Title: ニル・アドミラリの天秤 帝都幻惑綺譚
Company: Otomate
Release Date: 21st April 2016
Length: ~30 Hours
Links: Official Site, VNDB
The story begins with the Kuze family’s decline in fortunes, leading to them arranging a prosperous marriage for their only daughter, Tsugumi. Tsugumi agrees to the marriage and all is going swimmingly until her younger brother Hitaki finds out. He’s bewildered that his beloved sister would abandon him like this and shouts at her for a while before storming off and locking himself in his room. Feeling guilty, Tsugumi goes and buys him sweets and a new book the next day to cheer him up and heads to his room. Inside she sees Hitaki clutching a book tightly to his chest before he lights himself on fire. Tsugumi ends up passing out from the shock and awakens a couple of hours later to the news that Hitaki has been taken to hospital with serious burn injuries.
A short while later, two young men claiming to be acquaintances of a family friend appear to enquire about the incident. They say that they’re from the Imperial Library Intelligence & Asset Management Bureau and explain to her that there are books out there referred to as “Maremono” which have the ability to “Influence” its readers’ actions and make them do things completely out of character. They go to investigate the book that Hitaki was carrying when Tsugumi suddenly lets out a scream as the book they’re holding looks as though its on fire. As it turns out, the shock of seeing her brother’s incident unknowingly has awakened the ability to see the “Auras” of Maremono in Tsugumi. The two young men are shocked by this revelation and they ask Tsugumi if she would consider joining their Bureau. She agrees and it seems as though this caged bird is finally allowed to spread her wings-
Characters
Kuze Tsugumi
The heroine of this tale whom has recently gained the ability to see the auras of Maremono. She’s a very polite young lady but has been kept sheltered for most of her life and knows little of the outside world. She spent a couple of years at a finishing school for girls so is pretty good at cooking and other domestic chores. She loves books but has become scared of them since her brother’s accident.
Ozaki Hayato (CV Kaji Yuuki)
Hayato is one of the two men who visits Tsugumi’s house and is the unofficial leader of the Maremono Investigation Team. He tends to be quite blunt when he speaks and can come across as being rude on occasion. He has a strong sense of justice and joins the Bureau to help others, as well as the fact that he loves books. He’s actually quite athletic and is talented at playing tennis and billiards. He can also play the piano, although he hasn’t recently. Hayato also spent some time travelling in America so has a tendency to use English words when he speaks.
Kougami Akira (CV Okamoto Nobuhiko)
Akira is the other man who visited Tsugumi’s household. He tends not to speak much and keeps his distance from the other members of the Investigation Team. He has a great dislike of family ties and the arrogance of the upper class and, because of this, can be quite rude to Tsugumi at times. He enjoys going to the movie theatre. Akira can also normally be found going for strolls around the grounds of the dorms.
Hoshikawa Hisui (CV Oosaka Ryouta)
Hisui is the youngest member of the Investigation Team but is probably the most mature, taking on the role of scolding Hayato when he is too blunt. He has the ability to control fire, which lead to him joining the Bureau. He’s generally very polite but has a dislike of both women and flowers. He knows that he’s not as physically strong as Hayato or Akira so tries to make up for it by studying a lot to make himself feel more useful. He enjoys collecting Jade gemstones.
Migiwa Shizuru (CV Suzumura Kenichi)
Shizuru is a well-known author, especially famed for his tragic love stories, that ends up living in the Bureau’s dorms after a certain incident. He’s a well-known womaniser who takes an instant liking to Tsugumi. He also likes going out drinking with his friend Kuina and can occasionally be found selling goldfish.
Ukai Shougo (CV Kimura Ryouhei)
Shougo is the son of the Prime Minister and a law student at the Imperial University. His father orders him to stay in the Bureau’s dorms after being “influenced” by a Maremono and attempting suicide. He’s pretty annoyed by his current situation and has a tendency to take it out on those around him, especially his butler Arata. He likes listening to classical music but gets in trouble for playing his records too loud at all hours of the day.
Sagisawa Rui (CV Sakurai Takahiro)
Sagisawa Rui is a medical student at the Imperial University who meets the group after being assaulted by some students whom have been setting books alight. He’s an orphan who wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor. He loves books and can often be found reading in a cafe or park. He’s very polite and soft-spoken. Rui takes an instant interest in Tsugumi and tries to make time to see her between his multiple part-time jobs.
Artwork
Character design and artwork for this game was handled by Satoi, whom is probably best known for her work on Ozmafia! and the Diabolik Lovers series.
Music
Opening Theme: Sanctuary – Annabel
Ending Theme: Honoo no Tori – Suara
This game features 23 BGM tracks.
System
The picture in the frame on the table changes depending on who’s route you’re on.
The rest of the system is pretty standard expect for the fact that the choices are based on a set of scales, where one side is “good” and the other “bad”. The game also makes you just pick a route after the common route:
Rui’s route unlocks after you finish the first 4. Hayato’s route unlocks after you finish Rui’s route. The final “secret” route unlocks if you make a certain choice in Hayato’s route (you’ll get a notification when it has been unlocked).
My Thoughts
I only ended up playing this game after I impulse bought the Animate set of the sequel coming out in Spetember because the illustration was pretty. I had pretty low expectations for this from reading other reviews but it actually surprised me!
This game is probably best known as being one of few cero D otome games to get its rating for romance as opposed to violence and normally I don’t pay much attention to cero ratings to be honest (you can get away with a *lot* in cero B/C games) but this game really does deserve its rating, haha. If I didn’t already know, I’d swear that this was a port of an actual R-18 game!
