Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~

Believe it or not, despite stress level nowhere near about to reduce and merely a full month gone by (since the last such entry), yours truly today is proudly presenting the efforts invested in order to completely cross through another Soft title among the backlog. While there’s still a whole lot sitting on my shelf left to get started on and yet this going to turn into another thoughts/impressions write-up all over again, I must admit once for a change to be proud of my efforts on this particular title spotlighted today. Not only because the arrival dates back to winter 2007 (ever since then sitting on my backlog shelf and catching dusk…) but moreover it *really* has been more than a while, since I did come up with such a write-up dedicated on a Boy’s Love Soft title, in fact the last such entry brings me back to the starting days of blogging done here on N-Field (and pretty embarassing job back there as well, which btw. will definitely face some re-write sooner or, well, latter). So without much more intro talk, let’s proceed right to the main focus of today’s thoughts/impressions entry.
Before that comes the usual disclaimer that the upcoming write-up (especially the plot/scenario part) is going to contain more or less heavy spoilers – so you’ve been warned, continue reading on your own risk of getting spoiled

• Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~
Brand: BaseSon spice*
Release: 2007/12/21
Genre: Love Fuufuseikatsu (BL) AVG

Art & Direction: Katagiri Hinata
Scenario: Hanana | Yasaki | Aoki Kanako
BGM: MASA (Dreaming Rabbit)

+ Basic Plot Outline / Scenario:
Things actually don’t start out *that* crazy in the very beginning of Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~. Kuga Soutarou and Yaesaki Haru were summoned to the Kuga household due to the testament of Soutarou’s grandpa. The two young men not only are cousins but more important a deeply fostered and treasured childhood friendship connects them. What Soutarou and Haru did not know though is that upon their arrival more is soon going to link them together. Apparently it were not just the two of them treasuring and having enjoyed their time of growing up, but also grandpa Kuga did. And because of these happy times Soutarou and Haru went through, the old man’s last wish is that the two boys should move in together and start an engaged living! Sounds like gramps Kuga lost his marbles there, nee? To make things moving into crazy territory (and in order to set things up) Soutarou is about the only or most shocked reacting family member out of the Kuga clan while this last wish was announced. In fact, both his parents are perfectly fine with the two men spending a happy life with each other on behalf of granpa’s testament! What about blonde Bishie Haru you may ask? Well, he doesn’t mind and agrees on it!  And so the engaged living of both Soutarou and Haru is arranged and agreed on. Happy end? Not at all, because things move into way more freaky terrait from there on. Early on when moved in together, Soutarou (literally) throws Haru off his guard by confessing to him, that he (Soutarou) sees more in Haru than just his Osananajimi. This confession and more importantly the forcing way how Soutarou showcased it to Haru makes their first night spent together turn into anything else but a sweet honeymoon. Instead it makes the first major problem between the two protagonists arise, Soutarou who’s head over toe in love with Haru since their childhood days, while Haru on the other side claims to have agreed upon the grandpa’s last wish for the sake of it and while Haru admits not to exactely know for himself how to define the feeling of “love”, he also makes it clear to Soutarou not to share the same romantic feelings. Will this engagement remain on the unrequited and one-sided love state or is there the possibility of a sweet sweet honeymoon for the two young men?

Of course there is, this title’s categorization of “love married live adventure” wouldn’t really match well there if things would remain on an one-sided love aspect througout within this BL Soft title, nee? ^_^ So much for providing a loose break-down on the beginning / starting plot as featured for the BaseSon spice* debut work Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~. The storytelling is handled and presented via two chapters in total, which are while directly conntected dealing with different plot issues. Basically it goes like this: the starting chapter focuses on how the two young men move in together, early on problems rising through Sou-chan’s love confession and Haru dismissing that, while as time goes by there’s a romantical relationship developing between them. Sou-chan despite having to realize that he most likely won’t be able to get anything more than friendship from Haru, still does his best to make their living the most comfortable possible (meaning he pretty much does the whole housework including the cooking *where at he’s quite talented in* on his own), while the blond and sometimes quite tsundere Bishie Haru slowly is about to deal with determing his feelings towards Soutarou.

