The story is about a girl named Tsukioka Umi who’s in her last year of high school and one day her otaku classmate invites her to go to a live band show by a local college band. She’s very impressed by it and then it so happens that she meets the band members at her part-time job at a cafe. She asks if she can go watch them practice and she ends up singing with them. They are all impressed, especially the leader Shunichi that he asks if she can join their band and so she becomes their lead singer. Umi also has a pet bunny named Sora who I think gets more CGs than he deserves lol but let’s get rolling.
Sasa Shunichi – Oh yay if last game I played wasn’t enough, Midorikawa is back. ( ´_ゝ`) Shun is the lead guitarist and singer – until Umi joins the band. He’s always pretty srs and emo and he bitches at Umi if she doesn’t sing “with all her heart” or some crap. He also creates a stupid rule that “band members should not fall in love” but then he’s the first one to break it ( ´_ゝ`). During the graduation party for Umi and her classmates, he comes to the roof with her and that’s where it’s obvious they both like each other but have to keep it back because of his idiotic rule. If that wasn’t annoying enough, there’s this crazy stalked bitch named Rikano who from the beginning of the game spams Umi with insults then goes crazy shit and says Umi will ruin YOUR (the band name) and that she stole her prince charming Shun away from her. She then writes this crazy letter and runs off acting like she’s gonna kill herself or something and both Umi and Shun go looking for her. When Umi finds her, they have a slap a thon with each other than Rikano admits defeat and leaves. =_=? One day this random baked guy Kuta comes to their band practice and apparently upstages Umi in the singing department. She gets all emo saying she has no place anywhere anymore. Suddenly Shun like drops off the face of the earth and then at the end of the game Umi finds him at a hospital because his grandmother died. They both I guess admit their feelings to each other?…and then they return home. Umi graduates and goes to Shun’s college and they continue their band activities together. Great. This route was as interesting as watching paint dry.
Ichii Kiyotaka – Fortunately unlike Shun’s boring ass route Kiyo’s route actually was interesting and provided some drama to keep me from falling asleep! The sad part was Kiyo is kinda fugly and no matter how hard I tried I just could not UNSEE. Kiyo seems to be multi-talented. He played basketball in high school so he still got his moves. He is also highly looked up to in his biology lab but mostly because he can do dissections without moving a muscle while everyone squirms and covers their faces. He’s obviously in the band and he has a secret painting hobby ? When I first did this route I followed a certain awful guide on a certain girly.jp site and I completely derailed off his route so I used another guide and was finally able to get him. When Shun suspects that Kiyo and Umi might be dating he tells her to LAY HER DIRTY WOMANLY HANDS OFF GIR’FRIEN’. Umi in the meantime is like OH NOES HE ALWAYS INVITES ME OUT DOES HE LIKE ME!? One day they’re both so sexually frustrated that Kiyo drags Umi to his apartment and she says she doesn’t want to go home that night and he’s like “you know what that means right”. Needless to say, they end up doing it (le gasp in a ps2 game!) He gives her the keys to his house and she ends up coming over often and working on her own song that she is composing. Apparently, she used to be a piano player but she ragequit when she lost a competition that she practiced really hard for. When Umi’s sister Akari sees Kiyo dropping her off at her house she tells her that Kiyo doesn’t give a damn about anything and she should stop dating him.
So when one day Umi finally admits to Shun that she and Kiyo are dating, Shun gets all pissed and suddenly kisses her outside near Kiyo’s apartment. (Lol he got a kiss scene on a route other than his own…ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵) Kiyo sees them but does nothing and then Umi punches Shun away from herself. Later though Kiyo and Shun get into a yaoi fight with each other in Kiyo’s apartment. Because they are both in a bad mood and avoiding each other when a producer comes to see their performance the next day they obviously play like crap and he’s like uh…yea…good luck with that and he leaves. So then Kiyo goes off to emo somewhere while Shun spills the beans about his past to Umi (who for some reason didn’t want to hear any of it.) Apparently, Kiyo used to have an ex-girlfriend named Mariko but Shun NTR’ed her. Kiyo just accepted it even though Shun only did it to test Kiyo’s feelings for Mariko rather than because he wanted to be hos before bros. Shun tells Umi to give up on Kiyo because he will treat her the same way. Kiyo tells Shun to STFU and she goes to see Kiyo – who is moving on a bridge. Apparently, he had planned to kill himself on this bridge before but the Cubic Cafe manager stopped him and asked him to come have some food. He also told him to try some art therapy which is why Kiyo began painting weird abstract crap. Even though it’s raining, Umi puts her headphones over Kiyo’s ears and lets him hear the song she finished composing. Kiyo cries some manly tears and then Umi kisses him. Everything is all good now and for Umi’s birthday they have some food and screw like rabbits (even implied naked sleeping in bed CG *gasp*). In the eiplogue they visit that place where people tie their keys or something and they take a photo together. Kiyo’s ending song was pretty jazzy too. Well, at least we had some nice plot here! Shun’s route was a joke in comparison!
