Otome Game Review – Saikin Koishiteru?

Alternative Names: 戀上細菌, サイキン恋してる?

Company:D3 Publisher

Release Date: 30.07.09

Official Site: http://www.d3p.co.jp/saikin/

Platform: DS

Genre: Otome, romance, comedy, school life, saikin XD

Plot Summary: 17 year old Heroine (no default name but I named her Gundam) transfers to  Seiran Gakuen (think that’s the name), falls into this 10 ft deep pool that’s just sitting right at the entrance, and meets some…mitochrondria? Turns out everyone she meets has them but only she can see them, and she names them saikin and uses them to manipulate other peoples feelings (with…good intentions).

Aiba Souhei

Always with a smile on his face, Aiba’s like a red haired football crazed version of Kazehaya from Kimi ni Todoke, minus the constant blushing and weird laugh.  He kicks a football at the heroine and it causes her to fall into the pool, thus triggering her encounter with the saikin (lol mitochondria).

Much like Kazehaya to Sawako, Aiba’s real nice to the heroine and thinks she’s cute, and finds it easy to talk to her seeing as she’s not one of his buhmillion crazy screaming fangirls.  Which makes her the perfect excuse for getting away from said rabid biatches.  It seems as though nothing really bothers him but she finds out that he’s terrified of heights after seeing him try to slide across the school corridors without having to look out of the windows and down.  He tells her it’s because he rolled off Mt. Fuji as a kid, but Shindou laughs and says that the ‘Mt. Fuji’ was actually a pitiful hill and he only fell a couple of feet down.

Unsure of which club to join, the heroine helps out with the football team and ends up so exhausted that Aiba decides to piggyback her home >w<  It seems as though Aiba likes her before she does ’cause he comments with disappointment while signing autographs for his fangirls, that it seems as though she’s not the least bit interested in him and forces a special autograph onto her, saying ‘Number one closest Aiba”.  He confesses and asks her out later on and the heroine agrees, and on the school trip, he tells her he’ll be waiting at the lake at night but she ends up falling asleep and standing him up lol.  Turns out he waited the whole night for her and she apologizes back at school but he tells her it’s alright and blablabla he announces to everyone that they’re dating after he wins a football match.  Cute but pretty boring.

Shindou Takumi

Aiba’s best friend who saves you.  Manly and rude, he’s the one who fishes the heroine out of the pool by diving into the pool out of a 2nd floor window or something.  Completely tsun most of the time, he’s actually a good guy and his dere moments are completely win XD

I love that the heroine asks him whether he’s wearing any underpants or not after he saves her ’cause he got wet lol.  Most of the time, he’s a prick and calls her fat but he tries to be nice and even teaches her how to swim (well it’s more like dunking her head into water and screaming at her).

Eventually, she pops over to his place – his little brother is adorable.  Turns out Shindou can cook and after faffing around with his head by using her gay friend’s saikin (neesan lol), the little brother hugs the heroine and she falls asleep.  Shindou carries her over to the couch or summin, and she overhears him asking his little brother what her boobz felt like.  Another hilarious moment was when the heroine took some meds or summin that made her fall in love with the first person she saw and it being Shindou, she pushes him to the ground and molests him and he’s all”SUMBADDY SAVE ME PREASH!!!”

“た、助けてくれーーーーーー！！誰かーーーーー！！” Aaw Shindou.

