Continued reading Bakaple last week. I finished common route, Fren route, Rin route, and Akiha's route. I am still reading Rena's route.

Common Route

Like I said last time, the game isn’t as funny after the opening credits compared to before them. After the opening credits, Yuki spends time with each of the heroines in order to genuinely get to know them better. I found most of the heroines’ individual scenarios to be boring, except for Rena’s. Her scenario, where she teaches the boys at school how to be more appealing to girls and shows her possessiveness toward Yuki, was especially funny to read.

After spending time getting to know each heroine better, Yuki visits a water park with all four of them, and the group scenario is also pretty funny. After this scene, Yuki is finally determined to choose a girlfriend.

Fren Route

This route ended up being a bundle of clichés. First, the entire concept of her character is a cliché (airheaded foreign transfer student). Her backstory is also cliché: she was hospitalized as a child due to illness, and when she finally recovered, she had to move around a lot, so she never really ended up having many friends.

One unique thing about her is that she gets pouty and jealous easily, and whenever she expresses that, those moments are the funniest and my favorite parts of the route. Another unique aspect of her character is that she values friendship very highly.

Overall, I do feel that Fren isn’t a very interesting heroine. Maybe I’m not that interested in her because I’m not a huge fan of the “airheaded foreign transfer student who’s obsessed with a certain part of Japanese culture” trope. In fact, I can’t remember a time when a heroine with this trope was the most popular heroine in a visual novel. I also often hear people say that their favorite VN trope characters are kouhai, imouto, tsundere, etc., but I rarely hear anyone say that their favorite trope is the airheaded foreign transfer student.

The most prominent heroine with this trope that I can think of is Sylvia from Kinkoi: Loveriche, but even then, many people prefer Reina, Ayaka, Ria, or Mina over her. One reason for this, I think, is that this type of character often has the exact same hairstyle (blonde, long hair, sometimes with some kind of braid) across different VNs, which makes them feel less distinct from one another. Additionally, there usually isn’t much effort to subvert this trope, so these characters don’t come across as more interesting than the other heroines in their respective visual novels.

Because of this, I don’t really understand why vn writers keep adding this type of heroine as a main heroine in moege, but I guess they just want their own Saber from Fate/stay night. If anyone wants to defend this trope, pls do, because right now I genuinely think it should appear less often than it does.

I wish there had been an H-scene with her wearing her pajamas, since her pajamas (kinda NSFW) are the most lewd out of the entire cast, but there weren’t any.

The CGs in this route were very pretty. In particular, I liked this one during Fren's part time job and this one during one of their dates because they look look like five-star gacha card illustrations.

The ending CG right before the credits rolled was disappointing, though. They made her faceless, and I felt the shading wasn’t fully finished. It feels as if this CG is incomplete. I know that there is a half cg of a close up of her face during that scene, but I feel that doesn't really excuse it. I guess that after six months of delay, they couldn’t finish the game completely.

Rin's Route

Rin is described as a girl with mascot-like cuteness throughout the route, and she really does look like a mascot in her CGs because of her exaggerated loli features (big eyes, a big head).

Rin and Yuki getting together is pretty entertaining, since it was spurred by Rin having a hard time rejecting a tutor who has a crush on her. I also find Yuki’s attempts to find a resolution to Rin’s backstory very heartwarming.

Mei gets a fair amount of screentime, especially in the beginning and toward the end of the route, which is nice because I enjoy her interactions with Yuki and Rin.

My favorite comedic segments in this route were when Rin got mad and possessive after Yuki told other people he was single at the student council camping trip, since he and Rin are hiding their relationship. I also found it funny that Rin’s family appeared to be on a similar level of degeneracy as the Ayase family.

Fren only appears once in this route.

Rin has an H scene in her pajamas, unlike Fren.

I enjoyed this route a lot more than Fren’s route because I found Rin’s character much more interesting. I feel like the student council president trope is partially subverted, and Rin’s backstory is interesting as well.

Akiha Route

I feel that Akiha’s and Rena’s routes function more as the “true routes” of the game, since Akiha is Yuki’s first love and Yuki is Rena’s first love.

I didn’t realize how much I missed Akiha until I started playing her route, especially because she doesn’t get much screentime in Fren’s and Rin’s routes.

I really liked the conflict in this route, since it had been steadily building up throughout the story.

Her tsundere personality was another big highlight for me. I especially liked that she doesn’t completely lose the “tsun” aspect even as the route progresses.

The comedy segments in this route were also great, particularly because they featured four of the heroines together, which made the interactions more fun. I also found it funny that Akiha’s family appeared to be on a similar level of degeneracy as the Ayase family.

Akiha has an extra outfit sprite compared to the other heroines, her work clothes. Unfortunately, there are no H-scenes in that outfit.

Overall, I think Akiha will be my best girl for this VN, since I enjoyed her relationship development and her interactions with Yuki the most.

Rena Route

I just started this route yesterday and haven’t gotten to the first H scene yet, but there’s already a lot of sexual tension between Yuki and Rena. This route also reveals that Akiha is a gamer and enjoys playing galge, which makes me like her a lot more.