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.