On the trip to Kyoto,　he plans to confess to the heroine but fails, and pissy, Shindou throws another fit at the heroine’s gay friend (who conveniently is gay for Shindou) for being gay and he runs away crying, which prompts the heroine to berate Shindou for being a short fused intolerant homophobe, who in turns, snaps back and retorts that, that’s the way he is and she pisses him off every time he sees her so she should just bugger off and leave him alone.  They end up having a fight, with Shindou being more hostile than ever and the heroine desperately trying to make up with him.  After several failed attempts to do so, she falls again into the mitochondria pool (HOW?!) and she manages to paddle her way pitifully upwards to the surface thanks to Shindou’s previous ‘swimming lessons’, but in the end, she needs Shindou to save her and as a dutiful superman, he does so and they make up underwater lol.  She puts her down next to the pool and several students flock over to help but he tells them to get teachers.  Then, we have the best part, where he shouts to everyone that he’s going to ‘resuscitate her’ and snogs her, and she’s all “WTFIMCONSCIOUSALREADYWTYOUDOIN” –  Shindou, you sneaky bastard ;)

Kagami Rei

Kind of like a genius tennen version of Mihara Shiki from Tokimeki Girls Side 1, minus the whole narcissistic air and personality, he’s a nice guy artist who’s a year older than the heroine.

The heroine meets him when she walks into his art club and meets his saikin Kanamu, who is a hell lot more helpful than Shindou’s.  He immediately graces her with the name of “Kobuta chan” to which the heroine responds with indignation and confusion.  She becomes his model, they become friends, and he tutors her inside one of those jumping stack thingies you always see in anime XD  Soon, she finds out he’s on bad terms with his dad because his dad thinks art is a waste of time and she wants to help out with the relationship.  I honestly love how she blurts out everything she thinks of without the slightest trace of embarrassment, like in one instance how she suddenly feels like going over to Kagami’s and says exactly that to him and he’s all “…?!  no!” and then the convo goes like:

Heroine: 行きたい。

Kagami: ダメ。

Heroine: 行きたい。

Kagami: ダメ。

Heroine:行きたくない。

Kagami: ダメ。

Heroine: Alright then, I’ll be popping over to your place today! =D

Kagami: …*sigh*

She goes to his place and finds out that he’s actually filthy rich and lives in a mansion with maids and all, and before she leaves, she asks the maids to call her master for fun lol.  Poor Kagami.  He gets ready for the art exhibition but won’t show her what it’s about, and she calls his dad and tells him to get his ass over on the day.  On the day of the exhibition, her friends flock over to her and start squeeing about something and tell her to hurry up and see the exhibition.  She does and woah, the whole place is covered with drawings of her.  Kagami then says to the press, that the subject was the heroine, his beloved.  Happy end then.

Kazama Ruka

Heroine’s popular kouhai.  He’s in a band, plays guitar and sings well, has crazy fangirls and flirts a lot with the main heroine.  Laidback, casual and sociable.

He plays his guitar on the school rooftop, witnesses the heroine falling into the pool, and laughs about it to her.  He invites her to join the music club with him, and she checks it out, only much to her dismay, it’s more like a social gathering with Kazama as the pimp, and all his fangirls as his hoes.  She has to audition to join, and since she can’t sing for shit, she decides joining ain’t a good idea, but Kazama tells her she’s got potential and makes her stay.  He hits on her jokingly so often that she can’t tell whether he’s being serious or not, but they end up going out.  Kazama is so sweet, he blows up fireworks for her on the school roof >w<

However, Kazama is still his same own flakey self who can’t seem to take anything seriously much less their relationship, and the heroine questions what she is to him seeing as she can tell he’s keeping up an act yet he laughs it off and says nothing is up.  Nonetheless, she sets up flyers around the school with a fan of his, advertising the date of the concert, only to be shot down by him as he doesn’t feel like singing.  The heroine feels even more insecure when he picks another fan to be his singer and not her, but she lets it slide seeing as she sucks shit at singing.  However, she’s had enough when she walks in on the the chosen fan tending to Kazama’s wounds on his arm or something, and she knows nothing of it, and Kazama tells her it’s nothing but the heroine openly asks him whether or not she’s really his girlfriend, and runs away crying.

