VN - Others - Completed - Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! [Minato Soft]

I recently decided to revisit Majikoi and its sequels, having read them a little over a decade ago. The first entry proved itself as dumb and fun as I remembered it being.

For the most part, all the heroines are very likeable and each go through pretty well done (but still simple) character development. I personally find Miyako to be a grating character, even after her development, but even she's pretty interesting. Chris was also fairly annoying, but she really grew on me during Miyako's route. Wanko is one of the cutest girls in any VN while also not being excessively so. Momoyo is memorable for being both absurdly powerful and a womanizer due to every mans' inability to match her. Yukie, my favorite, is a unique and awkward weirdo which makes her endearing. The characters are really the greatest strength the VN has.

As far as protags go, Yamato is unique enough to be passable. I'd say he's a great protag, but he suffers from the usual failing of the "genius" character type. Characters like him are hard to write adequately since the writer has to be clever enough to convince you he's genuinely as smart as they keep telling you he is. For the most part, it's enough to keep up the suspension of disbelief, but when it drops the ball, it drops it HARD.

Narratively, Majikoi is pretty weak. For the most part, it's just a sequence of funny slice-of-life segments. There is some character development dispersed through each route, but there's a lack of any grand narrative... well, aside from...

The Agave route, a giant flaming train wreck. This route is hidden behind the completion of every main heroine's route. All prior routes devote small segments purely towards foreshadowing this route. Villains will pop in, do a little dance, show off their cool new entertainment complex (that is other wise irrelevant outside of the Agave route), and then run away leaving you with some vague 4th wall breaking statement that you'll see them in another route. The payoff for all this heavy handed foreshadowing is an awful story with a twist that insults your intelligence and characters that act just brain dead enough to push the narrative forward.

The first real obvious red flag for a bad narrative is probably when Despite being characterized as a cautious strategist, he takes zero precaution, splits up the entire group, and relies solely on Momoyo's muscle. There are enough unknowns here to warrant extreme caution, but he just rushes into the danger.

Red flag 2 would be The writers clearly were at a loss with how powerful they made Momoyo. The way they fixed this made everyone involved so frustratingly stupid.
The entire time, the mastermind of the route is a poorly kept secret. From the very beginning who it is is painfully obvious. They practically announce they're the culprit whenever they're on screen. At the last minute, the story tries to throw out a red herring in the form of a character that can't possibly be the culprit before it then reveals that yes, it was who I thought it was from the very beginning. Their reasons for being the antagonist are stupid. Their plan is incredibly poorly thought out and has no real viable followup.
At the very end of it all, the villain has the gall to do a "you're just as bad as me" move. Hmm, yes very evil and comparible to running an illegal prescription drug ring, funding and organizing an anarchic coup.

Really, Majikoi is a fun, dumb time. It is very much the kind of slop writing that is best enjoyed with an emptied mind. Though, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you skipped the Agave route.

Majikoi is such a fun VN to play it has a good cast of characters with a range of personalities and an interesting MC who isn't a wimp or complete creep like seen in a bunch of other VN's.

VN has plenty of lewd scenes you can get to and each route has a decent length, the game itself is mostly comedy based with some serious parts in but is mostly lighthearted overall.

Only slight downside is the game is fairly old so some character models can look a tad outdated but the writing is great and this is definitely worth a try.

Only spoilers for the agave route, which is not worth the bytes it takes up on my hard-drive
I've read every route completely, with the exception of Mayo (which seemed genuinely wholesome, but not for me) and Gakuto (which I just don't care about the guy at all..)
I've read this before, a while ago, with the old fan-translation, so this was mostly a re-read with the JAST version for nostalgia and for closure on the Wanko and Agave routes which I have not read on my previous session.
Overall as a mini-review I'm glad I've re-read all of it because the quality of the Wanko route exceeds the dogshit that is the Agave route, even if I had high expectations for the later and no expectations for the former ( what a twist ) and I would give this game a solid 9/10.

