薄桜鬼 Hakuouki
Title: 薄桜鬼 Hakuouki
Platform/s: PS3, PS2, PSP, DS
Official Website/s:
Information:
Hakuōki(薄桜鬼〜新選組奇譚〜Hakuōki ~Shinsengumi Kitan~) is a video game series by Idea Factory, first designed for the Playstation 2 and then later ported to Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, and Nintendo DS. It has been adapted into two 12/10-episode anime series animated by Studio DEEN; the first began airing in Japan on the TV Kanagawa and UHF stations on April 4, 2010. The second season began airing on October 10, 2010 and ended on December 12, 2010. The series has also been adapted as two different manga series. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haku%C5%8Dki)Plot Summary:
This game revolves around the main character, Yukimura Chizuru, who went to Kyoto dressed as a boy to look for her father, Yukimura Koudou. She first encountered the Shinsengumi when she witnessed Hajime Saitou kill one of the Rasetsu (a vampire-like creature with white hair and red eyes) that has gone loose. She was then brought to the Shinsengumi headquarters and they let her stay there because they are also looking for her father who happens to be the one who developed the ochimizu, the somewhat potion-like medicine that transforms humans to a rasetsu making them stronger and faster and heals wounds faster but would make them lust for blood and using the rasetsu’s power shortens their life span and they feel weak under the sun.
Aside from the rasetsu theme, some events, usually the battles are based on historical events. (I remember one of the battle events that happened here actually allowed me to answer two questions thrown in by my professor in one class)
*the following stuff written would generally be comments/rants on each route and what I vaguely remember from it. Sorry about that. It has already been so many months since I have played the game so even if I wanted to write a detailed review of each route, I can’t. Sorry. ><*
Characters/Routes: (may contain spoilers)
雪村千鶴Yukimura Chizuru is the main character and daughter of Koudou Yukimura. She is usually scene together with the Shinsengumi and is dresses as a boy throughout the game. It took a while before she knew that she was a pureblood oni descended from the Yukimura clan, which was revealed in one of the routes to have been the head of the oni in the east but was wiped killed by the villagers when they were found out to be oni.S she is being chased after Kazama Chikage because of her pureblood oni status as they could produce a stronger oni if they mate. She wields a short sword which is a part of the Yukimura heirloom. This short sword is paired with a long sword wielded by Nagumo Kaoru, her twin brother that was separated from her from childhood and first appeared dressed as a girl.
土方歳三Hijikata Toshizo
The character from which the title of the game comes from strongly suggesting that he is the canon. I highly suggest playing his route last (before Kazama) because his route is the longest route and would also have the longest span of game time and would explain a lot of the whoe plot of the game, so technically his game has the most information plus it traces the whole story of the Shinsengumi since all the characters would leave the Shinsengumi at one point within their routes.He is the second-in-command and is quite famous for his strictness (aka Oni Fukuchou lit. Demon Vice-Commander). As I have said earlier, his route is the longest since it follows the whole history of Shinsengumi. And being the second-in-command means that he should be a good example for all so he does his work religiously, at times too much which makes the other Shinsengumi members worry about him over-working. He drank the ochimizu after getting injured seriously from fighting Kazama in order to become stronger.
His route was so serious and sad, and sweet moments did not really start to happen until the last half or so of his route. He is totally focused on his job and looking after the whole Shinsengumi.
Due to the prolonged battles, as Hijikata’s route progresses, the Shinsengumi grows smaller and smaller until it was only him left. He also tried to leave and make Chizuru live him as it would only lead to her death but thanks to Chizuru’s stubbornness, Hijikata was never left alone.
One of the scenes that I really remember from this route is when he went up to the north and left Chizuru behind and Chizuru was able to find her way back to him. It was in this scene that said to Chizuru how much she has supported him and that he can no longer live without her by his side. Hijikata’s final enemy is of course Kazama and it is in this final battle were Kazama acknowledges Hijikata as a demon and called him Hakuouki, hence the title of the game as I have said in the beginning.
His epilogue scene is also sweet with him and Chizuru looking at sakura together and Hijikata asked Chizuru why she likes sakura that much. And Chizuru embarrassingly replied that sakura resembles Hijikata a lot. And Hijikata said, “I also like sakura because they remind me of you a lot.”沖田総司Okita Souji
Said to be a genius and a brilliant swordsman. He is the sarcastic character and is frequently seen saying “…I’ll kill (cut) you” to Chizuru thought the game. It is in his route where Kaoru was given the main role as this route’s antagonist. Since Okita is suffering from tuberculosis all throughout the game, there were a lot of alone-moments with Chizuru since Okita is usually left out in battles and simply stays in the headquarters. Okita drank the ochimizu that Kaoru offered thinking that it would cure his illness but it was revealed after some time that it did not. He is a great follower fan of Kondo Isami, the leader of Shinsengumi.
