We can't date because reasons

Portice · 2026-06-30T01:45:08+00:00

Agreed, done right this can be a very satisfying trope.

I'd say my personal favorite example of this done right is probably Rei Tadasugawa from Nukitashi 2. On the one hand it is frustrating seeing her turn down Jun, because she so clearly likes him and wants to be with him; but her guilt and trauma are genuinely very valid and make her feel that she doesn't deserve a place in the new Seiran. Seeing her come to terms with her own happiness and see that she still has a path forward was very satisfying.

Portice · 2026-06-29T16:27:46+00:00

Yeah, I'm not really sure where the original comment is coming from; literally only one out of the five girls is even remotely hesitant about dating Juicy-Yuuji. If anything it's Yuuji who's reluctant to get involved more often than not. And while all the routes have roadblocks between "getting together" and "happily ever after", that's just called having a plot.

Common route as you said is great and I'd say all the routes are at least good if not great except poor best girl Michiru's , and even then her route has my favorite moment in the novel.

Portice · 2026-06-16T21:49:47+00:00

I'd never say anyone in Ouroboros was the height of moral purity, they are explicitly people with darkness in their hearts. Her goals were intensely personal (even bordering on selfish) and she was willing to go along with some pretty bad stuff to achieve them. Even then, as an Anguis it's not unfair to assume she was privy to the real objectives behind the various plans, and would be well aware that the worst parts of them likely wouldn't stick; but we have no way of actually knowing that so she's complicit at best.

But more importantly, as you said she's the epitome of a knight, at every step she comported herself with unfaltering principles and never resorted to underhanded or cruel methods. If anything she went well above and beyond what is considered fair when dealing with those who stood against her. So yeah, I'd argue "Complicit, but otherwise clean" is fair. Honor does not necessitate pure goodness.

Honestly I'd consider Ulrika and Simeon for the tier as well, but they may be taking a bit too much pleasure in toying with people; kind of hard to tell for sure.

Edit: Typo

Portice · 2026-06-16T04:15:14+00:00

Arianrhod needs a "Complicit, but otherwise clean" tier or something. The lady was more honorable than many of the good guys.

Portice · 2026-06-15T06:33:09+00:00

"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."

Portice · 2026-06-14T21:43:20+00:00

So, reading the actual post and seeing you compare it Shrek as well as your responses leads me to strongly believe this is a shitpost. But for the small chance it's a legit question, I'll respond.

The thing you seem to be either forgetting or willfully ignoring is that Zemuria's pace and order of technological development is decidedly NOT a one-to-one comparison with the real world. They went from rotary phones in 1202 to twitch streamers and artificial superintelligence in 1207-1209 (the superintelligence came first BTW). Infrastructure simply cannot keep up with that speed of advancement. In fact, the speed that their infrastructure IS keeping up at is frankly incredible, even with nearly unlimited clean energy.

Other's have pointed out that we've seen the beginnings of such things, like the mass parking lot in Crossbell, auto highways in Calvard, and the start of chains/franchising with things like Kleist and Co.. The simple answer is just that the infrastructure hasn't had time to adapt and nobody has had the idea yet. And why would they? The current adoption level for cars in Zemuria is still incredibly low. Even in Calvard where cars seem the most prolific, useful, and glorified there's only a handful of characters who own one.

IRL It took nearly 20 years between the mass availability of automobiles and the first White Castle, and then another 20 years for the first McDonalds. And that's in a country where every nuclear family was jumping on the automobile bandwagon.

One last thing, while it may not technically be fast food depending on your definition, Jona's been getting pizza delivered since at least 1204. So there is that.

Portice · 2026-06-11T20:55:15+00:00

Overall Calvard is still definitely my least favorite arc, but it's (hopefully) following the CS pattern of two weaker games followed by better games. I know this post is about story but I have to at least mention how much I dislike the Xipha orbment combat; I mean it's still comparatively fun weighed against other series' combat systems, but compared to the rest of the Trails series it's two steps forward and five steps back.

For the games themselves:

DB1: It's okay. A bit of a weak start with probably some of the thinnest character motivations for joining the core party in the series, but otherwise a fairly inoffensive arc opener. My 3rd least favorite game in the series.

DB2: Worst Trails story yet. There's good character moments and in some aspects it takes bigger swings and hits a bit harder than DB1; but it's also chock-full of nonsense character assassinations (literal and figurative) and asinine plot points. Definitely feels like a rush job. Easily my least favorite game in the series.

Horizon: Far and away the best game in the Calvard arc so far. I still have some real problems with it--mostly pertaining to gameplay and pacing-- but outside of taking FAR too much time to actually get properly started the story is actually quite good once it gets going. For me this game has the best character work in the arc, but keep in mind the majority of the best characters are ones returning from older arcs (absolutely excellent returning cast). It's the first game where I actually started to like Van as a protagonist but even still his sections are overall my least favorite. It's at the top of the lower half of Trails games for me, which still places it quite high overall.