Much as one can exepect, the outcome of this firstly one-sided romantical setting is that the two of them end up together. Of course, it’ll be just half the fun, if this would represent the sole plot and protagonists and so early on an overlookable line-up of supporting and sub-characters enter the scenary one after another. Let’s see who we’ve got there: the dandy and goofy classmate of Sou-chan with strong Kansai-ben – Inuduka Kiou, the sole female sub-character Kamiya Satsuki (who’s got a big crush on Sou-chan on top), gentle (voice-wise a little too gentle for my taste) teacher Ichikawa Shuuhei as well as the fellow Doujou trainee comrade and despite his boylike appearance often rough and grown-up acting Kuranuki Taichi as well as two supporting characters that enter the story through Haru’s study side of things – Odagiri Itsuki a true womanizer and Ayase Madoka who’s as queer as it can get. Alongside these (what mostly is quite “cliché” or stereotype sort of back-up) supporting characters, one is presented to the main focus – the development of how Soutarou and Haru find together through chapter 1. Aside of the main lead development which the first half of the scenario Shinkon-san tells, there are also two additional couples going on exclusively through this chapter. Pre-set with every possibility of oneself to alternate the couples taken out, Shinkon-san also offers to pursue the love story of Ichikawa-sensei and Taichi or alternatively Odagiri and Madoka.

While labeled as “the other couples” one is up to experience through Shinkon-san depending on your actions and decisions made alongside the story progress, ultimately they end up being more of a side/sub storyline than truely stepping forth as independent and stand-alone scenarios which take the spotlight. This feeling is heavily supported by the fact that even *if* you progress towards the so-labeled Ichikawa x Taichi or Odagiri x Madoka plot, you still have the main focus (Sou-chan x Haru) as (prevailing) one included along the road. This means that aside of facing and having to overcome the troubles and issues that also the subcharacters deal with (i.e. Ichikawa reserved towards the approach by his youngster student Taichi, or Madoka secretly wishing to be Odagiri’s girl ^_^), each of the paths that lead to the end of Shinkon-san chapter 1 also got an alternative route for Sou-chan x Haru prepaired which leads to the happy end for those two as well. So in total completing the first chapter means, you’ve got five (!) different ways and methods how the Soft’s lead heroes find together, while three of the routes also brings forth a story strand wherein one out of the supporting couples are given some spotlight too. Another aspect wherein Shinkon-san appeared a bit unusual from other Soft titles out there, is that no matter how hard or miserable you try yourself at it, you’re not going to be trapped into a bad end alongside the progress. Well, actually there is merely one way to finish Chapter 1 which is considered to be sort of a bad end (still rewarding you with some hot Ero scenary though), but that one does not involve Haru nor Sou-chan. Much as noted before, the second chapter of Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~ which is unlocked by completing the first one, directly ties in with the outcome of the previous. Starting with some real ecchi scenaries (i.e. Soutarou’s having some wet dreams on how Haru could wake him up, etc.) at the very beginning to showcase the happiness the newly got together love birds are enjoying (also in regards of the sub-characters, which are now fully “coupled-up” for the setting as featured in Chapter 2, no matter whether you previously managed to go for their routes during the first story). As main theme here, the two young men are about to face problems of seperation, with Haru’s dream to study abroad in America (as noted by him back during the first chapter) about to become reality, while Sou-chan once again has to deal with whether his deeply fostered wish to stay at Haru’s side forever may impede with his lover’s dreams to be fullfilled. Much as done for the first chapter, the story telling as included this time around comes along with a good portion of drama as well. In contrast to chapter 1 though, there is no alternative character/subcharacter route included, merely two different ways to once again end up happy for the two leads (no bad end included here either). But given the whole beginning adult scenary also involving the other two couples from chapter one, this isn’t minded as much as I first thought it would while crossing through the second half of Shinkon-san. The rather uncommon method how the other couples story is portrayed during the first chapter admitted took quite some while to get used to, in fact once I got around restarting this part of Shinkon-san to go for the Odagiri and Madoka scenario, I was surprise and coincidentally felt a bit like left down that the focus still is spent on how Soutarou and Haru are dealing with their situation while the other couple’s route you assume to finally having found a way into is merely “processed” aside of it. But once gone through chapter 1 the third time around (the Taichi x Ichikawa path) there also came up an element for which I found this method of telling alternative ways how Sou-chan and Haru end up together quite appreciated in fact. Because despite the at first seeming yet another alternate to result into happy end, new aspects were brought along which are added to character development like missing pieces of a puzzle. For example to what I’m referring here, during the Taichi and Ichikawa route, the teacher confronts one with information which leads to a somewhat better understanding as to why Haru is seemingly unable to determine what a feeling true love actually is (due to his father’s job as famed romance novelist) or another quite neat example here would be the alternate path which gives out more insight on why Kamiya actually has such a big crush on Soutarou.

