[Review] Koshotengai no Hashihime (古書店街の橋姫) [BL Game R-18]
Original Title:古書店街の橋姫
Romaji title: Koshotengai no Hashihime
English title: Hashihime of the Old Book Town
Rating: R-18
Developer: Adelta
Publishers: Adelta, Dramatic Create
Language: Japanese
Release date: 13/08/2016
Info : Official Site | vndb
Description (from MangaGamer):
Jinbochou, Tokyo
June 1922, Taisho Era
The Rainy Season
Tamamori came to Tokyo with his sights set on getting accepted to the Imperial University. However, he doesn't pass the entrance exam, and is so undisciplined and wrapped up in endless fantasies that he's kicked out of his boarding house after only two years. Through a stroke of luck, Tamamori begins to live and work at Umebachidou, a used book store. There, he enjoys whiling away his time as a "student preparing for entrance exams" and taking advantage of friends who are also from his hometown. But one right after the other, mysterious deaths befall those friends and, realizing he's been repeating the same rainy three days over and over again, Tamamori finds himself racing throughout Jinbochou to save them.
In this pop-occult mystery that surrounds the deaths of his friends... What is real, and what is a hallucination?
PV/Opening Game
Characters
Above from left:
- Tamamori (not a real name): The protagonist
uke. The bearer of Hashihime's power. - Minakami (not a real name): Tamamori's best friend. Support Tamamori 100%.
- Kawase (not a real name): Tamamori's best friend. A clean-freak who always make fun of Tamamori.
- Hanazawa (not a real name): Tamamori's best friend. Join the military academy.
- Hakase (not a real name): A customer in the bookshop. Tamamori's fans.
- (???): Mysterious guy who wear mask.
Lower from the left:
- The shop owner : the owner of the bookshop Tamamori working at.
- Haruhiko and the Frog Man : The original characters Tamamori creates, they often give advices to Tamamori.
- Meiko : the maid that working in the cafe Tamamori often visit.
- Oku-san and Naoshi : the owner of the dorm where Minakami live. Naoshi is Oku-san's son.
- Kato / Sanjou / Kudou / Toba : Kato-Kudou-Toba is the trio of detective. Sanjou is the caramel seller. Together with Naoshi too, they form a detective group.
- Sazan and Hitotsurugi : Hakase's personal maid.
- Yumeno Kyusaku : Eccentric writer that appear in 1915. Minakami's favorite author, Tamamori also fond of his writing. In 1922, he writes "Dogura Magura".
Story :
The story is about an eccentric over-dellusioned guy named Tamamori who wants to be a writer. The story begins with Tamamori and Kawase in a cafe were having a chat about Tamamori's new work. They talk about how miserable his life as a writer (basically it's just an introduction so we know about Tamamori). At this time we also being introduced a little bit about Kawase's personality (a clean-freak and sarcastic guy).
After that, Tamamori went back to the bookstore, then Minakami visited him. They were talking about the Yumeno Kyusaku's new book and later promised each other to go watch a movie in Tokyo Cinema tomorrow night. After Minakami went home, we were introduced to Haruhiko and the Frog Man, Tamamori's OC which (probably) only appear in his head. In the middle of writing (he is an aspiring writer after all), a customer visited the store, and it was Hakase (his fans).
(Kawase poured his coffee to Meiko, the waitress cafe)
(Minakami visited Tamamori)
(Tamamori in the writing-mode. No one can stop him now)
(what Tamamori feels after knowing that Hakase is his fans)
At this time we know how Hakase is already head over heels for Tamamori. He loves his works and wanted to become Tamamori's friend. It is a scene to introduce Hakase for us, I guess. After that, Hakase went home and Tamamori went to take a bath at a public bath. There (while bathing) he overheard 3 kids in the corner of the bath gossiping and talking about a certain weird incident lately. They were talking about a tall-man (?) that was lurking in the town, saying it was a criminal or some creep guy.
Ignored all the fuss about the man, he came back to his house. Later, Kawase visited him again and read about the story of the Frog Man (the one Tamamori wrote before). After reading the entire script, he asked Tamamori if this story is about "that guy" (which at that time Tamamori couldn't remember who is it and why Kawase become so cold after reading the story). A few scene later, Minakami visited Tamamori to remind him about their promise watching movie at Tokyo Cinema. In this part we will know that there is this rivality of Minakami vs. Kawase. Both of them actually having different point of view in handling Tamamori.
