[Shall We Date?: Ninja Love +] Prologue
Game Intro Sequence| Table of Contents|Goemon Chapter 1
Prologue
[draft version to post in my own blog]
I... I apologize for the months-long delay. First, my laptop crashed horribly and it took the repairman a while to fix the thing and while making sure none of the files/important documents are ruined or removed. Then the laptop seemed to not have recovered properly because while I was working on this, it suddenly shut off without warning, and whatever progress I made couldn't be recovered. The last saved draft was a very short rough start that I saved to my personal LiveJournal and it barely had anything on it. I've changed a lot, added plenty of new things, and those are all gone. It really made me want to cry and I just... can't bring myself to work on it again for so long because I keep on fearing that I might miss something, or forget some good stuff that I already did write and... ugh... let's just move on. I apologize again.
For some unknown reason, the + version's prologue is nothing but a rushed few lines of dialogue. The ninja leader says "Hi princess, these are awesome ninjas. Choose one to be your bodyguard", and the ninjas introduce themselves. So we're missing the non-ninja love interests. I have no idea why they did that, because not everyone has played the old version. I will be presenting you guys with the original prologue from the old version instead, so pardon the interface change later. The old version has a different UI design than the + version.
This Prologue is technically not part of Ninja Love +. However, I think that this prologue is indeed necessary because it gives us a sensible setup for the plot, so I'm reviewing this anyway. Also because this old version of Ninja Love is still available to purchase for those who aren't willing to put up with the waiting time in the free online version. I will later put up the character profiles too. I originally wanted to skip the profiles, but since in Ninja Love + the profiles are the ONLY "sneak preview" of the ninjas we ever get... well...
So before we start playing the game wants us to name the heroine. A pretty common feature in Visual Novels.
I named my heroine "Tomotoyo" when I played, so let's just roll with that. It doesn't matter jack squat to the plot. Like, I could name my heroine "Nobunaga" and noboody would react. Fer shame, but meh.
Now we have a time and place. This is the heroine's hometown. Kawachi-no-kuni translates into "Kawachi Province", actually, but... oh well. I'm fine with using Japanese naming like that. My problem with this is... wasn't this province part of the Oda clan territory? Why would the Oda army attack this place, as the intro said? There's no rebellion as far as I can tell, and the Kawachi troops were still serving Nobunaga just fine and dandy in 1582.
Chronicles of WTF: 1
Because I see no reason for the person who said "my village" in the intro to be anyone other than the heroine. Even if we take into account that the intro was added in later in the + version, the premise and plot did not change, and the heroine's "home village" is STILL Kawachi.
Also:
Demon King of 666th Heaven: 2
We have to be sure everyone knows the villain is evil by telling everyone he attacks the heroine's home village, even though IT DID NOT HAPPEN. Lying is not cool.
So we see the heroine chatting with some villagers as she was on her way to deliver some snacks to the temple disciples/acolytes. We find out that she was an orphan, and had been adopted by the temple's chief priest as his granddaughter. In a very forced expository conversation, might I add.
... Yeah... awkward...
Anyways, the first bachelor shows up! He asks for some of the snacks the heroine was carrying and then introduced himself:
Ah yes, the famous swordsman... Is he even supposed to be here? *runs to check* Miyamoto Musashi was born in 1584. EPIC Fail!!
Chronicles of WTF: 2
I can understand the game wanting to just stuff it full with big-name historical figures, but seriously... WHY. He has no reason to be here! I could be wrong, but I remember reading that he initially was just a mook/spacefiller character and was upgraded into one of the bachelors because of popular demand. Spoilers from the future, he later shows up in some of the routes as an assassin/mercenary hired by the Oda clan to counter the ninjas' attack. Why? If you want a spacefiller bodyguard it doesn't have to be him.
The heroine gives Musashi her name and asks what he's up to in the village. He says he's going to meet someone and then wanders off. Oooh, mysterious! Will we hear back from him later?
So then Tomotoyo return to the temple and one of the monks was upset at her for wandering off because there has been bandits lurking around lately. Okay, fine, but you never told us where she went to get the snacks, game! If she just went down to the village teahouse to buy stuff, why would it matter? Were the bandits ransacking the village regularly? If that's the case, why didn't the villagers from earlier say anything about bandits? They didn't seem to be that worried to me.
*sigh* Explanation time. What translated into "snacks" was originally "forest/wild nuts" in Japanese, implying that she went off to the forests to gather them. That would've made the monk's worrying more sensible. I don't remember how frequently do this kind of lost-in-translation logic fail happen, so I will hold off adding new counts until I see more of 'em.
NO! NO! NO!
Nobunaga doesn't send bandits to put down rebellions or ninjas. He sends his troops. Bandits are no better at hunting ninjas than regular samurai are, so there's no reason for him to be sending bandits. Also, Nobunaga doesn't care about ninjas. He's more concerned about the other warlords, like the Mouri to the west and the Chosokabe in Shikoku. As a refresher, the big war with Iga started in 1579 because Nobunaga's son went to attack there without Nobunaga's permission. Nobunaga's angry letter is a bit too lengthy to reproduce here (it's gotta be the nicest angry letter I've ever seen), but the tone I'm getting from it is more like "Why did you do that? It was useless. You had better things to do, you dumbass!"
