by Ashley Payne, Okazu Staff Writer.

Stop me if you have heard this before: Hana Sasamori has been friends with Itsuki Oomiya all through high school. A few days before graduation they discover they like each other… NOT the end, as it turns out. Despite a slow start Black Lily’s Tale (available on Steam and Crunchyroll) actually takes some time to address modern issues queer youth have to face, albeit with a vague science-fiction blanket over it.

Black Lily’s Tale has perhaps one of the more roundabout introductions for a game of it’s type. We are introduced to everything with a whole lot of point and click examinations and learning how choices work. In Black Lily’s Tale you have to type in your own choices at the right time rather than wait for the game to give you several possible answers to change the story.

That said after this brief introduction on how the game will be played, we then have a nearly two hour introduction to the characters and setting where none of that will be relevant. While the actual core characters of Hana, Itsuki and their mutual friend Aoi are all fun people to be with, most of the introduction is bogged down with a lot of sci-fi baggage to what otherwise is a very contemporary story. It doesn’t take long for the Doylist reason for this to become apparent it never stops being odd that of all the names, ‘biophone’ was the name the writers settled on for their smartphone analogues.

That said, the real reason for all this exhausting world building is so that they can take what would have otherwise been a ‘story A’ style game and actually address issues like compulsory heterosexuality and conversion therapy. It’s almost elegant until you realise that everything worth talking about in Black Lily’s Tale is happening today, right now. Children are being pressured by compulsory heterosexuality right now. Children are being forced through conversion therapy right now. 

While Black Lily’s Tale has it’s heart in the right place I can’t help but feel all this was just so they could turn escaping from one of the more traumatic things queer youth suffer from into a game.

Once everything became clear it was nice to see a yuri story in this high school environment that actively takes deliberate effort to explore what current day youth are experiencing. That said it is precisely because this game deals with something that so many queer people have experienced first hand I’d recommend Black Lily’s Tale with a content warning of what it deals with so people can be prepared.

Ratings:

Art – 3 (I don’t like live 2D sorry, everyone is always bouncing.)
Story – 8
Characters  – 7
Service – 2
Yuri – 7

Overall – 7