Okay great. Let’s begin.
I have wrestled with my thoughts about AINI and have come to realize I’ve shifted from being generally mixed on AINI to really not liking AINI. Wahoo! I will never feel love ever again.
You don’t have to read my previous post on AINI to read this one, as I’ll copy and paste from it or link to direct sections where it’s necessary, but you can find it here.
There are still things I like about this game that I talk about in my previous post, but this is a post where I just want to articulate the exact things I didn’t like. Sort of a vent post maybe, something I can break out to show someone what I didn’t like in particular about AINI. You can read this in chunks. Or hell, you can only read one section and then tab out, whatever you want.
Also sorry I only have a handful of AINI screenshots on my Steam Deck so I'll try to insert some where they feel applicable to break up the walls of text. UPDATE I added like 3 pictures and the post started glitching no more pictures just wall of text. Sorry to the pictures fans.
Table of Contents
Hitomi is a really cool character in AITSF, all things considered. A fun romance with an assassin, a murdered best friend, an adopted daughter she raises despite judgement, an extensive blackmail plan, Hitomi truly has it all. I would even go as far as to say I’m still interested in the original draft of AITSF where Hitomi was in Iris’s place, because Hitomi is so essential to the mystery’s inner workings.
Obviously, this can’t be the case for AINI, it would be crazy for her to have the same amount of relevance in the same way. Although if she had another murdered best friend who was in a relationship with another politician I would think it would be funny but I would also want her to get some new friends.
Thus, Hitomi is a character I was perfectly okay with AINI not showing us. She has no ties to any of the major players of the mystery and doesn’t serve any purpose to the story. She can exist offscreen, mentioned by a character or two, and that’s perfect. Maybe an end of the game cameo during the wrap up and just that.
Here’s the thing. Hitomi is in AINI twice— once, when Ryuki visits her (6 years in the future) and asks her if she’s heard from Date, and at the game’s very end when Date is laying on her lap with a little meowmeow face.
So the Date/Hitomi timeline:
Why is Hitomi reduced to the fate of helplessly waiting for Date’s return? Why does Hitomi get together with Date at the end of the game like this is a well built and deserved relationship? Am I supposed to cheer for them reuniting at the end? Not only is this just a weird repeat of AITSF that loses a lot of its interesting bits (AITSF Hitomi is an actual character, AINI Hitomi literally just exists to push this ship), but it’s just like… HITOMI! MOVE ON!! BOSS COME SEDUCE THIS MILF ASAP!!
And again, we go back to the spoiler toggle issue. How am I supposed to be happy they’re together when Date is laying on her lap wearing Saito’s mask…? How is Hitomi chill with that? I would have beat his ass! If I was anyone in this universe I would be beating Date’s ass.
I didn’t ship Date/Hitomi in AITSF but I could understand why others did. But for AINI… It just feels especially underwritten and undeserved. I saw even Date/Hitomi shippers pretty upset by this decision so I know I'm not alone!
Ota
I was like. Actually pissed when I read his timeskip character bio and they made a point of saying how he didn’t change. Real talk. What the fuck is wrong with y’all.
Let’s look at Ota in Ota End. Ota knows he’s stupid and childish, that his mom is sick and he’s being immature about it by getting angry with her, that he’s lying to himself about his job prospects and so on. But there’s also that part of him that can’t just… stop doing all of that. No one just goes “I need to be a better person” and then they are immediately a better person. This is how he’s lived his life and how he gets through every day. It takes a lot of effort to not fall upon old habits, to a point where it’s like, “Why bother?”
By the end of Ota End it’s pretty obvious that there is positive change incoming. He has a serious talk with his mom and vows to begin being better. I would say Resolution End takes this a step further by showing how there is now an aide to help Mayumi. This clearly must have been arranged by Ota, which shows a level of maturity that he hadn’t had at the beginning of the game. You can compare the hiring of the aide at the end to the purchase of a Tesa figure at the beginning. Of course, he still does call Tesa his girlfriend in Ota End, so Ota hasn’t done a full 180 and still needs to be kicked in the face, but this is a good jumping off point for him.
Now, AINI. Again, Ota is a character that doesn’t need to be in this game, because he has no substantial ties to the main mystery at hand, and anything he does contribute could be easily replaced by another character saying/doing the exact same thing and nothing would be lost. Another “fun cameo toward the end!” kind of character. He is in this game though and thus we must discuss him.
In AINI, Ota is running the diner 6 months after AITSF. This is pretty good. I’m not a fan of how it’s in the exact same location and people just miraculously started turning up to eat there again— it seems kind of easy and almost unrealistic, but hey, they’ve got their reasons (AKA THIS IS AN EXCUSE TO USE THE MATSUSHITA DINER LOCATION AGAIN).
Ota even has a rival in Gen, which I both like and dislike to a degree. A lot of this rivalry is told through just Ota or Gen dialogue to Bibi/Mizuki/Ryuki— that is, Ota and Gen do not often face each other to act like proper rivals, they do not show you very fierce moments of rivalry. Thus it feels like a lot of tell don’t show until you get to Gen’s somnium, which is probably the only time they actually feel like rivals… aaaaand that didn’t even happen irl so who cares. I still like this idea though because this both captures Ota’s immaturity (having a rival like a little anime freak) while also showing how he’s grown as a person (running the diner well enough that he actually has a rival).
And then the timeskip happens, where again, they make the point that Ota has not changed. And lo and behold. Ota is still rivals with Gen. Ota is still a Tesa fan. Ota is still a virgin. Haha laugh. Okay whatever.
I don’t think this works because Ota is, at this point in the timeline, a 30 year old man. A 30 year old man running a whole business for 6 years.
Maybe this is a bit of projecting, but I would think that single-handedly running a business with pretty good sales/customer base would force you to mature a bit over the years. Maybe your rivalry with Gen would mellow out a bit, and rather than being rivals you’re instead nice acquaintances. Maybe you would be too busy to do idol things like watch streams or go to concerts, maybe you’d be more careful about money now that you really know its weight so you’d back off of buying merch, and you’d just naturally fall out of the hobby. Tesa is still your friend, so there’s still a relationship there, but overall, you would probably not be a diehard enthusiastic fan. You just wouldn’t have the time or resources. And you are also 30 years old holy shit dude
But Ota doesn’t mature any more despite his situation completely warranting (and on some level demanding) this maturity. He is the same at age 30 as he was at age 24 and they make a haha funny joke about it. But what is funny about that? What’s funny about watching a guy peak in the first game and then not get much better in the second game, even though the end of the first game and the first slice of the second game foreshadowed that Ota was changing for the better?
I guess that’s funny in like a sad way? It is very sad.
Iris
Hey so I said Iris at the beginning but real ones know I always call her Tesa because the ARG in 2019 scrambled my brain permanently and I kept typing Tesa so why change it. Okay cool.
This new interpretation of So is made case in point by the fact that Uru is A YEAR YOUNGER than Saito, which means So would have to start fucking PRETTY SOON after his wife’s death, removing some of the implied complexity of his and Saito’s relationship, while also making his later relationship with Manaka confusing.
I know So isn’t stupid and has connections, there’s a pretty high chance he knew Uru was chucked into an adoption center and that his mother killed herself. But let’s say he didn’t know until the moment Uru told him, since this seems to be what the game wants us to think. This woman kills herself, and So’s reaction is… well, we don’t ever see what he thinks. We never see him again until someone eventually says he skipped town (smart move he would have been murdered).
Am I projecting too much onto this guy? I genuinely feel like there is such a gap between the situations with Manaka and Uru’s mother.
Manaka:
So was an interesting bastard man character in AITSF that was butchered in AINI by trying to link him to a story he did not need to be linked to.
Date
Why the fuck was this dude even here.
I don’t think I need to explain how “We threw a large rock at Date’s head so he lost his memories again for 6 years and we could write him out of the narrative, then he came back because he remembered everything one day, also he hid his identity for a while and didn’t bother contacting the people who love and miss him” is really fucking dumb. This is such a contrivance, why even include him at all.
Oddly if you took Date out of this game, Ryuki would be the character who suffers the most and not Mizuki. Yes it is true that Mizuki takes up Date’s mantle and does want to investigate the HB case because she thinks it could lead her to Date, but Ryuki is far more affected by the loss on an emotional level, in a way we can see. We don’t really get a moment where Mizuki blows up and says she misses Date, even the moment where Mizuki and Date are reunited in the future is oddly brisk and undercut by both unneeded jokes and the plot needing to move along like a bullet train.
I’m just going to link to the original review for this part.
I do have two smaller thoughts to add.
1) Mizuki changes her last name to Mizuki Date. I think this is really cute. But there’s like… not really a lot of scenes of Date and Mizuki together to make this feel very good. Again, Mizuki does not mention Date much post-skip (half because Mizuki is actually Bibi) and even when they reunite it is very disappointing.
On some level I have to wonder if this is actually a gigabrained reference to how Mizuki and Date didn’t actually grow closer at all in the Resolution End (but it pretended they did) so why would they be closer here. If it is, genius play.
2) I said Mizuki didn’t really grow as a character in my initial post and while I still do think that’s true, she does have something of an “”””arc””””. This arc is that she’s found herself and her family.
That would be really cool on paper if this was not the same exact arc she had in AITSF and also if they didn’t break AITSF’s writing to make it happen. It was not an arc that Mizuki needed because she already had her family! Her family is Date!!! Seriously like did they not even replay AITSF or know that this was what people loved about Mizuki!! Oh fuck Date watch out there’s a giant rock incoming oh shit he got hit by it looks like he’s out of the game whoops
Repeating of Jokes & Locations
Not a character, but still a point that this game doesn’t feel like it’s a progression from AITSF is the repeating of jokes from AITSF. Don’t get me wrong those jokes were funny, and I would be cool with maybe like one reference or two. But why were so many… repeats? Did they just run out of jokes to tell and hoped no one would notice? It’s not really funny when it’s repeated in a different game by a different character…
Also, repeat locations. There are way too many locations in this game. You could cut the majority of the ones from AITSF (I’ll throw out some wild cards, let’s keep Date’s apartment, Matsushita Diner, and Sunfish Pocket and cut the rest) and still have a nice amount of places for the characters to visit!
