Shamus
Shamus \sh(a)-mus\ as a boy's name. Variant of Seamus, the Irish form of James (Hebrew) "he who supplants".
Another game review! Finished and written so quickly, because I so dislike the game and want to get it out of my waiting list.
You are forewarned that there are spoilers ahead.
Panic Palette Portable is a romantic adventure game released for the PSP in 2008 by Takuyo. It was originally released for the PS2 in 2007.
Panic Palette takes place about five months after the events of Little Aid in the town of Minamiaose. The protagonist this time is a first year named Itou Aki. She is actually from the neighboring city of Kakaki, but because she wanted to attend Ten'hou High School, with her parents' permission she begins to live by herself in Minamiaose to be closer to school. One night, after her part-time job, she stops by the beach and witnesses a strange scene: a guy dressed like an Arabian prince, a flying blue orb with wings, and a giant clam (Hamako!) were seemingly conversing. That guy sees her, puts a magical rune on the back of her hand, and declares her to be his bride. Appropriately freaked out, she runs off. The next day, however, that same guy is at her school. He is named Leedy, the prince of another world, Merudissa, and the flying blue orb, Noel, explains to her that the rune on her hand marks her as Leedy's bride. Whether or not she likes it, she will be taken away to Merudissa to be his consort. The only way out is make a "shell aura" that will undo the rune on her hand and subsequently the contract between her and Leedy. So, in the next thirty days, she has to juggle her school life, the making of the "shell aura," and the antics of the crazy alien prince and the colorful people around.
Unlike its predecessor, Panic Palette isn't a straight visual novel. There is a map feature and a mini-game imbedded through the first two-thirds of the game. You start off on a general route for two-thirds of the game on April 18 and go into a a character-specific route on May 11. Once you enter the character-specific routes, there is still a possibility to get a bad end. However, you may considering going for the bad ends, because when you hit a bad end, the game offers you some bonuses to reach good bads easier.
To make the shell aura, you have to collect the emotional aura of people around you. There will be several scenes in a single day when you have the chance to do so. You can tell when you can collect aura by looking at the color of the border of the name box and whether a colored emoticon is next to it. If the color of the border of the name box is any color other than the color of the border of the text box and there is a colored emoticon next to it, you can press the SELECT button to collect the aura. However, you are limited by the MP bar to the upper right of the text box. Each time you collect aura, you lose some MP. Once you run out of MP, you can no longer collect aura for the day. Because of this limitation, you should exclusively collect the aura of the guy you are aiming for, because as your affection with him raises, you can collect more aura with less MP usage.
At the end of most nights, you will put all the emotions you have collected so far into this coffeemaker-like mechanism. It will tell you the total amount you have collected. To make the "shell aura," you convert the aura into shell aura. With twenty units of each of the five types of aura, you can get ten units of shell aura. If you don't have enough of one type of aura but an abundance of another, you can change one type into another type. However, converting regular aura into shell aura and changing one type of aura into another also uses up MP, so beware of how you use your MP.
Every ten units of shell aura constitutes as 10%, so you need to make a hundred units of shell aura. Make sure you get up to 100%, because if you don't, it's an automatic bad end.
Sometimes at night, you can play another mini-game that will help you regain some MP to use or you can carry it over to the next day. The basic premise is a card shuffle. You first see all the cards with one card marked that you are suppose to track. Then the cards flip over and shuffle. When it stops, you must pick the marked card. You can choose how fast the cards shuffles; the faster they go, the more MP you regain. If you choose the wrong card though, you lose all of your remaining MP.
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Leedy Volpal the 7th, under the pseudonym "Kikuchiba Tsukasa," is the Prince of Merudissa, another world separate from ours. Since he was young, he has been raised alone, away from most of the world with little opportunity to see life outside the castle. He is consequently naive and unworldly, lacking in the ability to read normal social cues.
