VN - Others - Completed - Under One Wing [Final] [Harmorise / Sol Press]

You know, sometimes you see a game and you think to yourself: man, this looks like it was made especially for me! You start playing it and then every preconceived notion about it starts to wither away under the weight of the mediocrity you see before you.

Under One Wing has two of my most favorite things in the world: Waifus and WW2 airplanes. And that is for the most part the only good things about it. The premise of a young man going to live together with a group of attractive women is nothing new, in fact almost every harem revolves around this premise. Your name is Juunichi and you start living in a dorm full of hot girls. Gee, I wonder what could possibly go wrong????

Look, the problem isn't the premise, it's the overall execution. The game has two main glaring issues:

Numero uno: the protagonist. Now I don't consider myself to be a chad in real life. In fact I, like most other people on this sad forum, have never much of a ladies man. I'm not that outgoing or charismatic, but at least I have a basic understanding of how humans work and can get a clue whether a woman likes me or not. This guy however is the worst harem MC that I have ever come across. He is like every worthless beta male harem MC but with all the negative traits dialed up to 11 (or down to 0 depending on how you look at it). This dude has ZERO charisma; he has absolutely NO idea how to talk to a woman; has absolutely ZERO life goals, ZERO opinions. In short he is someone who women would never give their time of day to, and yet every female character in the VN falls for him for being such a "nice guy". He is so pathetic and gutless that he asks the girls permission for everything even after they started the relationship. Total human doormat. If one of them tells him to kiss her he just sits there and goes "whoaaaaa??? did she really ask me that????? does mean that she likes me??? is that okaaaaayy???" On and on and on. Who the FUCK likes these pathetic beta male loser main characters I DON'T UNDERSTAND WTF IS WRONG WITH JAPAN?

Ok rant over. Worst protagonist that I have ever seen in the medium and that is truly saying something. Well done, Harmorise. It takes talent to write a character this bad.

The second problem is the overall writing and structure. See, in theory it sounds kinda interesting. You have this setting where everyone lives on islands and they use WW2 aircraft to travel around. The problem is that it is never explore in full depth. At one point you are told about this "artificial fuel" that is super cheap to make and which allows everyone to fly these gas guzzlers, but beyond that the setting is very poorly explored. Want to know why in the world highschoolers can own and fly B-36 bombers? Well, don't worry too much about it. This is anime after all.

Students compete in these tournaments called Fairy Fights. These are objective based matches where the goal is to score the most points by bombing the opponents objective. The thing is that they don't really go into much detail with how this works. It's all surface level. Of course the battles aren't lethal. The planes are equipped with sensors to know when they've been hit with "mock ammo", but what exactly this ammo is not even the writer knows. Also if you were expecting epic level aerial battles you have come to the wrong place. The battle segments are short (much shorter than the H scenes lol) and they aren't written in a particularly engaging way either. It's mostly just characters taunting each other over radio. It is clear that this author does not know how to describe a dog fight scene.

The other issue is with the structure. Basically after the lengthy common route you are presented with an option to choose with which one of the girls you want to fly. This and only this option determines the route you end up in. All other choices you previously took were meaningless. What a waste. So after you choose the girl every route follows the exact same progression: love confession -> a string of H-scenes with maybe some brief SoL sequences strewn here and there -> ZOMGWTFBBQ DRAMA -> the final match -> one last fuck for the road -> THE END. That's it. Do this four times and you have beaten Under One Wing.

Now the girls themselves are fine. They're not totally amazing, but I wasn't annoyed by anyone either. Well maybe Kazusa a little bit. But the girls overall are one of the best things about this VN. They each have their own conflicts to overcome and overall they feel like real people, apart from the fact that for some reason they all desperately want MC's dick. Let's look at them one by one.

Kazusa is arguably the main girl here, despite not being front and center on the cover art. Her relationship with the MC is also the one that develops the most naturally over the course of the story. Also her ending feels the most complete out of all of them. She has some moments where she got on my nerves, but I think that those moments are also ones that made her all the more believable of a character. Archetype-wise she is a tsundere, but one leaning very heavily on the dere side which is how I like it. She's the most "normal" and the most bro like out of all of them.

You'd think that Hikari would be the main girl, judging by the fact that she sits front and center on the cover art but you couldn't be more wrong! Hikari is more of a side character all things considered. Her route is the shortest, and ends in the "worst" way. You'll see what I mean by that when you get to the end. I guess the writers wanted a bit of variation for the conclusion. The confession also starts out of thin air and the romance feels quite rushed compared to the others. There is some back story between her and the MC, but even with that the romance happens way too quickly. Personality-wise she is the genki type, always hyperactive and bubbly. In fact she looks and sounds like Chika from Kaguya-sama, except she can't be a copy since this came out a year prior to the anime.

