i'm essentially repeating myself with my descriptions of this series but i don't see a lot of media that demonstrates such a willingness to engage honestly with any aspect of the queer experience as these games do, and this time it's a coming out narrative. where a commonly held wisdom and the most common way to portray a coming out is very certain, "i'm coming out of the closet, this is who i am," spring leaves no flowers gently, sweetly tells us that it might really be a surprise, a process, and a scary, confusing, unwelcome one at that.

i'm not aromantic or asexual, but I see a lot of my own multiple comings out in Minami's budding realizations, years later than maybe you'd expect them to come, in her insistence on explaining away or justifying the inconsistencies in her reality, in her anxious inability to just talk to her friends about it they'll be cool you know they will (another way that npckc has cleverly conveyed the anxiety of communication via really simple dialogue mechanics).

but as always these heavy topics are handled with such warmth and grace, even in tough moments and non-ideal endings. and something i haven't mentioned but think is key to how much i dig these is that i just really like these characters as people. i like hanging out with them and i'm excited to get another peek into what they've been up to and what's going on with them.

it's a lovely universe npckc has built here and i'm glad to have spent the time with them