While it is still argueable whether these proper elements of character development are missing in case you’re not aiming to fully complete Shinkon-san and its different routes, it felt much more worth to go through the story over and over again due to them. Another gimmick included, which also is exclusively reserved for those clearing through this Soft completely are the so-called “Otanoshimi♥” bonus scenes. In totall there are three such scenes included within that section, unlocked once clearing through both chapters of Shinkon-san, one scene for each of the 3 couples. However in order to access them, one has to complete all the endings available for the couples which isn’t such an hard task for the subcharacters, but requires one to go for each ending included for Soutarou and Haru (and also that Otanoshimi scene contains two different Ero conclusions btw.). The cast of characters which Shinkon-san features are as noted before  more or less quite cliché ridden – some to more extend (Madoka who partwise *really* goes on my nerves with “her” acting) others to less (Taichi). As much as I enjoy BL Soft and look forward to projects involving talents like for this Brand debut release, over the years I seem to have become slightly tired up to reacting alergic to some of the reocurring cliché of the genre. Of course, with the basic premise as included for this title I wasn’t expected to bypass those at all, but esepcially once started with Shinkon-san some of them (again once Madoka enters the scenary) hit hard with those genre elements I seem to have grown a dislike of. Yet, because of characters such as the highly sympathic lead Soutarou (who’s really a likeable and not too typical character I found myself to empathise with early on) I kept going through the sometimes too silly for its own good sake moments that *are* included here as well. 

A very good example being the later on followed Science Café booth at the school festival, where Haru is dressed up as maid while Madoka appears in China dress…and guess what, the fellow students agree on that Maid Haru looks cute (don’t know about nowadays, but if some crossdressing student would have shown up during my schooldays, I really doubt the first thing people would think to themself is how cute he looks that way ^_^). However once I’ve overcome the more or less heavy portions of genre sillyness or cliché, what’s left is a more or less a thin plot. The true highlight and strength that Shinkon-san comes along with in terms of story/scenario featured in fact is the drama – which in retrospect I probably have to credit a good part of what motivated me as much as to completely cross through this Soft in the end. Despite some cheesyness coming along with that element as executed on the various alternative endings as well, the dramatical moments of the various scenario paths Shinkon-san offers are the most gripping aspect that the scenario writers – Hanana (who’s btw. later on also been part of the scenario writers in charge for Shin•Koihime†Musou), Yasaki and Aoki Kanako (both known from several other BL Soft titles prior to this one) as well as Hinata Katagiri (not only the artist but also credited for “direction”) managed to equip Shinkon-san with, ultimately weighting out a good part of the flaws the thin plot and partwise quite stereotype characters have. Honestly, through some of the drama climax not only weak spots of the plot were totally blanked out for a moment but also got me sitting on the edge and continue to face the outcome of it all (i.e. the chapter 2 route wherein Sou-chan decided to move out and call a quit to their living in order to enable Haru to go aboard for study – one of the most tear-jerking as well as resulting into most beautiful ending overall).

+ Graphics / Visuals:
With someone like Hinata Katagiri in charge, one expects some great artistical presentation to be part of a Soft and that’s just exactely what she delivered for the BaseSon spice* debut. If I had to name one particular striking element that througoutly convinced for Shinkon-san than this would certainly lead me to name the graphics. While the same doesn’t in my view apply to other aspects of the visual presentation (more on that later on in the “System” part of the write-up), the effort Katagiri-sensei put into crafting a great to partwise truely impressive artistical jewel amongst BL Soft with Shinkon-san is visable from the very beginning up ’till the end. The attractive designs Katagiri-sensei came up for the characters all carring along the distinctive elements of her style and its definitely thanks to those that some of the lacking efforts executed (or better said not executed) for the system part of Shinkon-san were balanced out on the overall impression side of things. Even though real character on-screen expression went missing, the head artist and also director of this Brand’s starting release moreover brought in some healthy portion of different character appearances (i.e. character streetwear fashion or the festival styled dressings) alongside the plot/event progress through which variety is also brought in to the visual presentation. Admitted, sometimes the crossdressing going on is taken a little bit too far for my cliché minding taste there – such as shown during the later on MisContest event (stands for “Mister Contest” as Soutarou finds out the embarassing way during one path of the first chapter), but Katagiri-sensei’s detailed and highly refined art produced for this Soft enables even the cheesiest of moments to stand out on utmost positive ways in terms of visual presentation.
This brings me right to the Event CG as naturally also contained for Shinkon-san. Frankly, once the Soft’s opening commences giving out a flash-showing of a good load of events taken from such rewarding artworks, I firstly feared that this would spoil a good part of the total eyecandy Katagiri-sensei prepaired for this graphic element. Gladly I was proven oh so wrong there, because when it comes to total amount of Event CG scenes, BaseSon spice* was anything else but spare with those for their debut release. Enough to fill-up a gallery (unlocked once clearing through one of the chapters) that consists of about seven pages in total each piece of Event CG art Katagiri-sensei crafted represents pure eyencandy unleashed and adding a lot to the already positive impression this category of Shinkon-san left on me.