Why do I bring up locations? I also feel like the repeated use of AITSF’s characters and locations makes this world feel… abysmally small. They’re in futuristic Tokyo, a city which at the moment has 13.96 million residents. And you’re telling me that despite that insane number the casts of AITSF and AINI are all like… close to each other like that? That Date and Lien and Gen are best friends, that Kizuna just so happened to take care of Bibi and Mizuki, so on and so forth?
This game doesn’t feel like a progression from AITSF, it feels like AINI can’t break free and be its own thing. I’ve seen this criticism before so I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, and maybe someone else has articulated this thought better than I can at the moment.
In Summary
Whereas every character in AITSF is relevant to its story, AINI is a mix of characters that are actually relevant to the mystery and characters that make you point and go “Look! It’s the character from AITSF!”. And that fuckin sucks!
At any point during this long section, you might have thought, “Lone, you’re thinking too much here! They probably wouldn’t have time to show the things you wanted to see!” or “Lone, this is too much of a nitpick, they wouldn’t do or show this because those characters aren’t the focus of the story!”
And honestly? You’re totally right! These characters aren't the focus! But do you see the problem in that? Why bring back characters that you’re going to write unsatisfyingly when the mystery doesn’t concern them? Would it not be better to simply… (gasp) NOT have the character in the game at all?!
Not only does removing the characters that are irrelevant solve the issue of not being used correctly/stagnating in AINI, but now with a tighter cast lineup we can get to know the characters we DO have from AINI even better. We aren’t trying to juggle a preexisting cast and a new cast, there’s more room for growth of other characters.
Instead of bringing back characters for fanservice let’s just focus on telling a new compelling story!
Can We Please Fucking Stop Having Older Men In Love With Teenagers In This Series?
I didn’t touch upon this matter much in my initial review of AINI because it was long enough already, but hey, this post is already around 6700 words as I jump around and write different parts, so who cares.
I would also like to preface this section with a disclaimer: This is not me coming for all age differences in the world. For example, Lien is 23 and Kizuna is 18, which makes that a 5 year age difference. That’s honestly not that big of a difference, and I don’t really care about age differences when they’re between consenting adults. A 30 year old dating a 50 year old? A 40 year old and a 50 year old? Go ahead, you are both adults and can do whatever you want.
But this is the key factor here, that both people in this relationship are adults. An 18 year old is not an adult. Yes, 18 may be legal (I am already sus of anyone going to point this out), but that does not make that person an adult mentally. In a relationship between an 18 year old and a 23 year old, there is a clear power imbalance. An 18 year old does not have a fully developed frontal lobe, an 18 year old is not as mature as a 23 year old. I think most people would agree that it’s strange for a college graduate to date a senior in high school, and that age gap is even smaller than this one. These two cannot date and be on equal footing, the difference in maturity is too vast. When they’re older and two adults with fully developed frontal lobes? 5 years isn’t really that big, so go off!
Kizuna and Lien do not date when she is 18 and he is 23, but do you see how it’s really strange for someone his age to be fervently pursuing a girl much younger and less of an adult than him? Do you see how it could pressure her or make her feel really unsafe and uncomfortable?
For Gen and Amame, we don’t even KNOW Gen’s age other than a vague 20s range. Considering he owns a business I would like to venture a guess he’s in his late 20s, and that does not make Gen/Amame better, I would even go as far as to say it’s worse— especially when we don’t know exactly how long they’ve known each other, and since he’s always been in love with her… Ummmmm… Yikes!!
Anyways before we begin I would like to count up the amount of older men who are in love with teenage girls in AITSF and AINI.
AITSF:
Kizuna/Lien
So this is going to be an odd sentiment, but I think as a slap on the wrist for writing this romance whoever brainstormed this should be transformed into a teenage girl and relentlessly stalked by a large really forceful man for a few days just so they can experience how absolutely terrifying this relationship starts out.
It doesn’t really matter that Lien’s intentions are pure, that he wouldn’t do anything bad and he just wants to get to know Kizuna, because this is not how you approach anyone, especially an 18 year old. If a 23 year old man I don’t really know who insists he’s in love with me followed me around, going as far as to tail me to the bathrooms and stopping by the place where I lived to see me, I would actually be scared for my life and probably start crying and throwing up. I’m a 22 year old woman saying this. I could be like 30 and I would still be terrified, Lien is fucking huge. I genuinely think the writers did not consult a single woman on this section of the game and boy oh BOY does it show!
Maybe what’s even worse is that Kizuna appears to be genuinely uncomfortable but AINI continues to play Lien’s forcefulness for… I dunno, laughs. Why do that? I would be arresting Lien not gonna lie!
Post-skip, I think that Kizuna and Lien are fun. I like the struggles Kizuna goes through. I like Lien when they surgically remove Kizuna from him so you find out he’s actually a really nice guy who is just constantly going through it. I think it makes sense that Kizuna would start to fall in love over the 6 years together, and their conclusion is very sweet. But there’s a huge asterisk next to this thought, because the beginning of their relationship is so genuinely unhealthy that it’s hard to watch their ending and truly be satisfied.
In some ways I compare Kizuna/Lien to Ota and Tesa in AITSF. Ota also very much loves Tesa, but Ota also gets owned a lot. The game does not reward Ota for being Tesa’s strongest soldier, especially when some of that position is only given to him because he’s created conflict to earn it. But where Ota is not rewarded at the end of Resolution by gaining a catgirl GF, Lien… Is? Lien continues to stalk this girl and eventually they elope together! Violating people’s personal space is fine if you’re pure of heart and consistent, because eventually they will love you. Do you see how someone could get that message from Lien and Kizuna’s pre-skip depiction of their relationship here? This is not very good at all!
“Lone you are being a bit overdramatic here” maybe I am. But I also have yet to find anyone who genuinely ships this and sees no issue with this writing. Again, it does not feel like a woman was consulted on this at all and if there was then she lived a very blessed life for not having the worries a lot of girls do have. For any guy who has trouble relating to the subtle fear of being stalked or harassed or even assaulted by a guy much stronger and older than you who you deny advances from, try to imagine a creepy old woman following you home trying to goad you into marrying her or something. It’s just weird.
And thus, folks at home, I would like to drop my Kizuna/Lien rewrite here that I workshopped within the week of AINI’s release with a couple of pals of mine. You’re free to skip this part.
We open at Matsushita Diner— Lien happens to see Kizuna dancing while he’s at his lowest emotionally. Maybe Kizuna isn’t the best at dancing, so she kind of fumbles some moves, but she looks super happy while she’s doing it, and that’s what’s important. Lien watches this and is moved. “Wow, this girl is kinda making a fool of herself, but she looks pretty happy and she’s moving on”. You could really make that resonate with him during his time of unemployment.
Table of Contents
The Spoiler Toggle Blows
This is not an unpopular opinion and I think most of everyone feels this way so this’ll be pretty brief. Why does the spoiler toggle not work? Because it is emblematic of AINI’s major problem, that being that it can’t decide whether it wants to be something approachable for everyone or something that fans of AITSF can point to and go “OMG I know that!”, so it tries to be both. And this does not feel very satisfying, in both the case of AITSF’s cast and AINI’s cast.
I understand that you want to try and ensure your game sells, so you bring back pre-existing characters to appeal to the old fans. But you also don’t want to alienate new fans, so you introduce a spoiler toggle… But then also for the most part, the pre-existing characters you bring back feel blatantly “I have nothing to do with this story and am just here because I was in AITSF”, which makes the actual story and cast feel really bloated, and takes away from time that could have been spent on AINI’s characters.
You also have some really damning in-universe complications from this toggle, with Date’s mask situation being the biggest offender.
Date keeps the Saito mask for the sole purpose of being attractive to women which is funny because it's true. But at the end of AITSF, they make a big deal of showing off his actual face in his actual body, only to double back on it in AINI so they don’t spoil that game’s events. This guy chooses to wear the mask of the serial killer that shot Mizuki, killed her parents, nearly killed Tesa, then also kidnapped Hitomi, all because it's hot...? I know he mentions “Oh I’m on a mission haha you know how it is” as a reason as well, but I honestly call bullshit on this, he woulda been fine without his mask. Then to add insult to injury Date is wearing a mask while also in Gen’s costume. At times people will even tell him to take it off for him to refuse. Idk this is all just so fucking weird. It’s clunky.
A really great way to avoid spoilers for the first game at all would to just not have very many reappearing characters. At the very least, Date is not hyper relevant and you could cut him to save a lot of heartache and time.
Character Stagnation
For this section, I would like to talk about how some characters from AITSF were poorly handled in AINI.
Hitomi
This is not an unpopular opinion and I think most of everyone feels this way so this’ll be pretty brief. Why does the spoiler toggle not work? Because it is emblematic of AINI’s major problem, that being that it can’t decide whether it wants to be something approachable for everyone or something that fans of AITSF can point to and go “OMG I know that!”, so it tries to be both. And this does not feel very satisfying, in both the case of AITSF’s cast and AINI’s cast.
I understand that you want to try and ensure your game sells, so you bring back pre-existing characters to appeal to the old fans. But you also don’t want to alienate new fans, so you introduce a spoiler toggle… But then also for the most part, the pre-existing characters you bring back feel blatantly “I have nothing to do with this story and am just here because I was in AITSF”, which makes the actual story and cast feel really bloated, and takes away from time that could have been spent on AINI’s characters.
You also have some really damning in-universe complications from this toggle, with Date’s mask situation being the biggest offender.
Date keeps the Saito mask for the sole purpose of being attractive to women which is funny because it's true. But at the end of AITSF, they make a big deal of showing off his actual face in his actual body, only to double back on it in AINI so they don’t spoil that game’s events. This guy chooses to wear the mask of the serial killer that shot Mizuki, killed her parents, nearly killed Tesa, then also kidnapped Hitomi, all because it's hot...? I know he mentions “Oh I’m on a mission haha you know how it is” as a reason as well, but I honestly call bullshit on this, he woulda been fine without his mask. Then to add insult to injury Date is wearing a mask while also in Gen’s costume. At times people will even tell him to take it off for him to refuse. Idk this is all just so fucking weird. It’s clunky.
