Bokuten Review - The Fallacy of Love

Bokuten - Why I Became an Angel

Alternative Titles: Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta Wake

Rating: 7/10 (Good)

One-liner: Melancholy, served on a bed of despair and sadness, garnished with depression with a side of sorrow - and maybe, just maybe a tinge of salvation in between.

HOT

• Different from the deluge of sappy, happy and saccharine school-life VNs.
• A powerfully emotional final route.
• Realistic depiction of love and the potential pitfalls of love.

NOT

• Romantic development is just subpar.
• There are heavy themes that are uncomfortable to read.
• Too many characters.

Synopsis:

Kirinokojima Tomoe suffered a devastating event that obliterated his psyche, making him into a jaded, oblivious person who eschews the concept of love, and of happiness. He lives his life aimlessly, rejecting human interaction and continually torturing himself with the memory of his past.

Then he meets an angel, Aine, whose entire purpose is to fill the world with love and happiness - a purpose that is the ultimate antithesis of Tomoe's lifestyle. Tomoe is unwillingly roped in into acting as the angel's proxy, forced to intervene in the romantic lives of others.

And thus the journey begins. A journey to find the meaning of love. A journey to recover what he lost. A journey to discover the meaning of living on.

Review:

Let's get this out of the way: Don't expect happy endings. There are no happy endings in this game. All the endings, save for the true ending, are bittersweet at best. There is no Deus Ex Machina where everybody finds happiness, and no silver bullet that solves all the problems the characters are facing. There is only one ending which I would consider a 'bad' ending, but none of the endings are completely happy.

Now, if I haven't turned you off with the first paragraph, let's continue. 

Even with all the sadness and depression, Bokuten is worth playing. It offers - dare I say it - a more realistic view on love. Love is often accompanied by heartbreak, and more often that not, first loves seldom succeed. Yet, because it doesn't succeed, do people stop seeking love?  

Bokuten consists of six chapters, each focusing on a relationship between a couple. Obviously there are problems between the couple, ranging from as simple as being unable to confess one's feelings to choosing between your dreams or your relationship (and one simply ridiculous one of being too sexually frustrated for your partner to pleasure you - I wish I was making that up). Some stories are quite interesting, but some stories might seriously be hard to read - either because the content is dark and disturbing or you don't care for the characters or their problems. And when they tie back to the main group of friends and Tomoe, you finally get a choice, and suffice it to say, the choices you make in this VN aren't easy. 

The choices you make also determines which girl you get in a relationship with. The three initial heroines are the air-headed senpai Yuri, the tsundere secret-idol-but-geek-in-school Minamo, the genki osananajimi (childhood friend) Naruko. Once you complete these 3 routes, you unlock the final true route that features the titular love-obsessed angel, Aine. The final true ending is not a perfect happy ending, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whether you think a happy ending would cheapen the experience), but it is powerfully emotional and provides a glimmer of hope after all is said and done.

The recommended route order is

Minamo/Yuri --> Naruko --> Aine (true)

If you are tired of the same old sappy, unrealistic and diabetes-inducing stories of other school-life VNs, this is the VN for you. If you can't stand depressing stories and need emotional cartharsis in all your VNs (no judging here - we all need a palate cleanser that's just happy and fluffy once in a while), you might want to give this a hard pass. 

Verdict: PLAY IT