In this route, as stated earlier, the main antagonist is Kaoru so he is like the final boss of the route. It is only in Okita’s route where Chizuru p=became a rasetsu because Kaoru forced her to drink it in order to make her feel the same pain Kaoru felt from the Nagumo for not being female and as punishment for Chizuru forgetting about him, her twin brother.
Okita is my favorite character but his ending is definitely one of the saddest ones because even his happy ending is vague whether he is alive or not. In his sad ending he does end up dying but it is also in that route where a demon form Chizuru can be seen and they were sucking blood from each other. 
One of the most memorable scenes from Okita’s route is during one of his blood-sucking scenes where he said to Chizuru that we would only suck her blood in order to keep himself alive and never anybody else’s blood. Another endearing scene is when the two of them were chasing Hijikita and co. when Okita found out about Isami being captured by the enemy and Okita blamed it to Hijikata. And with Chizuru worrying that he might kill Hijikata, but when Chizuru hears Okita’s story, she said that she can trust him making Okita suddenly wanting to hug her. Okita’s lines were something around, “I don’t know why myself, but I suddenly wanted to hug you.” 
And as I have said, his happy ending is somewhat vague considering that he fell asleep while the two of them were lying down under the sun. Plus their lines did not actually help. Though I stand firm that he is still alive from that ending, I know he’ll die eventually but not yet.斎藤一Saitou Hajime
The coolest out of all the characters and his route is the coolest as well. He is a man of few words and a man of action. And if it is fluff one is looking for, you’ll definitely not get that much from it here since the focus of the route os mostly on Saitou searching his way of the samurai/bushi but when it does get into the sweet parts, I just go moe~ on it.He does drink the ochimizu in order to be stronger and be of more use to Hijikita and the Shinsengumi. Even though Saitou is one of my favorite characters, I just can’t seem to remember much about his route. Probably because it was more focused on the battles. Though there is this one random scene that I just can’t forget even though it did not have a cg. When everyone changed their uniforms from Japanese style to the western style, Chizuru pointed out that Saitou had buttoned his jacket wrong and he said embarrassingly that he will fix later.
One of the sweet scenes in Saitou’s route is during one of his blood-sucking scenes. As usual, Chizuru offered her blood to Saitou and created a small wound on her lobe. And when Saitou was taking blood from it, Chizuru noticed that even though the wound has closed (because she is an oni) Saitou still kept in the position so Chizuru asked whether he needs more blood but Saitou quickly stood up pushing her away while mumbling that it is not like he needs more blood. Saitou and Chizuru did not continue to move up north with Hijikata and company. Saitou’s main rival in this route was Amagiri, the red-haired demon always seen together with Kazama. Though the final enemy was still Kazama were Saitou killed him in the end.
Saitou’s epilogue is probably one of my favorites. It was a bit late but Saitou still hasn’t come back home so Chizuru went out looking for him worried that he might have left home wearing light clothing. Soon she found Saitou standing by a tree and called out “Saitou-san” a few times as she went near him but he did not look her way. She started why he won’t look her way even though she was already beside him and realized what she should do and called him Hajime-san making him finally face her. She asked why he hasn’t come back home yet and answered that there is something he wants her to see and soon enough, snow started falling.藤堂平助Toudou Heisuke
He is the youngest out of all the characters and is around the same age as Chizuru so he is the only one tha Chizuru calls by his first name all throughout the game. He is one of the irst ones that became a rasetsu after Sannan, one of the leaders of Shinsengumi, because ot was the only way to save after fighting and getting heavily injured. He has a bright personality but started getting emotional after being a rasetsu.I can’t remember much of his route aside from the ones near the end where the main antagonist was Sannan gone mad. Sannan decided to betray the Shinsengumi and even created a rasetsu army. He also made Sen-hime, a royal blooded oni, a rasetsu and even assaulted here. If I remember correctly, Kazama also cooperated with Heisuke to bring Sannan down.
One memorable line that Heisuke has said when he was worrying about himself being a rasetsu, the same as the enemy. It goes somewhere like, “I am a rasetsu. My body is the same as the enemies I have been killing. But there is one difference between me and them… I have you.” Where the pronoun you refers to Chizuru.Heisuke’s epiloge cg shows a mature-looking him with a Chizuru sleeping on his lap and they were talking about the unknown future ahead of them.
原田佐之助Harada Sanosuke
The only character that did not become a rasetsu and in my opinion has the sweetest route of all probably because his route has the most love involved in it. Harada leaves the Shinsengumi in all of the routes so it is the same with his where Chizuru leaves with him and Shinpachi. Since his route has the most love-involved scenes, and his route was the first route I played, I remember more from his route compared to others. In this route, Harada’s rival appeared to be Shiranui, the gun-user oni that is seen together with Kazama. The final boss was Chizurur’s father who created an army of rasetsu that forced Chizuru to kill his father though Harada did it for her.