Positives first:
- every main girl's route is really good, Miyako's is the least good out of them and I still found it a very wholesome read
- it feels bittersweet to have only read the Wanko route now, so many years later. It's a really good and dramatic sports story that has a very unexpected yet sweet finale to counteract these kinds of stories normal cliche endings
- this maybe just my personal taste but I really like Chris as a character and even though I've seen complaints about her route and I still think it's considered one of if not the worst route in the game, I completely disagree
- every route has foreshadowing and hints of the conflicts and events of every other route, naturally built into them. It's just overall a very well built and thought out (with a few exceptions..) VN.
- Umeko's route is sexy as fuck
- I find it amazing how they managed to make almost every character interesting when there's so many of them. Everyone has their purpose and/or shtick in every route and nobody is just plainly generic
- most of the porn is quite good and the VA's are lovely with one exception that is not part of the routes discussed in this section

main routes: Momoyo=Chris(fight me, I will die on this hill)=Wanko=10 > Yukie=9.5 > Miyako=9
sub routes: Umeko sensei <3 = 100/10 > Chika = 8 > capt = 7.5 > moro = 7

Mids:
- I haven't read Gakuto or Mayo's routes, so mileage may vary, but for what it's worth, I'm sure Mayo's route is wholesome, but it's just not my thing and Gakuto could honestly go either way.
- you're gonna go in with the expectations that this is a VN and that absolute steaming dogshit is considered top-tier in this medium (see Muv-luv Alternative, Kara no Shoujo etc). This is mostly a comedy even though I don't think you would read it just for that, but the actual comedic parts can be hit or miss depending on your style of humor. For what it's worth I had a grin on my face almost the entire time reading and quite a few times found myself laughing out loud
- Umeko Is not a major character
- the game can feel very low budget and sometimes rushed and is a far cry from the quality of its sequel (not very fair, but felt like this had to be said), though the CG itself is very good when it rarely appears.
- the official translation seems like the superior localization of the story after having read it fully and a good chunk of the unofficial one, but even with my extremely limited knowledge of Japanese, I have noticed lines that are completely wrong in the JAST version. Paired with the translation being littered with grammatical errors, misspellings, wrong names, missing words from sentences and other effects of low quality proof-reading, you may want to consider doing some research before choosing which of the translations to go with. Tho, the JAST version is uncensored, for what it's worth.