Although he is a prince of a magical world, Leedy is not very skilled with using magic himself. To boost his abilities, he mostly studied near a magical Merudissian fountain that helps even the weakest to perform magical prodigies. Using that fountain, he looked into the human world and observed our customs. He ended up watching a lot of period dramas, which is why he speaks Japanese with arachic dialect. While watching Earth, he also observed this one girl -- our protagonist, Itou Aki -- and fell in love with her. Although he was engaged to one of the nobility, Ruka A. Jeinos, he didn't want to give up on Aki. So, he made a deal with his father the king that he would bring back a bride from Earth in thirty days. So, when Leedy finally met her on the beach, he placed a spell on her that contracted her to be his bride.
Although Aki franatically scrambles to make the shell aura to undo the spell that Leedy placed on her, binding her to be his wife, she gets to know him and falls in love with his innocence and naviety. In the end, he tells her that he never intended to force her to go to Merudissa, and she finishes making the shell aura to undo the contract. She implores him not to leave after the thirty days, and their love for each other convinces his father to stay on Earth for some time longer, so that Leedy can mature some more. Voiced by Nojima Kenji.
I hate Leedy. I have never hated a male otome game character more than him. Do you remember how I hated Little Aid all because of the protagonist character Akari? I hate Panic Palette all because of Leedy. I'll be getting into how much and why I hate him so much later.
Masao Kou is Aki's homeroom teacher who teaches world history. Although he often drafts Aki into helping him and plays both the roles of a fool and a straight man, the students and teachers generally like him, due to his amicability. For all his silly nature, he is very aware of his students and feels responsible for them.
When Kou was a student, he was somewhat of a truant but got back on the straight and narrow path due to intervention of Matsumoto Yoshinosuke (the eccentric school employee who was a teacher and now does nothing but troll the students with his magic girl routine). He was inspired to be a teacher and hopes to help students have a happy school life. That is how he first took notice of Aki, who has moved to a new town by herself to attend a new school. He thought she looked a bit withdrawn and spends time with her in school and out to draw her out of her shell. This does not escape the notice of students in the school, and rumors spread like wildfire. Feeling responsible for the whole situation, Kou distances himself from her, addressing her only as necessary as a teacher. Aki now realizes that she has developed feelings for him and would like to pursue the relationship. However, as there is intense scrutiny on her with intense disapproval, she becomes confused. It doesn't help that she now has a doppelgänger who goes around acting flirty with everyone but Kou.
Aki tries several times to confront Kou with her feelings with no success. However, she soon understands that she has been childish and continues to be so, as she hasn't understood that he is an adult and she a child. With this new comprehension, she confesses to him at the lighthouse. Although he clearly feels the same way for her, he tells her that he cannot accept her feelings and that he can only be her teacher. He promises, though, that when she becomes an adult, he will confess a secret of his own. In the epilogue, Aki has graduated and comes back to the school to visit Kou on his invitation. Upon seeing her, he tells her that he loves her. Voiced by Nojima Hirofumi.
I really, really like Kou, as he is a fun character and the interactions between the two of them really cute. Despite my love for the character, I find this route incredibly shallow. The scenario kept emphasizing that Kou is an adult and that Aki is a child, when the main issue was simply that he is her teacher and she is his student. Aki is made to think that she is childish (which she is, since she first disregarded the teacher-student taboo) and has to "grow up." However, the happy ending happens after she graduates, which reenforces the point that the issue was never just that Kou is an adult and Aki is a child, but that he is her teacher and she is his student.
Shirahara Hiroya is Aki's classmate and a fellow draftee into doing Kou's work. He seems like your typical honor student, but actually has a sadistic and manipulative streak that makes his upperclassmen and even the teachers shudder in fear.
As frequent fellow draftees, Shirahara and Aki spend a lot of time together. After an afternoon babysitting Yoshii, the three go to the infirmary to rest. Yoshii and Shirahara nap, and Aki tries to wake the latter when some time has passed. However, Shirahara first wakes up as Black!Shirahara; a foul-tempered Shirahara who takes her by the hand and pulls her in to kiss her. Just as quickly though, he falls back asleep. When he wakes up, he has no memory of it, making Aki both angry that he kissed her and relieved that she doesn't have to confront him about it. As it turns out, Shirahara has liked her for a while and dropped subtle hints, but she doesn't pick up on it, which makes him a bit annoyed and want to tease her. He even named a cat he adopted after Aki.