While I like smut in my novels as much as the next person, it just feels as though the writer of this game got pretty carried away and as soon as there’s some smut, the game gets itself really off-track for a while and a lot of the time I was kind of sitting there like “is this really the time/place to be doing this????”. That being said, the smut is actually decently written if you’re into that and I was surprised with just what they could get away with saying in some scenes *is embarrassed thinking about it*.
I think the most disappointing thing in the game is probably the plot inconsistencies. Given that this game has an interesting set-up, really specific play order recommended by the author and locked routes, I assumed that there’d be a lot of plot. I was expecting the two locked routes (Rui & Hayato) to have some super relevant plot that relied on details revealed in previous routes so I was surprised by how “self-contained” all of the routes were. I can agree with Hayato’s route being locked but you probably will have guessed a lot of the “revelations” of Rui’s route way before playing it! In all honesty, one of the routes unlocked from the start was much more “shocking” (although none of the other routes even reference the stuff revealed there).
The game is also terrible for mentioning a lot of small plot details and events and then going nowhere with them and literally forgetting that they even happened? It’s really quite annoying because the writer honestly had such an interesting setting to work with and a really great cast of characters so there must have been so many interesting stories just waiting to be written and we instead get kinda “decent” routes as opposed to “great” ones.
The characters are easily the best part of the game and even all of the sub-characters are super interesting!
According to the play order, you should start with Shougo. He’s a tsundere through and through, although probably one of the harsher ones, which makes his dere side all the more sweet! His route was kind of the generic “tsundere rich boy” route but was enjoyable all the same and the twist was pretty good. I like tsunderes so I enjoyed his route, he also has such a good confession scene!
Next up is Hisui, who is just a good boy! The game generally uses a lot of bird imagery, with all of the characters (yes, even the sub-characters) being named after birds but I felt that Hisui’s route was the only one to use this effectively. Hisui’s route is really focused on character development for him which was really good. I’d say that his route was my favourite out of the game!
It’s recommended that you play Akira’s route next and his is probably the one with the worst pacing overall. The game drops a big plot twist on you and then literally ignores it for 2 or 3 chapters! I felt as though Akira’s character never really got a chance to shine in his own route either, which was a shame as the start of his route was really cute! He has such a gross bad ending too, poor Akira 😦
Last of the unlocked routes is Shizuru and after reading some of the smut in the other routes, I wasn’t sure what on earth Shizuru’s route was going to bring. Arguably, it was the most “different” and focused on something other than the activities of the Bureau, which actually worked pretty well, even though the “mystery” was really easy to guess. In terms of smut, his route is actually one of the few to actually put it at the end of his route (which was surprising given his character) but, well, he certainly made up for it, haha.
Once you slog through these 4 routes, you finally get to see what Rui’s route is hiding… It’s pretty easy to guess what part he plays in the story but there a couple of interesting parts. Rui himself is a real sweetheart who deserves to be happy! His route is the most smutty, well done Rui.
Finally is Hayato! I totally fell for him in the common route so it was actually painful having to wait so long to actually get onto his route. I didn’t really find him as blunt as all of the other characters though? Especially when Akira is far more unkind. I was really peeved because the start of his route literally feels like a common route due to the fact that the secret route is technically a branch off of Hayato’s route. His route definitely feels the most like a “true route” and ties up some plot holes from earlier in the game. The ending of Hayato’s route ended up being kind of generic but I still cried anyway. He’s just so cute, I can’t even.
The secret route technically isn’t a proper route but is more of an “all’s well that ends well” type affair. It was kind of disappointing to be honest but there was a really nice CG at the end. 🙂
I think that Tsugumi is a decent enough heroine, she definitely lives up to her imagery of being a “caged bird” with her naivety. It was quite sad seeing her wishing she was born a man so that she would be allowed to learn how to defend herself, ect… but I guess that’s what you get with a historical game. I wish she had more moments to shine though, especially in Akira’s route.
There were so many awesome sub-characters with the mysterious Kuina and pet Peri being my favourites. Genki police officer Tarou is also adorable! Unlike most Otome games, there’s actually some decent female sub-characters with Shouko, Koruri & Shiori all being pretty interesting. It was nice that the game included little short stories (presented in the form of a letter) for all of the sub-characters and I enjoyed reading this a lot!
What kind of animal is Peri even meant to be?
The artwork is lovely, as to be expected from Satoi. There’s a decent number of CGs for each character, although it was kind of difficult to find non-spoilery and non-smutty CGs for this post, haha. There’s also a severe lack of CGs with more than one character in them and only 1 CG featuring the entire group, which is a real shame!
The backgrounds were also nice and really got the whole Taisho era aesthetic across.
The BGM was pretty good and atmospheric. My favourite track was number 23 “Rou Chou” which was used that the ending song for the bad EDs. The opening and normal ending song were also pretty nice, maybe I’ll get the OST at some point.
Final Thoughts
My Score: 8/10
Despite my initial misgivings I actually enjoyed playing this game a lot. With its interesting atmosphere and colourful characters, there’s definitely a lot to be admired. As a whole, most of the routes actually read pretty well be you just can’t help wonder if maybe they could have been slightly better…
Character Ranking:
Hayato > Hisui > Shougo > Rui > Shizuru > Akira
Recommended Route Order:
Shougo → Hisui → Akira → Shizuru → Rui → Hayato → Secret
Basically, if you’re looking for a game set in the Taisho era with plenty of smut then this is going to be a game you adore! Otherwise, I’d recommend this game if you’re interested in any of the characters as the routes are very self-contained.
I’ve started playing Utsusemi no Meguri since it arrived the other day & after one route the game has already crashed on me twice, hahaha….The font is also quite hard to read & I feel as though I’m having to glare intently at the screen to read anything!
Thanks for reading as always~
Zettai Renai! 