cons
- there's only one major con and that's the agave route (SPOILERS.. even if it's objectively not worth reading)
- the whole "don't do drugs kids™" vibe in the beginning is so in your face and out of place after reading the other stories. This would be fine if the story and dialogue in this route were written well, but they're not..
- with the exception of the hook of Gakuto getting actually brutally beaten in stark contrast with the tone of the other routes, every single other solitary aspect of Agave was rushed, cheap and badly written
- there's a major twist at the ending of Agave that is "foreshadowed" in the route selection sections, except the foreshadowing is bait, as it's spoken from an un-named character's perspective and It's the exact situation that was explored in the common and on Miyako's routes. This leads you to believe that it would be another Miyako related story and with the teasing of this being one character or another's "harem route" you could get the impression it's something along the lines of her plan of having Yamato by sharing him with the other heroines. But no, it turns out the un-named character was actually randomly just another girl that was in the EXACT same situation during the EXACT same time as Miyako, namely Koyuki. Because of a retarded contrivance, she was not allowed to join the Kazama family because of Capt's absence, even though she spoke out and even though there was no way that Capt would have refused her joining would it have been up to him, thus breaking her soul and mind and leading to the admittedly effective "plot-twist" in the ending of this route. This whole thing is explored for an entire 5 dialogue lines between her and Miyako on one or two other routes (I don't remember which ones) and this exploration is nowhere near the level of foreshadowing and could be interpreted in a million other ways from them both being just kind of strange, or fourth wall breaking on the fact that they were the respective love interests of the genius of their respective groups, or that their voice is similar or any number of other assumptions that could not be attributed in any way to any kind of plot point. Basically, if you saw this coming, you are a liar.
- on the topic of Agave being a "who done it" with no way of pre-empting the answer, the villain of the story and secret asshole is no other that Aoi Touma. Even though he plays major roles in all other main routes, the first time you can kind of start assuming he's somehow involved is when he appears as his alter ego in the Agave route itself, but supposedly, this was his ambition and motivation this entire time, even if it's not reflected in any way in any of the other routes and not even in the short description of his future in any of the after stories. Add on top of this that his villain motivation is beyond stupid, his follower's motivations are asinine, his plan is basically non-existent and just the over-all quality of the writing of the explanations and dialogue for this section of the route, it's just laughably bad considering the seriousness with which the story in this route is being told. If this was all played as a joke and Aoi was cartoonishly evil, that would have been fine, but it's not, it's played completely straight
- all the harem talk is revolved around two threesomes that happen during this route. One is with the kidnapper girls (Angel and Tatsuko) and the other is within the Kazama family (namely Miyako and Momoyo). The former is verging on it being romantic, but it's rushed and there's practically no build-up. For Tatsuko it's basically explained as love at first sight while with Angel there is some friendship progression but none romantic or sexual in any way. As for the later, that just comes out of nowhere with 0 buildup or premeditation and for an absolutely stupid reason. In the case of Momoyo's it just tramples on her personality and her motivation for loving Yamato that is explained during her route as well. Overall they both felt out of place for the tone of Agave and served no purpose in the end.
- there's neither romance or comedy in this rom-com's route. I mean you could technically be laughing at all the cringe I guess..
- Tatsuko is built-up to a decent degree during the common route but gets one punched by Momoyo. She's also the culprit of the above mentioned questionable voice acting, but only during the sex scenes
- Shakadou is built up DURING EVERY SINGLE MAIN ROUTE, and then gets one punched by Lu who is a nobody character with no screen time
- the Momoyo losing her power bit was so fucking retarded and every character involved was so fucking stupid that I almost stopped reading it when it happened and genuinely hoped that most of the characters involved would just fucking die even though non of them were villains.
- the "parting" ending is rushed and again just comes out of nowhere. The excuse that it's not Forever™, but rather just for another 40-70 years to make their dreams come true until the agave blossoms again, just clashes and destroys the over-all fantasy of being friends and staying together, that the game has been parroting up to this point and in every single other ending.
- in fact the entire route feels rushed to all hell and reeks of a "we ran out of budget/time" situation. If that's the case I feel bad but this just isn't worth reading, genuine 1.5/10 score
- Umeko's route is too short
- there's no harem ending and that just feels to me like a wasted opportunity when it also felt like it was potentially building up to it, it wouldn't exactly completely work with the tone, but neither does what we got as a final ending that requires passing all of the other ones first. Hell, I would have taken anything over what become of the Agave route, but a harem would have fit my personal preference, so this is just a subjective con.

I understand that this mostly became a rant of the Agave Route™ and not much of a review for the rest, but for what it is and for the joy that it's brought me reading it, Majikoi would otherwise be an almost perfect game and it's also relevant because it's also the only thing forcing me to drop the score from 10 to 9.

Majikoi is a hybrid slice of life and shounen visual novel. It's about a group of 7 friends who then add two new people to their group. Every character has a distinctive but extremely one dimensional personality. The voice acting in this game is absolutely stellar and so is the English translation. At first, I thought the fighting in this VN would be, you know, regular fighting. But it isn't. All the main women love interests are all much stronger than the boys/MC. It isn't that they have fighting abilities, they straight up have super powers. It would've been nice if the game had a super power type of background so it almost feels out of place with how over the top it is. It's also one of the rare Japanese VN's where one of the love interests is already madly in love with the MC. In my opinion, she should be front and center since she seems like an easy choice to be with. It's kind of sad that in any ending not involving her, she is still madly in love with the MC. Some of the routes are cool and fun to read while some of the other routes are just flat out lame. I do appreciate that all the men have non-H routes which is cool. Sex scenes, for the most part, are your standard fare of vanilla. However, this game listing is missing the rape tag which definitely feels out of place in this slice of life/vanilla VN. It's kind of lame because I expected some super kinky sex with one of the LI's based off her personality but most of her sex scenes are as vanilla as everyone else's.

I came for the "plot" but stayed for the plot.

This visual novel told a great story and had funny and unique characters that made me care about them. Before you can even start trying to date one of the girls, you need to go through the prologue which gives you a great understanding of all your friend's personalities . By the time I finished the prologue and started the route with the girl I picked, I was so invested in the story and the characters that I found myself not caring about any of the sex scenes because I wanted to see how the characters and their bonds would develop.

The characters are well voiced, so you can better connect with all of them and hear their personalities. A lot of the time the characters are silly and over the top, but that adds to what the story is about, a close knit group of oddball friends having fun together.