+ Music / CV:
As overwhelming as the previous category impressed me, as totally reversed it gets when talking about the score and overall music side of Shinkon-san. That starts right with the theme song “Marriage☆KICK” performed by Takumaru and continues througout the majority of score which Shinkon-san utilizes as its BGM. With mere few exceptions of tracks that were mood setting (mostly during the drama scenes), the music all in all wasn’t anything of the kind that I could imagine or even wish to get ahold as Soundtrack release afterwards, partwise the composer in charge here (MASA) instead underlined and even worse pushed forth the cheesy moments through certain tracks out of the score, that I sometimes felt like turning the music off via the settings menu. To be fair, it certainly could have been much worse – pekoe/Visual Art’s Bokukoi springs to mind as prime example of worst BGM ever included within a BL Soft in my experience (classic music gone candy cutesy pop style), yet even taken this into consideration doesn’t leave much positive effect on my lukewarm feelings on things regarding music as featured for Shinkon-san. The voice acting on the other hand brings up a rather mixed bunch of feelings and impressions. Some of the Seiyuu who lended their voice to the Shinkon-san characters  truely did a fine job while others just were not to my liking. However with the later mentioned I certainly don’t mean to say these guys did a bad job, rather than its the case of their voices/voicing being of that kind, I couldn’t stand through altogether – such as Madoka, a character who’s acting often has gone on my nerves anyways and his voice while perfectly matching the appearance, had the same effect in audio terms on me. Others like Puroguresu (Progress) who voiced Ichikawa-sensei also suited fine, but to some extend felt a bit off and too gentle during some moments. My personal favorites among the voice cast that was assembled for Shinkon-san once ironically also ended up being those characters, that I consider to be the most striking ones included – first and foremost Okino Yasuhiro as Sou-chan (who btw. really made the fully voiced aspect even moreso appreciated during the Ero scenes leading to some extensive nosebleeding ^_^”), Sugawara Eiji as Kiou (Kansai-ben – that’s what I blame my liking here on), Chihiro Suzuki as Taichi or Aoshimamaru who voiced Odagiri (a manly deep sexy voice for a change!). In retrospect the audio presentation conducted on Shinkon-san turned out to be a mixed bag in my view – some parts that rightfully deserve praise and mention, while coincidentally at other corners there’s nothing worth to write home about.

+ System:
Before I’ll start getting harsh with my comments towards this element of presentation for the BaseSon spice* debut work, let me confess that I haven’t checked out any titles put out by “mother Brand” BaseSon yet. So, if this stlye of presentation is typical for their Soft products, than I wouldn’t know, even though this would not affect my impressions and liking here one bit. Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~ is among the very few titles I picked up during 2007  which still uses a pair of CD-ROM as data media on which the Soft is contained. That’s noted during the installation (change to disc 2 midway through that progress) and also or even moreso when I got started (please enter disc 2 = play disc necessary if you’re planning to continue efforts on this Soft). I realize to be quite nitpicky here, but if there’s one thing I truely dislike, it’s to be forced and having a CD staying in the drive while aiming to continue on the *fully* installed game. But anyways, that’s just minor or first pieces of ranting here, let’s continue on the presentation and its flaws that I minded much more. The system itself is pretty much as basic or standard as it could get – meaning there’s everything there you’d expect a release of this kind to come along with. From fancy menu and basic functions, to the Soft visual presentation/layout itself so there’s almost everything fine and there so far. Almost though, because there was something in regards of the system aspect missing, which I found to be quite sloppy at first. While BaseSon spice* didn’t completely leave out Tachi-e expressions, the method chosen on for portraying them was quite old-fashioned in my view. Instead of making them part of the character stills/art which takes up the majority of screen, almost througout the story these were only shown in comparable petit size as the character icon/avatar dimensioned face portray displayed next to the text bar. The full sized character art during the scenary for a prevailing time sticks to the same basic and hardly ever unchainged expression you get to see them ever since their introduction. Not only because I’m nowadays used to some expressions visualized and going on the screen during the events which aren’t done as the rewarding event CG artworks, I found this aspect of presentation BaseSon spice* chose for their debut work to be rather lacking and takes lot of time to get used to, because partwise even in the heat of the most dramatical scenes the story of Shinkon-san comes up with, the large-sized character art and their facial expression remain on the non-affected same smiling or gentle looking expression and merely the Tachi-e art in the lower left corner of the screen indicating major emotions going on. On very few occassions, some Tachi-e is executed on the character still art itself, which makes it even moreso strange of a case here, because if it would have gone missing altogether you could consider that sort of an artistical decision made, yet this way around it strikes me more of lacking effort the BaseSon spice* staff conducted in this category than anything else.

