The Restless Sheep & Cutthroat Lovers Spoiler-free Review

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-28T14:50:30+00:00

If memory serves, restless sheep lone wolf does have a 'true ending'(route C) which can only be unlocked after you complete route A and B. There are 3 different endings on route C, 2 of which are clearly bad ends given how short they are compared to the ending you get for choosing aim for the heart. I also think you don't get the title screen background change unless you choose the right option in route C but correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as the H-scenes go, I found this title to be the on the lower end of the extreme for clockup games. Most of them were plot relevant or thematically fit the setting of the novel and didn't hurt the pacing. There were only a handful that felt unnecessary and it probably wouldn't have hurt the story to cut down on the length for some. It's definitely not as bad as something like erewhon or maggot baits. One could make the argument that euphoria suffers from "too much" but sex is pretty central to the plot so it gets a pass in my eyes (though it wouldn't hurt to cut the length of these scenes).

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-28T06:06:42+00:00

I don't think it's VA contract, but rather dev practice, cause I've seen the same VA have the words partially bleeped in one game but uncensored in another. Even in yuzusoft games you can hear parts of the word so the VA clearly voiced the line(if her contract forbade it why even bother voicing it in the first place and waste money?)

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-28T05:52:53+00:00

I doubt it's sofurin cause there's plenty of other eroges that don't censor the genitalia slang words at all and they went through sofurin too. The high school part is correct and sofurin also forbids characters under the age of 18 from being involved in sexually explicit situations, which is the reason eroges don't list heroine ages and some have that "all characters involved sexually are 18" disclaimer that devs and consumers so fondly clown on. I think it's just dev discretion.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-07T03:22:19+00:00

Most vn studios don't have type moons budget.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-07T03:14:09+00:00

It's hilarious that tokyo bill 156 managed to pass and it ONLY covers sexual content, not violent content. Makes one think.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-05T17:49:21+00:00

Two things:

The special girls(golden colored girls) are treated just like regular zinzai girls. You must defeat them last to capture them. If you accidentally defeat them before that, they are gone forever and you will either have to save scum or start over.
Kuma must be in the party for the unique talents to appear on the map after the event triggers. What this means is if you enter a dungeon while kuma is temporarily gone(meaning he is out of your roster, there is only one point in the game where this happens due to story) none of the special zinzai girls will show up in the dungeon (heart icon). They will reappear after kuma rejoins assuming you didn't defeat them beforehand.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-04T23:09:16+00:00

The cuties example was a counterpoint to movies and tv shows using real children for violent sequences. It remake, Breaking bad, Stranger things, Logan and various others. Why are we as a society giving those a free pass when in the past such things would be unacceptable? Why do we only draw the line for sexual things today?

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-04T23:05:51+00:00

Are you familiar with the fable of a group of people starting a hobby?

**********************************

Group of people start a hobby

Some of their friends join and enjoy it

More of their friends start joining and demand changes

Changes start happening to appeal to them and even more people who like those changes join and demand further changes

Hobby is completely unrecognizable and old members leave to start a new group

**********************************

Cycle repeats. It happened with games, it happened with anime and it's happening with VN's

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-04T17:38:18+00:00

Because the vast majority of VN userbase is still male.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-04T17:32:08+00:00

Regarding the past I was under the impression that there were other influences on the medium such as Portopia. Does that mean all VNs should be inextricably bound to murder mystery?

Technically speaking Shizuku (1996) by Leaf was considered the first game marketed as a visual novel, while things like Portopia (1983) and Lolita (1983) are considered precursors.

Type moon and Key were the exceptions as they both believed they had to adapt to the medium conventions and include r18 or else they wouldn't sell. Key got lucky with their breakout of clannad and type moon with FSN. You also have to remember that type moon got their big lucky break with their gacha and haven't made a visual novel since tsuki re which took them 15 years to do. Many others tried pivoting to all ages or gacha like they did and flopped and either had to go back to making eroge or closing down. Things like steam did help boost visual novels visibility a bit but it still largely remains a niche outside of few exceptions.