This all sets into motion the realization of her own feelings for him. Etsu (Aki's friend) and Ruka (who followed Leedy to Earth) infers that she likes Shirahara, but Aki herself is still not sure of her own feelings. Ruka makes her a love potion to make him fall in love with her. She has enough sense not to use it, but the love potion is found by Shirahara and some spills over. Later in the day, he stops by her house and tells her that he likes her. Aki is incredibly confused, as she doesn't know whether his feelings are real, and she's still not sure about her own feelings. When Ruka assures her the love potion wa fake, she realizes that she does like him. She finds him at the Amano Shrine and confesses her feelings. He teases her just a bit more and accepts her feelings, sealing the deal with a kiss. Voiced by Kamiya Hiroshi.
Like Masao Kou, Shirahara is a great character. He has a dark streak, which he puts to use for great comedic effect. He also has a striking resemblance to the doctor in Yandere Heaven, which makes me a little dokidoki. Unfortunately, his storyline suffers the same fate as Kou's: really, really shallow. This is just a case of misunderstanding and miscommunication of the high school puppy love sort. It's all very done and over with.
Karasuba Kazuto is your stereotypical loner tough guy, who is much kinder than he looks. People distance themselves from him, due to his formidable presence, but since he's always lonely, he doesn't think much of school.
After several dramatic meetings and a strong punch on Aki's part, Karasuba became her "disciple," walking her home and helping her carry bags. As she gets to know Karasuba better, she begins to like him. Ruka points out to her that Etsu likes him, too. Aki considers her a good friend and wnats to ask Etsu about her feelings, but simply can't get the nerve. Along the way, she loses her bottle of finished shell aura. When looking for it with Karasuba, Etsu confesses to him. Aki runs away after witnessing this, but Etsu tells her the next day that he rejected her. So, Aki runs up to the roof and confesses. He tells her that he likes her as well. He had been feeling that he wasn't good enough for her, but he gets over it. Voiced by Chiba Isshin.
He is so cute! One of his sprites has him with wide eyes, dog ears, and an adorable tail. His route is mildly better with the inclusion of a female friendship, but Bruce Wayne puts it best from Batman Beyond "Revenant" -- "... this thing, I don't know, it just feels so... so high school."
Nuinuma Kazura is a third-year at Ten'hou High School, a member of the infamously strange Public Morals Committee. Ever since appearing in e'tude prologue and Little Aid, this is the first time that he and Nainagi Norihisa is available to go after. Nuimuma is also Aki's cousin, and neither have seen the other for years. They spent a lot of time together as children, reading and playing as young kids do, and they were each other's first love.
After being reacquainted at school, their relationship is rekindled, as well as their love for each other. However, Aki believes that he and Nainagi are involved, considering how often they are together and how close they are. She becomes depressed and starts to pull away, but Ruka begins to meddle and causes Aki and Nainagi to switch bodies. During this switch-a-roo, Nuinuma and Nainagi individually confirms that they don't like each other and the former even tells her that he likes her. Finally, the shell aura is complete, and she uses it to erase the contract and undo the switch-a-roo spell. Voiced by Suzuki Tatsuhisa.
While Aki and Nuinuma's relationship is rather cute, I've had to withstand his annoying attitude for a grand total of three games. I found his route to be more exhausting than fun.
Nainagi Norihisa is another third-year, and he is Nuinuma's oft unwilling partner in the Public Morals Committee. Unlike Nuinuma's boke, Nainagi is the straight man and sees the absurdity in much of the situations in the game. He is an honor student and exceptionally bright, but lately his grades have been dropping due to his Public Morals activities.
Nainagi shares most of the same route as Nuinuma. Aside from reacquainting with her cousin, Aki also gets to know Nainagi. They bond over their straight man routines and intellectual pursuits. Both admire each other's lives: Aki admires his brilliance and steadfastness, and Nainagi for her independence. However, when Ruka's spell switches their bodies, they see that each other's lives aren't that glamorous and to appreciate their own despite the difficulties. They admit they like each other, and Nuinuma even gives his approval. Voiced by Sugita Tomokazu.