One of the scenes I remember is when Chizuru was tryong to leave the Shinsengumi when she thought that she was simply being to burden to them. And when Harada tried to stop the crying Chizuru, he kissed her while saying that he does not know any other way to make a crying stop stop.
Another scene would be when the two of them already left the Shinsengumi and Chizuru once again tried to leave Harada since she does not want Harada to sacrifice his friend, Shinpachi. But Harada has already decided whom he wants to choose and asked Chizuru to do the same. And the CG from this scene probably suggests something… >< (click on the image to see the follow-up CG)
And in the end while they were fighting Chizuru’s father, one of the lines I perfectly remember that Harada has said is that, “Let me take the burden of the sin of killing one’s own parent.” He said that to Chizuru and killed Koudou. His epilogue shows him and Chizuru in a land outside Japan and they have a child. Happily ever after. ßthat is the reason why I like his route a lot, happy ending and it has loads of love. On a side note, since he did not became a rasetsu, he did not have a blood-sucking scene though.風間千影Kazama Chikage
Probably the head of the Oni of the East and is after Chizuru because of her pureblood oni status to produce a powerful oni because of a pureblood oni mates with another pureblood, they would produce an offspring that is even stronger than themselves. Kazama is technically the bad guy in the game since is an enemy and wants to kidnap Chizuru but he really is not that bad of a guy.In his route, Chizuru was forced to escape by herself by the Shimsengumi and she was rescued by Kazama when she was cornered by one of the enemies. Chizuru stayed with Kazama so that she can once again meet up with the Shinsengumi so they ended up following the Shinsengumi wherever they went and witness the Shinsengumi’s downfall.
Kazama’s route does not have its epilogue and the only love part in his route was at the end where he kissed Chizuru saying that that kiss is the proof that they are not unrelated to each other and that when Chizuru is done finding and fixing herself, she should simply come to his side or if ever Chizuru takes too much time, he’ll come and pick her up by himself. And that’s it. Though there is one line that Kazama said somewhere during the middle of the route where he said to Chizuru to relax since he would never do anything to her before marriage. Quite a line for the high and mighty ore-sama of the game ^^.Comments:
This game currently one of the mainstream otome games out. It has been ported into a lot of platforms and has already been made into a series of games that many already say that the company is really milking it for the money. That aside, let us move on.
For me, one of Hakuouki’s good points is its artwork. The illustrator/character designer Kazuki Yone really draws well and I think can there is a lot of improvement from her earlier game, Hiiro no Kakera (which I played after Hakuoki, making me say so). Aside from the superb artwork, all of the characters are really likeable and as rule of thumb in any otome games, the characters are all unique from each other and one would definitely find someone that they would like. Most of the scenarios are angsty considering the theme, but the love element of the story would always be there making me go moe~. But my favorite scene would be at the beginning where everyone was shocked when they found out that Chizuru is a girl. All of the reactions were just so interesting and funny.
One of the problems I encountered with this game is that it is long and the Japanese used. Since it is set at a certain historical period, there were a lot of words, especially kanji words and sentence patterns that I cannot understand. It was one of the reasons why it took me a while to finish the game. This was the first historical game that I have played and I haven’t encountered much of old Japanese even in anime making it a whole lot more difficult.
In every otome game I play, I tend to think who is the canon pair for the main character, and then choose my favorite character according to the character as a whole and another based on the route. For Hakuouki, it was quite hard choosing my own favorite character but it was quite obvious who the canon should be which is Hijikata as most people say but for some reason, I also think that Kazama would be a good canon and just have history run its course. Haha. As for the route, I have always thought that it should be Hijikata but Harada’s route wins this one for me. His route is the sweetest one for me plus it is a happy ending. While my favorite, or rather favorites simply because of the character would be Okita and Saitou. And I guess I am not alone with this choice because these two have been consistently placing first and second in the monthly character popularity poll of the otome game magazine B’s Log.
All in all, this is a good and its popularity is understandable. I would really recommend it to people who likes otome games but definitely not for those who are only starting to learn Japanese. It is also quite long so patience and concentration is greatly required since it is a visual novel type of otome game were you would only choose what you would say or do from choices at certain points in the game. I admit I fell asleep more than twice on Hijikata’s and Kazama’s route ><. And in the end, all of the endings would be sad anyway since all of the guys (aside from Harada) would probably die earlier than Chizuru (T.T). But it is still worth the play plus the art is really awesome. It took me a while before I was able to play another game after this because I still did not want to say goodbye to it and I did a lot of searching for its pictures on the net for a while before I actually calmed down and went on to a new game.
*the next review will be on one of the spin-offs released for Hakuouki, Hakuouki Yuugiroku, which is a mini game collection.
Soaring Sky 
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