I finished Cartagra HD in Japanese today.

I played the original version in English when it released in 2014. I had already become a fan of Innocent Grey via Kara no Shojo, and being starved for anything similar, I bought this game upon release. I don’t remember too well what my specific impressions were, but I do remember thinking it was pretty good.

Upon the release of the second Kara no Shojo game, and as time passed, my evaluation of Cartagra declined somewhat. While I would still call it good, I often found myself recommending it more for what it did for Kara no Shojo rather than on its own merits. In fact I remember at several points mentioning that it was rougher and more focused on sex as a detriment to it.

For a long while after the second Kara no Shojo game, there was a large void. From 2013, when the second game came out in Japan, there was radio silence for many years. It wasn’t until 2020 that Kara no Shojo finally got its masterful conclusion.

In 2021, I took my then acquired Japanese skills and set about rereading the first two Kara no Shoujo in order to read the third. It was a perfect time as the first and second game had both received revised editions. Upon successfully making my way through them, I finally got to read my most anticipated piece of work Kara no Shoujo the Last episode.

The Last Episode was beautiful. A masterpiece. So much so that I instantly bought all the Kara no Shoujo games and soundtracks at the time, and spent many months just constantly replaying the same tracks.

In 2023 it was announced Cartagra would be getting an HD edition. While I wasn’t immediately champing at the bit to read it, I was nevertheless interested in picking it up for my collection. I figured at some point maybe I’d even replay it. I bought it and stuck it on my shelf.

It didn’t enter my mind until I started hearing things about Kara no Shojo 3 finally coming out in English (This time rebranded as The Shell for the west) I remembered I had a copy of Cartagra HD sitting around and I thought “Yeah, this would be something easy for me to read”

Again I don’t remember much about my initial experience with Cartagra, but upon starting it, I was blown away. While I realize that much of that has to do with stuff being added (the game has opening sequence and is in HD), there was a lot of old familiar stuff I had forgotten about like the music. It enraptured me.

After finishing it, the one thing I’ve got to say is that I’ve completely reevaluated it. Before, I would have said that it was a good thing to read for Kara no Shojo, but now I would say it stands on its own. I would even go as far to say it stands right up there with the best entries in Kara no Shojo. It’s a masterpiece. Or at least the HD edition is.

Apparently it’s getting a Switch version. I’m not sure how that’s going to work as while it can definitely work without the ero, I don’t know how they’re going to go about the more violent looking parts. Still I’d be willing to recommend it if that’s the only version of Cartagra HD we get or if that’s the only thing people will read. It’s that good in my eyes

I was first introduced to eroge in the late 90s at the precocious age of 14 via an old IRC chatroom I used to visit (that ironically was made for RPGMaker but mostly became a hangout for people who liked RPGs) They were often passed around and referred to as “hentai games” From there I sought out every “hentai game” I could find.

Among them was a game called Divi-dead. Despite not being a big fan of horror (I’d been freaked out by very mild horror films/games before) I found the art enticing enough that, despite it being over 100 megabytes (in an age of dial-up), I ended up downloading it as soon as I came across it.

Make no mistake, it was a pretty creepy and gory game, but I found comfort in the visual novel interface. Being able to control things made it much easier to stomach the unnerving parts, and thanks to that I was actually allowed to become interested in the story itself. A story which was pretty wild.

Years eventually went by and I forgot most of what happened in the game. Somewhere in the mid 2000s I looked it up again to find out that apparently the translation had been pretty bad, and when I started learning Japanese, I thought it might be fun to actually reread it to see if I could get a better handle on the story.

Well that’s exactly what I did. Now I cant claim I understood everything 100%, but I did read through it again recently (obtaining all endings)

It was good. I can’t say it held up as well as it did when I was younger, simply because I’m not as driven by hormones (Back in the day the art was pretty enticing) Though I do really like one of the concepts behind one of the endings (which I believe ultimately inspired stories I would write later as a teenager)

The game does kind of suffer from the whole “Check everywhere for the spot you need to go for the next scene” loop. It also has no previously read text feature. Thus, I ended up forgoing a completely blind playthrough and instead followed a guide for all routes.

Best-girl is Sachiko

It’s been a while since I last updated the media thread on here. While I can attribute some of that to my usual laziness, most of it is because it’s been taking me longer to finish up a few things that have been sitting on the back burner. Sakura Moyu is one of those things

To give you an idea of just how long Sakura Moyu has been on the backburner, all I can say is that I stalled it around the time I started Final Fantasy XI back in December. I couldn’t tell you when I started, but it was around then I was maybe a little under halfway through the true route. I didn’t pick it up again until after I finished Expedition 33.

Sakura Moyu is a VN from Favorite. The only other Favorite VN I had played prior to this was Hoshizora no Memoria, which I found to be good, although I can’t say I remember a whole lot about it (I played it back when there was a fan translation and before I knew Japanese) I picked up this one from the numerous acclaim it was getting from people (lots of people rating it 10/10 and calling it kamige)

It took me a while to really get into the title. While I’m not unfond of moege/slice of life in visual novels, my interest in this one lay less with the heroines and more with the fantasy side of the story which involves magical girls that vanquished a great evil to have their wish granted. Something that gave me heavy Madoka vibes in a way.

Though I hadn’t been drawn to it for the heroines themselves, I will note my initial interest ranking: Hyori > Haru > Kuro > Chinatsu because of the contrast in how I eventually found their routes.

I remember it taking me a long time to hit my first route. I chose Chinatsu first. Both because I thought it best to get my weakest interest out of the way, and because it was the first option at the main route choice.

Chinatsu surprised me. I didn’t expect to like her as much as I did, and I had no idea she’d become my favorite heroine. I don’t know if it was my lower expectations or that I found her backstory to be more moving than the others (probably a bit of both) However, it definitely stood out a lot to me. Kind of long, but I could forgive it by the end of it given how much it made me tear up

Hyori’s route, on the other hand, was a huge letdown for me. I loved her personality and voice, but everything about her route and any of the affection she had for the MC felt undercooked. Not to mention there’s a large part of her route spent dealing with a different character that only has a little relation to her. It just felt like there needed to be so much more

Haru’s route was a lot better, thankfully. It did the thing where it dealt with other characters similar to Hyori’s route, but at least in this case it felt like she was more involved. Her backstory was also pretty strong and tragic

The true route was somewhere between Chinatsu and Haru’s route for me. While I liked it overall, it drags on for way too long. Though I really enjoyed the epilogue.