Adriano "Madhog" Bordoni is a film and TV critic, an animation historian and a film festival curator (#ASFF). He also dabbles in video editing, podcasting, gaming and general complaining.
CW: discussions related to lactation kink, religion, SA and twincest
So, the protagonist of this Eroge, Ritsu Shiratori, is both a priest and the only male student at an all-girls Catholic boarding school. He’s got “special healing powers” and he’s often sought for “comfort” by many a young woman. He’s also the Antichrist. The Devil (from The Bible) has his phone number.
The Devil (from The Bible) checks up on him every day. Their exchange goes something along these lines.
Devil: “Hey man, you’re the Messiah of Demonkind, why don’t you start the Apocalypse?”
Ritsu: “Nah. I’d rather hang out with my suicidal vampire roommate with whom I managed to establish a genuine human connection.”
Devil: “Alright but, hear me out… What if I send you the Backup Antichrist, your long lost twin sister, to tempt y–what do you mean you’ve already banged her!?”
Ritsu: “I’m literally traumatized.”
Devil: “Thaaaat’s ooourrr Ritsuuuu!”
Let’s backpedal a little. Purple Software’s Aoi Tori opens with the very definition of a tone-setter, for better and worse. “Father” is engaged in sexual activity with a stranger. It’s made clear he is not enjoying it. After that, he talks with a second girl who watched the whole scene, in wet arousal. She’s apparently exuding “good vibes” so he proceeds to dump his traumatic backstory on her, all at once. They have a ludicrously long H-scene in which we discover she has lactating, inverted nipples - don’t worry about it. He enjoys the sex, this time, and drinks her like a juice box. That girl comes back as a main cast member, later on.
There are some structural, pacing issues in the way the writing conveys information about the characters and their unique situations. Namely, it has a tendency to reveal most of their hidden traits immediately, which denies the reader the chance to organically form a connection with them.
Such is the case with Mikako, shown in the below screenshot, whose entire personality and quirks are laid bare by Ritsu’s internal narration before you could observe them for yourself. She’s interesting on paper but it’s a paper someone else is reading out for you.
That’s more akin to a passage from a Wiki article than actual characterization.
The reader (me) is being denied a core aspect of any reading experience for the above reasons.
However, this segways smoothly to what is the most prominent thematic aspect of Aoi Tori as a narrative, which relates to Ritsu’s complicated relationship with sex. This Eroge is subtly subverting expectations when it comes to how it’s approaching the topic.
Sex isn’t something that occurs organically as relationships bloom and romantic flags are activated, it is merely a thing that happens to him due to an increasingly contrived set of circumstances - even before he finds out he’s the Antichrist, mind you.
Physical proclivities with perfect strangers who treat him like a stress-reliever give him no pleasure and are, in fact, tied to trauma - more on that, later. It’s only through deeper connections, exploring his sexuality at his own pace, or by reclaiming a modicum of control, that he can enjoy the act. Therefore, this is a story about love and humanity.
In his quest to forge “normal” relations, he befriends the aforementioned vampire girl, Mary Harker, whose cheery disposition belies a wish to end it all and whose presence is a positive influence in his life. He loves her in an entirely platonic way.
Unless you go through her route, that is.
The prologue of the game both introduces and concludes a conflict wherein Ritsu, moved by guilt for a past death he could not prevent, tries to save a girl who does not want to be saved. Vampirism deprived her of her own human connections, you see. She felt untethered from the world.
The arc is resolved by Ritsu making her drink his demonic blood which let her feel the warmth of the sun again without killing her, thus restoring her desire to keep on living, to connect with the world of Light. This could have easily been her whole route, instead it’s just the introduction.
I was onboard with the ideas presented here: unconventional found families coming together through mutual comfort and shared life experiences. Even the sudden (and I do mean sudden) twincest angle makes sense if viewed under the lens of two people who never learnt how to process and reciprocate traditional family bonds.
That said, the actual sex scenes in this erotic visual novel suck. They are way too long, monotonous and they tend to be extremely repetitious with the same combinations of sloppy kissing, titty play and penetration over and over. Considering how important they are to the theming, that is a major issue.
Whilst I’m surveying the subject of the H-scenes, I have mixed feelings in regards to the art direction. On the one hand, this visual novel simply adores breasts and vaginas. The way these erogenous parts are drawn is very detailed, polished and diversified for each woman. No labia, flesh mound or clitoris look the same. On the other hand, there is this weirdly realistic sheen to the exposed skin that contrasts with the much more “anime” aesthetics of the faces and articles of clothing within the same illustrations, which I find distracting. In essence, copulation is both a slog and visually unappealing.