Hane Hidemi – So Hide’s route has redeemed my faith in this game which is a good thing since I was hoping that Kiyo’s route wouldn’t be the “peak” of the story here. Also Suzumura can make any character awesome; actually I don’t think I’ve ever hated any character voiced by Suzumura but I’m not about to go read 60 reviews to find out ? Hide is YOUR’s drummer and he knows that he belongs in the back because he’s not the type of guy to stand in the front like Takkun or Shun. During the graduation party, some girl says she knows Hide broke up with his girlfriend and asks him out. Umi just so happens to walk in on this so Hide grabs her and says that he’s going out with Umi now to get that girl off his back. He jokingly says “is it bad to take it seriously? I’ve liked you for a while you know.” He laughs it off as a joke which hurts Umi since I guess she already likes him by now. (Damn gurrl you fast.) On Umi’s graduation day her parents are MIA as usual and her sister Akari’s a superbitch in this route so Hide picks up Umi in Kiyo’s car that he borrowed since he has a driver’s license. They both yell out random stuff into the ocean and then go home. They go on a date to see a movie together but it’s not an animu or comedy movie that Umi likes so she falls asleep half way. When they get home her sister’s like “lol I bet Umi got bored of that movie!” Umi was supposed to play a new song she was composing on the piano for Hiding but when she found out her sister was home she got sickened and told Hide she couldn’t play anymore. Hide was worried but he told her that maybe he can hear it another time.
The next day after work Umi walks home and sees Akari and Hide standing together and Akari asks him to kiss her because she won’t get hurt. Umi is shocked and runs away. At practice, Akari stops by just to continue tormenting her and her presence alone irritates Umi that she’s unable to sing. She decides to leave and Akari gets kicked out by Shun (cause he can see through her bullshit). Hide follows them both out as well. Akari says she got to know Hide because one day at the train station she saw him with some crying girl (his ex) and then she followed him on the train to the live stage and watched the concert and “fell in love” with him. She continues saying that she’s in the way and leaves. Umi then gets really upset and refuses Hide when he offers to walk her home. Hide tells her that he likes her but she says that Hide always tells everything to Akari and in fact likes her instead. Umi goes to emo off at the beach where she runs into Kuta singing Christmas Carols ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵ He gives her a hug and then she goes to Hide’s house. She apologizes to him saying she is always jealous of Akari because Akari was always so much better than her at everything. She tells Hide that she likes him as well and he kisses her. He tells her that she should go back to the train station before the trains stop running but Umi requests to stay at his place and they end up doing it. ／(^o^)＼ﾅﾝﾃｺｯﾀｲ He also tells Umi that he never did kiss Akari that time – he refused it.
The next morning Umi returns home to a not so happy Akari. Umi inquires about the special CD Hide gave her but Akari says that she threw it out because it made her sick. Umi goes to get ready for her rehearsal and suddenly she hears the piano song she played at her middle school recital. THE ONE THING YOU MUST NOT PLAY. She goes downstairs and turns out Akari found the videotape her dad recorded and was playing it on TV. Akari claims she was cleaning and “got nostalgic”. Umi rages saying Akari knows that this upsets her and she takes the tape out and smashes it. She then runs to rehearsal but singing is the last thing on her mind. If that wasn’t bad enough the producer stops by to hear them perform and of course Umi sings like poo. Hide is worried about her when she goes home for the day and then he finds out that Akari was being a superbitch. He calls her up and demands she come here and apologize to Umi. Akari’s like “sure whatever ? ” and they meet at the park. When she gets there Akari says she will not apologize because she wants Umi to be hurt. Hide gets pissed and says Akari is just obsessed and jealous of Umi because Umi is going places while Akari is just a miserable ho. Umi then remembers that her relationship with her sister worsened 10 years ago when Umi got chased by a pedobear but made it home. She said there’s a scary man outside and her sister (probably 9-10 at the time) said she’d go out and “get the bad guy”. I don’t know what exactly happened but I’m guessing some form of rape/molestation because that night Akari came home that night and locked herself up in her room.