A really great way to avoid spoilers for the first game at all would to just not have very many reappearing characters. At the very least, Date is not hyper relevant and you could cut him to save a lot of heartache and time.
Character Stagnation
For this section, I would like to talk about how some characters from AITSF were poorly handled in AINI.
Hitomi
Hitomi is a really cool character in AITSF, all things considered. A fun romance with an assassin, a murdered best friend, an adopted daughter she raises despite judgement, an extensive blackmail plan, Hitomi truly has it all. I would even go as far as to say I’m still interested in the original draft of AITSF where Hitomi was in Iris’s place, because Hitomi is so essential to the mystery’s inner workings.
Obviously, this can’t be the case for AINI, it would be crazy for her to have the same amount of relevance in the same way. Although if she had another murdered best friend who was in a relationship with another politician I would think it would be funny but I would also want her to get some new friends.
Thus, Hitomi is a character I was perfectly okay with AINI not showing us. She has no ties to any of the major players of the mystery and doesn’t serve any purpose to the story. She can exist offscreen, mentioned by a character or two, and that’s perfect. Maybe an end of the game cameo during the wrap up and just that.
Here’s the thing. Hitomi is in AINI twice— once, when Ryuki visits her (6 years in the future) and asks her if she’s heard from Date, and at the game’s very end when Date is laying on her lap with a little meowmeow face.
So the Date/Hitomi timeline:
- They spend 3 months together before never seeing each other again.
- 6 years pass.
- They reunite.
- Maybe they get together for 6 months post-AITSF (although HUGE doubt, Date saying the ladies like the Saito mask? That doesn’t sound like something a dude in a committed relationship would say!).
- Date gets bonked on the head.
- ANOTHER 6 YEARS PASS.
- They reunite and are together again and this is seen as a good thing?
Why is Hitomi reduced to the fate of helplessly waiting for Date’s return? Why does Hitomi get together with Date at the end of the game like this is a well built and deserved relationship? Am I supposed to cheer for them reuniting at the end? Not only is this just a weird repeat of AITSF that loses a lot of its interesting bits (AITSF Hitomi is an actual character, AINI Hitomi literally just exists to push this ship), but it’s just like… HITOMI! MOVE ON!! BOSS COME SEDUCE THIS MILF ASAP!!
And again, we go back to the spoiler toggle issue. How am I supposed to be happy they’re together when Date is laying on her lap wearing Saito’s mask…? How is Hitomi chill with that? I would have beat his ass! If I was anyone in this universe I would be beating Date’s ass.
I didn’t ship Date/Hitomi in AITSF but I could understand why others did. But for AINI… It just feels especially underwritten and undeserved. I saw even Date/Hitomi shippers pretty upset by this decision so I know I'm not alone!
Ota
I was like. Actually pissed when I read his timeskip character bio and they made a point of saying how he didn’t change. Real talk. What the fuck is wrong with y’all.
Let’s look at Ota in Ota End. Ota knows he’s stupid and childish, that his mom is sick and he’s being immature about it by getting angry with her, that he’s lying to himself about his job prospects and so on. But there’s also that part of him that can’t just… stop doing all of that. No one just goes “I need to be a better person” and then they are immediately a better person. This is how he’s lived his life and how he gets through every day. It takes a lot of effort to not fall upon old habits, to a point where it’s like, “Why bother?”
By the end of Ota End it’s pretty obvious that there is positive change incoming. He has a serious talk with his mom and vows to begin being better. I would say Resolution End takes this a step further by showing how there is now an aide to help Mayumi. This clearly must have been arranged by Ota, which shows a level of maturity that he hadn’t had at the beginning of the game. You can compare the hiring of the aide at the end to the purchase of a Tesa figure at the beginning. Of course, he still does call Tesa his girlfriend in Ota End, so Ota hasn’t done a full 180 and still needs to be kicked in the face, but this is a good jumping off point for him.
Now, AINI. Again, Ota is a character that doesn’t need to be in this game, because he has no substantial ties to the main mystery at hand, and anything he does contribute could be easily replaced by another character saying/doing the exact same thing and nothing would be lost. Another “fun cameo toward the end!” kind of character. He is in this game though and thus we must discuss him.
In AINI, Ota is running the diner 6 months after AITSF. This is pretty good. I’m not a fan of how it’s in the exact same location and people just miraculously started turning up to eat there again— it seems kind of easy and almost unrealistic, but hey, they’ve got their reasons (AKA THIS IS AN EXCUSE TO USE THE MATSUSHITA DINER LOCATION AGAIN).
Ota even has a rival in Gen, which I both like and dislike to a degree. A lot of this rivalry is told through just Ota or Gen dialogue to Bibi/Mizuki/Ryuki— that is, Ota and Gen do not often face each other to act like proper rivals, they do not show you very fierce moments of rivalry. Thus it feels like a lot of tell don’t show until you get to Gen’s somnium, which is probably the only time they actually feel like rivals… aaaaand that didn’t even happen irl so who cares. I still like this idea though because this both captures Ota’s immaturity (having a rival like a little anime freak) while also showing how he’s grown as a person (running the diner well enough that he actually has a rival).
And then the timeskip happens, where again, they make the point that Ota has not changed. And lo and behold. Ota is still rivals with Gen. Ota is still a Tesa fan. Ota is still a virgin. Haha laugh. Okay whatever.
I don’t think this works because Ota is, at this point in the timeline, a 30 year old man. A 30 year old man running a whole business for 6 years.
Maybe this is a bit of projecting, but I would think that single-handedly running a business with pretty good sales/customer base would force you to mature a bit over the years. Maybe your rivalry with Gen would mellow out a bit, and rather than being rivals you’re instead nice acquaintances. Maybe you would be too busy to do idol things like watch streams or go to concerts, maybe you’d be more careful about money now that you really know its weight so you’d back off of buying merch, and you’d just naturally fall out of the hobby. Tesa is still your friend, so there’s still a relationship there, but overall, you would probably not be a diehard enthusiastic fan. You just wouldn’t have the time or resources. And you are also 30 years old holy shit dude
But Ota doesn’t mature any more despite his situation completely warranting (and on some level demanding) this maturity. He is the same at age 30 as he was at age 24 and they make a haha funny joke about it. But what is funny about that? What’s funny about watching a guy peak in the first game and then not get much better in the second game, even though the end of the first game and the first slice of the second game foreshadowed that Ota was changing for the better?
I guess that’s funny in like a sad way? It is very sad.
Iris
Hey so I said Iris at the beginning but real ones know I always call her Tesa because the ARG in 2019 scrambled my brain permanently and I kept typing Tesa so why change it. Okay cool.
Tesa is a strange addition to AINI. On one hand, Kizuna and Amame (and Mizuki and Bibi) all attend Tesa’s high school, so it would be pretty weird if she wasn’t along for the ride, too. On the other, I’d like to offer a simple solution to this issue— what if all these girls (sans Tesa) simply went to… a DIFFERENT high school? Novel idea I know, but it would then make sense as to why you could leave her out.
She is a character that is closer to the mystery than some other characters, on account of being both Amame and Kizuna’s friend, but where the former easily checks out due to their long intro scene together + the previous game having Tesa be Amame’s former coworker so they’re well acquainted there, it is honestly hard to believe Kizuna and Tesa are friends?? Lmao. They don’t really share a lot of moments together throughout the game, not just “parts where these characters hang out and be themselves” but even “Tesa exchanging meaningful dialogue with Kizuna that feels unique to Tesa/you could not replace or get rid of Tesa in this scene”. You really could take Tesa out of this game and nothing would be lost.
I think you could chalk this up to the cast being bloated, and Amame and Kizuna could have survived being best friends entirely on their own without needing a third character. This would sort of solve AINI’s ever-prevalent issue of the cast not feeling tightly knit like AITSF’s was, where every character and every relationship slid into place like a neat little puzzle. In the Tesa-Amame-Kizuna puzzle, Tesa is like a puzzle piece that fits but has like half of its pattern scratched off because you lent the puzzle to your baby cousin.
Anyways this is only half of my complaint with Tesa in this game, which is the actual character stagnation part!
This might be a dumb take, but I think it was kinda a mid move to keep having Tesa be an idol 6 years later.
Let me explain. Tesa loves dancing and singing and all the regular idol stuff. However, in AITSF she (and at one point Saito in her body possibly calling upon her own memories and feelings) expresses dissatisfaction or anxieties about her career as an idol. She still loves the stuff that makes up being an idol, but she’s a net idol, she can’t go as hard as everyone else. She started as a streamer, got scouted to be an idol, and still does the streaming! It is very clear that while she loves dancing and singing, gaming is a big part of her identity.
In my opinion, it would have made more sense for her in the timeskip (not necessarily 6 months later, it’s close to AITSF so there’s wiggle room) for her to have retired as an idol and instead become a full time streamer. In AITSF she was already streaming herself dancing, she must know that she doesn’t HAVE to be an idol to dance or make music (thank you Jake Paul for being a shining example here). The choice would show Tesa coming into her own being, that she’s figured out her career path for her future and it’s fully something she enjoys.
Alternatively, it would have been great to have her retire as an idol because Date isn’t around! Remember that the reason she wanted to be famous was so she could find Falco. Welp, in Resolution End she does indeed find him! It could have been cool to have her retire, her main mission being accomplished and her mourning of Date as two main motivators, to tap into the “Date is presumed dead or trapped in a NAIX holding cell and this is really sad and we are all sad about it” idea. I assume the game WANTS you to feel this idea but almost never gets you to feel this because Date barely exists here.
Anyways TLDR Tesa still being an idol, a career she’s kinda mixed on and that she only got into to search for Falco when that mission has been accomplished, is a bit mid.
Next point:
The general idea during Tesa’s brain tumor reveal is along the lines of, “These things that Tesa believes are not real and are affecting her to this extent because she is ill.” I think some people go as far as to say the thesis of this scene is “You literally have to be mentally unwell to believe the things Tesa believes/regular people do not think this way” or something along those lines, and I kinda mesh with that idea? Mainly the latter part.