Can't have a moege without a loli and Mimari fits that role here. You know the drill: ojou-sama, white hair, kuudere, bla bla bla. Also she reaaaaaally likes cats. I think I liked her most personality wise if I am honest with you, as she feels like a character that is actively trying to grow as her own person. Too bad I'm not a big fan of lolis, otherwise she would have been best girl for me. She has an indirect connection to the MC and she also has a conflict with another character which I won't talk too much about, but if you've read many of these moeges you can probably guess what I'm talking about. The funny thing is that this character, with some tweaking, could have worked much better as a protagonist than Juunichi. But of course then your target audience wouldn't be able to self identify with their boring blank slate anymore. I swear I hate these japanese companies sometimes.

Last but not least we have the onee-sama Nahoko, the senpai of the group. I had high hopes for this character, but her route was just meh. Her conflict is basically just "I don't know what to do with my life". She does get her answer at the end of the route, and its one that I personally approve of, but the writing just wasn't handled well at all. At least her romantic development is also somewhat believable due to how much time the two of them spend together prior to the confession. On the bright side she has the hottest and most creative H scenes.

Speaking of which the H scenes in this are very vanilla and veeeeeeeery loooooooooong. Seriously, I am not joking when I say that 1/4 or even 1/3 of your reading time will be spent on the erotic scenes if you have the patience to listen to every single fake orgasm line. Seriously this is approaching nukige levels! Every scene can last up to 30 minutes. 4 girls and 5+ scenes per girl means about 10 hours worth of hentai! Good news for those who specifically came here for the big anime tiddies, but personally I would have preferred loner battle scenes, but to each his own I guess.

Apart from the waifus the other good thing about this are the audio-visuals. There are a TON of CGs and not just for the girls. You have both waifu porn as well as airplane porn in spades! The art quality is also above average, but my favorite pieces were the backgrounds which look absolutely gorgeous in some scenes. The music is also very catchy with a couple of really cool stand out tracks. The VA is also great for the most part, except for this one character called Saiko who is a psycho about air planes. She is also a senpai at the dorm and Nahoko's best friend but she has this extremely affected pattern of speech. I can't explain it very well but you'll see what I mean if you play it.

The rest of the side characters are decent, with the stand out being that one that I mentioned in Mimari's section. There is also Juunichi's grandma who used to be some sort of ace pilot that everyone reveres for some reason, and who also happens to be an insufferable cunt just like her miserable grandson. I guess it runs in the family.

The interface does its job. It looks pretty and you can fine tune the perfect auto read speed for you. Honestly this is all that I ask for from an interface.

The VN is quite long. It took me 38 hours to get through the whole thing, but like I said I sped through most H scenes because those tend to drag on forever.

This had so much potential to be something truly special, a la If My Heart Had Wings, but sadly this turned out a safe and mediocre moege in the end. It is with a sad heart that I give this 3 stars. I would have forgiven the clumsiness of its writing if the MC was a bit better. I don't think I'm asking for very much, Japan.

Pros:
- interesting premise
- good waifus
- airplane PR0N!
- nice looking CGs
- NO MOSAICS!!!
- nice music
- good interface

Cons:
- shit MC
- setting is not well fleshed out
- shit MC
- most romance routes feel rushed
- shit MC
- poorly written dog fights
- did I forget to mention how shit the MC is?

Verdict: a run-of-the-mill moege that promised a lot and delivered less than expected. If you want a good VN with waifus and airplanes I suggest looking at If My Heart Had Wings.

PS: I think the studio that made this went the way of the dodo. Their website is still up but it was last updated in 2018, so I don't think we'll be getting any more content from them.

Cut short and made with discourse.



I was really surprised to hear a bunch of voices I had never heard before. Looked it up to find all the VAs were from porn-focused eroge. Their voices sounded great, especially during the sex scenes. I only wish Katou had gotten a scene as well, but there’s probably no hope for that.



Mimari was one of the only strong characters in this game. Realistically aggressive and a kuudere, great combo. Her route was the one that gave best “finished” feeling. She’s also pretty much the only one falling for the MC makes sense for.






The art, while ok, feels like it clashed within the same game. Characters can stand out too much from their design or line art. None of the art was bad, but it felt like some characters belonged to other games.



The whole game felt like a rushed clump of multiple people failing to communicate and running out of time. A fan disc feels unlikely, and I probably wouldn’t buy it if it came out. It’s not the worst game I’ve played, but I could play better.

A plane-themed h-game with a focus on historical WWII-style dogfights! How more fantastic can a theme go, because -- planes! Dogfights! Imagine instead of practicing Kendo or something after school, you practice simulation dogfight but on real planes and actually flying!