When Umi went to tell their mom that some pedobear was chasing her she instantly got slapped. When she ran crying to Akari not knowing why she got slapped, Akari gave her the stare of death and from then on their relationship has been pretty rocky. Also since this is Japan any kind of sex offender crime would just shame the family so the mom acted like this “never happened” and kept it under the rug which is why Akari decided to do the same and become this fake personality. This would explain why she would just be with random different guys all the time (´･ω:;.:… Anyway since Umi chooses singing over emoing with her sister, Akari gives up and leaves the park while Umi and Hide look at her in the rain. Umi decides to try playing piano again and continues her band activities with Hide. In the epilogue she and Hide are watching the ocean as they talk about visiting America and going to the central park – then Umi kisses him. Ah well, this was quite interesting! I hope the other routes are just as interesting since it was really shocking at how boring and plain Shun’s route was ? I’m glad they also covered Umi’s sister so that way she wasn’t just a side character. I thought Akari was pretty awesome at first but after this route, I definitely changed my mind about her. Yandere sister DNW （ಠ_ಠ）.
Kawamoto Taku – Taku is Umi’s kouhai despite only being like 3 months younger than her (he’s 17 and in the game, she turns 18.) Yoshino does such a great voice acting job with this character that he just makes me go 萌━ﾟ☆;｡+(*pq′ー｀)+｡;☆ﾟ━萌 I’m kinda disappointed that his route was so short. First of all, it’s not until about a month into the game that you even get to really MEET Taku and then when you do the story just flies by because there’s just not that much to it. He gave Umi his 2nd button for graduation but she gave him hers as well since he still has a year of HS to go. Taku also works at his parents’ lunch order place and he spent most of the game doing part time job so he could buy Umi a ring for her birthday. He asks to join the band because he has a tendency to jump into things but he then also quits really fast when he gets bored of it. Umi found out that he did the same thing to a girl he used to date but turns out it was because she said that Masato was nicer to her. I’d dump that ho too! ? Even though they have a band recital for that director, Taku is busy trying to find homes for a bunch of stray nukos that were left behind. WHAT A SWEETHEART; a; Shun agrees to adopt the last injured baby nuko and they band rehearsal continues. For her birthday Taku brings her food and a cake – but turns out it was a cake he originally reserved 2 months in advance for his mom whose bday was 1 day after Umi’s. As usual Umi’s family is fucked up and nobody gives a damn about her birthday. Umi runs off because Akari is being a bitch again and she runs into Masato and they talk in the park. Taku sees this and thinks that Umi likes Masato but then Umi goes to his house and says they’re just friends. Taku then sings a song he wrote for Umi’s birthday. At the end, he gives her a ring and says he’ll buy one for her every year and asks her to be by his side forever. In the epilogue, Umi is helping his family out at the lunch order place again and Taku’s mom says Umi should just marry him XD. The kiss scene was disappointing and for some reason, Taku started crying. Also, he looked a lot shorter than Umi so dafuq ? I don’t know I feel disappointed cause I really liked Taku as a character but I feel like he got shafted.
Honjou Masato – Masato is the sweet otaku gamer who is always there for Umi and he pretty much hits on her since the game starts – so I got all heartbroken when the first run I had to reject all his advances! Anyway, Masato’s dream is to be a game creator and he enters a contest for amateur game makers while keeping a blog about his progress. When he was young he was sick a lot so he’d often read shoujo manga. Because of this he often goes into shoujo manga fantasy land while talking to Umi and starts talking about things like living in a flower field and making sweaters out of sheep wool ? After he sees her perform at the first concert Masato says he feels distant from her but she feels the same way when she sees all these people praising his blog posts. At graduation, Masato confesses to her and she agrees. He’s so excited he goes きゃきゃうふふ♡ in the water and splashes it everywhere even though it’s freezing ass March weather. When Taku joins the band Masato is upset because he doesn’t like him. One night when it’s raining Masato comes to Umi’s house, kisses her and then leaves. Because of this she catches his cold and they mess up the performance in front of the producer. Masato brings her roses and medicine for her birthday since she is sick. When she gets better he goes on a date with her to the beach again where he tells her he plans to get an apartment near his college instead of live with his parents. He says he doesn’t want to be apart from her so he asks her to come with him – which would mean she’d have to quit her band. She decides to do so, and after Harufes she ends up moving away with Masato. In the epilogue she ends up composing music for his eroge ? Daww isn’t that sweet.