I’m not saying that Tesa can’t believe in anything without it being ridiculous. Everyone can like a cryptid and UFO every now and then. It’s that the extent to which she believes in/takes seriously groups like NAIX is too far, putting herself in danger and putting strain on the relationships she has. Basically think of QAnon— not that Tesa believes in that, but the people who do act in a similar way.
By the end of AITSF, she has gotten her brain surgery! Congratulations Tesa! I’m sure that she’ll still like weird creepy things and whatnot, but it will definitely be more toned down and safe.
Now in AINI, Tesa during the timeskip makes a point to be the one to show the game a spoooooky video! Ooooooh!! This is basically the one plot relevant thing she does.
Why do I have a problem with this? Well, Tesa doesn’t really appear much on the timeskip side, and I find it kind of annoying and a bit childish that when she does, she’s doing the exact same things and acting the same way she did 6 years ago! Creepy video I show my friends, spoooooky!! Like come the fuck on man, I want to see her mature a bit, this girl is 24 and waist deep into the idol industry at this point! She feels the same as she did 6 years ago! I’m fine with her liking strange things still, but like with Ota, this is another instance of “you have a wholeass job that would kind of force you to become a bit more of a mature person so maybe act that way”. For example, if someone else brought up the video and Tesa was mildly intrigued but dismissed it easily and changed the topic, that would be a simple yet effective way to show that she still has her old interests but is a bit older now.
I know there are some people who think that Tesa shouldn’t like the occult at all post-skip because it goes against the “You literally have to be mentally unwell to believe the things Tesa believes/regular people do not think this way” idea. I don’t think I necessarily support that but I do think it would have been interesting for her to not care about the occult tbh! Literally anything to show she’s grown as a person instead of that she is literally only here because she was in AITSF.
Moma & His Whole Crew
Like with everyone else listed, Moma & His Whole Crew could have been removed from this game and there would be nothing lost.
Moma is a touchy topic because some people haven’t liked him from AITSF. And I think that’s okay, he’s yet another “middle aged man in love with a teenage girl” character so I can get the dislike. Personally, I like him in AITSF despite this, a lot because he does have his serious moments and is a key player in the mystery— he gives you all the information about Rohan and the Kumakuras who are all linked to why the game is even happening. It’s great. He still suffers from his sus moments in AITSF but overall, I like Moma there!
In AINI, Moma and the Kumakuras are not linked closely to the mystery or any of the characters. If you took them out you could easily remedy the potential plot threads that might fray. But more than this, Moma goes through a bit of a bruh moment, where instead of having his hints of fanboy-ism interspersed between more serious scenes, Moma is just here to be the older guy who is in love with a teenage girl. In a plot that already has like 4 or 5 of these. They really hire anyone for this position.
It’s pretty annoying and I could see how it could get people to turn on him in AINI. Just in case you haven’t though, they then have an extended moment where you walk into the Kumakura office to find Moma messing with a voice modulator to imitate Tesa.
It is my impression that they want you to laugh at this scene (“Look, Moma’s saying something that Tesa wouldn’t normally say! Haha!”), but I honestly found it really fucking disturbing for this middle aged man to have unlimited access to a teenage girl’s voice when he feels (clearly sexual) attraction toward her! In this age where idols can be deepfaked onto adult content and people make AI sound like others without their consent, does this not feel a bit ghoulish? A bit pointedly insensitive? I think anyone with a brain could put together that Moma having this item is definitely not in good taste and that this is not very funny!
This moment being one of the few times Moma is around and his general childishness in the rest of the game soured a lot of people on Moma in AINI and I don’t blame them because it really ruined him for me, too.
As for the rest of the crew:
Yogano: He’s living his best life by the end of AITSF. He’s engaged to be married! This is fun and an easter egg you might have missed, but there IS an achievement for it so there is an implication that you should see it. And it’s honestly a cute little moment!
She is a character that is closer to the mystery than some other characters, on account of being both Amame and Kizuna’s friend, but where the former easily checks out due to their long intro scene together + the previous game having Tesa be Amame’s former coworker so they’re well acquainted there, it is honestly hard to believe Kizuna and Tesa are friends?? Lmao. They don’t really share a lot of moments together throughout the game, not just “parts where these characters hang out and be themselves” but even “Tesa exchanging meaningful dialogue with Kizuna that feels unique to Tesa/you could not replace or get rid of Tesa in this scene”. You really could take Tesa out of this game and nothing would be lost.
I think you could chalk this up to the cast being bloated, and Amame and Kizuna could have survived being best friends entirely on their own without needing a third character. This would sort of solve AINI’s ever-prevalent issue of the cast not feeling tightly knit like AITSF’s was, where every character and every relationship slid into place like a neat little puzzle. In the Tesa-Amame-Kizuna puzzle, Tesa is like a puzzle piece that fits but has like half of its pattern scratched off because you lent the puzzle to your baby cousin.
Anyways this is only half of my complaint with Tesa in this game, which is the actual character stagnation part!
This might be a dumb take, but I think it was kinda a mid move to keep having Tesa be an idol 6 years later.
Let me explain. Tesa loves dancing and singing and all the regular idol stuff. However, in AITSF she (and at one point Saito in her body possibly calling upon her own memories and feelings) expresses dissatisfaction or anxieties about her career as an idol. She still loves the stuff that makes up being an idol, but she’s a net idol, she can’t go as hard as everyone else. She started as a streamer, got scouted to be an idol, and still does the streaming! It is very clear that while she loves dancing and singing, gaming is a big part of her identity.
In my opinion, it would have made more sense for her in the timeskip (not necessarily 6 months later, it’s close to AITSF so there’s wiggle room) for her to have retired as an idol and instead become a full time streamer. In AITSF she was already streaming herself dancing, she must know that she doesn’t HAVE to be an idol to dance or make music (thank you Jake Paul for being a shining example here). The choice would show Tesa coming into her own being, that she’s figured out her career path for her future and it’s fully something she enjoys.
Alternatively, it would have been great to have her retire as an idol because Date isn’t around! Remember that the reason she wanted to be famous was so she could find Falco. Welp, in Resolution End she does indeed find him! It could have been cool to have her retire, her main mission being accomplished and her mourning of Date as two main motivators, to tap into the “Date is presumed dead or trapped in a NAIX holding cell and this is really sad and we are all sad about it” idea. I assume the game WANTS you to feel this idea but almost never gets you to feel this because Date barely exists here.
Anyways TLDR Tesa still being an idol, a career she’s kinda mixed on and that she only got into to search for Falco when that mission has been accomplished, is a bit mid.
Next point:
The general idea during Tesa’s brain tumor reveal is along the lines of, “These things that Tesa believes are not real and are affecting her to this extent because she is ill.” I think some people go as far as to say the thesis of this scene is “You literally have to be mentally unwell to believe the things Tesa believes/regular people do not think this way” or something along those lines, and I kinda mesh with that idea? Mainly the latter part.
I’m not saying that Tesa can’t believe in anything without it being ridiculous. Everyone can like a cryptid and UFO every now and then. It’s that the extent to which she believes in/takes seriously groups like NAIX is too far, putting herself in danger and putting strain on the relationships she has. Basically think of QAnon— not that Tesa believes in that, but the people who do act in a similar way.
By the end of AITSF, she has gotten her brain surgery! Congratulations Tesa! I’m sure that she’ll still like weird creepy things and whatnot, but it will definitely be more toned down and safe.
Now in AINI, Tesa during the timeskip makes a point to be the one to show the game a spoooooky video! Ooooooh!! This is basically the one plot relevant thing she does.
Why do I have a problem with this? Well, Tesa doesn’t really appear much on the timeskip side, and I find it kind of annoying and a bit childish that when she does, she’s doing the exact same things and acting the same way she did 6 years ago! Creepy video I show my friends, spoooooky!! Like come the fuck on man, I want to see her mature a bit, this girl is 24 and waist deep into the idol industry at this point! She feels the same as she did 6 years ago! I’m fine with her liking strange things still, but like with Ota, this is another instance of “you have a wholeass job that would kind of force you to become a bit more of a mature person so maybe act that way”. For example, if someone else brought up the video and Tesa was mildly intrigued but dismissed it easily and changed the topic, that would be a simple yet effective way to show that she still has her old interests but is a bit older now.
I know there are some people who think that Tesa shouldn’t like the occult at all post-skip because it goes against the “You literally have to be mentally unwell to believe the things Tesa believes/regular people do not think this way” idea. I don’t think I necessarily support that but I do think it would have been interesting for her to not care about the occult tbh! Literally anything to show she’s grown as a person instead of that she is literally only here because she was in AITSF.
Moma & His Whole Crew
Like with everyone else listed, Moma & His Whole Crew could have been removed from this game and there would be nothing lost.
Moma is a touchy topic because some people haven’t liked him from AITSF. And I think that’s okay, he’s yet another “middle aged man in love with a teenage girl” character so I can get the dislike. Personally, I like him in AITSF despite this, a lot because he does have his serious moments and is a key player in the mystery— he gives you all the information about Rohan and the Kumakuras who are all linked to why the game is even happening. It’s great. He still suffers from his sus moments in AITSF but overall, I like Moma there!
In AINI, Moma and the Kumakuras are not linked closely to the mystery or any of the characters. If you took them out you could easily remedy the potential plot threads that might fray. But more than this, Moma goes through a bit of a bruh moment, where instead of having his hints of fanboy-ism interspersed between more serious scenes, Moma is just here to be the older guy who is in love with a teenage girl. In a plot that already has like 4 or 5 of these. They really hire anyone for this position.
It’s pretty annoying and I could see how it could get people to turn on him in AINI. Just in case you haven’t though, they then have an extended moment where you walk into the Kumakura office to find Moma messing with a voice modulator to imitate Tesa.
It is my impression that they want you to laugh at this scene (“Look, Moma’s saying something that Tesa wouldn’t normally say! Haha!”), but I honestly found it really fucking disturbing for this middle aged man to have unlimited access to a teenage girl’s voice when he feels (clearly sexual) attraction toward her! In this age where idols can be deepfaked onto adult content and people make AI sound like others without their consent, does this not feel a bit ghoulish? A bit pointedly insensitive? I think anyone with a brain could put together that Moma having this item is definitely not in good taste and that this is not very funny!