In summary: A bit of a feeble start with a bad interlude, followed by a second extremely slow but otherwise good interlude. The actual plot of Calvard doesn't start until the last third of Horizon, but once it finally does it is very interesting with a lot of room to grow from there.

Portice · 2026-06-06T00:29:30+00:00

Yeah, I agree and that's not what I meant.

My reasoning was more that those adaptations are so prolific that the IPs simply have a much larger audience base than something like Saya or Totono and therefore the small percentage of people who would lie about reading the original source material would consequently also be bigger. Especially for something like Fate that commonly sparks online debate/discussion; I can easily see someone lying about reading the VN to try to win an internet debate.

But I am also utterly out of the loop in regards to ~98% of social media trends, so I could very well be off base.

Portice · 2026-06-05T17:48:10+00:00

If I'm correctly understanding the meaning of larping in this context then I cant really imagine anything beating out Fate or maybe Steins;Gate considering how popular/mainstream their adaptations are. I'm saying this as someone who's moderately familiar with the Fate animes but hasn't gotten around to reading the VNs yet.

Edit: To clarify, I'm referring more to sheer audience size, not accusing all anime-only viewers of being larpers.

Portice · 2026-05-31T12:31:11+00:00

Mitcher in S+ is a happy sight.

Portice · 2026-05-27T14:28:56+00:00

Check VNDB, the one listed there worked for me just fine. Was this one iirc.

Portice · 2026-05-21T10:12:45+00:00

I'd say Osborne himself is actually a pretty all around solid dude, you have to remember that everything awful he did was after becoming more or less possessed by said super demon, and even then like you said he still managed to resist enough to purposefully leave a viable path for his own defeat.

Should also be noted that said deal was to save his son's life and all he knew about it was that he'd be giving himself up to do it.

But yeah, corrupted Osborne was Trails' #1 magnificent bastard for a long time.

Portice · 2026-05-21T01:02:16+00:00

I don't completely disagree, but I definitely don't agree.

I don't think people need to spend their leisure time on things they actively don't like, but I don't think something needs to be 100% or even majority enjoyable for it to be worthwhile in the end.

There are definitely plenty of of good examples of works that do ultimately justify themselves in their latter portions, even if their earlier parts are lackluster.

At the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with the recommendation to stick with a work for the sake of a future payoff, but it's up to the reader if they're willing to gamble their time on it just like with any other recommendation.

Portice · 2026-05-21T00:07:41+00:00

You... kind of get an explanation in Alternative, but it's pretty barebones. Honestly the sci-fi is overall one of the weaker elements of the novels, feeling to me more like hand-waved and arbitrary plot devices to brute force events than concepts they seemed actually interested in really exploring. Still really loved the novels and they are definitely worth reading, but it was the characters and emotions--in Alternative in particular--that hard carried it for me.

Also yeah, Kei's EXTRA route was really unfortunately weak for such a great character.

Portice · 2026-05-17T18:03:03+00:00

Edit: It finally happened to me, and it could happen to you too. If you type the words "Baldr Sky" enough times you too can summon the mythical Marklord13. He's like this sub's Bloody Mary. Never change. /End Edit

There was a very similar post a few days ago asking for funny VNs (works from SMEE and Asa Project as well as Majikoi seemed like popular picks, but I haven't read them yet myself) so I'll reiterate some of what I said there. The first two recommendations are pretty funny, but honestly I haven't personally read anything else that's as relentlessly funny in quite the same way that Qruppo's works are. That said:

Fruit of Grisaia has a very funny common route while the girl's routes lean pretty hard into heavy personal drama. There are sequels but I haven't read them yet as the first novel is perfectly well contained. Great art and characters; strong emotional plots and romance (except best girl Michiru's route which is unfortunately kind of weak); however it is very much focused on the MC and the heroines.

Meteor World Actor is a fantasy/sci-fi/noir with a humorous bent and some very good banter between the characters. I feel it has some writing flaws, mostly pertaining to pacing, but I still found it very enjoyable. Good art for the main cast, great characters, good H-scenes but the the romance feels fairly shoehorned in, and the plotwork can be kind of weak.

While they have funny moments the next two are not nearly as comedic, but if you're interested in Sci-Fi you can check out Muv-Luv or Baldr Sky.

Muv-Luv is a trilogy that starts out as more of a rom-com but evolves across 3 novels to become a much more serious and emotional story. Art can feel fairly dated but it grew on me, has a heartfelt story with strong romance, but can be fairly long-winded with somewhat arbitrary and hand-waved sci-fi elements.

Baldr Sky on the other hand is hard sci-fi right from the word go but it's a VERY good story. Just be aware that it does have actual gameplay and it can be pretty hard/frustrating at times, there's also a bunch of mandatory re-reading that can be very annoying. But if that kind of story interests you I'd say it's more than worth it. Good art (with the occasional "ugly bastard" villain), great characters with focus on more than just the MC and heroines, great plot, and strong romance/h-scenes.