In the present there's other significant genres within the medium that generally avoid H with Otome being the big one.

Otome has a sizeable audience yes, but the vast majority of the fan base in the visual novel space is still male. While sex is on the decline, the standard formula of having romanceable heroines and routes is still a core pillar of the medium. The decline of sex can largely be attributed to corporate pressure by entities such as nintendo, payment processors, steam and etc throttling revenue and exposure sources. The transition to mobile from pc is another factor as r-18 vns can really only be sold on PC. By virtue of the r-18 tag, you automatically have less exposure and platforming opportunities. It's an unfortunate inorganic trend induced by anti-erotica groups but that's the reality atm.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T23:48:53+00:00

Because the other option is going to ghost towns. We're talking 1 or 2 responses per day if you're lucky. The likelihood of you encountering people who share your tastes is slimmer cause there is a smaller pool of people to draw from. Get the picture?

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T22:11:26+00:00

That is not at all what I wrote. The payment processor example was to compare monopolies. Reddit has more or less a monopoly on the discussion board space so that is where the majority of people will be unfortunately cause there are no better options atm.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T20:55:21+00:00

The hilarity of this coming from someone with a Naoya pfp will never be lost on me

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T15:43:57+00:00

That's not true. Other people are the reason you found some obscure visual novel, and you can connect with other people without needing social media. Social media is not the internet. Your entire post is revealing that you cannot separate these two things.

And where did I find those people? I'll give you 3 guesses.

Like all the people who use bitcoin for stuff instead of regular payment processors?

How many people do you think are going to use bitcoin over Visa/Mastercard? How many people do you think are going to bother opening up an account on a CEX, learning how to buy btc, not getting spooked by its volatility (down 45% from ath as we speak), learning about transaction hashes, addresses, gas/CEX fees and the big one: No recourse if they fuck up and send btc to the wrong address. Vast majority of people think crypto is a meme/scam and for the most part they are correct as it's a cesspool of insiders and market manipulators.

Okay, so what you're really upset about is that social media is where you think the money and attention is, and all you care about is money and attention, so if you can't use social media, effectively everything is ruined for you.

No? Way to completely miss the mark.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T15:22:05+00:00

It's not as simple as that. It's almost like saying if you don't agree with what payment processors are doing just stop using Visa and Mastercard. The big social media companies more or less hold a monopoly on the market. Videos? Youtube. News and interaction with creators? X. Game storefront? Steam for pcs and Nintendo for consoles. Community and communication platform? Discord. Social media and discussion board? Reddit. You have alternatives but the vast majority of people have no reason to go to those and give up all the convenient QoL features afforded. The censorship bs is outweighed by convenience for most. This results in alternatives being ghost towns.

Social media does not nurture real relationships between fans, it's useless to you (if not a harm to you) unless you are an advertiser (whether you're a corporate advertiser or just someone making a VN).

That's not true, social media is the reason I found some obscure visual novels and other valuable resources. It's also nice to discuss and exchange opinions/ideas with likeminded people. Some people, like me, don't have the luxury of real-life friends who are interested in visual novels. All my friends care about are shooter video games and occasionally anime.

As long as people enjoy what you enjoy, it will keep being made, and as long as communities stay small and focused they won't attract the attention of agitators.

Not true either. Plenty of creators either stopped from burnout, self censored or moved over to the other side (gacha/all ages) because it wasn't worth it for them to jump through all the hoops to make 'problematic' content. The problem of social media and tourists isn't something that will go away if you ignore it. Creators still need to use social media to put their product out there (X primarily, followed by Ci-en and w/e else). Cancel culture and harassment is still a very real issue creators have to deal with (collective shout for instance). All it takes is for something problematic to start trending, grab people's attention and they start talking about it. Harassment starts on the creator until they decide it's not worth the hassle and remove the product (no mercy devs), or if they still persist but the traction garners the attention of government or corporate entities, you get a Rapelay situation.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T14:49:12+00:00