This moment being one of the few times Moma is around and his general childishness in the rest of the game soured a lot of people on Moma in AINI and I don’t blame them because it really ruined him for me, too.
As for the rest of the crew:
Yogano: He’s living his best life by the end of AITSF. He’s engaged to be married! This is fun and an easter egg you might have missed, but there IS an achievement for it so there is an implication that you should see it. And it’s honestly a cute little moment!
In AINI, it’s implied his marriage fell apart, his ex-wife is going around saying unfunny jokes, and for some reason they decide to use Yogano as a means to progress the plot by saying weird cryptic stuff and leaving. Earlier I mentioned that a character who I felt stagnated could have been replaced by anyone in the cast and it would feel the same, but this ACTUALLY feels like a case where they replaced a character with literally anyone.
You took this guy who had a promising marriage and a really cute marriage, ripped it apart so you could have the nurse be really not funny throughout the game even though she could have been married to Yogano and nothing would have had to change, and then used her husband as a means to progress the plot by casting the mentally ill spell on him for a scene! What the fuck!! Yeah I’m more annoyed about this than others because that scene made Yogano my second favorite unnamed random extra in AITSF!
Chinpei: Not really character stagnation, but I find it so bad that it loops back into being hilarious that they had this guy get into an unreasonable shootout in public for his mermaid wife we never even get to see. Who do YOU guys think he’s getting married to? Let me know in the Twitter replies! My bet is on the green haired maid with the two pigtails.
I say getting married but his wife might have left him over this scene before they were even married. I know I would like goddamn!
Mama
Mama in AITSF was not much of a big player. I would go as far as to say she’s the side character least connected to the mystery overall, as she has no direct involvement in any of murders/crime scenes (even Mayumi does) and a lot of her relevancy just comes from Marble— the location where Renju told Date his watch his from his lover, the location Pewter was going to go to meet Date, the location where Date gets tazed lol loser.
I think this is fine honestly. Mama is still roped into the mystery by means of being an informant— I would push the sentiment of her not being a very good informant, given that she almost never has information and half the information she does have is untrue or half-truths (though you can argue that this false information helps build up the mystery, which is fair, so it can stay).
When AINI was starting to be a thing, I thought that Mama would be one of the first characters to cut given lack of relevance. However she is in AINI, and is… I don’t even know. Did anyone like the pattern of going to Mama’s, having a really unfunny sex joke or two play out, then Mama just telling you where to go through her fortune telling that is just the game devs saying “GO TO THIS LOCATION NOW”.
And then Mama, the person MOST unconnected with the mystery, revealing the big twist to us… WHY is it her? Tokiko shoulda been the one to explain this! Uru! Anyone who ACTUALLY HAS A HAND IN THE TWIST! I know they’re fuckin dead in the future side but the conversation with Mama is already so weird just break a rule and have Tokiko look directly at me and start talking.
Maybe this isn’t character stagnation but more “they just used any character to do this plotpoint god damn”.
So
Hi. The last time I talked about how So sucked in this game someone who couldn’t read called me a freak for liking him. I am prefacing this section by saying I do not like So. I think So is a slimy little freak who should get the electric chair if possible. I do not know how to make this any clearer. If you think that me thinking that him as a villain (this means someone who is bad btw) is well done in AITSF means I absolve him of all his pedophilic sins then I genuinely think you should click off this post because reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Sorry this is a bit snippy but the fact that anyone could think I would be okay with or excuse the things he’s done pisses me off. Let’s move on!
Chinpei: Not really character stagnation, but I find it so bad that it loops back into being hilarious that they had this guy get into an unreasonable shootout in public for his mermaid wife we never even get to see. Who do YOU guys think he’s getting married to? Let me know in the Twitter replies! My bet is on the green haired maid with the two pigtails.
I say getting married but his wife might have left him over this scene before they were even married. I know I would like goddamn!
Mama
Mama in AITSF was not much of a big player. I would go as far as to say she’s the side character least connected to the mystery overall, as she has no direct involvement in any of murders/crime scenes (even Mayumi does) and a lot of her relevancy just comes from Marble— the location where Renju told Date his watch his from his lover, the location Pewter was going to go to meet Date, the location where Date gets tazed lol loser.
I think this is fine honestly. Mama is still roped into the mystery by means of being an informant— I would push the sentiment of her not being a very good informant, given that she almost never has information and half the information she does have is untrue or half-truths (though you can argue that this false information helps build up the mystery, which is fair, so it can stay).
When AINI was starting to be a thing, I thought that Mama would be one of the first characters to cut given lack of relevance. However she is in AINI, and is… I don’t even know. Did anyone like the pattern of going to Mama’s, having a really unfunny sex joke or two play out, then Mama just telling you where to go through her fortune telling that is just the game devs saying “GO TO THIS LOCATION NOW”.
And then Mama, the person MOST unconnected with the mystery, revealing the big twist to us… WHY is it her? Tokiko shoulda been the one to explain this! Uru! Anyone who ACTUALLY HAS A HAND IN THE TWIST! I know they’re fuckin dead in the future side but the conversation with Mama is already so weird just break a rule and have Tokiko look directly at me and start talking.
Maybe this isn’t character stagnation but more “they just used any character to do this plotpoint god damn”.
So
Hi. The last time I talked about how So sucked in this game someone who couldn’t read called me a freak for liking him. I am prefacing this section by saying I do not like So. I think So is a slimy little freak who should get the electric chair if possible. I do not know how to make this any clearer. If you think that me thinking that him as a villain (this means someone who is bad btw) is well done in AITSF means I absolve him of all his pedophilic sins then I genuinely think you should click off this post because reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Sorry this is a bit snippy but the fact that anyone could think I would be okay with or excuse the things he’s done pisses me off. Let’s move on!
So Sejima is a piece of shit bastard man who I hate, I ponder him the way I ponder true crime podcasts. But he’s not a cartoonishly evil dipshit like the Uru twist kinda sorta makes him into.
Starting at the midpoint of the So Sejima Fuckup Timeline here: Is it fucked up that So dated and impregnated a high schooler? Yes it is, it is VERY bad. Weirdly enough, So seemed to care for Manaka genuinely, and was clearly taken aback when she was murdered. He didn’t go “Great job Saito, thanks for taking care of that for me!”. And at the same time, he didn’t own up to this crime, and had Manaka’s body handed off to the yakuza. Why is this? So does the wrong thing all the time not because it’s wrong and he needs to be evil so we have someone to hate, but because his main concern is always going to be his image, and the choices he makes will always benefit him/his image. He has the money and power to cover up his problems (dead girlfriend, Saito murders) that he will use as he sees fit.
This mindset overrides his love for Manaka, and by extension, his love for Saito. Saito only turned out the way he did because So did not love him. You can glean from subtext that it’s quite possible So resents Saito for being responsible for killing his wife in childbirth, leading to the downfall of not ever bothering to show care for Saito, not medicating him or having him checked by any doctors for treatment, and then eventually covering up his murders. Again, So knows that murder is wrong, but it’s all about protecting his image— he pays off the yakuza during the Cyclops Serial Killings because if Saito went to jail for any one of his crimes, it would retroactively harm So.
The money that he used to do this could have easily been spent on helping Saito get medicated or committed, but the two of them are so detached that this probably never once crossed So’s mind until it was too late— that is, not that he realized he’s neglected his son, but because it was becoming more and more expensive to cover these things up.
Back to Manaka, So’s own narcissism outweighed his love for her, but it is clear that he cared about her and is haunted by what happened. This is made apparent in Psyncin’ in the Villain, where he is constantly plagued by the idea of Manaka (represented by Tesa, after being shown her image by Date) being murdered over and over again by Saito. He also was romantically involved with Manaka years and years after his wife died, so it’s clear that he’s moved on from her death on a romantic level.
He’s still a fucking bastard for dating a high schooler, and the thing that makes him a real villain is he legitimately seemed to care about Manaka on more than just a carnal sense. It’s one thing to be a horny politician who has flings with high schoolers and doesn’t even think about it— it’s cartoonishly gross, it’s the perfect fuel to get you to hate a character without knowing much about them. It’s another thing when it’s a politician dating one high school girl years after his wife’s death, who is then shaken by the former’s murder. I very much doubt Psyncin’ in the Villain would have played out the way it did if So Sejima saw Manaka as just some girl to play around with. He’s still awful, but it’s a more intriguing kind of awful, a human kind of awful.
Again though, So’s concern for his image outweighed his love for Manaka, and he stopped seeing her for this reason prior to her death.
Starting at the midpoint of the So Sejima Fuckup Timeline here: Is it fucked up that So dated and impregnated a high schooler? Yes it is, it is VERY bad. Weirdly enough, So seemed to care for Manaka genuinely, and was clearly taken aback when she was murdered. He didn’t go “Great job Saito, thanks for taking care of that for me!”. And at the same time, he didn’t own up to this crime, and had Manaka’s body handed off to the yakuza. Why is this? So does the wrong thing all the time not because it’s wrong and he needs to be evil so we have someone to hate, but because his main concern is always going to be his image, and the choices he makes will always benefit him/his image. He has the money and power to cover up his problems (dead girlfriend, Saito murders) that he will use as he sees fit.
This mindset overrides his love for Manaka, and by extension, his love for Saito. Saito only turned out the way he did because So did not love him. You can glean from subtext that it’s quite possible So resents Saito for being responsible for killing his wife in childbirth, leading to the downfall of not ever bothering to show care for Saito, not medicating him or having him checked by any doctors for treatment, and then eventually covering up his murders. Again, So knows that murder is wrong, but it’s all about protecting his image— he pays off the yakuza during the Cyclops Serial Killings because if Saito went to jail for any one of his crimes, it would retroactively harm So.
The money that he used to do this could have easily been spent on helping Saito get medicated or committed, but the two of them are so detached that this probably never once crossed So’s mind until it was too late— that is, not that he realized he’s neglected his son, but because it was becoming more and more expensive to cover these things up.