Generally speaking, the art style is best appreciated in the sprite work, the 3D rendered backgrounds that grant this title an almost Myst like quality and the non-pornographic CG’s.
If I had to pinpoint the biggest issue with this game, next to its annoyingly opulent erotic sequences and writing so heavy-handed any attempt at foreshadowing might as well count as a spoiler, it would be its tragic lack of commitment to its own premise, conceit and setting.
Here’s a specific example: one of the routes will have our Man of the Cloth/Saviour of Demonkind enter a polycule with his teacher and her younger sister. The teacher is a woman who sexually assaulted him as a child, her sister is his sex friend who’s also into her sibling, incestuously.
There are several elements at play here, implicit and explicit power dynamics, unresolved trauma, complex feelings towards former abusers and forbidden relationships swirling together in a vortex of irrational eroticism… and the game does Absolutely Nothing with any of it!
Every facet of this VN is riddled with unfulfilled promises. Mary Harker’s story is akin to a protracted reprisal of the prologue (with 100% more menstrual blood), the twincest arc might have felt less perfunctory if the two siblings didn’t immediately get down to it when they first met, and the less I say about that teacher, the better.
The many failings of Aoi Tori extend far past the beat-by-beat storytelling, right down to its foundational stones.
Christianity and Faith play little to no role in the narrative despite being closely related to the characters’ lives and setting. I keep forgetting the crucial fact that Ritsu is a priest who also happens to be the Literal Antichrist because it has no correlation whatsoever to his personal conflict!
The Missionary academy in which the game takes place (a historically, ultra-repressive environment) is somehow disconnected to the central theme of people feeling trapped by their social standings, like birds in a birdcage, because the school is actually nice and progressive.
How? Why? What is even the point then!?
The game borrows religion for the “cool lore” but it’s utterly disinterested in exploring how it affects people and the climate in which they grew up. The symbolism is shallow window-dressing.
This makes for a boring porn as well as a boring plot built around sexual and romantic desires.
If all is permitted and nothing is denied, if intercourse is something that just casually happens, if a priest can “comfort” hundreds of girls with no friction, moral or otherwise, from anyone involved, then it’s missing the point of why these scenarios are considered sexy, in the first place!
It’s simple psychology, the more an activity is perceived as scandalous, the more it’s hot! It is the allure of the Forbidden.
If you could transfer all the H-scenes in a completely different, non-Christian context and nothing in their execution would meaningfully change then what are we even doing here!? It’s a baffling waste of potential and an egregious failure for what should have been an easy slam dunk!
Aoi Tori had some inspired ideas and the basic outline of an ambitious story but it chose to actively disengage from them at each and every turn, gunning for the least interesting outcome out of all the possibilities it presented.
Once again, this seemed good on paper.
It almost picks itself up in the final, true route wherein the girl with the inverted, lactating nipples (remember her?) takes over the narrative and becomes the main heroine, but it’s not enough to salvage the experience.
Akari was almost a well-written character. Her tragedy is steeped in cripplingly low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, body dysmorphia, depression and social constraints manifesting within her as a lust for that which Society deems dangerous and immoral… which is a conflict that exists, still, somehow, entirely divorced from her faith.
In other words, being a Christian character in this Christianity themed game set in a Christian school, starring a Christian priest, a Christian vampire, and a whole bunch of emotionally repressed women, that’s about The Devil (from the Bible) tempting young people into starting the Apocalypse, bares no real weight to the actual plot.
That is an insane sentence I just had to write.
I don’t know how it is possible to miss the mark to such a degree when the target is the size of mount Fuji and three millimetres from your face but the writing in this game sure manages to do it! The more I type my thoughts on this digital canvas, the more I come to realize how bizarrely put together Aoi Toriis. They had to go out of their way to “disinfect” it from everything that made it initially alluring. Its characters bereft of meat, its themes defanged, my time wasted.
I would be inclined to be more charitable to it as there is obvious effort on display in almost every other area, even if I disagree with a lot of its visually artistic choices. However, the way they bungled the polyamory route has corrupted my immortal soul, rendering me unable to care.
CW: discussions related to lactation kink, religion, SA and twincest