You know what I said about Kou, Shirahara, and Karasuba being cute and fun characters? I TAKE THAT ALL BACK. I rather liked his route, as it dealt with themes like envy of someone else's life, even though they could have done a lot more with it. What I liked more is Nainagi's straight man attitude and ability to see absurdity. Ever since his appearance in e'tude prologue, he's been pointing out the ridiculous shit that goes on. It's like he's my stand-in commentator, and that is awesome. What makes it awesomer is that he is voiced by Sugita Tomokazu, the same guy who goes Onizuka Takuma in Hiiro no Kakera, one of my favorite characters.
Noel, the flying blue orb with wings, is Leedy's servant and companion. Incredibly capable of doing anything, he lives with Aki for most of the game to aid her. One might wonder why a flying blue orb with wings gets a route, but it's just not a flying blue orb with wings -- he's actually Leedy's older brother, Jojorina, long thought to be missing and dead.
Although Noel is the first son of the King of Merudissa, he left the castle with his mother when Leedy was young, as Leedy's mother is the first wife -- the queen. The reason was that he didn't want to create problem with the royal ascension. Years later, when Noel saw how lonely Leedy was, he took the form of a flying blue orb with wings to aid him become the excellent prince that he thought the latter could become.
While living with Aki, Noel falls in love with her and vice versa, though on Aki's end, love comes after Noel reveals his true form. Voiced by Takemoto Eiji (Yanagi from The Prince of Tennis!).
As pretty as Noel's true form is, his route is nothing but bad filler.
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I'm not deliberately trying to rag on Takuyo's older games, but they simply just don't stand up to games today. Although I'm no longer in high school, I'm still young enough to put myself in the role of a protagonist in high school. I just wish the storylines weren't so... high school and had a little more depth. I know this game is rated CERO B (ages 12 and up), but it feels like a twelve year old wrote it after reading a lot of shoujo manga. There's nothing new or imaginative about it.
Another qualm I have is that they keep using the town of Minamiaose as the setting. I thought it was an okay town in e'tude prologue, nothing too special. Then, in Little Aid, also taking place in Minamiaose, you had a girl with a magical pendant that allows you to locate someone and look into someone's memory. So, they're expanding the town's setting -- I can understand that. But then in Panic Palette, you have an alien prince from a different world called Merudissa, coming to Earth to chase after a girl living in that town. This is absurb. Takuyo is just too lazy to create a new setting.
I'm also not fond of the pacing of the game. For the general route, it goes on slowly, almost at a glacial pace, but once the character route hits, information hits you like a ton of bricks.
As for Aki, she is a breath of fresh air compared to the Nishimura Akari, the protagonist in the previous game, Little Aid. She is more responsible, mature, sensible, and level-headed. If I could have my way, though, I would give her more of a spine and make her super snarky. She makes up for it by her straight man routine, so I suppose it makes up for it.
My greatest hang-up in this game is with Leedy. I have never hated the leading man in an otome game, but he is exceptionally hateable. Leedy is an alien prince without any common sense; he doesn't even realize that he's not suppose to talk about his being from another world and the existence of magical powers from his world. I should think that any civilization that has the capabilities to travel to different worlds would have some form of the Prime Directive.
The game also defends his privileged nature by giving him a backstory of him being a prince and raised mostly alone. He doesn't read normal social cues either, like those of discomfort and hesitation, which means you constantly have to be straight and literally with him, or else he will misunderstand all your expressions as love and acceptance. Yet, somehow he has mastered the use of puppy faces and alligator tears to guilt Aki into letting him follow her around.
The one thing that grates on my nerves the most is that Leedy is basically a stalker and the game never acknowledges that. He spies on her in his own world, travels to her world to get to know her, and ends up forcibly placing a spell on her, binding her to be his bride. This is not romantic. And this is not love. If someone spies on you, stalks you to your home, and declares you to be his bride, you would have plenty of evidence to get a restraining order.
If you like games appropriate for twelve year olds, I suppose Panic Palette is an okay game, though you really should take issue with Leedy. If you like games with a deeper plot and more substantial characters, you can head elsewhere and never look back.