Back to Manaka, So’s own narcissism outweighed his love for her, but it is clear that he cared about her and is haunted by what happened. This is made apparent in Psyncin’ in the Villain, where he is constantly plagued by the idea of Manaka (represented by Tesa, after being shown her image by Date) being murdered over and over again by Saito. He also was romantically involved with Manaka years and years after his wife died, so it’s clear that he’s moved on from her death on a romantic level.
He’s still a fucking bastard for dating a high schooler, and the thing that makes him a real villain is he legitimately seemed to care about Manaka on more than just a carnal sense. It’s one thing to be a horny politician who has flings with high schoolers and doesn’t even think about it— it’s cartoonishly gross, it’s the perfect fuel to get you to hate a character without knowing much about them. It’s another thing when it’s a politician dating one high school girl years after his wife’s death, who is then shaken by the former’s murder. I very much doubt Psyncin’ in the Villain would have played out the way it did if So Sejima saw Manaka as just some girl to play around with. He’s still awful, but it’s a more intriguing kind of awful, a human kind of awful.
Again though, So’s concern for his image outweighed his love for Manaka, and he stopped seeing her for this reason prior to her death.
I would also like to quickly say that I think AINI did good by having So there creating a relationship with Tesa. This is a good example of how he’s actually a multifaceted character and how he cared about Manaka— it would be so easy for him to literally drop off the face of the earth, but instead he goes out of his way to not only speak with her but also tell her she can ask him for anything. You could even go as far as to say not only is this because he cares about Manaka, but because maybe somewhere deep down, he finally realized he wronged Saito.
Back to the opening statement. Why do I think Uru being his kid ruins So Sejima’s complexities?
Back to the opening statement. Why do I think Uru being his kid ruins So Sejima’s complexities?
Firstly, this is Star Wars level of granular unneeded connections. Rey is a Palpatine-ass revelation. Like Saito, you could also say Uru turned out the way he did because So did not love him— if So loved Uru, he would have taken him in or provided for his mother, but he did not. His mother killed herself and Uru was eventually kidnapped.
But did it have to be this way? Introducing this random So aspect takes away from his backstory with Tokiko/Chikara/Jin because now you have these extra details that you don’t need, and it makes us retroactively compare him to Saito, which we were already doing because the two are the main villains of either AI game. Uru has enough backstory writing outside of So to stand on his own, and his story is 99% focused on the other side of the spectrum— that is, how Uru turned out the way he did because of Tokiko’s love. Uru does not need to be attached to So in ANY WAY.
Uru’s existence weakens So’s depth when it comes to Manaka and Saito. From AITSF, we can glean, “it might be possible that So resents Saito for killing his wife, but he did move on from this death in a romantic sense because So genuinely cared about Manaka”.
Once we throw Uru into the mix, So Sejima then becomes “cartoonishly evil politician who just be fuckin nonstop”. AINI LITERALLY EVEN SAYS HE IS AN EXTREMELY HORNY OLD MAN IN A JOKING WAY, TAMA COMMENTS IN A VERY FUNNY JOKE THAT SO HAS CRAZY LIBIDO. Doesn’t that just like… rub anyone else the wrong way?? “Haha this guy was in a relationship with a high schooler who got murdered by his son and also this other woman committed suicide after giving birth to his son, what a horny old guy!” Like?!?!??!?!?! (EDIT: When Tama says this they do not know Uru is his son, but the writers DO know this, and they still choose to go at this angle.)
But did it have to be this way? Introducing this random So aspect takes away from his backstory with Tokiko/Chikara/Jin because now you have these extra details that you don’t need, and it makes us retroactively compare him to Saito, which we were already doing because the two are the main villains of either AI game. Uru has enough backstory writing outside of So to stand on his own, and his story is 99% focused on the other side of the spectrum— that is, how Uru turned out the way he did because of Tokiko’s love. Uru does not need to be attached to So in ANY WAY.
Uru’s existence weakens So’s depth when it comes to Manaka and Saito. From AITSF, we can glean, “it might be possible that So resents Saito for killing his wife, but he did move on from this death in a romantic sense because So genuinely cared about Manaka”.
Once we throw Uru into the mix, So Sejima then becomes “cartoonishly evil politician who just be fuckin nonstop”. AINI LITERALLY EVEN SAYS HE IS AN EXTREMELY HORNY OLD MAN IN A JOKING WAY, TAMA COMMENTS IN A VERY FUNNY JOKE THAT SO HAS CRAZY LIBIDO. Doesn’t that just like… rub anyone else the wrong way?? “Haha this guy was in a relationship with a high schooler who got murdered by his son and also this other woman committed suicide after giving birth to his son, what a horny old guy!” Like?!?!??!?!?! (EDIT: When Tama says this they do not know Uru is his son, but the writers DO know this, and they still choose to go at this angle.)
This new interpretation of So is made case in point by the fact that Uru is A YEAR YOUNGER than Saito, which means So would have to start fucking PRETTY SOON after his wife’s death, removing some of the implied complexity of his and Saito’s relationship, while also making his later relationship with Manaka confusing.
I know So isn’t stupid and has connections, there’s a pretty high chance he knew Uru was chucked into an adoption center and that his mother killed herself. But let’s say he didn’t know until the moment Uru told him, since this seems to be what the game wants us to think. This woman kills herself, and So’s reaction is… well, we don’t ever see what he thinks. We never see him again until someone eventually says he skipped town (smart move he would have been murdered).
Am I projecting too much onto this guy? I genuinely feel like there is such a gap between the situations with Manaka and Uru’s mother.
Manaka:
- Years after his wife’s death
- Seemed to genuinely care for her, it is never said that he had been in any other relationships with any other high school girls (ew).
- Clearly shaken by her murder, clearly haunted by it years later
- Cared about Manaka enough to want to make amends with Tesa
- We would have to assume they fucked 3 months after So’s wife died
- They fucked 3 months after his wife died holy shit
- We never see his reaction to the news of her suicide
- Had like 9 lines with Uru total so they feel very disconnected.
So was an interesting bastard man character in AITSF that was butchered in AINI by trying to link him to a story he did not need to be linked to.
Date
Why the fuck was this dude even here.
I don’t think I need to explain how “We threw a large rock at Date’s head so he lost his memories again for 6 years and we could write him out of the narrative, then he came back because he remembered everything one day, also he hid his identity for a while and didn’t bother contacting the people who love and miss him” is really fucking dumb. This is such a contrivance, why even include him at all.
Oddly if you took Date out of this game, Ryuki would be the character who suffers the most and not Mizuki. Yes it is true that Mizuki takes up Date’s mantle and does want to investigate the HB case because she thinks it could lead her to Date, but Ryuki is far more affected by the loss on an emotional level, in a way we can see. We don’t really get a moment where Mizuki blows up and says she misses Date, even the moment where Mizuki and Date are reunited in the future is oddly brisk and undercut by both unneeded jokes and the plot needing to move along like a bullet train.
And even if you did remove Date, Ryuki could still be affected by the NAIX church fiasco by having another character get hurt or killed (Kizuna got knocked OUT bro), or Ryuki himself being hurt. Or Tama being hurt. Someone, anyone. Ryuki is already mentally unwell, it would probably be really easy to push him over the edge by showing him how he’s not a hero of justice, how he can’t save everyone. He already knows that, but this would really confirm it.
So I honestly think if Date wasn’t in this game, and if he was just off on another mission entirely during the extent of it, maybe like an endgame cameo… You could get by. It would probably be a better game.
On one hand I hate what Date is in this game, on the other it’s almost funny how they hyped up Date as a character for this game only for him to barely be around that I kinda respect it. Chad move.
MizukiSo I honestly think if Date wasn’t in this game, and if he was just off on another mission entirely during the extent of it, maybe like an endgame cameo… You could get by. It would probably be a better game.
On one hand I hate what Date is in this game, on the other it’s almost funny how they hyped up Date as a character for this game only for him to barely be around that I kinda respect it. Chad move.
I’m just going to link to the original review for this part.
I do have two smaller thoughts to add.
1) Mizuki changes her last name to Mizuki Date. I think this is really cute. But there’s like… not really a lot of scenes of Date and Mizuki together to make this feel very good. Again, Mizuki does not mention Date much post-skip (half because Mizuki is actually Bibi) and even when they reunite it is very disappointing.
(Shoulda had at bare minimum this)
On some level I have to wonder if this is actually a gigabrained reference to how Mizuki and Date didn’t actually grow closer at all in the Resolution End (but it pretended they did) so why would they be closer here. If it is, genius play.
2) I said Mizuki didn’t really grow as a character in my initial post and while I still do think that’s true, she does have something of an “”””arc””””. This arc is that she’s found herself and her family.
That would be really cool on paper if this was not the same exact arc she had in AITSF and also if they didn’t break AITSF’s writing to make it happen. It was not an arc that Mizuki needed because she already had her family! Her family is Date!!! Seriously like did they not even replay AITSF or know that this was what people loved about Mizuki!! Oh fuck Date watch out there’s a giant rock incoming oh shit he got hit by it looks like he’s out of the game whoops
Repeating of Jokes & Locations
Not a character, but still a point that this game doesn’t feel like it’s a progression from AITSF is the repeating of jokes from AITSF. Don’t get me wrong those jokes were funny, and I would be cool with maybe like one reference or two. But why were so many… repeats? Did they just run out of jokes to tell and hoped no one would notice? It’s not really funny when it’s repeated in a different game by a different character…
Also, repeat locations. There are way too many locations in this game. You could cut the majority of the ones from AITSF (I’ll throw out some wild cards, let’s keep Date’s apartment, Matsushita Diner, and Sunfish Pocket and cut the rest) and still have a nice amount of places for the characters to visit!
Why do I bring up locations? I also feel like the repeated use of AITSF’s characters and locations makes this world feel… abysmally small. They’re in futuristic Tokyo, a city which at the moment has 13.96 million residents. And you’re telling me that despite that insane number the casts of AITSF and AINI are all like… close to each other like that? That Date and Lien and Gen are best friends, that Kizuna just so happened to take care of Bibi and Mizuki, so on and so forth?
This game doesn’t feel like a progression from AITSF, it feels like AINI can’t break free and be its own thing. I’ve seen this criticism before so I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, and maybe someone else has articulated this thought better than I can at the moment.
