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Review of Himawari

SubjectHimawari
Himawari -The Sunflower-
ByHelpfulness: 0
Vote: 4
funnerific on 2020-09-15 last updated on 2020-09-19
ReviewDisclaimer: This is NOT a review. It's a rant about the issues of the game, originally posted on Fuwanovel. Feel free to delete it if that breaks the rules.

- Fuck Daigo, seriously. A 40-year old loud and creepy guy imposing on a little girl's only private space and making moves on her. And she falls in love with him because stockholm syndrome.

- "First love stronger and inevitably more important than any following ones"

- "Non-blood-related not really family"

- Aqua acting like a spoiled princess in her route: they're supposed to be equals there, yet the protag is the only one working his ass off. The bad ends are pretty bad in this game overall, but it was particularly awful at the end of Aqua route. Is she even interested in the relationship?

- The implication that what Souichirou did was wrong — the naivete that radical solutions like that (killing a ton of people) are always bad and "there's always another way". Oh how sick I am of that line of thinking, you see this childish writing almost everywhere in Japanese media.

- The statement that it was Akira who tore Daigo and Akari apart — so Akira is to blame for just being there because Akari wanted someone's D and Daigo wasn't close enough?

- Youichi forgot about Aoi not because of Moon AIDS, but because "he couldn't live on otherwise" — now that's a hell of a convenient memory, haven't we seen this somewhere before? How about a ton of other titles with the same idiotic cliche?

- You can switch to Aries/Aoi immediately after everything that happened with Aqua? How can you live with yourself after that, Youichi?

- Contrived ending to Aqua route, with Akira — the bad guys are the good guys now? Admit it writers, you simply couldn't think of any other way of making it a happy end plus giving Aqua the ability to marry which is apparently an indispensable thing in relationships (spoiler: it isn't, get rekt).

- No killing allowed. Typical of almost all Japanese works. Aqua pointing a gun at Akira and about to pull the trigger? Show me someone who felt any tension from that scene, and if that person is familiar with Japanese media I'll laugh at them. Then we just handle the scene with two dudes beating each other up a little as if that solves anything. Fucking classic.

- The loli trio constantly being obedient dogs when they can just take over the whole place when things get rough. They wouldn't even need to kill anyone for that.

- Going back to the first episode. Trying to grow sunflowers in a public park? Isn't that, like, illegal? Those sunflowers will just get in the way.

- The "grab her hand" bad end. Why is it either take the hand by force or not do anything? How about, you know, asking? But oh no, that'll get in the way of the plot.

- In 2050, the only nations to have ever stood on the surface of the moon are America and Japan? Take your Japanese pride somewhere else, will ya?

- The world is in turmoil because some astronaut guy died two years ago? Some idiot who got spectacularly turned down while the entire world was watching? Life goes on, plus he wasn't the first one to land on the moon anyway.

- I thought Daigo was a womanizer, but with Youichi kissing Asuka in the backstory for no apparent reason I don't even know anymore. Despite this, Daigo doesn't land even a single kiss on Aqua, clearly to avoid giving the player a feeling of NTR (yes, I know that NTR is originally about sex, this is the expanded meaning).

- The list goes on...

(Dropped before starting Asuka route)
0 points
#1 by pure-spirit
2022-07-09 at 07:49
< report >hear hear. diago ruined everything. creepy old alcoholic filthy smelly perv hitting on a girl young enough to be his granddaughter. cant study or focus yet somehow a doctor and celebrated astronaut. sense of humor is entirely sexual harrassment. have to look at his ugly mug for hours instead of qts like Aoi. ugh. Aqua/Aoi or Aqua/Aries wouldve been 10x more believable romances. UGHLast modified on 2022-07-09 at 07:50
#2 by kiru
2022-07-09 at 10:24
< report >I get that the entire Aqua Daigo thing wasn't written in the most eloquent way and could've been better, but this looks like rage made you overlook a billion of things.
#3 by funnerific
2022-07-09 at 17:48
< report >I wrote down a lot of very specific things. If you want to dispute them rather than generally accuse me of being mad, go ahead.
#4 by pure-spirit
2022-07-09 at 20:25
< report >problem was you can't ignore diago, he's front and center, the hero of 2048. but even if I bought the romance, the narrative didn't properly grapple with other major problems Diago brought along with him. Such as him alienating her completely from her two sisters, to the point she actually hits Aries, or the fact her feelings for diago were basically stockholm syndrome.

All of this could've been overlooked if the writing was better, but it dragged. They kept repeating the same gags over and over and over. How many times did Diago sexually harass Aqua and she goes "wha-wa?" how many tired jokes about alcohol? The arc was simultaneously several hours too long, but lacking a lot of juicy content it totally could've had, because Diago sucked up all the oxygen.
#5 by pure-spirit
2022-07-09 at 20:28
< report >every time I saw diago i kept fast-forwarding, hoping he'd go away, but he never did. watching him get closer to my precious aqua through pure brute force sexual harassment and grooming of a child was the worst of all ntrs.
#6 by flvbycjctnheheh
2022-12-03 at 07:46
< report >@5 Lmao, username checks out. I personally loved Aqua's backstory, that's like the most interesting and well-written part of the story. It's kind of stupid how some snowflakes are so sensitive that they consider harmless teasing as "sexual harassment". Daigo didn't really show any real interest in Aqua. And what the hell is with "ntr"? Everything has happened even before she met the MC. By the same logic anyone who dates a girl who isn't a virgin (i.e. who slept with someone else) is a cuck. No, it isn't even about virginity - anyone who's dating a gilrl who has ever been interested in anyone else is ntred, by your logic.
#7 by funnerific
2022-12-03 at 11:26
< report >#6 ntr for the player, not the MC.
#8 by flvbycjctnheheh
2022-12-04 at 03:11
< report >@7 Technically, Player is always NTRed unless the game is some sort of 4th wall breaker like DDLC or KimiTono.
#9 by funnerific
2022-12-04 at 06:09
< report >That's too technical. Nobody feels jealous towards main characters banging their heroines.
#10 by flvbycjctnheheh
2022-12-05 at 04:52
< report >@9 I think that feeling jealous towards a first crush of a heroine even before her route is close enough to that, though. Would you guys be more comfortable if that part of the game was told from Diago's perspective, instead? That would just make him another MC, even though temporarily.
#11 by funnerific
2022-12-05 at 05:04
< report >I wasn't even talking about how *I* felt about it. What I meant is that the devs made her and Daigo not kiss because the players would feel NTR'd.