R-18 Otome Game Review: Kuro to Kin no Akanai Kagi

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NO, scissors aren’t supposed to go anywhere near there! WHY?!” the otome game.

Whoa, it’s been a while since I posted one of these. …To be totally honest, I finished this game in 2013 and totally had this post written since 6 months ago, so really, I have no excuse.

Summary

Kanade is a hikkikomori for no real reason (no really, they never talk about it) and she’s been living inside her room for a long time, much to the chagrin of her step brother of sorts, Ikuto. Her mother has been in a common law marriage with Ikuto’s father for a few years and both work overseas, so it’s not like they can do much about her. However, all it takes is a weirdass dream involving a cowboy onii-san, a mysterious guy giving her a haircut in the middle of a park and 3 days or so at school to get Kanade back to herself, so they don’t really have to worry about it. Hell, after a point in the game, her hikki days are barely even mentioned again, except in passing.

I’m pretty sure that there were more bad ends than this, but I only did the ones with CGs. …Plus these were the only ones the guide I was using mentioned. Speaking of CGs, I can’t remember where in the plot half of these CGs take place, so some might be out of order or totally unrelated to the text. OTL

Konno Chihiro

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The first route I went with is Chihiro’s. He’s a teacher at Kanade’s school who helps her catch up since she’s been missing since nearly the beginning of the term due to… who even knows. It’s not like the plot cares. They never explained this other than referring to it as an “incident”. I can’t really say much about his character without ruining the “joy” (not really) that his character brings later, but he seems like a regular teacher who’s genuinely concerned about the well being of his student. He’s also voiced by Hirakawa Daisuke so if you’ve ever wanted to hear what Rei from Free! would sound like in H situations… …I had no idea who Hirarin was at the time, but after DiaLovers (I played this before that), I’m probably never going to not hear him as Laito again. Oh, and Chihiro’s goal in life is to write children’s books. This is never accomplished, by the way. Ever.

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Sudou Yukio

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Yukio is a childhood classmate of Kanade’s who meets up with her after a long time, right after she gets her hair cut. …Actually, they meet because he tries to nanpa her, and THEN he realizes that he knows her. Anyways, he’s one of the people who helps Kanade adjust to real life again, and he goes to her house every morning to walk her to school (even though they attend different ones). Personality-wise, he’s never actually had a girlfriend (despite trying to nanpa Kanade), and thus, is an awkward guy who has no idea about girls. …At the beginning at least. Other than that, he’s pretty cheerful and an ordinary teenager. Also, I thought there would never be a Toriumi Kousuke character who would annoy me more than Cecil from UtaPri. …I was wrong. SO wrong.

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Sonomura Ikuto

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Ikuto is Kanade’s non-blood-related brother, resident tsundere, and a stand-in strict Asian parent to Kanade. He calculates her calorie intake, cooks for the household, launders/irons all the clothing, and makes sure that suspicious men don’t approach her yeah, he kind of dropped the ball in all of the other routes. Though of course, he’s had a thing for Kanade since forever ago, but the girl is EXTREMELY DENSE. …Oh, Ikuto also grows a mini vegetable garden outside his room, and has punched pretty much every character that’s annoyed me so far in the game. He’s voiced by Hino Satoshi.

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Hasui Tomoomi

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The mysterious man who gave Kanade the haircut in the park and changed her life.  He’s also the yandere to end all yanderes. I… have absolutely no idea where this guy gets his money from, but apparently he’s absolutely rolling in money since he lives in a hotel, doesn’t have a job and pays for absolutely everything he buys Kanade (and it’s all rather high end stuff too). I suppose he used to work for the film industry, but the guy seems to be set for life. Personality-wise, he’s kind enough, though maybe a bit mysterious. His seiyuu is Mizushima Takahiro.

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Normal End + Extras

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The normal route is uneventful and instead of tension with any of the route options, Kanade, Kotoko, Komine and Ikuto all watch fire works after the cultural festival. …Though this game refuses to leave it at just that, so once all you’ve done all of the routes (or at least the good ends) an new dream sequence-ish story opens up where Kanade gets either a yuri scene with Kotoko, or an R-18 scene with Komine. Though he still totally has a crush on Kotoko here, so I have no idea wtf was going on. Oh and then after that, there’s an unnecessary(?) orgy with ALL of the 4 main route characters because why the hell not. …And that’s all you need to know about that scenario.