Majikoi is currently the gold standard any romance comedy could only hope to emulate and it's not really hard to see why once you get into the game.

After a (fairly long) common route, you then get into a really simple route-picker, and off you go your merry way. Some routes have more or less sex than others, with some having none until the epilogue even., as well as more or less character participations than others. They all have wildly different plots, which keeps every route fresh, and the characters are different enough from eachother that the routes don't feel boring. It's hard to call anyone in majikoi part of the "supporting cast" because even the men have non-sexual routes and majikoi is really good at setting the feeling of a group of friends hanging out where no one is left out (other than when it's purposefully brought in for drama in some routes). The MC having a clear, defined personality helps wrap up the setting so it doesn't feel like a cheap self-insert or like you're there just taking decisions that'll lead you to sex, making the Novel actually, for once, feel like a Novel.

All in all Majikoi has made me laugh or feel sad about the characters more than it made me nut and I really wouldn't have it any other way. Speaking of it, the sex scenes tend to be fairly spaced out but they all kind of follow the same formula, so after the first route they do become a bit boring.

I cannot recommend enough how much you should really play this.

This is an amazing game, on of my favorites! The characters, while they fall into the trope-ish style, are all very real and likeable. They have their flaws but learn from mistakes along the story. They MC is also really likeable as well. The humor is balnced to not overshadow the story but is always present. The art is amazing as well, you can get a different amount of pictures based on which route you take, although there is a single route you have to play through for a while before you get that choice. But personally I still found it enjoyable as it really set up all of the characters as real friends and gave them a good amount of depth.

Some years ago I tried this out, despite it having almost nothing that appeals to me. I mean:

- It's hard for me to get into VNs that lack serious gameplay
- I don't really like slice of life stuff, usually need something bigger picture
- I find the school setting to be pretty boring and played out, especially when it's more than just a prologue
- The character and art design looked like something I could pass by a thousand times and not even blink at

But, as you might have noticed, I'm rating this 5 stars. That's just how good it is at what it does.

It's really all about the characters and the amazing dynamic in place between them all. It's so incredibly well written that you become invested before the story even gets off the ground. Every exchange between the characters is enjoyable, from the more mundane moments to the dramatic and heart-wrenching ones.

Even the little random blurbs you get every time you quit the game make you wish for more. It might be the only game I've ever played with an "are you sure you want to quit?" gimmick that actually made me reconsider my decision.

I know a lot of the audience here isn't into this sort of game, but, well... I wasn't either, right? It's more than worth a try. In fact, I really wish more aspiring adult game devs would play this and take notes - even if they only managed to capture a tiny fraction of the magic here, it would go a long way to making the average ren'py or rpgm game more playable.

This VN has amazing writing which explains it place in many people heart's as one of the "clasics" and for good reason. The sex scenes of course are there but the main cast and supporting characters as well as their routes with much appreciated character development differentiates this game from the rest. It has moments where you can barely contain the emotion and others where its imposible to not tear up, Wanko's route for god's sake. Rather few VN's or even games of other sorts managed to evoke such emotions for me.

One of the best, if not the best light-hearted VN out there, but it can rather tough to get into if you don't enjoy a lot of character development and a lengthy plot in place of lots of sex. The h-scenes can take hours of reading to unlock, plus they're rather vanilla and not particularly impressive compared to some of the crazy or kinky stuff you can find in other hentai, but I would say they're worth the wait if you enjoy getting invested in the story.

Everyone, even the minor characters, has a lot going for them. I found every ending so far to be bittersweet because the writers make it very easy to get attached to the Kazama family - you end up not wanting the story to end even after dozens of hours. The soundtrack and occasional special effect adds even more atmosphere.

There are a few sad moments, some dramatic and a good amount of funny, but what I enjoy the most about Majikoi - throughout the entire VN there's an overarching sense of friendship, innocence, hope and eventual happiness. There aren't any super hardcore fetishes or overtly dark plot points, just a coming of age tale about a very memorable group of people.

This right here is one the funniest visual novels i have actually read, i dont remember any other VN that made me laught and smile as often as Love Me did. The story itself is light and leans more on the comical side of things instead of anyhing serious. The artstyle is real solid and is done by the book. The sex scenes are also equally comical as the rest of the game. This game does have some quility waifus to choose from.

