Bokura wa Minna, Koi wo Suru

This BL game that has been released in May 2006 is the brand debut work by a new BL label of Visual Art’s named pekoe. For this debut pekoe ensured to get enough attention from visual novel gaming fans by announcing (and promoting) it with infamous Hinoue Itaru being responsible for the game’s art. To be honest, it worked with me. I purchased Bokukoi on its release (*despite* having seen the demo movie featuring the title theme of the game which is among the worst pieces of music ever used in a game*) and once I received my package including this game I started installing and playing it the moment I got it (right ater having taken the pictures of the package ^_^). Being a fan of both BL gaming and even more Hinoue Itaru the concept or better said the basic idea of letting her do the art for the game was what you could call the “wet dreams of BL gaming Itaru fans come true”. Having completed Bokukoi twice up to now (and really tempted to go for it a third time in order to complete some more of the CG sequences) I found it’s well worth typing up some of my thoughts on it. So, is Bokukoi a milestone in BL gaming history and can pekkoe call they debut successfull or is it the worst BL game released ever and it’s only a matter of time when pekoe will vanish from BL gamers minds? I’m tempted to say it was one of the best games I played in recent times even though it has huge flaws and I’m honestly more tempted to say that the reason I love Bokukoi to pieces is more related with my subjective enjoyment of the game itself rather than what people *not* horrible addicted to Hinoue Itaru and the whole atmosphere of the game.
The impression I got by playing Bokukoi is that pekoe was obviously rushing in order to release it. Bad toungues might say that pekoe *knew* that there were other big BL games scheduled to be released in 2006 which certainly had a lot more to boot with (i.e. Messiah which got CARNELIAN as well as a decent story packed with or the upcoming Lamento ~ BEYOND THE VOID by Nitro+ CHiRAL which certainly is *the* highlight for BL gaming community in 2006) and therefore had to rush. The game system itself has been kept rather simple (compared to the lavishly created system of Messiah) and Bokukoi isn’t voiced at all (while *taking Messiah for comparisson* had at least the main characters fully voiced). Moreover often criticised by people is that the coupling is pre-ordained. You have about three couplings that you can’t change at all and basically the only thing the player can achieve is to make the couplings work (like with any other visual novel game with your actions/answers).
The part where pekoe really has outdone themself is the pachage presention itself. Bokukoi comes housed in a slipcase that includes the thin DVD case for the game itself as well as a at least twice as thick booklet. This booklet is definitely *not* your standard manual at all. It does contain a manual, but aside from that the booklet (or I’m tempted to call it book) is filled with awesome rough designs for the characters (including the rare and not finalized rough design of Hajime’s sister *who does not appear in the actual game AFAIK*) with comments, extensive character bios (even for subcharacters like the wonderful Chinpira 3), rough art for the settings of Bokukoi, lots of promotional art (including so wonderful drawings that Itaru made for Bokukoi (gotta love the lovely sidenote art by Itaru featuring Hiroshi holding Kotoya in SD style with cat ears ^_^) plus tips for the game itself. The booklet alone is for those who appreciate Hinoue Itaru’s art really the perfect goodie included and it’s good to see that pekoe did take usage of having famous Itaru working on their debut product. One could say the love pekoe missed to put into the games system has been put into creating this decen accompanying book. Not completely unrelated but let me link to a quite funny/ironic artwork comparrison. Picture No. 1 is a Telecard image featuring Mizuka and Rumi that Itaru did for Tactic’s ONE ~ Kagayaku Kisetsu e (one of her very early game works) and Picture No. 2 being a relatively new telecard image featuring Kotonari and Kotoya from Bokukoi. Nice similarities ^_^
The only noticable feature of the game system is that once you start the game you’re asked wether you wish the “Kotonari Mode” to stay turned on or wether you like to turn this mode of. What is this mode? Well, the game is (as let’s say AIR) divided up into days. During those days you basically have the following chain of events: First of all is school, after the day at school ended in the early afternoon you can choose via a map about four locations in the (small) village where you can drop by (and where you logically meet the characters). However with “Kotonari Mode on” the Kotoya events are each day halted and switching to what Kotonari does meanwhile. You can’t controll nor “act with” Kotonari, you basically just can affect his events by what you choose to do with the player’s character title heroe Kotoya. So if one turns of the “Kotonari Mode” at the beginning you won’t see what the twin brother does (to those wanting to complete their CG collection I wouldn’t recommend that though ^_~) but instead get a lot more time to “wander” as Kotoya through the locations of the village.
As for the story (please keep in mind my crappy skills of giving summaries ^_^”). It starts with a flashback to a playground scenery. Two kids a small boy and a slightly older boy standing there. It’s two close friends parting, with the one moving out of the small village. The older one hands the small boy a coin and tells him that he should keep the coin and if he’s ever going to return he just needs to show him the coin and he will remember him despite the age having past. Cut to present time, we’re introduced to a teenager named Kotoya Yamabuki. He and his (slightly younger) twin brother Kotonari just came into the village…yeah *the* village. Both moved into an appartment together due to them being granted entrance to the Shiritsu Houryou school.