Maybe I sound angry in my summaries, but this was entire game actually really hilarious for me (minus Yukio, though some of that was laughable too). …For all of the wrong reasons. Forget Kanade’s level of pathetic (actually, she was pretty likeable throughout the entire game), every single guy in this game obviously needs emotional help. I guess little cheese was just dead set on having absolutely every guy in this game as a yandere, whether it actually fit with their characters or not. …Plus it doesn’t help that this game’s philosophy behind easing events into the plot is basically “Foreshadowing? What’s that?“. I kind of see how some events (like Chihiro’s roneriness) was kind of hinted at, but then you get the sex addict Yukio out of bloody nowhere. Characters would suddenly act like assholes and you’d have no idea what set them off. …It was all in good fun though (for me at least, I imagine this game would be pretty offensive for some people). Plus you mostly got to avoid horrible scenarios provided that you stuck with the “good” ends, so maybe you could just pretend that some of the characters weren’t total pricks occasionally. Anyways, I can’t really say much more about the plot, but the CGs were done by Yura, so everyone looks like their hair was washed in mercury the art was pretty great. The music and VAing was great too.

There’s also some H anime for this that came out a while ago, but I’m kind of afraid to watch it (for obvious reasons).

About

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
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15 Responses to “R-18 Otome Game Review: Kuro to Kin no Akanai Kagi”

  1. d-LaN says:

    ……….Well at least you had your fun with Kurokin XD Going from this post, the game sounds random as hell and not in a good way. I pretty much lolwat the entire way through this review but it was kind of entertaining. The heroine have a pretty nice design that I liked though.

    The art style kinda reminds me of Kosuke Fujishima style but I like this one a lot more. Anyway, thanks for the entertaining review Kara.

    • Karakuri says:

      Yep, this was actually a lot of fun. …Sometimes it was mildly traumatizing, but still fun. Yeah, I liked Kanade’s design too! I prefer my otoge heroines with longer hair…

      You’re welcome! Thanks for commenting xD

  2. Highway says:

    This might be the most ‘feminist’ game I remember you reviewing, since none of the good ends resulted in mental or physical abuse (at least that’s the way it seems). 🙂

    There are never any condoms in any of this stuff. I think I’ve seen one hentai that used one. They’ve been more present as jokes, such as Xenovia doing her Rin Tohsaka impression in DxD or Korone pranking Junko in an Ichiban Ushiro bumper (which was hilarious). You might think that there’s some thought about the rhythm method of birth control, but yeah, that’s not very reliable.

    If I can ever get through this VN I’m doing, maybe I’ll do a review of it, although it seems like it’s the low-art version. I’m *almost* finished with one route!

    • Karakuri says:

      …I wouldn’t call this game feminist at all. xD But yes, the good ends were all happy and non-rape-y.

      I can’t remember a single R-18 (otoge or galge) that mentions them at all other than this one… Though hearing about a girl having her period is even more rare. I haven’t come across that at all yet (and only know about one game that someone told me mentions it).

      Yeah, you should! You’ve been playing it for a long time, so you might as well~ (if we’re talking about the game I think we’re talking about).

  3. Di Gi Kazune says:

    Ah… the reverse version of eroge… Refreshing role reversal.

    • Karakuri says:

      If you know any games that reverse the roles of being threatened by scissors, let me know xD (or maybe don’t….)

  4. Maya says:

    I watched the anime for this! (Yes, fill in the blanks yourself please to where I might have found it). I did not regret anything. There are only 2 episodes.

    • Karakuri says:

      You don’t seem overly traumatized, so maybe I should look into the anime. As long as they keep the bad ends out of it, it might not be too bad to watch.

  5. BlackBriar says:

    Been a while since you made one of these, Kara. From what you’re saying, everyone in the game is pretty wired to their extremes in different ways. I’m guessing therapy is out of the question.

    • Karakuri says:

      Yep! It’s been a while! Though I played A LOT of otoge during the summer. I should really finish writing those posts out. …And finish DiaLovers.

      Eh, yeah, everyone is pretty extreme in personality. I really wish Kanade had shipped them off to therapy (or you know, punched Ikuto), but at least things worked out in the good ends.

  6. Kyokai says:

    …there’s an unnecessary(?) orgy with ALL of the 4 main route characters because why the hell not.

    Lol, you know, eroge are known to utilise all scenarios. I just remembered self-cest in DMMD, which seems normal than a pointless orgy here. It’s funny but then again, people love this kind of stuff so well.

  7. kai goshi says:

    I’m not sure if previous messages were sent from this email or another but disregard previous sent messages sorry for the trouble

  8. kai goshi says:

    I’m not sure if previous messages were sent from this email or another but disregard previous sent messages sorry for the trouble

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