The last scene was pretty powerful too, I actually felt touched for a while when they talked about meeting up again when the Agave bloomed.

Capt's route was pretty cool. The ending made me chuckle, what with the RPG character assignments.

Continued Majikoi S:

Is it me or is this game just BLOATED with H-scenes? Seriously, they're really long too... At least the BGM's comfy to listen to. Leaps and bounds better than Storm of Love, that's for sure. Fricking Nukige....

Agave After was a very comfy route. The absence of the clones was confusing though. I suppose it was a Vanilla!Majikoi-centered route? I went down Tatsuko's route first, and I absolutely loved it. Tatsuko's just a really comfy heroine. The C Gs on her route were really cute and I enjoyed the dynamic between her and Yamato. The frequently used "Let's take a Nap" BGM really supplemented my enjoyment of it. The Itagaki Family interactions were cool and they really grew on me. That said, rape-y Yamato made an appearance near the end, and that was really not cool. >_>

I then went down Kazama Family route, which I thought was like a joke route. Then, well, H-scene. I was decently surprised Yamato wasn't on top...until he accomplished it anyway while still being on the bottom. Bless them for not rolling the unskippable credits.

I'll miss the Agave series. If you think about it, it's the only set of routes in the game wherein Gen truly belongs with the Kazama Family, and that's just really sad.

Margit's route had me hooked for about 2 minutes, before I began to alternately mash enter and left click through the slew of gratuitous smut. I was heartbroken, those 2 minutes seemed promising. Who's bright idea was it to take out the "hold spacebar" feature... I was briefly surprised by Yamato's parents making an appearance, before I just really got some bad vibes from Yamato's dad and how his "marriage" dynamic with Yamato's mom was like. From there it was a painful 30 minutes of "Ahhhhn-Soko wa Dame-Yamato no"

Kokoro's route was like Margit's, except this one actually tried to have a story. Interesting for a while before I got sick of the H-scenes and blazed through them.

I have yet to complete the S-after's for the original heroines, so I'll get to those tomorrow. I'll save Momo's for last since I have some pretty high expectations for it. I've been hearing some really good things about it. I'll do reverse of how I played the original then.

TL;DR : More SoL = Better Route

edited 31st Mar '15 10:40:47 AM by Jigaboo

Tatsuko is pretty tough, actually. She manages to look pretty good in the A-2 fandisk. At the very least, she's tougher than Ageha.

Yeah, Agave After keeps stuff like the clones out. So do the other after stories. I like Momoyo's quite a bit given that we finally got to see her and Yamato interact as a couple.

Margit's crap route is why I want to see her after story in A-5. I'm half expecting it to read as an apology to Margit fans who wanted more than gratuituous BDSM sex scenes. She is the most popular character in the series.

I inhaled Tsubame After.

The "Tsubame takes the lead" route is definitely the superior of the two. The BGM coupled with that last CG and scene with the Matsunaga family really made the route. It was a really solid route. Yamato's parents played a significant role, and the solution to the problem was pretty clever. I felt really empty finishing it, seeing how things were looking up for the Matsunaga family. Tsubame's one of the characters I favor more after all.

Whelp, this is the last of Tsubame's content I'll read until it gets translated in English. I'll probably read it again then. Bye Natto Komachi.

I got a copy of the Majikoi S OST but none of the remastered tracks from the first game made it in the CD. >__> Anyone know where those missing tracks are? Seichousuru Kokoro really is better in S.

edited 21st Apr '15 8:46:24 AM by Jigaboo

Tsubame annoys me. I couldn't even read the route where she takes the lead.