In Summary
Whereas every character in AITSF is relevant to its story, AINI is a mix of characters that are actually relevant to the mystery and characters that make you point and go “Look! It’s the character from AITSF!”. And that fuckin sucks!
At any point during this long section, you might have thought, “Lone, you’re thinking too much here! They probably wouldn’t have time to show the things you wanted to see!” or “Lone, this is too much of a nitpick, they wouldn’t do or show this because those characters aren’t the focus of the story!”
And honestly? You’re totally right! These characters aren't the focus! But do you see the problem in that? Why bring back characters that you’re going to write unsatisfyingly when the mystery doesn’t concern them? Would it not be better to simply… (gasp) NOT have the character in the game at all?!
Not only does removing the characters that are irrelevant solve the issue of not being used correctly/stagnating in AINI, but now with a tighter cast lineup we can get to know the characters we DO have from AINI even better. We aren’t trying to juggle a preexisting cast and a new cast, there’s more room for growth of other characters.
Instead of bringing back characters for fanservice let’s just focus on telling a new compelling story!
Can We Please Fucking Stop Having Older Men In Love With Teenagers In This Series?
I didn’t touch upon this matter much in my initial review of AINI because it was long enough already, but hey, this post is already around 6700 words as I jump around and write different parts, so who cares.
I would also like to preface this section with a disclaimer: This is not me coming for all age differences in the world. For example, Lien is 23 and Kizuna is 18, which makes that a 5 year age difference. That’s honestly not that big of a difference, and I don’t really care about age differences when they’re between consenting adults. A 30 year old dating a 50 year old? A 40 year old and a 50 year old? Go ahead, you are both adults and can do whatever you want.
But this is the key factor here, that both people in this relationship are adults. An 18 year old is not an adult. Yes, 18 may be legal (I am already sus of anyone going to point this out), but that does not make that person an adult mentally. In a relationship between an 18 year old and a 23 year old, there is a clear power imbalance. An 18 year old does not have a fully developed frontal lobe, an 18 year old is not as mature as a 23 year old. I think most people would agree that it’s strange for a college graduate to date a senior in high school, and that age gap is even smaller than this one. These two cannot date and be on equal footing, the difference in maturity is too vast. When they’re older and two adults with fully developed frontal lobes? 5 years isn’t really that big, so go off!
Kizuna and Lien do not date when she is 18 and he is 23, but do you see how it’s really strange for someone his age to be fervently pursuing a girl much younger and less of an adult than him? Do you see how it could pressure her or make her feel really unsafe and uncomfortable?
For Gen and Amame, we don’t even KNOW Gen’s age other than a vague 20s range. Considering he owns a business I would like to venture a guess he’s in his late 20s, and that does not make Gen/Amame better, I would even go as far as to say it’s worse— especially when we don’t know exactly how long they’ve known each other, and since he’s always been in love with her… Ummmmm… Yikes!!
Anyways before we begin I would like to count up the amount of older men who are in love with teenage girls in AITSF and AINI.
AITSF:
- Ota, 24 - Tesa, 18
- Moma, 48 - Tesa, 18
- So, 42 at the time of relationship - Manaka, 19
- [Carrying over Ota and Moma]
- Lien, 23 - Kizuna, 18
- Gen, mid to late 20s - Amame, 18
- Uru, 29 - Amame, 18
Kizuna/Lien
So this is going to be an odd sentiment, but I think as a slap on the wrist for writing this romance whoever brainstormed this should be transformed into a teenage girl and relentlessly stalked by a large really forceful man for a few days just so they can experience how absolutely terrifying this relationship starts out.
It doesn’t really matter that Lien’s intentions are pure, that he wouldn’t do anything bad and he just wants to get to know Kizuna, because this is not how you approach anyone, especially an 18 year old. If a 23 year old man I don’t really know who insists he’s in love with me followed me around, going as far as to tail me to the bathrooms and stopping by the place where I lived to see me, I would actually be scared for my life and probably start crying and throwing up. I’m a 22 year old woman saying this. I could be like 30 and I would still be terrified, Lien is fucking huge. I genuinely think the writers did not consult a single woman on this section of the game and boy oh BOY does it show!
Maybe what’s even worse is that Kizuna appears to be genuinely uncomfortable but AINI continues to play Lien’s forcefulness for… I dunno, laughs. Why do that? I would be arresting Lien not gonna lie!
Post-skip, I think that Kizuna and Lien are fun. I like the struggles Kizuna goes through. I like Lien when they surgically remove Kizuna from him so you find out he’s actually a really nice guy who is just constantly going through it. I think it makes sense that Kizuna would start to fall in love over the 6 years together, and their conclusion is very sweet. But there’s a huge asterisk next to this thought, because the beginning of their relationship is so genuinely unhealthy that it’s hard to watch their ending and truly be satisfied.
In some ways I compare Kizuna/Lien to Ota and Tesa in AITSF. Ota also very much loves Tesa, but Ota also gets owned a lot. The game does not reward Ota for being Tesa’s strongest soldier, especially when some of that position is only given to him because he’s created conflict to earn it. But where Ota is not rewarded at the end of Resolution by gaining a catgirl GF, Lien… Is? Lien continues to stalk this girl and eventually they elope together! Violating people’s personal space is fine if you’re pure of heart and consistent, because eventually they will love you. Do you see how someone could get that message from Lien and Kizuna’s pre-skip depiction of their relationship here? This is not very good at all!
“Lone you are being a bit overdramatic here” maybe I am. But I also have yet to find anyone who genuinely ships this and sees no issue with this writing. Again, it does not feel like a woman was consulted on this at all and if there was then she lived a very blessed life for not having the worries a lot of girls do have. For any guy who has trouble relating to the subtle fear of being stalked or harassed or even assaulted by a guy much stronger and older than you who you deny advances from, try to imagine a creepy old woman following you home trying to goad you into marrying her or something. It’s just weird.
And thus, folks at home, I would like to drop my Kizuna/Lien rewrite here that I workshopped within the week of AINI’s release with a couple of pals of mine. You’re free to skip this part.
We open at Matsushita Diner— Lien happens to see Kizuna dancing while he’s at his lowest emotionally. Maybe Kizuna isn’t the best at dancing, so she kind of fumbles some moves, but she looks super happy while she’s doing it, and that’s what’s important. Lien watches this and is moved. “Wow, this girl is kinda making a fool of herself, but she looks pretty happy and she’s moving on”. You could really make that resonate with him during his time of unemployment.
For the rest of the past side of the game, Lien is still around, but he’s doing a bunch of odd jobs that he was able to get and then later gets fired from them. You can play these off as jokes in the moment, like haha Lien is really everywhere!, but later reveal in his somnium how crushing these rejections are for him. When he’s around Kizuna on these odd jobs and mentioning how he’s losing them, maybe Kizuna might be kinda confused about the situation. Why is he trying so hard? But then he tells her that he’s had a rough time and her conversation with him at the diner motivated him, maybe that’s the first time in a while he’s had a good interaction with a stranger.
And Kizuna would sort of go from indifferent toward Lien to kind of warming up to him. She’s obsessed with fairytales and princesses, maybe in the back of her mind she would think “Maybe this is fate, us meeting again and again like this” (<- could reveal this line in her somnium). I’m not saying she would feel romantically attracted to him then and there, and honestly neither would Lien. It would start as a strange friendship that came to be simply because they were both nice to each other.
This would all culminate in the glass slipper scene toward the end of the past side. However, instead of buying her glass slippers (which is super financially irresponsible and again a really forceful way of approaching someone, I spent all this money on you you HAVE to love me), he buys her really shitty loafers. Just the ugliest, cheapest things you’ve ever seen. And he hands them off to her. It’s his idea of a gift, since they keep running into each other and are sort of friendly, and he bought these with his pay from his odd jobs. “You helped me when I was down, so if you need me for anything, just let me know, this is a symbol of my thanks” type beat. Maybe instead of burying them, Kizuna keeps the box somewhere and it appears in the somnium as glass slippers, because that’s how she’s come to see this gift, this symbol of their friendship. Bonus points if post-skip Kizuna is wearing the shitty loafers.
From there everything plays out basically the same. Lien helps Kizuna out, Kizuna feels guilty and undeserving, so on and so on. But now the romance part of the game feels more naturally built up to and you do want to root for their happiness without the caveat of going “Well, it started out really fucking weird, but at least it ended well!”
End rewrite. I think it could have been fun.
Gen/Amame
I think it is VERY funny how everyone was generally chill with Gen until the very end where he’s like “UHHHH ACTUALLY I was in love with Amame” and now you don’t really see people talk about him and even when they do they are very much not a fan of the Gen/Amame ship.
In general, I am not a fan of the trope where someone will say “She’s like a sister to me!” when they actually feel romantic attraction toward that person. I also think it’s extra creepy to instead be like “She’s like a DAUGHTER to me” but have romantic attraction toward that person. I’m not exactly sure why the daughter idea raises more red flags for me maybe someone can psychoanalyze me in the Twitter replies.
Anyways, Gen comments a lot that Amame is like a daughter to him, and then later reveals at the end of his life that he was actually in love with Amame. I have a couple comments on this.
1) Creepy!
2) Mizuki is the one seeing this unfold in AI-Sight. Honestly thank god because this would be a lot to drop on Amame before dying, but do you think Mizuki told Amame any of what he said? I know I wouldn’t because I don’t want to give her more baggage on top of her jail time!
3) I would like to use this quote from Jenny Nicholson’s The Last Bronycon video that I think describes both Gen and whoever was responsible for writing this section of the game (Uchi, Naka, my demons, idk). This is describing MLP just for context:
“It's not sexy, it's just appealing, and the characters are well designed, and they're endearing. And I speculate that maybe, in a broad, general sense, men are not socialized to recognize uncomplicated, unsexual fondness for a female character. So they liked the ponies for a little while, and then their brain started going, but can I have sex with it?”
Maybe I am reaching with this point, but this really fits the Gen/Amame scenario in my eyes. Amame shows affection toward Gen in a platonic way, she’s a nice cute girl. And Gen, or maybe the writers, can’t imagine that Gen can’t NOT love Amame, can’t imagine a world in which they are simply family without blood relations. There MUST be romance here!