Another game review! Finished and written so quickly, because I so dislike the game and want to get it out of my waiting list.
You are forewarned that there are spoilers ahead.
Panic Palette Portable is a romantic adventure game released for the PSP in 2008 by Takuyo. It was originally released for the PS2 in 2007.
Panic Palette takes place about five months after the events of Little Aid in the town of Minamiaose. The protagonist this time is a first year named Itou Aki. She is actually from the neighboring city of Kakaki, but because she wanted to attend Ten'hou High School, with her parents' permission she begins to live by herself in Minamiaose to be closer to school. One night, after her part-time job, she stops by the beach and witnesses a strange scene: a guy dressed like an Arabian prince, a flying blue orb with wings, and a giant clam (Hamako!) were seemingly conversing. That guy sees her, puts a magical rune on the back of her hand, and declares her to be his bride. Appropriately freaked out, she runs off. The next day, however, that same guy is at her school. He is named Leedy, the prince of another world, Merudissa, and the flying blue orb, Noel, explains to her that the rune on her hand marks her as Leedy's bride. Whether or not she likes it, she will be taken away to Merudissa to be his consort. The only way out is make a "shell aura" that will undo the rune on her hand and subsequently the contract between her and Leedy. So, in the next thirty days, she has to juggle her school life, the making of the "shell aura," and the antics of the crazy alien prince and the colorful people around.
Unlike its predecessor, Panic Palette isn't a straight visual novel. There is a map feature and a mini-game imbedded through the first two-thirds of the game. You start off on a general route for two-thirds of the game on April 18 and go into a a character-specific route on May 11. Once you enter the character-specific routes, there is still a possibility to get a bad end. However, you may considering going for the bad ends, because when you hit a bad end, the game offers you some bonuses to reach good bads easier.
To make the shell aura, you have to collect the emotional aura of people around you. There will be several scenes in a single day when you have the chance to do so. You can tell when you can collect aura by looking at the color of the border of the name box and whether a colored emoticon is next to it. If the color of the border of the name box is any color other than the color of the border of the text box and there is a colored emoticon next to it, you can press the SELECT button to collect the aura. However, you are limited by the MP bar to the upper right of the text box. Each time you collect aura, you lose some MP. Once you run out of MP, you can no longer collect aura for the day. Because of this limitation, you should exclusively collect the aura of the guy you are aiming for, because as your affection with him raises, you can collect more aura with less MP usage.
At the end of most nights, you will put all the emotions you have collected so far into this coffeemaker-like mechanism. It will tell you the total amount you have collected. To make the "shell aura," you convert the aura into shell aura. With twenty units of each of the five types of aura, you can get ten units of shell aura. If you don't have enough of one type of aura but an abundance of another, you can change one type into another type. However, converting regular aura into shell aura and changing one type of aura into another also uses up MP, so beware of how you use your MP.
Every ten units of shell aura constitutes as 10%, so you need to make a hundred units of shell aura. Make sure you get up to 100%, because if you don't, it's an automatic bad end.
Sometimes at night, you can play another mini-game that will help you regain some MP to use or you can carry it over to the next day. The basic premise is a card shuffle. You first see all the cards with one card marked that you are suppose to track. Then the cards flip over and shuffle. When it stops, you must pick the marked card. You can choose how fast the cards shuffles; the faster they go, the more MP you regain. If you choose the wrong card though, you lose all of your remaining MP.
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Leedy Volpal the 7th, under the pseudonym "Kikuchiba Tsukasa," is the Prince of Merudissa, another world separate from ours. Since he was young, he has been raised alone, away from most of the world with little opportunity to see life outside the castle. He is consequently naive and unworldly, lacking in the ability to read normal social cues.