+ Ero Content:
Next to the drama and art, a section which utilizes both and results into another aspect wherein Shinkon-san truely shines bright are the Ero scenes. Last time I felt these to be as rewarding of scenaries showcased during a Soft of this genre actually once again brings me back to a comparisson with the pekoe/Visual Art’s debut Bokukoi, however when it comes down to such comparing the two, I have to put the bias aside because Shinkon-san really strikes me far more positive on the hotness scale in this category than what Itaru-sensei and Jinnai came up with back then. Not only are the adult moments as included within Shinkon-san located on the upper side of the hotness scale and stand out due to skillfull writting featured (some starting of quite beautiful, like the one wherein Sou-chan is trying to showcase the througout beauty he sees in Haru), but moreover the biggest and welcomed surprise this part of the scenario brings up is ironically working against the cliché through actings and events that the plot itself inherits. In more detail, with this I’m mainly referring to the execusion of Ero scenes, which totally switch the roles of the couples showcased as one might suspect those to be handled – despite Soutarou’s submissive attitude when it comes to Haru, once he gets around to make sweet love with him, it’s clear who’s more experienced and *does* what he aims for, or in terms of the Taichi x Ichikawa pairing, the youngster really knows how to tease and make usage of his teacher ^_~ I guess it’s due to this untypical sort of character roles shown via the adult moments of Shinkon-san, that the sheer amount of such scenes included is not only a big plus in my book but more importantly much appreciated. And there really *are* a whole lot of x-rated scenes delicately spread among the story of the two chapters (and lastly also the “Otanoshimi♥” bonus) which may not appear to be that way during the first half, but this aspect is facing some major increase through the later part of the scenario (chapter 2) quite fitting presented given that by then the three couples of the story formally got together each (and you know, fresh lovers are supposed not to keep their hands from each other ^_~). So with the Ero content as depicted comes another striking part of the formular that provides back-up to those previously mentioned convincing elements through which Shinkon-san make up for its flaws included as well.

+ Overall Impression:
To repeat myself (once again), not only has it taken BaseSon spice* quite a while ’till the final product was brought out with Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~, but also has this Soft remained on the shelf sitting next to a good couple of other backlog purchases for far too long and that despite the anticipation I approached Shinkon-san with ever since the days the project still was planned as Doujin Soft by Katagiri-sensei and Hanana’s Circle spice*. Was it worth the wait and moreover to finally get started on with you might ask (or not)? While certainly anything else but groundbreaking of a debut release, Shinkon-san ~Sweet Sweet honeymoon~ turned out to be a worthwile purchase which comes along with a fair share of convincing strength as well as flaws. But despite its weaks inherited  within the formula as BaseSon spice* presents this Soft, it lastly is due to the high level of enjoyment (which I’d rate to range at about a similar scale as the also not flawless but instead utterly enjoyable Bokukoi by pekoe/Visual Art’s managed to pull off) the positive sides come along with that result into that yours truly considers Shinkon-san to represent a rather good title  among its genre. Certainly doesn’t stick out as something that hasn’t been there before and partwise honestly I was expecting something more and different than it turned out to be and was able to end up as (hence I wouldn’t call the final product to througoutly living up to the expectations approached with), but all in all the staff involved did produce a quite solid work that is setting the start and mood for more to come up from this newly launched Brand.

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