She immediately regrets it however and she meets with Kazama on the roof, and apologizes to him, but asks him why he won’t tell her anything.  D’aaw moment here when Kazama flips a little and rants on about how he wouldn’t ask her out if he didn’t really like her, how everything he does seems to be going wrong and it turns out he sustained the injuries from blowing up fireworks for the heroine and didn’t want to worry her so he didn’t tell her, and that he didn’t feel like having the concert because he was so busy thinking about her that he couldn’t sing properly.  At this point he’s baaawing like a baby and her heroine just says he could have just told her how he felt, but he says he would have cried like this and he always laughs everything off because he didn’t want to show her his bad sides XD  Well, they make up, she goes to the concert, and they kiss.  The end.

Saeki Yuusuke

Seriously, her teacher is awesome.  Japanese attire, glasses, AND an S.  Has a fanclub, is in the archery club and is extremely strict.

The heroine has to pick a club within a month or so, and whenever she has trouble doing so, she goes to Saeki for help, seeing as he’s her teacher.  Too bad for her Saeki’s does none of that.  He immediately bashes her for being stupid and useless, and tells her not to rely on the opinions of other people.  It’s her problem, therefore she should solve it her.  Despite all that, he generally does give her some advice which is hidden inside all that ‘you are useless’, and always asks whether she feels like crying after talking to him or not lol.  When no one is with her after the hiking trip, and her gay friend tells her that she’s like a child and is extremely naive, she feels like turd and Saeki strolls along and makes a loner comment about her.  That set her off and she begins bawling and well, Saeki’s there for her ;)

Even when they start going out, he’s a complete bully to her, ditching her in the woods when it’s completely dark out, still treating her like a stupid girl, and making her run 100 laps around the school for the archery club.

She makes a suggestion that a bf is supposed to treat his gf a lot nicer one day, and to her surprise, Saeki acts like an angel the next day, does none of that “泣きたい？”　shiz that he always pulls, and tell the heroine that it’s a perfectly reasonable reason to not go to archery practice when she tells him it’s because she wanted to sleep lol.

However, he gets a fever and faints, and she’s told that it’s due to too much stress and then he starts sleep talking about ‘wanting to bully and not wanting to be nice’.  Turns out his previous gf broke up with him cuz of his sadistic ways, and he doesn’t want the same thing to happen with the heroine so he’s been forcing himself to be nice.  God he’s so cute.  Touched, the heroine hugs him and says that she doesn’t give that he’s an S and wants him to bully her lol.  They kiss the day before the summer holidays, and happy ending.

Afterthoughts and Conclusion

Honestly, I didn’t touch this game for ages due to the fact that I thought the art was hideous and the entire premise stupid.  Now, I still think the art is pretty meh but the stupid part of the premise, has been raised to completely silly.  Which is why I loved this game despite it’s several shortcomings.   The heroine was absolutely hilarious and was a good balance between normal teenage girl, and straightforward good humored idiot – she wasn’t afraid to abuse her classmates and mindfuck them with her saikin and then laugh it off with comments like “Oh I am such a sinful woman x)”.  It’s also good to see her get some closure with the saikin as they disappear after she happy ends with a guy, showing that she’s ‘grown up’ and doesn’t need them anymore.  Shindou gets the prize for being my overall fave chaseable dude with his failing tough guy act and faint resemblance to Shinji from Persona 3, and Ruka for being the cutest ’cause he’s actually a little kid under that casual, whatever facade. But my favourite character turns out to be the heroine’s gay best friend.  God, just listening to him speak cracks me up, AND he can cook – the gay best friend I never had XD

Bad points are the art – I didn’t like the style, it looked weird – the fact that you couldn’t save anytime and had to wait for a chapter to end, that there was no scene replay option (which really is a shame, seeing as over half the scenes were bliddy hilarious and had high re-watch value), and the opening song was just dreadful.  The story was also a bit short for my liking but good that it didn’t drag on and on.  However, the characters, the sillyness of all the scenarios, and the saikin more than make up for it, thus creating a great game, and one I will certainly remember and laugh at for months to come.