snip (kitsune comments focus)
As a at first neutral party that originally got coc2 in large part due to being tempted by "devoted kitsune wife/family sim" on the tin, and also accepted the "it's a different culture you wouldn't understand" defense longer than I should have, I'll try giving a breakdown of why it, being generous, has issues, story and #itsjustasmutgamebro wise.
The prologue is fine, great even. Kiyokos surprisingly stable for someone that's been completely isolated for enough years to originally go from being a teen to elderly, for a kitsune(!) at least and then has someone knock on her door, but we'll ignore that. You're introduced to their culture, begin as food with benefits and wind up spending enough time a relationship happens. Plenty of non smut relationship building fluff scenes, you love to see it. Before or during this you have your first kid, kinu.
Here we're introduced to the first issue, kiyoko is an abusive, overly strict parent. During the time you see, she pushes kinu to do exactly what she wants her to, only accepts perfection but then she lies to her telling her she failed when she didn't, pushes her into a coma(!) is angry whenever she's asked for help, and leaves a majority of the work handling the other kids to kinu.
During the time you don't see, in tobs novella, after kinu finishes making food for the family, kiyoko comes home for a hour, finds out she wasn't perfectly stealthy in a neighboring town, so slaps her in the face and lectures her. She also has zero interest in what kinu wants and is bluntly mentioned as perfectly willing to separate her from whoever she loves so she can get with someone *suitable*. There's not a character arc with development where she realizes she's been horrible besides one apology scene that happens some time before she slaps her. This does not lead to character development or a turn on.
In the course of this we're chucked a "what a twist" that upon freeing them, there was a time skip of several years for them. Was it because keros wanted to be quirky and require a cost or forced for plot, it is a mystery. The observer forces in with this a forced time limitation that regardless of whether you had one kid or 500 with Kiyoko, whether you visited every single night or not, that you weren't there often to begin with and then weren't there for several years, leading to either form of kinu having parental issues. Basically youre written as getting the amulet then Speedrunning to the den. Also kinu is now getting married to a decent enough farmer or a impotent idiot who writes poetry while his fiancee is almost r'ed and killed multiple times, and again I quote kiyoko "your opinion/input doesn't matter".
Getting to the den we have further issues. Why can't we communicate with any kitsune before the den? "Hello kurako/kitsune 54, before we bang, lady evergreen has had one of her enchanted items stolen by a kitsune, I would like to talk with your leader on your own terms to peacefully negotiate it's return please. Also I have this orb another kitsune group that I saved said I should seek her aid about, it has someone in it called kiyoko or something?"
After you are forced to non lethally doom slayer the entirety of the den so komari can say "oh yeah whatever here's the bag they were kinda dumb tbh", you gain general access to it. Takahiro greets you with "you fookin wat m8 I'll fookin bash yer ead in I don't have a problem I can't stop when I want" x6, and you also greet nakano, who talks about how dumb you are, then goes back to his paperwork, poetry and needing your assistance while you reminisce one shotting him.
In the den we have kohaku who people thought was cute until she had zero character development or relationship, miko and mai who you can get pregnant and never see the kid or get a relationship, can watch them bang takahiro though, kazuo who's been abandoned for years but you get nuked if you try to write anything for, yuzu and azami you can watch bang takahiro, rindo who you can be a sugar daddy for until someone better comes along like nakano (pfft), komari who stares off into the void mimicking the "why am I still here" meme during random chess games that tobs had art made of being young but that was just a prank bro, kinus farmer husband that's only there during her scenes or in the novella, and the new update kitsune I have no hope for. Also keros but apparently he doesn't care if his people are being attacked by another god so who gives af.
Back to kiyoko n kinu though, or rather just kinu, she's had the only content. She's had 2 gweyr-interlude type scenes now where she talks about having a cult with shadowy monsters attacking and burning down your home, and their leader threatening to gouge out her i's and r her while the PC does a "oh, honey..." And pats her head. Kiyoko and mai and miko intervene at the very end of the first. That's it. After that, she (royalty who has been attacked prior) has to go cross continent, and she gets farmer mercs and a merchant as escort. Nakano, glory seeker samurai who is her fiancee, nowhere. All the wandering kitsune, nowhere. Miko, mai, komari, nowhere. Keros, nowhere. Mallach helps her out after she barely gets out via a teleporter. The PC goes "oh honey..." Again while kinu talks about how strong and independent she is and how she'll have her training arc by the next encounter.
Honestly, even if all the kitsune were friendly and welcomed you, all that's enough of a problem. When they all call you outsider and barbarian but are incompetent, when kiyoko says your opinion doesn't matter but is a awful and abusive mother and partner, when neither of kinus fiancees ever do anything to help her besides in the novella, when kinu is being written as a solo power fantasy dev insert while the PC and kiyoko get nothing and the PC is forced to not put their foot down and go lu bu on some dumb fencer fox that's being written to have a redemption arc, when half the smut is watching takahiro bang someone including side love interests while you fap in the corner, AND on top of all that and giving them priceless artifacts, saving their royalty, becoming partner(?) Glorified ho(?) Of said royalty, their god thinking you're cool enough to be buds with, they still do the barbarian/ outsider crap? No sorry, Japanese people and culture are far better than this and stereotypical portrayals of those far in the past would value honor, aid and loyalty with no betrayals, outsiderTM or no far more than this.
