Of the Red, the Light, and the Ayakashi Tsuzuri - Visual Novel

Since I'm already here, I'm trying my best to be motivated to post stuff in this blog so I might as well have an expounded version of what I posted on Instagram. I will say ahead of time that things said/posted on here may or may not be necessarily be true to everyone as these will just be based on my experience on the game and how I felt about them. I might touch some story spoilers so just a fair warning to those who read.

Synopsis:

Also known as Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino (AkaAka). Yue is a young boy, born in a mountain shrine in the town of Utsuwa. One day, he attends the winter festival together with his childhood friend, a black fox named Kurogitsune. The lanterns burn bright red, and the people are buzzing. As Yue sees the outside world for the first time in his life, he meets two mysterious boys. Upon returning to the mountain, the owner of the shrine, Mikoto, told him. Prepare the "meal". - Steam

My Take:

I was excited when this game was announced as I have a soft spot for stories that touch on the supernatural, ayakashi, and just dark stories in general. When I was younger, I tend to gravitate to that kind of genre so this was just my kind of thing. I found this game very decent, and I ended up being invested in the story more than I expected myself to be by the time I finished. I did find the first few two hours or so to be very slice-of-lifey and kind of slow burn so there were times that I zoned out and had to read back the logs to see if I missed anything. It wasn't really an issue as I've played some slow-burn VNs before like The House in Fata Morgana, which did end up as one of, if not my favorite.
To be honest, and as previously stated in recent blog posts, I had a really tough time playing through this as there wasn’t any complete guides out, just the Japanese one that I stumbled upon on Reddit. There was an EN one and another Vietnamese guide but I found their endings list weren’t complete so I had to make do with Google Translate/DeepL. There were also times when the translated text was not making sense so I had to cross-reference it with the Viet/English guides, and so I did manage to get all of the endings and the CGs, just not the Index section. I spent an extra 4hrs+ on top of my 21hrs+ chasing after dialogues just for it, and eventually just found the whole process really tedious; honestly I'd rather spend that extra time and effort whittling down my backlogs.

Things did start to get interesting as Sagano's (third) route and Kurogitsune's (fourth) started to unravel things though, and I can only be glad I stuck with the game. The game has been giving you clues but it's when you really realize that you've been played. Sagano is probably my favorite character out of all of them as I find his personality really interesting (totally not because Kohsuke Toriumi voiced him *cough*). Kurogitsune is probably my second fave, which came as a surprise since he was kind of annoying at first. Yue as the central character was kind of boring for me, probably because he's sleepy most of the time and he came off as apathetic, which is a real shame since his character and circumstance is tragic.

And since I'm already here, I might as well acknowledge the voice actors. I didn't realize that this game was star-studded, I'm familiar with most of the cast particular the ones voiced by men since they also frequent otome titles. I do feel like Junichi Suwabe's voice acting talents is wasted on Tomori's character though rofl, he should've given more lines IMO.

Going back, Togo's and Akiyoshi's routes were a little weak compared to the last two IMO, and it's a shame since Togo and his family history came off as a very important character at the start, but it wasn't explored and there wasn't any explanation as to why their family was important to ayakashi. The game could have also explored Akiyoshi's family history, what led to the sealing of Utsuwa, why Sagano inhabited his body, etc. There are things that the game left off, and I am just left thinking about them and how they could have made the game longer to expound on those things. It should come as no surprise that my favorite endings belong to Kurogitsune's first and Sagano's second. I feel like Kurogitsune's touched me a little bit more than Sagano's did, and it was sad to know that he still lingered around carrying Yue's mask in the Susuki Plains. As for Sagano's, I did really like his best ending visiting the lonely Yue in the temple. It's a little sad, but I believe it's the best ending overall.

My Switch Lite with the physical copy and the acrylic standee from the Stellaworth set

In terms of localization, it’s okay-ish. I found on VNDB that they used a fan translator’s work which I have no problems with. It’s fine since you still get the gist of things, but it needs a bit more polishing IMO. The translator followed the Japanese grammar so the placements of English words in the sentence can be weird. They are understandable of course, but it's not usually how it is phrased in a day-to-day conversation. There are also some untranslated parts, eight or so lines somewhere at the start and then a chunk of the dialogue at one of Kurogitsune’s endings when the credits started rolling in. I got by with the first bit, but I really missed what was being said at the latter since it was only audio and no text to help me ;_;

Also I would have to clarify that this is not BL as some people claim as there is no romance - just strong friendships with the characters. Fujoshi-bait, sure; but as far as subtext goes, there is hardly any shounen-ai in there. I will recommend this game if you’re looking for something dark that doesn’t go deep that much and/or something short enough to pass the time, but it is a bit pricey for a decade old game. Probably get it on a sale, or when they roll out a patch to fix things. I still had a great time with the story though, so 7/10 😊