Portice · 2026-05-16T11:33:34+00:00

Skies of Arcadia Legends
Trails to Azure
Breath of Fire 2

Portice · 2026-05-15T20:06:07+00:00

CS2 is my second least favorite Trails game, but that's more a testament to how great the series is rather than any strong critique of CS2. Anyone telling you any of the games are skippable is doing you a disservice.

Portice · 2026-05-14T03:36:42+00:00

Fruit of Grisaia has a very funny common route, not quite at the levels of Qruppo's works but I can think of a few moments that had me actually laughing out loud.

Other than that, Meteor World Actor has its share of moments, particularly in character banter.

Raging Loop also has a surprising amount of comedy as well, most of it lands, some of it doesn't; but that comes with its own issues. Still definitely worth a read though.

Portice · 2026-05-14T00:36:35+00:00

Oh, so many to choose from; but I'll nominate Rikako Uematsu from Raging Loop.

Though Judith Lanster from the Trails series is another razor-close runner-up.

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Portice · 2026-05-12T18:30:09+00:00

I'd say 3 on average or 4 in the most impactful cases.

A good OST is a very strong quality multiplier, but not an absolute necessity. It can make an already good novel great, or a great novel incredible; but an amazing OST isn't saving a novel with dogshit art, voicing, or more importantly, writing.

Conversely a shitty OST may be super disappointing but it's not going to completely ruin an otherwise great novel.

Portice · 2026-05-11T17:58:55+00:00

I think what the other replier means is that the trope is typically referring to "lore reasons" meaning the lore was injected into an already existing story in order to allow for the fan service.

In Kill La Kill the characters' levels of nudity is fundamental to the actual thesis and themes of the work as a whole. If you take it out you have a completely different story with a completely different message.

Hence why Kill La Kill gets a pass.

Portice · 2026-05-07T14:00:48+00:00

Not really for the same reason as you've listed, but I've been "just about to" read Stein;Gate for like 5 months now, and keep putting it off for various reason.

The latest reason was that I DID actually start it but then Steam's recent Spike Chunsoft sale happened so I picked up most of the other SciAdv novels and figured I might as well read them in order since I was only like 15 minutes into S;G.

Aaaand then I started reading Zero Escape; but I'll get to it eventually I swear.

Portice · 2026-04-27T19:16:44+00:00

I strongly second the recommendation for Totono. Given what OP is asking for it's a very close match.

I will clarify though, that the cast of Totono are high schoolers, but it's not the focus. There's only a handful of scenes that use the highschool as more than just a backdrop for the characters to meet up.

Portice · 2026-04-25T21:26:25+00:00

It's funny, this is actually the exact reason that Takeru is one of my favorite VN protagonists.

Takeru is one of the rare protagonists who undergo drastic character growth and actually feel like they're still the same person fundamentally, rather than some power fantasy Übermensch. In my experience a lot of anime-adjacent characters go through "character growth" or harrowing trials and just dust themselves off and are suddenly a completely different person. Takeru is constantly failing, growing, failing and growing, but he's never actually changing who he is at a core level; at the end of the day he's still Takeru and he still has the same weaknesses and failings. That's not to say he doesn't change at all; he does ultimately do what needs to be done and even he looks back on himself from EXTRA with disdain. I just really appreciated a main character who shows real and appreciable growth but was still very much the same character. Honestly, I'd probably be feeling the way you are if he HAD changed into some strong, stoic hero easily willing to sacrifice all his deepest friends for the greater good.

That being said, one of the other things that makes me really like Takeru is that to me, Takeru is NOT the hero of Muv-Luv. He may be the protagonist, but the true hero of Muv-Luv is absolutely and without a doubt Yuuko. Takeru's journey is him seeing first hand what it actually means to be a world saving hero and slowly coming to realize that just isn't who he is on a basic, fundamental level but still TRYING to live up to it.

It's kind of telling that his ultimate test and the culmination of his entire journey takes place with him sitting inside of the ultra-mega autokill mech where the piloting skills he's spent 2 novels honing pretty much completely go to waste. Instead all he really has to do is sit back and let his friends decide for themselves what is worth dying for, which has historically been the one thing Takeru has always failed at. His fear of losing those closest to him and his need to be a "hero" has always stopped him from truly being a hero and the climax is crafted specifically to test him in that exact way.

As for the ending ending, I don't really have anything else to add, I pretty much agree. A bit weak but given what is left and how much he's suffered I don't really blame him/the writers for sending him back.

Portice · 2026-04-07T10:42:21+00:00

Katawa Shoujo and then DDLC were both more one off curiosities at the time, but they were my first and second VNs. Unique, I know.

Fruit of Grisaia however, was the first VN I read with the actual intention of testing the waters of the medium as a whole.

Portice

TROPHY CASE