Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! 

A few months ago, I was approached by Yuri Game Studio and Okazu supporter Luscious Spirit Studio with an offer of a VN to review, so I have asked our resident VN reviewer, Louis P. to take a look at it for me.  And here we are with another terrific review, so take it away Louis!

When Salena returns to the flat she shares with her girlfriend Lydia on the cusp of their one year anniversary, she sees something that any soap opera viewer would have been expecting, her girlfriend cheating on her with another woman. This person immediately taunts Salena that this betrayal was inevitable as Salena is asexual, and how could Lydia be fine with a relationship without sex? In tears, Salena breaks up with Lydia then and there and returns to single life with the ever-present fear that her asexuality will forever bar her from the romantic relationship she wants. The very next night Salena runs into Aanya, a fresh out-of-the-closet music student who already has a huge crush on her.

And so starts Lovely Anemone a game by Luscious Spirit Studios for Ace Jam, a game jam that ran through January of this year focusing on games with characters in the asexual spectrum.

I am not asexual so I cannot give a real opinion on how ace feelings are represented in this game. But the game’s story focuses on feelings that a lot of queer people can understand. The feeling of being in the closet and being afraid to reveal yourself, yet knowing you have to come out in order to have an honest relationship is something a lot of people can understand. We follow Salena’s thoughts as she wrestles with these feelings of fear that they bring up.

This fear about coming out and then being rejected is focused on when Salena starts dating Aanya. This plot is helped along with some of the cutest date sequences I have seen in a visual novel for a long time. As this game was written in only a month the story shoots for only the most surface-feel of Salena and Aanya’s (and Lydia’s) relationship that, while shallow, is still able to invest us in their relationship in a short time. I was very impressed by how torn I was when time came to make a choice between Lydia and Aanya the first time round. What is more, Aanya’s acceptance of Salena, while awkwardly written, is precisely the kind of acceptance you would hope to see more of in the real world.

Lovely Anemone is a short game you can finish in one evening. While the slightly awkward writing lead to one character saying: “Didn’t you tell her you were an ace?” it is clearly sincere in what it is trying to achieve..that is,  adding to the small pile of media containing decent representation of asexual characters and also providing a visual novel where the main character is endlessly fawned over by two amazing, butch romantic leads.

I really do mean that both Aanya and Lydia are dashing romantic fantasies that spend their time showering the main character with affection and kisses once the required angst is taken care of. It was exactly what I wanted from my silly brain candy that only takes a few hours to read. Before I ran into these scenes I was preparing to say Lovely Anemone was an okay attempt, despite its wonky writing and overuse of screen shake (just do it once, not three lines in a row) but, if you are like me and love the idea of cool butch girls whispering romantic compliments to you while they hug you then this will be great thing to read on a rainy afternoon.

Ratings:

Art – 7 A lot of CG considering they had a month
Characters – 5 Only the main three have anything going for them
Story – 6 Not bad for something written in a month…
Service – 4 Some nudity that seemed to be just there for service
Yuri – 7 Good but soapy relationships

Overall – 6

I had not heard about Luscious Spirit Studios before reading Lovely Anemone but I will be looking through their catalogue now and I look forward to their next project.

Erica Here; Thank you very much for taking a look at this for us. I think you speak for many here when you say that being fawned over by a couple of cool butch girls. ^_^