I honestly didn't know where the plot was going for the first 3 hours of this game. Sometimes, the game's plot simmers in a nice hotpot of cute and fun moments. Then, suddenly, it decides to slingshot you back into the main plot OR it takes a long ass break to tell you the entire backstory of a character that has been only mentioned in name for over 2 chapters.
9 love interests is way too much, in my opinion. The entirety of the "prologue", which is over 7 episodes, focuses primarily on 3 girls. There's Aine - your bully, Gwen - this delinquent girl you hung out with, and Emma - your childhood friend. The 6 other girls aren't really main girls, in my eyes. Hell, your "sister", Sky, doesn't get any scenes for over 7-8 episodes. I was going insane at how little content she even had. Freya is just the token playful loli character. Klara is just your mom - and it's like she's mostly on business ventures half the time, so she's barely characterized other than being the sole active connection to the dev's other game, Sicae. Moon has potential as an interesting character, but it's rarely capitalized upon. Naomi is just your damn repairwoman, so she doesn't even make sense in context of the plot. Finally, Lily is literally just there. They introduce her so damn early, but she is barely ever involved with the plot besides being your coworker.
By the time you catch up to current updates, there will only be a substantial amount of sex scenes for like 2-3 girls. There are like 10 episodes total. 7 for the prologue, and 3 for chapter 1. Total time reading through everything (light skimming here and there for me) will be like probably 9-10 hours.
Everything I love about the game: Renders are good, MC doesn't look awful, girls look really cute, animations are great, sound effects are there, music can be extremely corny sometimes.
The story can be super dull or annoying at some points. I started out really liking it. Now, I only half-like it. The mafia family plot stuff is pretty good, but it takes a back seat so often to what's the equivalent to a shitload of filler. MC sounds and acts like a real moron sometimes. The appeal is there for an anime MC, since the dev is adamant on how anime-like the story wants to be. But I just found some things he does so illogical and scummy.
I really question why the dev didn't just focus on literally the three main girls of the game (at least judging by how much content/screentime is dedicated to them???): Aine, Gwen, Emma. It's super confusing at times, because Aine gets her backstory passed by word of mouth early on, but no real flashback episode, like what the dev does with all the other girls. The game is literally called "My Bully Is My Lover".
That being said, I do think Aine, Gwen, and Emma are the peak of this game's story. Especially Emma's story with the MC - to the point that you can even have an ending with her alone. When any of those three are on screen, this game feels a little bit more bearable. Other than that, you have 6 pretty bland or dull characters that don't have enough characterization to validate feeling much during their more emotional moments.
Overall it's a solid 3. As much as I complained in this review, I love a lot of parts in the game. It's just the game is so spread thin when it comes to characterization and plot significance. You can pull this number of love interests off, other games have proven it. But if you don't involve them into the main plot and give the more significance, they literally become nothing characters who just exist in the background and will make no sense in the long-term. The game wants to be a deep underlying mafia family drama, but the story rarely moves and it just suffers from pointlessly introducing and connecting characters from another game.