Although he is a prince of a magical world, Leedy is not very skilled with using magic himself. To boost his abilities, he mostly studied near a magical Merudissian fountain that helps even the weakest to perform magical prodigies. Using that fountain, he looked into the human world and observed our customs. He ended up watching a lot of period dramas, which is why he speaks Japanese with arachic dialect. While watching Earth, he also observed this one girl -- our protagonist, Itou Aki -- and fell in love with her. Although he was engaged to one of the nobility, Ruka A. Jeinos, he didn't want to give up on Aki. So, he made a deal with his father the king that he would bring back a bride from Earth in thirty days. So, when Leedy finally met her on the beach, he placed a spell on her that contracted her to be his bride.
Although Aki franatically scrambles to make the shell aura to undo the spell that Leedy placed on her, binding her to be his wife, she gets to know him and falls in love with his innocence and naviety. In the end, he tells her that he never intended to force her to go to Merudissa, and she finishes making the shell aura to undo the contract. She implores him not to leave after the thirty days, and their love for each other convinces his father to stay on Earth for some time longer, so that Leedy can mature some more. Voiced by Nojima Kenji.
I hate Leedy. I have never hated a male otome game character more than him. Do you remember how I hated Little Aid all because of the protagonist character Akari? I hate Panic Palette all because of Leedy. I'll be getting into how much and why I hate him so much later.
Masao Kou is Aki's homeroom teacher who teaches world history. Although he often drafts Aki into helping him and plays both the roles of a fool and a straight man, the students and teachers generally like him, due to his amicability. For all his silly nature, he is very aware of his students and feels responsible for them.
When Kou was a student, he was somewhat of a truant but got back on the straight and narrow path due to intervention of Matsumoto Yoshinosuke (the eccentric school employee who was a teacher and now does nothing but troll the students with his magic girl routine). He was inspired to be a teacher and hopes to help students have a happy school life. That is how he first took notice of Aki, who has moved to a new town by herself to attend a new school. He thought she looked a bit withdrawn and spends time with her in school and out to draw her out of her shell. This does not escape the notice of students in the school, and rumors spread like wildfire. Feeling responsible for the whole situation, Kou distances himself from her, addressing her only as necessary as a teacher. Aki now realizes that she has developed feelings for him and would like to pursue the relationship. However, as there is intense scrutiny on her with intense disapproval, she becomes confused. It doesn't help that she now has a doppelgänger who goes around acting flirty with everyone but Kou.
Aki tries several times to confront Kou with her feelings with no success. However, she soon understands that she has been childish and continues to be so, as she hasn't understood that he is an adult and she a child. With this new comprehension, she confesses to him at the lighthouse. Although he clearly feels the same way for her, he tells her that he cannot accept her feelings and that he can only be her teacher. He promises, though, that when she becomes an adult, he will confess a secret of his own. In the epilogue, Aki has graduated and comes back to the school to visit Kou on his invitation. Upon seeing her, he tells her that he loves her. Voiced by Nojima Hirofumi.
I really, really like Kou, as he is a fun character and the interactions between the two of them really cute. Despite my love for the character, I find this route incredibly shallow. The scenario kept emphasizing that Kou is an adult and that Aki is a child, when the main issue was simply that he is her teacher and she is his student. Aki is made to think that she is childish (which she is, since she first disregarded the teacher-student taboo) and has to "grow up." However, the happy ending happens after she graduates, which reenforces the point that the issue was never just that Kou is an adult and Aki is a child, but that he is her teacher and she is his student.
Shirahara Hiroya is Aki's classmate and a fellow draftee into doing Kou's work. He seems like your typical honor student, but actually has a sadistic and manipulative streak that makes his upperclassmen and even the teachers shudder in fear.
As frequent fellow draftees, Shirahara and Aki spend a lot of time together. After an afternoon babysitting Yoshii, the three go to the infirmary to rest. Yoshii and Shirahara nap, and Aki tries to wake the latter when some time has passed. However, Shirahara first wakes up as Black!Shirahara; a foul-tempered Shirahara who takes her by the hand and pulls her in to kiss her. Just as quickly though, he falls back asleep. When he wakes up, he has no memory of it, making Aki both angry that he kissed her and relieved that she doesn't have to confront him about it. As it turns out, Shirahara has liked her for a while and dropped subtle hints, but she doesn't pick up on it, which makes him a bit annoyed and want to tease her. He even named a cat he adopted after Aki.
