Ijiwaru My Master / Prologue

Since the prologue itself is quite long, I thought to make a post on it before I move on to the individual characters. I tried to include the details in the First Impression post but it ended up REALLY LONG so yeah, putting it in a separate post.

Kurumi is a typical high school girl who leads a boring and un-happening life...and likes it that way. Her wish is to just float through life peacefully without getting involved in any drama-lama stuff as much as possible. But unfortunately this is impossible, being the heroine of an otome game.


One fine rainy day after school, she was burabura-ing around the streets when she caught sight of a bunch of blue roses at the florist. Fascinated, she stepped closer to look at them, thinking that WOW TECHNOLOGY IS SO ADVANCED THAT WE ACTUALLY MANAGED TO ORGANICALLY PRODUCE BLUE (like really BLUE) ROSES!!! Yeah. Then she heard someone calling her from behind and turned around to see her kouhai Homura-kun smiling at her. ♥ She told Homura about the blue roses and was disappointed when Homura told her that the flowers are just artificially dyed. She then remarked that since blue roses represent "impossibility", if there ever was a day when blue roses could bloom naturally, it'd be a miracle. /awkward translation

WARNING: SUPER MAJOR CONTENT AND CG SPOILERS AHEAD

Several unimportant lines later, Homura confessed to her and asked her to be his girlfriend but she didn't give a reply immediately because she was too busy thinking why such a popular bishie would want a boring and almost-invisible-to-others girl such as her as his girlfriend. Homura, being the nice guy he is (at that point in time at least), asked her to think about it and let him know her decision.

焔　「奇跡を願う先輩のために」

He then passed her a small box, saying that he had intended to give it to her as a present if he succeeded with the confession (awww) but "for senpai who wishes for a miracle", he shall give it to her now. Then he ran away. Out of embarrassment apparently. :3

Kurumi opened the box and in it contained a necklace with a blue rose pendant (so sweet :'D) (and LOVE LOVE LOVE the background music that accompanies this scene). She put it on and then suddenly she saw crepuscular rays forming (as if an angel is descending to Earth) and along came a gust of strong wind which swept her (and her bag) into the sky zomg. :O

Before she knew what was happening, darkness descended and she was being continually sucked in to...somewhere. Uh, I guess like Alice in Wonderland or something? Haha. Anyway, after what seemed like a long time, she opened her eyes and found herself in a strange forest. Afraid, she started calling out for someone but no one answered. So she continued calling...and calling...and calling...until she heard someone from behind her.

くるみ　「誰か、誰かいませんかー！」
？？？　「いるよ～......」
くるみ　「誰かー！」
？？？　「は～い......」
くるみ　「！！！」
？？？　「...」
くるみ　「っ！......いやあああああっ！！！」

はい、そうです。リュカ登場！わー（＾0＾）－い

D'aww.

After getting over the initial shock, Kurumi took a good look at Luca (apparently he's so tall that she got a neckache from looking up at him) and thought he was a cosplayer of some sort because of the horns on his head. XD At the same time, Luca was also looking at her intensely until she got uncomfortable.

くるみ　「あの......何を、見てるんですか......」
リュカ　「んと～......キミのこと......」
くるみ　「どうして......見てるんですか」
リュカ　「......目の前に～...いるから～......？」

ZOMG WHY SO CUTE LUCA. XD


After both of them finished inspecting each other's faces (omg it makes me melt to imagine the scene and the cuteness of it), Luca asked if Kurumi a human being and she was like "what the heck are you asking of course I'm a human" to which he started smiling widely, going "yeah can't feel any 'magical power' from you" and then "I found me some good stuff wee" before hoisting her over his shoulder like you would with a sack of potatoes lol. And Kurumi was like "wtfff let me doooooown!!!!!!" but of course he didn't and just continued walking and humming to himself until she got tired of hitting his back and went limp out of exhaustion. XD

After a while, they reached some kind of marketplace where Luca pushed Kurumi into a huge cage and Kurumi started yelling at him to let her out.

リュカ　「ん～、うるさいよ～。黙らないと......」
くるみ　「......！」
リュカ　「売れ残るよ～......」

Wtf. XD

And the way Luca says it is just...wtfcally (self-invented word ok) adorable. XDDD

So after that was settled, Luca started calling out to the crowd "HELLOOO I GOT ME SOME RARE STUFF HERE. IT'S A ~HUMAN BEING~ YO. GET IT BEFORE IT'S GONE!" but no one gave a damn lol. Meanwhile Kurumi was all confused and then suddenly this guy with red hair (Evans) stopped by. He looked at her curiously and asked Luca what she is.

リュカ　「これは～......人間......」
エヴァンス　「ニンゲン？」
リュカ　「エヴァンスは......人間、知らない？」
エヴァンス　「......ぐっ！し、知ってるよ、ニンゲンは、カガクだよね！」 (wut)
リュカ　「ん～......そうなのかも～......」


Then a guy with golden hair (Eins) walked by, and upon seeing Kurumi, expressed his interest to buy her to serve as a maid for his master (fufufu Leon-sama). However, Evans also wanted to buy Kurumi to help with his master's research. But we only have one human being here. What to do?

エヴァンス　「......じゃあ、半分にしようか！」

Wtf?!

アインス　「ふふっ、さすがに無理な話ですよ。魔力は全くないようですが、人間はちゃんとした生き物ですから、半分にしたら、死んでしまいます」

Thank god for someone with common sense to squash the idea or our heroine will die before the story even starts. ;_;

Yeah. So since both of them wanted to buy Kurumi, they started to make offers to Luca like it's a bloody auction. HELLO HUMAN TRAFFICKING ANYONE???

*ahem* Moving on, it seems that both Eins' and Evans' masters are dirt rich because both of them kept upping the price like nobody's business...until Eins decided it's going nowhere. I really like the way he speaks. It's so...beautiful.

アインス　「うちのご主人様のお世話役に、是非頂きたいのですが......」
エヴァンス　「こっちは博士の研究のために必要なんだよ～」
リュカ　「ん～、決まらないねえ......。じゃ、いっそ、人間に決めてもらおうか～」

So Luca decides to let Kurumi decide instead. Or rather, YOU have to decide who Kurumi chooses to go with. And with that, we come to the first crossroad of the game. A major one. Because the choice you make here will permanently drive the storyline into a certain direction...and guess which side did I choose? :D

Thoughts

Yeah, so I had thought that this game would be more porn than romance but my opinion changed after playing through the prologue because everything is SO PRETTY. *_* The graphics, the music etc. Plus the prologue itself was pretty funny so any thoughts I had about this game being all seeex and no romance or cute stuff was promptly erased after I was done with it.

Basically, I thought it was quite refreshing to have the story path split so early on in the game. In fact, I kind of liked it because this means that we get at least two different story lines (unlike some other game I reviewed). It's also easy to figure which option is for which characters i.e. Leon and Eins if you choose being maid over research material, and Delta and Evans otherwise.

Mousou-ing a bit, if I were Kurumi, which option would I take darou? Hmmm. Since I suck at house chores, I guess I'd probably choose to help with the research (I used to be a Science student after all). But eh, Evans didn't say whether it's to be an assistant or material...and they have totally different implications. So I guess...being maid is safer??? Maa, to quote Luca 「ん～、決まらないねえ......。」

Who would you have chosen to go with if you were Kurumi?

(Note: I've decided to leave the game quotes in original Japanese by default since when I tried to include both original and translated versions, the whole post ended up looking like a hot mess. I assume most of the people who visit this blog regularly understand Japanese and wouldn't mind the arrangement. However, if there's anyone reading out there who would like to have the translations, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. I'll try to think of something.)