And in regards to the rather-overkill follow-up in 1581... Wellllll, the good ol' overlord overkills EVERYTHING by that point, so it's not just Iga in particular. So...
Chronicles of WTF: 3
Because it didn't happen. Heck, it didn't even seem like it was a big deal because I don't see any focus being given to it unless you're reading stories or watching movies with the ninjas as the protags.
Demon King of 666th Heaven: 3
Because bandits are dangerous to the villagers, but HE DO WHAT HE WANT BECAUSE HE EVULZ AMIRITE? I mean, again with Kawachi being part of Oda clan territory. There's no need for Nobunaga to be hiring bandits to do searches. The local authorities could do that for him under the supervision of the Oda ministers or something or the other.
And then there was some blah about how Nobunaga was terrified of ninjas and wants to get rid of them because they're in the way of his goal to conquer the nation. There was also a throwaway line saying that he used to hire Koga ninjas to attack Iga, but then changed his mind and wants to just destroy all ninjas.
BULLSHIT!! Koga surrendered to Nobunaga much earlier, and was in fact part of the Oda clan grand parade in Kyoto in the second month of 1581, an elite parade that was attended BY THE FUCKING EMPEROR HIMSELF. You don't get to be there unless Nobunaga likes you. Also, the Koga were actually part of the Oda army when they attacked Iga in the ninth month of the same year. Some articles say that there were a few Koga fellas who wanted to be like all ninja solidarity and joined Iga, but the majority of the Koga were with the Oda army. Even the people of Koga today would say that, yep, they joined up with Nobunaga and they were fine with it.
Demon King of 666th Heaven: 3
Chronicles of WTF: 4
But let's go with the game for a sec and say that Nobunaga does, in fact, wants to wreck Koga too. Well, I'm surprised the Koga ninjas didn't go assassinate him already. For reference:
Koga is region 4 (its traditional name is Koka). Nobunaga's castle is somewhere around region 9 or 10. It's THAT close. Maybe Nobunaga has his own super powerful ninja bodyguards, I don't know. It's too soon to be remarking much.
Then out of the blue they started discussing the other contenders of conquering the nation because this isn't just a one-man race. Well, thank you for acknowledging that other warlords exist off-screen somewhere. Apparently one of the contenders is someone "serving under Tokugawa". Wait, doesn't that mean that the contender is Tokugawa because he's the lord? Why would the supposed "rival" be a retainer? Why not Hojo? Later on in history, the Hojo clan's Odawara castle was the last independent stronghold that stands in the way of unification. Or maybe the Mouri? One of the routes actually acknowledged that they ARE troublesome.
I will not give a WTF point for this because even though at this time Oda and Tokugawa were allied, many speculated that Ieyasu had always been plotting to take over somehow. I give this a pass.
As it were, they had to say that because they want to introduce yet another one of the bachelors:
But... Munenori had a big scuffle with shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, Ieyasu's GRANDSON. Would he even be old enough to be around at this point? And I thought the Tokugawa didn't start hiring the Yagyuu as minions until Ieyasu became shogun. Hmm, maybe I'm the one who got it wrong because all of those I heard from movies and manga. Let me go check...
After some scuffle between Matsunaga Hisahide and the Oda, Yagyu Sekishusai and his family left the scene of battle and refused to participate in wars anymore. Seskishusai is Munenori's dad. Munenori was apparently born in 1571, so he should be about 10 by the game's timeline, and he didn't enter Tokugawa's service until 1590s. Also, he never became the leader of the Yagyu clan. He wanted to, but his father said NO. Again. And again. And again. And again.
Chronicles of WTF: 7
One for time-warping his age, one for saying that he's the Yagyu clan leader, and one for saying that he serves Tokugawa in the time when his family is still uninvolved in politics and war. I do sort of understand the logic behind the choice. Of all the well-known Yagyu members, Munenori is the only one to have something remotely to do with ninjas. He runs a secret underground gang kind of thing, known as the Ura-Yagyu, and they supposedly do ninja-like "dirty tricks" like spying and assassination. But... come on, WHY do you even need this? So you can have an "insider help" from among the samurai family? Why don't you just use Akechi Mitsuhide, who was famous for his Honnouji rebellion? Or, heck, take it a step further and have Nobukatsu do that?
Among the bajillions of conspiracy theories surrounding Nobunaga's death, some said that Nobukatsu was in cahoots with Akechi in the rebellion. You could make a pretty darn solid (and historically sensible) plot out of that, you know. After the Honnouji incident, Nobunaga's son Nobutaka and a number of his upper-rank generals chased down Akechi to avenge their lord. Nobukatsu... didn't do anything. He went out, reached Koga, then turned back home without doing anything. And if Luis Frois's accounts were to be believed, all he did was burn down Azuchi castle for no particular reason either.
Back to the plot. Tomotoyo