One of the best VNs out there. I remember that all characters in this game is voiced. Almost all routes are good. Only Kazuko (Wanko) is a bit weak to tell the truth. Comedy is strong on this game and there is a lot of funny moments.

Maybe you can find Yamato's secret with Ryuhei Itagaki.

My stars speak for me! This game is just Great! Voiced, well designed, multiples endings and routes. Just the shit you want to have at your quarantine! I'm finishing all the routes, and without a doubt, I'm going to continue the game! (A-2)

One of my favorite visual novels. Lots of likeable characters, great artwork, and actually pretty funny. The biggest shortcoming is honestly just technical aspects. It's over a decade old by this point, so it's lower resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio sucks, but it still looks good for what it is.

My favorite visual novel of all time, everything about it is high quality, a really cool mc, an amazing cast of female and male character, great writing, voice acting, entertaining story, outstanding music, great sex scene, really good romances, and a tons more to praise.

Not everyone would love it like me, it nails tons of fetish, story beats, personality and more that i'm really into, but i would still recommand for anyone into fairly lenghty visual novel to give it a chance, my absolute highest recommendation, masterpiece !

One of the best visual novels i have played up till now and it hits a home run in most areas.
Voice Acting - Amazing
Story - Amazing, funny, serious at times, a perfect balance like all things should be
References - Nice
Every character is different from each other and the MC has one of the best natures.

Where most VNs have some kind of fantastical setting and unbelievable scenarios, the Majikoi series has always had settings and situations that are usually more grounded in reality. Yeah, having women who can throw a Kamehameha is pretty unrealistic, but besides that the situations and setting are very much relatable. Besides, that the VN and it's series has a degree of comedy that even anyone who isn't super familiar with Japanese-specific comedy can get a laugh out of. Not to mention that art style, and how the character development and romance aren't forced or have some ridiculous method of making the heroine love the protagonist, and especially in this version that's symbolized with how many times you need to interact with all the girls before you can even proceed with their main story line.

9.5/10- Not my favorite Majikoi game, but has elements that would've been excellent to see in it's other installments, but I love the series nonetheless.

Good game, interesting world and characters.
I had a good time playing this, it's hilarious, but the story could have been better.
The voice actors are so cool, it's a good change from what I'm used to, the mc doesn't have one and it's a little disappointing sometimes.
About the sex scenes, the art is good and the girls, their voices, it adds a certain spice.
It's just a shame that you only get there in the end of the route, don't get me wrong, I really like when the story builds up slowly, but I think we should get rewards along the way, some making out, atleast something.
I'm gonna play the side routes later, but it was fun!

I simply love this novel. From the writing to the characters I can't fault it. It's more of a comedy than anything else but it's done well and not too corny.

There are 5 main heroine paths with 3 alternate and 3 friend. 4 of the main paths have an after story which is more about the sex of the relationship but has some hot scenes, especially Momoyo's.

Some endings are better than others. None of them are terrible, they all tie up nicely but some have a flash forward to how things turn out 10 years later. There are also some paths that are more romantic than others. There is one main heroine path I don't really "feel" the romance on, it seems forced and merely for the sake of it but the others more than make up for it.

All the paths have different stories which make replaying it a lot more fun. You go through the prologue once and then can skip it for future plays that start at the first screen you make your choice of which path to take.

It's the only game i've played where I felt complete ending the game without a romance but with the love of 2 hermit crabs.

Yuri is usually more my thing but the quality here makes it a must read and I can highly recommend it.

There is plenty of good humour, excellent characters, romance and sex.

Very good, I am certain this game makes it to most people's top 5. It has lots of action, humor and cute samurai girls.

+ good humor, the series is very optimistic most of the time, that includes spades of humor.
+ great supporting cast, maybe the biggest strength in this series are the side characters, they help create a complex world and pace the story when needed.
+ good art, as expected.
+ good game design, good pacing in the main stories and the addition of secondary heroines is great for a break between main routes. Also the last story does an excellent job at highlighting everything that is great about the game.

- late game sex content, the thing I could think that could be bad. It takes several hours to get to the goodies, but both the journey and destination are worth it.