Akaiito HD Remaster is a 2023 remaster of the 2004 visual novel Akaiito, which was originally released on Playstation 2. The remaster is available on Nintendo Switch and Windows and features English and Chinese translations for the first time. Akaiito tells the story of Hatou Kei, a high school girl who has recently lost her mother and travels to a rural village to check out her fathers house that she has inherited. During her 4 day stay, Kei encounters a pair of oni who are after her blood, as well as many allies who try to protect her, all while she learns and remembers more about her past.

Firstly, the technical aspects of this remaster. On Windows, the game forces a 1920×1080 resolution and can’t be changed, meaning you can’t play on anything with a smaller resolution without external tinkering. This also means the game forces a 16:9 aspect ratio, despite the entire game being 4:3. The controller mapping is set solely for a Switch controller, so with an Xbox controller or similar, A and B are swapped, which is very confusing. It seems the Switch version was priority here, with little changes being made for the Windows version. There’s a bug with selecting choices ingame, if you select the second option at a set of choices, then at the next set of choices the second option will be highlighted instead of the first, if you select the second option with moving it will instead choose the first option, making it easy to select the wrong option without knowing. Sometimes audio lines just don’t play. I also found at least 1 CG that wasn’t in the CG library for some reason.

This remaster includes Japanese, English and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) languages in all versions, easily changeable in the main menu. The English translation here is rough. It’s filled with typos and grammatical errors and at many times difficult to read. In particular is many accidental misgenderings, such as ‘him’ instead of ‘her’ and ‘man’ instead of ‘woman’, which gives off the vibe of a machine translation. There’s no text scaling for English chapter and ending titles, so they frequently get cut off as they are much longer than their Japanese counterparts. The tips page is always sorted by kana, even in English. Overall, this translation achieves the bare minimum, it’s readable but it’s clear to me that little to no editing or adaptation was done here.

The gameplay of Akaiito is more involved than a lot of visual novels, with 32 endings, 5 of which are true endings. There is no main route or ending, instead 5 character routes that branch off early, each telling different stories. The choices you make influence which route and ending you get and unlike other novels, I generally found it to be fair and intuitive. The inclusion of a flow chart was especially appreciated. That said, I did not like the seal system, where upon getting some endings you unlock other routes. It does not make any logical sense, it’s like if you did something in the present that changed the past, though luckily getting all the seals isn’t too difficult. Akaiito is fully voiced, with excellent voice acting all round. The art is beautiful with a large amount of CGs, characters designs are distinct and fit their characters perfectly. The music is a particular standout, capturing the atmosphere brilliantly, and remains stuck in my head many days afterwards. Despite there being 5 true endings, there is only one ending theme unfortunately, can’t have everything I suppose.

Japanese folklore is very present in the story of Akaiito, as well as themes of death, family and love. At the start of the story we learn Kei’s mother has recently passed away. Whilst Kei acts tough, traveling to a rural village on her own, she is sometimes reminded of her mother and shows that she is still struggling. These moments are small but help the character feel grounded and really stuck with me. Ultimately, each true route shows Kei overcoming this struggle by either finding new family, or re-finding old ones. The driving force for this arc is a millennium old struggle against a power hungry god. As a villain, he and his motivations aren’t particularly interesting, but adequately provides tension to fuel the story. Kei finds herself in the midst of this as she has inherited from her father, the Nie no Chi, a special and powerful blood that can revive the sealed away god. Kei is routinely attacked by a pair of blood-sucking oni, and depending on the route, it is the girl who saves her that Kei starts to form a strong bond with. How strong this bond is depends on your choices, fail and you will get one of the many truly tragic endings, which can often see Kei sacrificing her life to save the ones she loves. Akaiito really utilises the potential of the medium here to tell such heartrending endings you wouldn’t normally see. Overall, this storyline is where Akaiito truly shines, Kei’s journey of discovery, of herself and her past, as well her future and how the choices you and Kei make impact that. But there’s still one big elephant in the room I haven’t talked about.

So, the Yuri. The game’s title, ‘Akai Ito’, is Japanese for the ‘Red Thread of Fate’, an East Asian belief of an invisible red thread around the finger of those destined to be true lovers. The Yuri in Akaiito is light. Despite that, many of the character routes in Akaiito are undoubtedly romantic ones, though not particularly overt.

Starting with the least romantic route is Tsuzura’s, because well, she’s a young child. This route was the weakest for me, Kei learns little of her past and her future is vague. I find it hard to place Kei’s relationship to Tsuzura, Kei doesn’t take on a particularly sisterly or parental role and it’s obviously not romantic, she cares for Tsuzura and that’s about it. In general, I did not care for Tsuzura. Nozomi’s route is the shortest and focuses more on her than Kei. I liked how it takes an otherwise uninteresting antagonist and completely changes how not only we the audience see her, but also how she sees herself. This route was ambiguously romantic, but given its short length I didn’t really find that an issue.

Uzuki’s route is likely the first route you’ll finish and largely focuses on her opening up and becoming friends with Kei. My favourite aspect of Uzuki’s character was her moral conflict, she’s an oni slayer who slays all oni, but Kei’s defence of Yumei makes things awkward. Thanks to Kei, Uzuki comes to realise that not all oni are evil, and in fact many oni have similar goals as her. As for her relationship with Kei, Uzuki is distant at first, but eventually starts to share intimate moments such as sharing a futon and Uzuki dressing Kei in a yukata, and by the end Kei has fallen in love with Uzuki. Frustratingly, the story ends before we get to see Kei confess her feelings or what the future looks like for the two of them.

In Sakuya’s route we learn of both her past and her past relation to Kei. There are few scenes where Sakuya sucks Kei’s blood (with consent) in order to gain its power, it’s very intimate albeit non-sexual. There are a couple moments in this route where Kei says she loves Sakuya but in a “I love you but not like that way” way, and I’d be fine with this if Kei later properly expressed her love, but unfortunately that never happens. Sakuya gets to confess her love for Kei, but bizarrely not in the true route.

The true route does have them living happily together which is nice, and they’re very clearly in love, so I find it annoying how the game gets so close to and then weasels its way out of having them say it. This and Uzuki’s route show the biggest issue I have with Akaiito in the current day, with how it’s not afraid of depicting romantic love between girls but it is often afraid of describing it as romantic love. Yumei’s route is by far my favourite and you could also say it’s the truest route, as she and Kei are the ones wrapped by the Akai Ito in the game’s cover art. This route sees Kei learn the most of her past and her frequently choosing to have Yumei drink her blood in intimate scenes like in Sakuya’s route. Kei refuses to leave Yumei’s side as she uncovers the truth of her past and in the process falls in love with Yumei. The epilogue to this route sees Kei and Yumei living together, going food shopping in a scene that just screams ‘domestic lesbians’! In a way, it’s a simple ending, but an unambiguous and non-frustrating kind of simple that elevates this route above the rest for me, as ultimately, I can’t help but feel satisfied with this ending.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 5 intimate blood-sucking, onsens, Sakuya-san
Yuri – 3

Overall – 8

Overall, though Akaiito shows its age and the remaster leaves a lot to be desired, the story is absolutely worth a read even if the Yuri is on the light side.

KatGrrrl finds herself getting more addicted to Yuri by the day. Socials at linktr.ee/katgrrrl.