The ultimate goofy, yet heartwarming slice of life action comedy visual novel.
(Note this is review is based on MajiTL's fan-translation and not JAST's official version.)
This visual novel is mostly a light-hearted slice of life comedy, but it also has a lot of well-done badass and funny action scenes and some emotional scenes. The setting takes place in a high school that promotes a healthy fighting spirit and encourages official fights between characters as a way of settling conflict. Most of the strong members of the school are female but there are a bunch of strong male characters as well.
Its concept may not be entirely unique. Hell, I'm sure the writer stole the "group of 8-10 friends hang out and do silly things" concept from Little Busters. However, I think the execution of just about everything was done so well that it didn't matter.
Comedy is the name of the game in this visual novel. That said, its humor style is quite a bit different from many other slice of life romances. Its tone is very over the top. Characters will have extremely exaggerated actions (for example one girl is incessantly in love and horny for the main character and will always make sexual comments around him to seduce him) but their quirks are just so ridiculous and weird that you can't help be entertained. This over the top comedy even extends to the action scenes, and it feels like each fight is just building up to some crazy power that solves everything, or a punchline to a joke related to the characters' personalities and interactions.
While the visual novel is mostly light-hearted, the routes still have a decent amount of drama and romantic development and you can actually take the characters somewhat seriously at times. There are some heartfelt moments related to the friendship of the main characters, there is some occasional melodrama related to some of the characters' pasts, and the true route actually has a kinda serious, darkish plot relative to the rest of the story.
There is quite a lot of content packed in this visual novel. There are 5 main heroine routes, and a true route which are standard for a visual novel. There's a few shorter routes for the side heroines. But more interestingly, there's also a few shorter "bromance" routes where it's just some nice scenes with the guys in the friend group. No romance. There are a lot of choices but they tend to just be for fun and do not factor if you get into a route. In addition, there are a lot of named and voiced recurring characters. Just the main cast has 9 characters, MC included. But then you have various students from the MC's class, his rival class, various parents, teachers, and other potential people outside school. Even the H-scenes themselves are some of the longest I've seen in an English translated visual novel. Each one on auto-read at a medium pace could take at least 20-30 minutes.
The presentation is also very well done. There are quite a lot of UI options in the main menu. Just about every named character has voice acting. While most of the voice actors are ones who stick to eroge you may recognize ones that tend to only be in anime like Shizuka Itou, Yuu Asakawa, Yuuko Gotou and even Norio Wakamoto. The music is decent enough, sets the tone for scenes while having a few that are catchy on their own.
On a more personal note, Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai is pretty easily my favorite single visual novel and nothing has really come close. It has so many things I like: great main character interactions, really unique funny comedy that isn't your typical harem/moege stuff, a surprising amount of heartfelt moments, action that's entertaining and doesn't overstay its welcome, actually having a big cast of characters and making them memorable and appear often, a main character that has actual personality and does cool/funny things, and having a fairly unique setting. This visual novel does have flaws (the way the drama is "solved" in one of the main routes is pretty dumb) but the positives outweigh the negatives by that much for me.
MajiKoi may sound like a weird visual novel upon reading this review, but it's worth trying for any fan of comedy and slice of life that doesn't mind something a little over the top and unique.
(Note this is review is based on MajiTL's fan-translation and not JAST's official version.)
This visual novel is mostly a light-hearted slice of life comedy, but it also has a lot of well-done badass and funny action scenes and some emotional scenes. The setting takes place in a high school that promotes a healthy fighting spirit and encourages official fights between characters as a way of settling conflict. Most of the strong members of the school are female but there are a bunch of strong male characters as well.
Its concept may not be entirely unique. Hell, I'm sure the writer stole the "group of 8-10 friends hang out and do silly things" concept from Little Busters. However, I think the execution of just about everything was done so well that it didn't matter.
Comedy is the name of the game in this visual novel. That said, its humor style is quite a bit different from many other slice of life romances. Its tone is very over the top. Characters will have extremely exaggerated actions (for example one girl is incessantly in love and horny for the main character and will always make sexual comments around him to seduce him) but their quirks are just so ridiculous and weird that you can't help be entertained. This over the top comedy even extends to the action scenes, and it feels like each fight is just building up to some crazy power that solves everything, or a punchline to a joke related to the characters' personalities and interactions.
While the visual novel is mostly light-hearted, the routes still have a decent amount of drama and romantic development and you can actually take the characters somewhat seriously at times. There are some heartfelt moments related to the friendship of the main characters, there is some occasional melodrama related to some of the characters' pasts, and the true route actually has a kinda serious, darkish plot relative to the rest of the story.
There is quite a lot of content packed in this visual novel. There are 5 main heroine routes, and a true route which are standard for a visual novel. There's a few shorter routes for the side heroines. But more interestingly, there's also a few shorter "bromance" routes where it's just some nice scenes with the guys in the friend group. No romance. There are a lot of choices but they tend to just be for fun and do not factor if you get into a route. In addition, there are a lot of named and voiced recurring characters. Just the main cast has 9 characters, MC included. But then you have various students from the MC's class, his rival class, various parents, teachers, and other potential people outside school. Even the H-scenes themselves are some of the longest I've seen in an English translated visual novel. Each one on auto-read at a medium pace could take at least 20-30 minutes.
The presentation is also very well done. There are quite a lot of UI options in the main menu. Just about every named character has voice acting. While most of the voice actors are ones who stick to eroge you may recognize ones that tend to only be in anime like Shizuka Itou, Yuu Asakawa, Yuuko Gotou and even Norio Wakamoto. The music is decent enough, sets the tone for scenes while having a few that are catchy on their own.
On a more personal note, Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai is pretty easily my favorite single visual novel and nothing has really come close. It has so many things I like: great main character interactions, really unique funny comedy that isn't your typical harem/moege stuff, a surprising amount of heartfelt moments, action that's entertaining and doesn't overstay its welcome, actually having a big cast of characters and making them memorable and appear often, a main character that has actual personality and does cool/funny things, and having a fairly unique setting. This visual novel does have flaws (the way the drama is "solved" in one of the main routes is pretty dumb) but the positives outweigh the negatives by that much for me.
MajiKoi may sound like a weird visual novel upon reading this review, but it's worth trying for any fan of comedy and slice of life that doesn't mind something a little over the top and unique.