This all sets into motion the realization of her own feelings for him. Etsu (Aki's friend) and Ruka (who followed Leedy to Earth) infers that she likes Shirahara, but Aki herself is still not sure of her own feelings. Ruka makes her a love potion to make him fall in love with her. She has enough sense not to use it, but the love potion is found by Shirahara and some spills over. Later in the day, he stops by her house and tells her that he likes her. Aki is incredibly confused, as she doesn't know whether his feelings are real, and she's still not sure about her own feelings. When Ruka assures her the love potion wa fake, she realizes that she does like him. She finds him at the Amano Shrine and confesses her feelings. He teases her just a bit more and accepts her feelings, sealing the deal with a kiss. Voiced by Kamiya Hiroshi.
Like Masao Kou, Shirahara is a great character. He has a dark streak, which he puts to use for great comedic effect. He also has a striking resemblance to the doctor in Yandere Heaven, which makes me a little dokidoki. Unfortunately, his storyline suffers the same fate as Kou's: really, really shallow. This is just a case of misunderstanding and miscommunication of the high school puppy love sort. It's all very done and over with.
Karasuba Kazuto is your stereotypical loner tough guy, who is much kinder than he looks. People distance themselves from him, due to his formidable presence, but since he's always lonely, he doesn't think much of school.
After several dramatic meetings and a strong punch on Aki's part, Karasuba became her "disciple," walking her home and helping her carry bags. As she gets to know Karasuba better, she begins to like him. Ruka points out to her that Etsu likes him, too. Aki considers her a good friend and wnats to ask Etsu about her feelings, but simply can't get the nerve. Along the way, she loses her bottle of finished shell aura. When looking for it with Karasuba, Etsu confesses to him. Aki runs away after witnessing this, but Etsu tells her the next day that he rejected her. So, Aki runs up to the roof and confesses. He tells her that he likes her as well. He had been feeling that he wasn't good enough for her, but he gets over it. Voiced by Chiba Isshin.
He is so cute! One of his sprites has him with wide eyes, dog ears, and an adorable tail. His route is mildly better with the inclusion of a female friendship, but Bruce Wayne puts it best from Batman Beyond "Revenant" -- "... this thing, I don't know, it just feels so... so high school."
Nuinuma Kazura is a third-year at Ten'hou High School, a member of the infamously strange Public Morals Committee. Ever since appearing in e'tude prologue and Little Aid, this is the first time that he and Nainagi Norihisa is available to go after. Nuimuma is also Aki's cousin, and neither have seen the other for years. They spent a lot of time together as children, reading and playing as young kids do, and they were each other's first love.
After being reacquainted at school, their relationship is rekindled, as well as their love for each other. However, Aki believes that he and Nainagi are involved, considering how often they are together and how close they are. She becomes depressed and starts to pull away, but Ruka begins to meddle and causes Aki and Nainagi to switch bodies. During this switch-a-roo, Nuinuma and Nainagi individually confirms that they don't like each other and the former even tells her that he likes her. Finally, the shell aura is complete, and she uses it to erase the contract and undo the switch-a-roo spell. Voiced by Suzuki Tatsuhisa.
While Aki and Nuinuma's relationship is rather cute, I've had to withstand his annoying attitude for a grand total of three games. I found his route to be more exhausting than fun.
Nainagi Norihisa is another third-year, and he is Nuinuma's oft unwilling partner in the Public Morals Committee. Unlike Nuinuma's boke, Nainagi is the straight man and sees the absurdity in much of the situations in the game. He is an honor student and exceptionally bright, but lately his grades have been dropping due to his Public Morals activities.
Nainagi shares most of the same route as Nuinuma. Aside from reacquainting with her cousin, Aki also gets to know Nainagi. They bond over their straight man routines and intellectual pursuits. Both admire each other's lives: Aki admires his brilliance and steadfastness, and Nainagi for her independence. However, when Ruka's spell switches their bodies, they see that each other's lives aren't that glamorous and to appreciate their own despite the difficulties. They admit they like each other, and Nuinuma even gives his approval. Voiced by Sugita Tomokazu.