Sounds like your average school drama? Well remember the flashback and here’s the big twist ^_~ Kotoya is the small boy that got the coin and left the village years ago. Now one can guess that Kotoya’s major motivation to move back to this small town is not to (just) to attend a highly acclaimed school, but moreover because he thinks “I’m going to meet Onii-chan again” ^_~ Of course Kotoya didn’t tell his beloved little brother about this reason (one can tell right from the very start that there’s something iffy about the relationship between Kotoya and Kotonari)…and so let the (school boys love) drama commence…
Okay one doesn’t have to be a writer himself/herself to notice that the story is quite lacking. In fact I’m tempted to say that Bokukoi is cliche’-ridden from the very beginning up to the very end. Storywise this game certainly doesn’t win a price and doesn’t stand a chance against other BL hits released within 2006 (i.e. Messiah and I’m pretty sure Nitro+ CHiRAL’s Lamento ~ Beyond the Void will rock hard as well in these regards). So, what makes Bokura wa Minna, Koi wo Suru as enjoyable as a the greatly staged Messiah? Two elements. First and foremost important the characters. Bokukoi is a game which is simply enjoyable to me. You’re not really confronted with the deep sadness or tragic pasts or problems of the present time of the characters, you simply have fun, get to know them and their often weird ticks, hobbies, etc. *cough* Hajime *cough* througout the game and that’s something that might *is* regarded by many as not as “deep” as other BL games…but to me it just made this game a lot more replay-friendly, despite the basic plot being as flat as a flounder! Moreover this BL game doesn’t take itself too serious at times. There’s tons of good and even bizarre humor included and that’s at times a lot more enjoyable than the angst included in a lot of BL games these days. The mood is pretty light-hearted and the drama never gets too deep (though it *does* have some pretty nice drama elements included near the end). Yet this game just features a lot of replay value because of the great (and wonderful looking *heck Hinoue Itaru art looks so damn beautiful*) characters.
The music. Well despite Bokukoi already having other flaws up to that point, I still consider the music to be the most horrible part of this game. Maybe I expected too much or maybe I went into this game with wrong and totally unbased expectations (I mean, the Hinoue Itaru involvement probably did remind me too much of Key/Visual Art’s and the cute design of the game itself may should have been a warning from the very beginning anyways) however the music in Bokukoi is still horrible. Starting from the theme (which sounds like a fairly well known theme played at circus settings in movies *it didn’t interest me enough to look for wether this theme has a title*) of the game to the BGM used. There are only a few pieces of music included in Bokukoi that are really passable (meaning that you don’t have to turn the audio system back to below average volume in order to play for a while without getting headache) like the theme when you return to the appartmenet at the end of a day or a scene played during one of the climax scenes if you’re about to head into the “good ending”. But overall the music is lousy. As mentioned earlier, I probably *did* expect too much (then again I certainly did *not* expect anything as decent as the AIR or Kanon Soundtrack but hey pekoe you could have at least used some slightly less annoying tones!) and given the innocent romantic setting of the game I think the style does fit more or less…yet the music is a part of the game that can distract/annoy one quite easy which is IMO the biggest flaw with this game (doesn’t help that one of the extras one gets by playing through the game once is the complete BGM collection of the game -.-).
So despite all the above listed flaws, why do I still love Bokura wa Minna, Koi wo Suru to pieces and consider it one of the best BL Visual Novel game purchases I made up to date? As said it’s about the highly enjoyable characters, the enjoyable playstile of the game and I guess the beautiful Hinoue Itaru art takes a big part of my liking of Bokukoi as well. Also the story may be horrible thin doesn’t say it’s not enjoyable at all ^_~
For Hinoue Itaru freaks that are not into BL gaming and yet are tempted due to their fanboyism by Bokukoi the question on how “adult” this game really is comes to mind I think. Taking in mind that I *am* a fan of BL games one may shouldn’t pay too much attention into my opinion but I found it pretty light in terms of event CG. Moreover I think it’s not the easiest task to fully complete the CG collection and it takes several playing sessions to achieve that. Ultimately I’d say that if one turns of the “Kotonari Mode” Bokukoi is a game that’s even “digest” to Bishoujo gaming fans (even though it should be noted that the game does not include a single female character *yet the booklet shows a sketch of Hajime’s sister that never made it into the game ^_~*).
In the end Bokura wa Minna, Koi wo Suru turned out to be a fantastic debut project by pekoe/Visual Art’s despite it having a lot of flaws (and I do think the game could have been even better if pekoe would have invested more time in the actual game rather than rushing to release it with putting priorities into a wonderful packaging). I certainly hope that we are going to see another project by pekoe soon (though with Itaru working on Key’s Little Busters I doubt we’re going to see her designs for a possible new pekoe work -.-).

And thus I end this entry about Bokukoi which took me over a month to complete typing (so there better be some comments on it *j/k* it’s actually more due to my bad English grammar skills that it took me that long ^_~).