Except, *sigh*, I wish I can review Under One Wing with real excitement. Just to the point:

• Under One Wing promises lots and delivers none.

Don't get me wrong. I do like planes, history and the finesse of aerial combats. The problem is, Under One Wing promises to have all those but delivers none. The author knows nothing beyond the most basic of paper stats of the plane models involved -- the venerable Zero, Spitfire, etc and the story's focus Shinden. The author is unable to convey anything about flying or aerial combat. (He does not understand it.) There is no depiction on how the story characters maneuvers to get their kills in any of the numerous fights 'depicted' in the game. The idea is meant that the characters become better at flying while tackling the challenges of transitioning towards adulthood. Except Under One Wing just does not deliver. In the whole of Under One Wing, two challenges are mentioned when it comes to flying -- 1) the protagonist starts off too afraid to adjust the throttle on his fast Shinden in a level flight; 2) the protagonist maintaining composure to stay in formation in a group fight in one of the branches. Without a solid footing in the theme of the story, the non-flight challenges feel even more hollow -- because they probably are regardless.

So, do not expect to see how characters struggle to learn how to fly or how to do acrobatic. Do not expect tactics in air-to-air combats. Do not expect historical characteristics of the planes to play any role in the fights either.

Character development? Nope. Love story? Not really. Slice of life? Not much. Exquisite writing? No, the writing feels chorish for the most part.

What is there to expect?

• Good art
• Voiced line - reasonably well acted
• 1-on-1 interaction with female love interest (ie. minimal group interactions beyond)
• Minimal character development -- but that also means a focus on CGs
• Construed air combat scenes

The student president branch is somewhat lewd interesting. Sasaki Kazusa line is humorous -- perhaps -- and at least is most natural after the intro segment. After plowing through these two lines though, I just skipped my way through the rest for the art. Not worth the time otherwise.

Under One Wing probably does not deserve 4 star. But for the missed potential, and for the character art (ie. not including plane/dogfight arts), I'll add 1 start artificially for no good reason. Just like how Under One Wing construed much of the storyline for no good foundation in reality.

I still recommend Under One Wing if you like the theme. The art is good and often that's enough of a redeeming factor in VNs.

Has been a struggle to rate this one for me.

There was a lot I really loved about the game and the delivery and if I was rating as a VN alone it would get higher scores but as an eroge game it is just to long between drinks to whet the appetite.

I loved the depth in characters and the slow reveal of their stories and personalities but the down side of this is it made the game long and the H scenes a long time coming. As much as I appreciated Kazuza as a character I found her a little frustrating and her storyline contradictory to her personality.

Now I loved that there was no real endings, this is actually not rare in Japanese story telling. But for people that like their endings wrapped up in little bow riding off into sunset after heroic victory you will be disappointed.

A lot of technical data is off especially the nav systems but I prefered the oversimplification to prevent getting bogged down with needless technobabble that would then have needed explanation for a broad audience.

The story is simple but charming and reminded me a lot of the 80's coming of age movies so I personally got a lot of nostalgic value from it, but for most eroge players it will not really be a selling point.

I loved the artwork and the variety in body types, nice not to have giant tits everywhere preferring perkier tits myself.

If you want a eroge feast this game not for you, but if you enjoy a little coming of age escapism with a twist then this is well worth it.

Average score because it's hit and miss. Some of it is great, some of it not so much.

Of the 4 girls with routes one of them is the most irritating cretin i've ever found in a VN. Usually it's the MC I complain about and the girls save it but here we have a girl just as annoying as the MC.

While the MC is your typical lead for this type of game, beta as hell, barely able to breath without someone giving him permission and no clue about women ..... Kazusa is a constant annoyance.

Everytime she speaks it's like she's demanding everyone tell her what they are doing and thinks everyone owes her an explanation for their existence.

Example, when Mimari moves on all Kazusa does is question why she is there, who gave her permission, what's she going to be doing and why isn't she at school like she's the girls mother.

I got to a point just after Mimari plane was fixed where I started skipping all Kazusa's dialogue because Mimari transferred to their school and she got all pissy like she hadn't been asked her permission or something and that was the straw that broke the camels back.

I can tolerate idiot MC's, it's a Japanese VN, good MC's are a rarity i've found so if I want to read one of their stories I have to cope with these human doormats.

What I can;t tolerate are self important bitches that think everyone owes them an explanation for everything they do.

She's not even the senior of the dorm.

The other 3 girls are awesome, especially Hikari, she gets so excited about everything. I wish they would have swapped Kazusa for Saiko. Saiko is the mechanic and she's a fantastic character, giving her a route instead of Kazusa and making the MC a little bit less of a bitch boy and this would have been a solid 5.

The story behind the planes is a fun little read and the FF battles are entertaining.

All in all it's a solid read with a couple of weak characters.