Ku-ta – Kuta’s route was pretty awesome but somehow I expected something a lot more awesome than I got. Regardless it was still pretty interesting to play through. Kuta is first found half dead on a bench in front of Cubic Cafe. Umi sees him and brings him in for some food. This seems to revive him and he ends up coming to the cafe every day and lounging around. He says he doesn’t remember what his name is so the cafe manager gives him the name “Ku-ta” which is what he named his old dog who would run around a lot then pass out and sleep all day ? One day Umi had a dream that Kuta protected her and got shot – then some man in black showed up and erased her memory – yes just like in the movie. ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵ One day that man shows up at her cafe and she thinks he’s gonna wipe her memory again so she runs off and is grabbed and drug into some alley by another dude named Toby. He tells her to not let Kuta into the cafe anymore and says Kuta is just an “item” he is selling. The next day that MIB guy comes to the cafe again so Kuta and Umi run away. They buy her some change of clothes and some crepes but Kuta loses his money along the way. To make some money Kuta sings in front of the train station, but then the MIB guy finds them so they run off again and to the park. So then Toby shows up and tells Kuta to come with him.
Kuta’s real name apparently is Yuta. Toby slaps Kuta saying that he’s an animal that needs to “learn his lesson” ? Kuta stops coming to Cubic Cafe so she gets the number of Toby from Taku and demands to know where Kuta is. Toby says he’ll tell her if she gives him the CD that Kuta originally gave her. She agrees but when she meets Toby, Kuta isn’t there. He gives her a piece of paper with directions to where Kuta is but she demands he take her there cause he could be lying. On the way there he also makes her buy his junk items like some kind of dog whistle, a pendant and some fake Ray Bans ? He takes her to the beach and at the beach house Umi hears Kuta singing. She gives Toby the CD and he leaves. On the way there Toby told Umi that Kuta was locked up in an orphanage in a separate room from everyone for a while. They would bring him food and teach him things but Toby helped him escape. When Umi sees Kuta he says that he was a “treacherous ghost” (lolwut?) and that’s why he was locked up. He is upset that she listened to the song on that CD he gave her (why did you give it to her genius?) and tells her to throw it out but Umi said she already gave it to Toby to trade information. Kuta then admits that he gave her the CD and lost a “part of himself” but at the same time, he said when he started coming to Cubic Cafe Umi filled the void in his life~. Anyway Umi ends up going back to her house and the next day at the cafe Mr. MIB shows up again.
To be less shady he takes off his sunglasses and explains to Umi that Kuta was a shadow vocalist. He would provide vocals for another artist which is why when Umi heard that other artist’s singing it sounded just like Kuta’s. MIB man wanted to debut Kuta as a real artist but after they recorded the debut song Kuta took it and ran. Just then Kuta shows up at Cubic Cafe but tells Mr. MIB that he refuses to debut because his song will “hurt” a certain someone. Umi and Kuta plan to go to YOUR’s live together but Kuta doesn’t show up because he’s busy moping at the beach house. Umi goes to see him there (after blowing the whistle and getting Toby to show up – who’s the dog now??). Turns out Toby leaked the debut song and that probably made Kuta all emo. So at the beach house Kuta explains that he was like in love with his mom or something because his mom had him when she was 15. She ran off with some half Jap/half Brit guy and got knocked up. This wasn’t good for her or her mom because they were both idols and her mom has no intentions of being a grandma in her 30s. So yea basically Kuta was a child of SHAME and because he looked more like his father, he was pretty much abandoned. His mom came to see him one time at the orphanage to make sure he didn’t look like her so no one would know about this shameful child! Kuta said he wrote that song to purposely hurt her because he hated his mom. (Who wouldn’t?)