The promised night come, Tamamori went to the Tokyo Cinema but found out that Minakami was not there. He was told by the Caramel Seller name Sanjou, that the guy mentioned by Tamamori didn't come. He then visited Minakami's place and met Oku-san (the owner of dorm Minakami living) and Naoshi (boy who live there), but Minakami wasn't back home yet. In the morning, Kawase came and said that they found Minakami's body by the river near the bridge. He is dead.
(Tamamori and Kawase went to Minakami's funeral)
(Minakami... /cry/ /cry a lot/)
Tamamori couldn't accept that Minakami's death is actually a suicide (as was said by Kawase and people who said so). He thought that it must be a murder. He couldn't believe that Minakami would do such a thing. He then remembered about the gossip by the 3 kids in the bath and accussed the rumoured creepy man for murdering Minakami.
He later met Hanazawa (his police/military friend) in Kawase's house. To cut it short, after he went here and there to search about the murder and clues about Minakami's death, Tamamori couldn't get anything. But when he back to the bookstore, he met the mysterious masked guy at the front door. He was running because he was being pursued by the mysterious guy. In the middle of the road he met Hanazawa. Together with Hanazawa they investigated the basement of the bookstore (Tamamori thought that the masked guy was there). Apparently yeah, he was there. Hanazawa then sliced by the guy and dead.
(......)
Tamamori couldn't believe what was happened (Minakami's death and Hanazawa being killed by the masked man), he then ran away from the mysterious guy before he suddenly fell into the mud... and at that time, he... just realized that he went back to 3 days before. And here we go, our long... long... loops to know the truth.
MY THOUGHT about this game [Review]:
I will cut it short here. Basically in this game, we don't have any choice (they choose the route for us). We should finish Minakami's route first to open Kawase's route, and after Kawase's route, they will open Hanazawa's route, then Hakase's and last the masked guy.
Okay, so, in this game, you will unravel the mystery one by one as the story goes by. About Tamamori's power and the mystery behind Minakami's death. Well, to be honest... I still.. couldn't believe they put Minakami as the first route.
I mean, it means that in other route, Minakami is dead right? (the only thing that can make Minakami stays alive is new story written by Tamamori and/or Tamamori accepting his feeling) SO IN EVERY ROUTE BESIDES MINAKAMI'S, HE IS DEAD YOU KNOW, it was good in Kawase's route because Minakami is saved by Tamamori's new script, but then after that Tamamori went to another loop and it was COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN, HOW CAN THEY DO THAT??? THEY LET MINAKAMI DIES IN EVERY ROUTE?? AND TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH THAT, ONLY MINAKAMI SUICIDE YOU KNOW?? EVERYONE WAS MURDERED BY KAORU (THE MASKED GUY) YOU KNOW?? WHY MINAKAMI? okay, I should stop here.
Plot : 10/10
Judging from the overall plot and how the story goes, I couldn't help but give this game the highest score. Actually, based on my experience playing this game, the longest story is Minakami's story. In Kawase's route, Tamamori only went 7 (or 8?) loops, while Minakami is 10 loops. Then Hanazawa is only a few, Hakase too, and also the masked guy too.
OST : 10/10
The best. As far as I playing games, this one has the most captivating OST ever. Especially the fact that this song "Bridge Girder Teru-teru Bouzu". Did you know what Teru-teru Bouzu is? Don't you think it resembles someone who... doing that... in the bridge... in the middle of rain...
Art : 11/10
I like the art style of this game. Unlike other games, Koshotengai no Hashihime gives us 190+ CGs to be enjoyed. Even though there are times when you feel confused (like Minakami and Kawase, they look the same at first) but I'm sure you will get used to it quickly.
Love : 10/10
If you like fluffy fuwa-fuwa full of love and good R-scene, I guess this may not satisfied you, but for me, who deeply into depressing dark kind of love, this game is the one I need. It plays with heart and psychological more than anything.
Level : Easy
I said this was easy because... you don't have to choose anything to get into a route, simply just play it.
That's all from me, thanks for reading my weird review.
Regards,
Mikurira