VN - Others - Completed - NUKITASHI [Final] [Qruppo/Shiravune]

(It is to note that I played with the fan "improvement," patch which removes a lot of the "cringe," jokes added in by the official translation team so I can't comment on that)

Nukitashi is a comedy eroge with an extremely interesting and unique premise that isn't really replicated in any other game. The concept of an island where everyone is forced to have sex and actively indulges in it, with a organization solely devoted to making sure people have enough sex is quite creative and a breath of fresh air from the typical high school environment that so many visual novels take place in.

The game includes a main character with a deep and complex character that is, for once, actually interesting. However, his character certainly isn't for anyone and could easily be found annoying and redundant with his constant tirades about purity and virginity. He has a compelling back story and constantly grows throughout the story, this is also a breath of fresh air for visual novels compared to the blank slate no-face main character that is typically seen.

As for the heroines, they are quite hit or miss for me. In general I'm not the biggest fan of the NLNS girls and the SS girls carry all of the routes. Misaki is genuinely unfunny and quite annoying, Nanase is extremely basic and bare-bones while Hinami is fine but nothing spectacular. Touka carries Nanase's route so hard you sometimes forget who's route it is. In general don't expect any growth from any of the heroines, they largely remain the same and besides Hinami the romance between the heroines and the MC is decent at best. Misaki (and her whole route) especially feels cartoonishly corny and reads as if the devs game a 13 year old the script and told him to write whatever he wants.

The comedy in the game is generally unfunny but so is most of japanese humor to me, though there are still a couple of moments that genuinely made me laugh. The game repeats the same 3 jokes between the NLNS about 100 times which can make it a pain to read at times.

The game's villians are generally likeable though at times they can feel a little 1 dimensional.

The true route wraps up the game on a high note as well as any lingering plot points leading the player to feel satisfied with the conclusion.

Overall the game offers a unique atmosphere, a complex main character that experiences lots of growth throughout the story as well as some likeable heroines (all the SS girls) and is a worthwhile read.

Contrary to the extremely vague official description: Nukitashi is an erotic comedy about a group of virgins living on an island "straight out of an H game" where public sex is encouraged and basically required to avoid drawing the attention of what is effectively a lewd police special task force.
The group forms a secret-agent style organization with some outside help that becomes "a glorified going-home club" in an effort to avoid losing their chastity to strangers and get home from school safely. However, the group gets dragged into something much bigger in the process and discovers something akin to love along the way.

The writing is goofy and very self aware while still having a fun and charming cast and a genuine story to tell, so expect lots of laughs and absurdity between anime battles with sex toys and some surprisingly heartwarming moments.

Mosaic censorship, a lack of H scenes for Asane (even though she's lovable and has a lot of screentime) and a weirdly slow burn before getting to most of the H content in spite of the premise are the only things I disliked.

Ignore the people complaining about the TL. Does it have a few cringe worthy moments? Yes, but they are supposed to be cringe. It's part of the humor. It's a great story, a little bit slow to start but it picks up in the second half.

People have said that the second is even better and it is getting TL'd as well and it continues from the true end of this one.

God the discourse around this has been eye-opening, to say the least.

I'll briefly go over the good stuff:
1) This game is carried by the setting. The story itself (the plot points, what drives the events from A to B) is rather standard but it doesn't need to be great, the setting will make the story unique.
It's worth your time. Easy 5/5 here.

Now for the un fun stuff: the translation
It's actually not as bad as the discourse would have you believe. Most "issues" are just bad attempts at localizing humor that wouldn't have otherwise been translated well.

I will give one example:
At one point, someone brings up a bad thing people are doing:
The best translation for it is "Racketeering"
But there's a pun with a character.
So they go with 'Cunny capitalism' vs. 'crony capitalism'
And just off the top of my head "Racunteering" is just...better. It's 1 am. I am tired. This stuff still is a layup. So you can think the localizer is trying to insert "crony capitalism bad" into the story, or you can think he's terminally unfunny.

There's a running gag where an NPC girl getting fucked in the background will say over-the-top things and then the guy fucking her will continue the conversation and then end it with "GET PREGNANT BITCH". That joke has legs. It's also insanely easy to translate.

So the translation makes the story less funny on occasion with an over-reliance on clapter comedy whenever the localizer had to attempt anything close to humor on his own. It's a good job otherwise. Just, whoever had to work on their puns really needed to..be funnier when their job calls for it.

The "characters" speaking like teenagers isn't egregious- the worst offender is someone terminally online anyway.

But I think that bringing this up is important to the review. Because the game has enough accolades that the issue was always going to be the localization.

So here I am saying with all 0 authority vested in me: it's fine. It could be better. The Japanese to English lost something in translation because the one of the translator's sense of comedy suggests he probably unironically thinks Hannah Gadsby is funny- and he still did a professional job where he could, it's just the parts where he had to localize, rather than translate, humor are more miss than hit.

Regardless, this will happen maybe 12 times total during your playthrough.

So, to me, the important part of the review would be: the game is as good as the Japanese accolades would have you believe, the translation could have been better, but it is extremely adequate.

Sad state of affairs where the review for this game, which is still excellent, needs to have the translation be the centerpiece, but we all know what time it is.

Before I start, let me say this first:

WHAT THE FUCK?




TL;DR - 7.6/10 - WTF setting, superb story, trash engine.

Art - 9 / 10
It's good and abundant in quantity. Although the quality is only slightly above average, the quantity makes up for it.