It’s not Umi’s high school graduation day. Kuta comes to pick her up dressed like a butler (mostly because Rikano’s been making him dress up in stupid outfits and tie his hair back throughout the game ? )Afterwards they go to Cubic Cafe where they threw Umi a little graduation party. There we find out that Kuta is fluent in English because apparently he lived in the UK since he was 10 years old or something? He never reveals his age either so I’m like really confused is he really YOUNG or really OLD? So he’s like either 15 or he’s like 35. I don’t even know. ( ´_ゝ`) Anyway he tells Umi that he will go back to the UK and reunite with his father so he can be away from his crazy bitch mom and grandma. He kisses Umi on the roof and then she watches the plane fly away. In the epilogue, Umi receives a letter from him all in Engrish. God this was so hilarious, hearing Konishi Katsuyuki blaring Engrish for like 5 minutes was great ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵ In the letter he says that he reunited with his dad who didn’t remember him but his butler did lolwut. Also apparently he has a half sister who likes him a lot. He now sings at dinner parties and goes singing at people’s houses for a living and he plans to visit Umi in Japan over the summer. He signs his name as Hugh Garland “Ku-ta”. Lol nice name! Better than cooter ( ´_ゝ`) Somehow I expected something more with this route. Toby seemed kinda suspicious so I was disappointed they kinda left that part hanging. Also constantly calling Kuta a dog I thought we’d have another Da Capo scenario but I guess not? So yea it was a decent route but I just felt like we got shafted or something :s
Other Endings – After you completed Shunichi’s good end it unlocked “Shunichi’s Story” but since Shunichi is boring as sin I just saved it for last. It’s basically Shunichi’s route cut down and from his POV. In this one since it’s not Umi’s POV, she’s voiced by Kaori (which made me want to play this song on repeat.) Anyway nothing is new except that Shun gets a kiss CG and we get to hear his crazy psychobitch mother yelling and breaking my ear drums. There was also a 2nd ending where it was basically showing how Shun was gay for Kiyo and then he got all emo in the end that Kiyo picked Umi over his sweet hole ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵ Then in the “true end” it was basically YOUR going on a all country tour with the entire band and Umi saying goodbye to various people. Bleh. In the omakes the seiyuu commentary section opened but it opened the voices for everyone but the main cast. That’s fucking great. I guess I had to do the bad ends to open those? Whatever ┐(‘～`；)┌ Don’t care to bother with this game any further lol.
So what can I say….another masterpiece from 5pb? I guess after Hakushaku I didn’t have the greatest expectations for this game XD. I did make notes about certain stuff I wanted to talk about though. There were some CGs in the game that never showed up in the gallery. Ok so I didn’t do all the bad ends maybe that’s why? But for example CGs at the end of every guy’s route which would show Umi + the guy on stage at Harufes NOT IN THE GALLERY. Why? Then Umi’s rabbit Sora must have had at least 8 different CGs of her poses…not a single one in the gallery ( ´_ゝ`). Anytime they showed a close up of an object it was really obvious that it was a photo cutout with some kind of photoshop filter over it. I mean the backgrounds and stuff wer drawn, so you couldn’t like draw some clothes or some plates of food? The cool parts of the game were I guess all the music videos. It made the band performance scenes more dynamic which was a pleasant surprise. The game also had mouths moving the entire time and I actually thought they did a good job with that. In Death Connection the moving mouths just creeped me out lol. In the credits of each character’s ending theme they played the character song. I actually really liked Kiyo’s, Hide’s and Taku’s. The others just weren’t up to my taste but the seiyuus sang pretty decently. My biggest regret is: TENCHO HAS NO ROUTE! Why! He was such an イケメン！ I woulda preferred a route with him than with Shunichi or Kiyo to be honest ( ´_ゝ`). I think the best route in the game was Hide’s and Kuta’s and I just loved Taku as a character. Everything else just felt kinda meh. The game also has the problem that Hakarena Heart did where 70% of the game is the same for every route so once you do 1 route you end up skipping a huge chunk from everyone else’s until you get to “their” flag. I know 5PB did better games like Vitamin X/Z so I hope they will be better than what I have played from them so far…(´･ω:;.:…