You know what I said about Kou, Shirahara, and Karasuba being cute and fun characters? I TAKE THAT ALL BACK. I rather liked his route, as it dealt with themes like envy of someone else's life, even though they could have done a lot more with it. What I liked more is Nainagi's straight man attitude and ability to see absurdity. Ever since his appearance in e'tude prologue, he's been pointing out the ridiculous shit that goes on. It's like he's my stand-in commentator, and that is awesome. What makes it awesomer is that he is voiced by Sugita Tomokazu, the same guy who goes Onizuka Takuma in Hiiro no Kakera, one of my favorite characters.
Noel, the flying blue orb with wings, is Leedy's servant and companion. Incredibly capable of doing anything, he lives with Aki for most of the game to aid her. One might wonder why a flying blue orb with wings gets a route, but it's just not a flying blue orb with wings -- he's actually Leedy's older brother, Jojorina, long thought to be missing and dead.
Although Noel is the first son of the King of Merudissa, he left the castle with his mother when Leedy was young, as Leedy's mother is the first wife -- the queen. The reason was that he didn't want to create problem with the royal ascension. Years later, when Noel saw how lonely Leedy was, he took the form of a flying blue orb with wings to aid him become the excellent prince that he thought the latter could become.
While living with Aki, Noel falls in love with her and vice versa, though on Aki's end, love comes after Noel reveals his true form. Voiced by Takemoto Eiji (Yanagi from The Prince of Tennis!).
As pretty as Noel's true form is, his route is nothing but bad filler.
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I'm not deliberately trying to rag on Takuyo's older games, but they simply just don't stand up to games today. Although I'm no longer in high school, I'm still young enough to put myself in the role of a protagonist in high school. I just wish the storylines weren't so... high school and had a little more depth. I know this game is rated CERO B (ages 12 and up), but it feels like a twelve year old wrote it after reading a lot of shoujo manga. There's nothing new or imaginative about it.
Another qualm I have is that they keep using the town of Minamiaose as the setting. I thought it was an okay town in e'tude prologue, nothing too special. Then, in Little Aid, also taking place in Minamiaose, you had a girl with a magical pendant that allows you to locate someone and look into someone's memory. So, they're expanding the town's setting -- I can understand that. But then in Panic Palette, you have an alien prince from a different world called Merudissa, coming to Earth to chase after a girl living in that town. This is absurb. Takuyo is just too lazy to create a new setting.
I'm also not fond of the pacing of the game. For the general route, it goes on slowly, almost at a glacial pace, but once the character route hits, information hits you like a ton of bricks.
As for Aki, she is a breath of fresh air compared to the Nishimura Akari, the protagonist in the previous game, Little Aid. She is more responsible, mature, sensible, and level-headed. If I could have my way, though, I would give her more of a spine and make her super snarky. She makes up for it by her straight man routine, so I suppose it makes up for it.
My greatest hang-up in this game is with Leedy. I have never hated the leading man in an otome game, but he is exceptionally hateable. Leedy is an alien prince without any common sense; he doesn't even realize that he's not suppose to talk about his being from another world and the existence of magical powers from his world. I should think that any civilization that has the capabilities to travel to different worlds would have some form of the Prime Directive.
The game also defends his privileged nature by giving him a backstory of him being a prince and raised mostly alone. He doesn't read normal social cues either, like those of discomfort and hesitation, which means you constantly have to be straight and literally with him, or else he will misunderstand all your expressions as love and acceptance. Yet, somehow he has mastered the use of puppy faces and alligator tears to guilt Aki into letting him follow her around.
The one thing that grates on my nerves the most is that Leedy is basically a stalker and the game never acknowledges that. He spies on her in his own world, travels to her world to get to know her, and ends up forcibly placing a spell on her, binding her to be his bride. This is not romantic. And this is not love. If someone spies on you, stalks you to your home, and declares you to be his bride, you would have plenty of evidence to get a restraining order.
If you like games appropriate for twelve year olds, I suppose Panic Palette is an okay game, though you really should take issue with Leedy. If you like games with a deeper plot and more substantial characters, you can head elsewhere and never look back.