Character - 9 / 10
Some serious character development for our MC right there along with the story. There're also slight development for the heroines, but the largest is from our MC.

Sound - 9 / 10
VAs did their best on this one. The BGM were also not obstructive, and quite pleasant.

Story - 10 / 10
The setting is an actual WTF for me, but when they start to talk about it seriously, I can't help but listen to it seriously too. And damn, it's actually and seriously entertaining. It's not too heavy, not too light either. It feels like they start with a bizarre plot and start putting logic and story there, to the point it's seriously fun to read. The game itself is rated 42h long in VNDB, so it's just not about fucking here and there (well, part of it is).
If you like romance story like me, but afraid of this one because of its plot, then do yourself a favor and give it a try.

Engine - 1 / 10
I don't know whether it's my laptop fault, but at least it's not that old (2019 laptop) and not that underpowered either imo. Yet, the game keep crashing. RAM usage is 2.5GB on average, 1.2GB on lowest, 3.8GB on highest. And even if OOM is not an issue anymore, the game's still keep crashing, spewing error that I can't even understand such as "Device Lost", like what does that even mean? It's bad enough to the point I always close my browser, and also always quick save on every scene change.

An average Visual Novel on a brother and sister going back to a free use island after being away for a few years. They are now grown up and have to participate in the perverted sex omnipresent everywhere on the island. They however do not want to though, so they mount a resistant movement to go against the law of the island, catching some comrades in arms along the way. The art was pretty good and the music was very enjoyable to me. However, I thought the story lacking in depth and the characters a bit bland. Surprisingly not a Nukige though. I recommend this game to anyone curious what one would do refusing sex on a free use island (kind of).

Join us comrade, Join us in the revolution against the capitalist sex industry SHO. We are the NLNS anti-copulator revolutionary front, those who will fight against this sex-crazed madness. We have: A virgin siscon sigma leader, a shut-in lesbian sister, a fake celebrity slut, a highly doubtful legal loli and a totally “normal” npc. Together we will fight and survive against the evil student sex council who wish to destroy all pure love and virginity. Join us now before you get corrupted by the island madness. You have been warned.

This is basically the novel TLDR. The story itself is, to my surprise, very good. At first I came to this, not knowing anything, expect a quick fap with one side story, bland color characters because of the setting. But I was wrong because the story is actually captivating, you got a story of a guy who doesn't want to have sex in a sex island, pretty generic but what makes it interesting is the memorable characters.

Let’s first talk about the main protag. In this kind of setting you either have a whimsy rightful character who doesn’t want to do sex because it’s wrong Or you will have someone like this guy who labels those sex crazed people as sluts. Surprisingly the protag actually has emotion, personality, actually plays eroge while still againsts all others BS. In some “ALMOST RAPE” scenes, I can see his anger like a normal person against this twisted society. If you scroll down and read others comments about the protag saying he’s annoying. Yes I agree, but only for the first part of the game, which is the hard part that turns most people away. As the story progressed, I actually got attached to him and he became quite a great character.

For other girls, each of them have their own story after the common route, which I would say is quite decent because they only have three and all of them have lovable personality. Yes you have incest stuff, but it doesn’t count because only happen in sequel.

The translation is such a massive plus when it’s trying to tell a joke between characters because some of the jokes would feel off but the trans has done a great job improvising them. I don’t have anything else to say about the translation, it’s just too good.

While the story is good with some twists and turns, it still has some awkward moments that you want to skip, mostly at the beginning, because either the protag is unbearable or cringy. Of course this got flatten as the game progressed, the characters became more tolerable, story more interesting, more polished.

You can ignore the first two ratings as they either don’t know how to read or only read the first part which I agree is the worst part. If you are only here for a quick fap, seriously though there are thousands of other eroge out there for you. This one actually needs you to read and appreciate its story. Being said, the story is not mind blowing or anything. It’s just serviceable with good comedy and colourful characters. I gave it 5 stars as an encouragement for those who worked on the translation consider how underappreciated it was because of those illiterate and window shopping. Everyone has their own taste, sure, but a book gets judged by those who flipping through it seeking a single picture without context or those who only read the introduction and say it’s bad is unacceptable.

If you like VNs, give it a try, surely it can give you a good laugh or two. That’s all from me. Cheers.

Amazing story! Really enjoyed the ninja style missions that they went through, the fact that they have a goal, the challenges that they face, the scenes are abundant (worst case it's an anime but with H-scenes), the full screen option is a bit buggy, but a solid game non the less.

Nothing to write home about.

It is the typical japanese thing, shit lot of texts, very little changes of background, even fewer h scenes, and the need to replay the same fucking thing... three times to see all the scenes.

Don't waste your time.

First off the basics: The English is competent with only a few sentences that don't really flow.
The art while censored is otherwise good.
The game is a kinetic novel which is not everyone's cup of tea but at least it means development is streamlined and time can be spent in other area's

I cannot recommend the game from the premise alone however: After the MC's parents die from protagonists disease. He and his sister move from Tokyo to a sex crazed island in Japan where they lived when they were young.
He however wants his first time to be with a woman he loves while his sister is gay which is illegal on the island or at the very least heavily discouraged.
Why the fuck would they go to the only place they are not welcome! They could literally live anywhere else in Japan!
Anyways that could be overlooked but the MC's grating personality really does it in for me. Wanting to slap the protagonist every five minutes is not very conductive to gameplay.