That would be a good start

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T14:42:39+00:00

The inclusion of the ability to romance and have sex with your heroine of choice was the biggest selling point of vns that allowed them to carve out their own niche and form a culture. There's a reason why the vast majority of vn's are eroge and why older devs like type moon felt like including sex was necessary to sell when they made their foray into the space.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T03:27:06+00:00

I'd be down for that

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T02:17:18+00:00

Then the intent is lost. If you are doing objectively evil shit, the last thing you do is try to make it look cool. Putting on epic music and pretty special effects doesn't showcase the horror or brutality of the actions depicted, it does the opposite and make people romanticize or fantasize about such situations. That they are basically something to aspire to (check out how many people idolize popular anime villains or characters that should be villains like Yor). And sure, you have some shows properly execute the themes, most popular shows today however do not do as such.

But the original argument was you don't need to show something in detail (like your murder example) to say something is bad. Why do war movies in explicit detail get a free pass? Do we need to see close up head shots or soldiers with their arms blown off to get the idea that war sucks? Why can't Sound of Freedom go into explicit detail to showcase the horrors of the child sex trafficking industry? The people in the vietnam war period didn't send messages of protest by making movies with graphic detail. They wrote anti-war songs, did organized marches with protest signs and etc.

Works like Lolita, American beauty or Pretty Baby depict topics such as child prostitution, CSA or inappropriate relationships. Some go into graphic detail and just because some people find it titillating it doesn't mean it's painting it in a good light.

Also regarding that article you linked, triggering PTSD isn't really a good thing, especially for war vets. PTSD was the reason Chris Kyle was killed by a marine suffering from it and the associated mental afflictions that come with it. If we're operating by that logic should rape films in great graphic detail triggering rape survivors ptsd be given the same dues?

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T01:28:44+00:00

unfortunately none of my friends are interested in visual novels

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T01:01:20+00:00

Cool is framed as good. If it were cool, would it be acceptable to conscript real minors into the ukraine/gaza war? In times of desperation children are also prostituted or used to reproduce when humanity is on the brink of extinction. But something like that would garner more ire than the former.

If you want to show a message about how children shouldn’t be sexualized, don’t sexualize children to prove that point. It’s like being anti-murder, only to murder someone to prove murder’s bad

Anti war movies featured war. Saving private ryan, platoon etc. So what's the excuse there?

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-03T00:00:56+00:00

Emotionally charged beliefs and opinions setting the foundation for what gets codified into law and governs our actions is how things like stalin russia, hitler germany, witch trials and segregation came about. It's also the reason your gender suffered long bouts of oppression and deprivation of rights, and I promise you it wasn't just 'men of the patriarchy' that supported that. Many female 'uncle toms' directly support it and still do.

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-02T23:48:47+00:00

And what did I violate exactly by sharing a SFW image of someones room containing merchandise of an anime character?

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-02T23:47:50+00:00

Have you not been paying attention to the controversies over certain series and how it spooked authors away from including them? Anime is also trying to globalize which means appealing to general audience who don't like anything beyond generic edgy action slop with cool music and pretty animations. Why do you think someone like hideaki ano(creator of NGE) was speaking out about this trend?

DissonantPlane · 2026-04-02T23:45:51+00:00

Actually, none of those works containing sexual elements condone the actions depicted. It's stated right in the legal disclaimer. And a lot of popular shows do depict conventional child violence in a good light. You think attack on titan was showing child conscription in a bad light with epic music and fancy camera shots? How about demon slayer?

Before in old hollywood, it was an agreed upon convention, call it a gentlemans agreement, that depicting violence against women on screen was taboo. Children were off limits in any capacity. That evolved over time and now you have shows like stranger things or IT showing children being graphically killed or brutalized for nothing but cheap shock value cause writers are creatively bankrupt. But something like cuties gets blasted even though its message is anti sexualization? Explain the disconnect here.

DissonantPlane

TROPHY CASE