But does there HAVE to be? If they had remained friends and just that, you would have Shoma/Komeji End be about familial and blood love, Amame/Gen End be about found family love, and Kizuna/Lien End be about romantic love. Balance all across the board! Nice!
A lot of people have had more well thought out ideas about this ship and how it objectifies Amame which is its own meta commentary, I’m sure they’re floating around somewhere on Discord or Reddit. But this is the main thing I think about, how they were so close to being normal but had to sour it at the very last moment because he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious.
I have no fucking rewrite for this ship. It just should not have happened. Moving on.
Misc
I mentioned Uru/Amame in the start of this section. It isn’t said ingame, but in the developer’s notes for AINI (which have been sort of translated but not all fully posted on the AINI TCRF page) it is directly said that the moment the two of them first met in Studio Dvaita that Uru fell in love with Amame at first sight. Amame obviously does not reciprocate this and does not know this to be the case.
I do not want to post the full developer note for this section because it is not my place to do so, the translation is not mine and it will probably eventually be posted onto the TCRF page. But please know this is a legit thing and not something I made up just to make up. I believe the message with the translation is still in the AI discord’s datamining channel (idk tho i have not checked it in months it’s too big and overwhelming JBDHJFBHDKSDF).
I just do not like this. I dunno. In a game full of guys who have crushes on teenagers I just don’t really like this. I’d like it to stop.
I think it would be cool if in AI3 instead of 3 new older men in love with teenagers we could possibly get a romance between teenagers where there is not a clear disparity in maturity. I also think maybe to spice some things up maybe we could get like a lesbian bitch in here. AI has a lot of mlm but where the wlw at? Let’s have a lesbian relationship where both girls are at similar maturity levels. I think that would be good. Siren Song will always be real to me AND ALSO YOU SEE MORE FANART OF SIREN SONG THAN KIZUNA/LIEN OR GEN/AMAME HMMMM MAYBE THE FANS ARE ONTO SOMETHING HERE.
Random Little Grievances
1) I don’t like that NAIX is an actual corporation in AINI. Or, no, the idea that they ARE real is fine, but I don’t like that they are actually a secret cult and they have two wacky churches in their basement. Doesn’t that kind of ruin the impact of Tesa’s brain tumor reveal in AITSF? It goes from “Oh wow, Tesa is hallucinating this made up group is hunting her down and it’s really putting a lot of pressure on her mom and friends” to “Oh, Tesa hallucinated NAIX is after her, and they’re not, but she is right that the group is pretty sus and evil”. That… kinda sucks!
I’m okay with NAIX being real in the sense that like, Stop & Shop is real but does not have a cult. Like Tesa gets a flyer from Stop & Shop and thinks “Oh fuck they’re onto me” but it’s just her brain being paranoid. That’s fine.
2) It’s never explained why Bibi and Mizuki wear the same clothes and have the same hair style, the vest in particular being a very uniquely Mizuki item. This is honestly a huge issue for me because other Uchikoshi games do this same thing but actually explain this detail. I’m going to skirt around the details, but in Ever17, some characters have some characters dress the same so they can actively deceive character B. Everyone in the game is in on this plan, which explains why the characters wearing the same clothes are not odd to them and no one comments on it, and instead it correctly deceives character B.
How does this work in AINI? Tokiko definitely didn’t go up to Mizuki and say “here take this vest and also wear your hair this way and also wear these really specific stockings”, and Tokiko is the main mastermind of this plan. No one in ABIS is in on this plan. How did they pull this shit off? I like to imagine maybe Tokiko was crossing her fingers and praying Boss would just hand me down Bibi’s clothes, that would be really funny. But again, the vest is so distinctly Mizuki rather than Bibi, why would Bibi be wearing that?
They never comment on this other than Date 6 years ago saying that Bibi looks like Mizuki. No one in the future goes “Wow you’re dressed exactly like my friend [Bibi]” to Mizuki. Not even in the ending sequence do they do a handwave-y “here’s a random explanation as to why no one’s commented on this” scene. If Ever17 can do it so can you!!!!!
3) More of my issues with the twist can be found in my original post.
4) Half to Whole is mixed like how I would mix VOCALOID covers in Windows Movie Maker in the 2010s I have no other comment than that
How Much Of This Is My Own Fault?
This is the billion dollar question— Did I overhype myself on this game? I was very enthusiastic about AINI and I was just as hyped for it as I was for AITSF during its promotion and release cycle. How could I NOT be hyped, when the concept— Mizuki as a Psyncer— was something I had thought of since originally beating AITSF?
To my credit, I didn’t overhype myself on anything that wasn’t officially shown or written about in interviews. For example, Date was shown in the trailers and hyped up to be a fun part of the game in articles, and so I believed that this would be the case. This was very much not the case. Mizuki was shown in the trailers and hyped up as the protagonist and so I believed that this would be the case. This was not the case 50% of the time a Mizuki was onscreen. They advertised that reverse Psyncs would be a thing and so I believed that this would be a recurring element. This happened one time in the game and it was the tutorial somnium. I can go on and on here.
Did I have my own ideas pre-release? Of course, but no part of me expected anything I thought would have come true. A lot of theories I had from watching the trailers were flat out wrong and that’s okay because I expected them to be! I like not knowing where things are going. Especially since half of what I was posting about pre-release was a 30 minute Date/Kagami sex scene, which I still think they can do as a DLC if they want to win me back to Team Pro-AINI so your move Spikechun let’s see the dick.
There’s also the matter that AINI probably isn’t a bad game. It had a nice budget, it improved some gameplay from AITSF, the original characters are great, the music bumps. Someone else might think this game is a 10/10, and power to them! I do not think that everyone should hate this game or you’re wrong for liking it, this is just my post explaining WHY I did not click with it.
I was given certain expectations both from the trailers and from how good AITSF was. This game did not meet those expectations. So I guess some of why this game failed for me is my fault given I came in with expectations. I know I’m not the only person who shares some of the opinions I’ve listed here (I have said way too damn much to not have touched upon at least ONE opinion that you, the reader, might have).
Let’s go 50% my fault 50% the game’s fault. I dunno.
I do know that if AI3 is a thing, I will be taking a step back from the hype cycle. Of course I’m going to follow along with the pre-release content and will probably buy the game, but I am never going to pour the same amount of hype I did for AITSF and AINI as I will for AI3. And that honestly sucks to admit, because I love AI, but I would actually be crushed if I was burned again and AI3 does not fix the issues with AINI.
This has already happened twice with Uchikoshi sequels for me (ZTD and AINI) that if AI3 did it for a third time I would probably combust. Speaking of ZTD I replayed it right after AINI and honestly even if that game sucked at least it was REALLY funny. ZTD is like a train derailing and you can’t look away. AINI is like that but also you stick around long enough to see emergency medical services dragging out bodies. Okay maybe that’s too sick but you know what I mean SFJFSJDK THE POINT IS I TOOK THIS HARDER THAN I DID ZTD
Closing Remarks If You Didn't Want To Read All That Shit (Again)
AINI is a game that exists, and I don’t like it very much! I don’t want to replay it, I wish I could pretend that it doesn’t sour some elements of AITSF that I loved, and I am really frustrated by its existence. I went through more character development on this game in 5 months than some of the returning AITSF characters went through in 6 years.
Again, I think it is VERY clear from the AINI’s pre-release that I was excited for this game. I did not go in wanting to hate it or thinking “Heh, I can’t wait to tear this thing apart”. This was my MOST hype game of 2022. I am the resident AI series shill and have been here since the very beginning back when Tesa was uploading onto YouTube. I probably sold enough copies of AITSF over the last couple years to fund the actual Date/Kagami sex scene if they decided to make it (THERE’S STILL TIME SPIKECHUN)!
Basically, I would have literally no reason to want to hate this game. I expected to love it! I wanted to love it! But it utterly butchered the things I loved about AITSF and was overall a very flawed game in my eyes!!!!! I can’t stand it!! I replayed AITSF 7 times and I never want to touch AINI ever again!
So, where do we go from here? This is my open PLEA to Spikechun and its associates, anyone who can possibly have an influence on the future of this series. Hell even a janitor at Spikechun’s office that walks in on meetings sometimes is welcome to read this if they can somehow alter the course of fate. HEED ME:
I would love for AI3 to be a thing. I love AI so much. I really like the creativity that Psyncing allows and I love me some crazy mysteries.
But if AI3 is a thing, do not include the casts of AITSF and AINI in it! Please make the game an entirely new experience. Focus on fleshing out new people and expanding the world of AI rather than having to devote time to showing an already known character for the main sake of “they do kind of one plot important thing and not much else and they’re mainly just here because they were in a previous game”.
My favorite parts of AINI were all things that were brand new, like characters like Ryuki and Shoma and the creative somniums! My least favorite parts were the returning AITSF characters who felt forced into the plot and barely grew as people!
The twist was interesting but when it comes to sacrificing character development (because you can’t have the characters grow and regress and grow and regress as the timeline shifts, all the development is saved toward the endings), it honestly hurts the game a lot, especially when AITSF’s characters were so strong! Don’t have characters for the sake of a twist, make them actual characters!
The poor writing decisions in AINI hurt me because I love AITSF so much. I don’t think I would care about AINI as much as I did to the point of making this post just to write my thoughts down if I wasn’t so attached to AITSF.
I want AI to be good!! Please make AI3 good! I am already really skeptical on it given Uchi made a tweet about an idea for Tesa’s character in 3!!!
And lastly if AI3 is a thing uhhhh make a chubby AI-Ball partner this could get you the BIG bucks!! Just sayin! ALSO BRING BACK THE INTERROGATION SEGMENTS PLEAAAAAAAAASE.
FINAL SCORE:
AI THE SOMNIUM FILES NIRVANA INITIATIVE: 1.5/5 STARS. I WILL NEVER FEEL LOVE AGAIN.
AI THE SOMNIUM FILES NIRVANA INITIATIVE: 1.5/5 STARS. I WILL NEVER FEEL LOVE AGAIN.
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