Olciaczek273
New member
- Jun 12, 2026
- 5
- 1
This is gonna be a bit of a litany lol. I'm new here, but I become a chatterbox sometimes...
(There aren't any spoilers!)
The first anime based on an otome game I watched was actually an experience so bad that I started thinking it was some kind of a ragebait. Well, it was "Diabolik Lovers" and I was completely shocked when I downloaded the "Haunted Dark Bridal" visual novel just to see if the source material was equally bad, and it turned out to be a completely different thing. I've only played the first part and the only brothers I like are Laito and Reiji, but I think I can call myself an enjoyer of the game, because the term "fan" is a little bit too much lol
When it comes to the anime adaptation, in my opinion, many things were done the wrong way. I'm not here to spread Yui hate, because I think that her situation was just hopeless and I'm not gonna say that she's brainless, because she didn't stand up to the brothers. SHE DID! She desperately tried to escape from the manor and failed. I fully understand why she's terrified and stuff, but it's just not my type of a protagonist. She seemed very "self-insertish" - she's bland and as neutral as possible to appeal to more girls who picture themselves on her place and it just didn't clicked with me. In my opinion, writing main characters to be universal for everyone defeats the purpose, because relating to the character is too much of a personal preference and real people aren't blank slates.
Paradoxically, I couldn't stand the fact that the whole show was about some poor girl getting abused. I get that the love interests were SUPPOSED to be sadistic (Guess why I decided to watch the anime!), but I personally don't see any fun in this when the protagonist doesn't even enjoy any of it. I wouldn't call it a sadist x masochist pairing, but rather an abuser x his unwilling victim trope. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the type of a sensitive person, I definitely enjoy the darker shades of romance stories, but that just feels wrong to me. There's no love at all, Yui is scared of the Sakamaki brothers, hates them from the bottom of her heart and dreams of leading a normal life again. The truth is, they're ruining her life and only making her miserable, which is heavily implied to be something "romantic".
Another annoying thing to me was that Yui was constantly being passed from one brother to another, making it difficult to even form any kind of bond with the love interests. I understand that adapting harem games to a non-interactive medium is always really hard and producers can't elaborate on every character's backstory, because there's no time for it, but this anime is just a teeny tiny stub of the game's content. TOO MUCH of a teeny tiny stub. Majority of the plot is just female-targeted fanservice with vampires, completely random scenes from the game mashed together and formed into one hell of a mess. There are some fragmentary backstories and we can tell that the Sakamaki brothers' childhood wasn't all sunshines and rainbows, but the entire psychological aspect of their traumas and their impact on their lives was generally omitted in the anime. This got me really mad, because in my opinion, that's one of the game's strongest points - the exploration of the minds of twisted people and how they became who they are. From the very beginning, I picked up this series thinking it would be some kind of case study about difficult topics such as Stockholm syndrome and I was extremely disappointed.
However, as I already said before, when I picked up the game, my opinion turned 180 degrees. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, because it's surely not perfect, but I truly enjoyed playing it. You can focus on one character and completely skip the other ones if you don't like them and each one is presented as they should be - as complex individuals with a lot of interesting story to tell us! to tell! Yui also gets more freedom - if the player wants to, she can be more harsh towards the brothers (S and M points mechanics) and different choices can lead to different endings. Overall, there are far more content. The plot finally gets a chance to develop, but some endings can get pretty confusing, not gonna lie.
By the way, I still can't get over the fact the anime producers completely changed Reiji's attitude. In the game, he smiles in most of his sprites and is always ready to play tricks on Yui for fun whenever he feels like it. That's one of the reasons why I liked him – he's terribly strict and always demands perfection, but on the other hand, he can still be playful and really funny. In the adaptation, he's only cold and washed out of emotions most of the time. TELL ME, WHY????????
It's been a long time since I wrote such a long text in English, because it's not my native language lol. If I like any other otome games in the future that have their own anime, I'll definitely watch it even if it's not good. I'm that kind of person who just needs to see absolutely EVERYTHING of their favorite franchise and doesn't believe any reviews.
(There aren't any spoilers!)
The first anime based on an otome game I watched was actually an experience so bad that I started thinking it was some kind of a ragebait. Well, it was "Diabolik Lovers" and I was completely shocked when I downloaded the "Haunted Dark Bridal" visual novel just to see if the source material was equally bad, and it turned out to be a completely different thing. I've only played the first part and the only brothers I like are Laito and Reiji, but I think I can call myself an enjoyer of the game, because the term "fan" is a little bit too much lol
When it comes to the anime adaptation, in my opinion, many things were done the wrong way. I'm not here to spread Yui hate, because I think that her situation was just hopeless and I'm not gonna say that she's brainless, because she didn't stand up to the brothers. SHE DID! She desperately tried to escape from the manor and failed. I fully understand why she's terrified and stuff, but it's just not my type of a protagonist. She seemed very "self-insertish" - she's bland and as neutral as possible to appeal to more girls who picture themselves on her place and it just didn't clicked with me. In my opinion, writing main characters to be universal for everyone defeats the purpose, because relating to the character is too much of a personal preference and real people aren't blank slates.
Paradoxically, I couldn't stand the fact that the whole show was about some poor girl getting abused. I get that the love interests were SUPPOSED to be sadistic (Guess why I decided to watch the anime!), but I personally don't see any fun in this when the protagonist doesn't even enjoy any of it. I wouldn't call it a sadist x masochist pairing, but rather an abuser x his unwilling victim trope. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the type of a sensitive person, I definitely enjoy the darker shades of romance stories, but that just feels wrong to me. There's no love at all, Yui is scared of the Sakamaki brothers, hates them from the bottom of her heart and dreams of leading a normal life again. The truth is, they're ruining her life and only making her miserable, which is heavily implied to be something "romantic".
Another annoying thing to me was that Yui was constantly being passed from one brother to another, making it difficult to even form any kind of bond with the love interests. I understand that adapting harem games to a non-interactive medium is always really hard and producers can't elaborate on every character's backstory, because there's no time for it, but this anime is just a teeny tiny stub of the game's content. TOO MUCH of a teeny tiny stub. Majority of the plot is just female-targeted fanservice with vampires, completely random scenes from the game mashed together and formed into one hell of a mess. There are some fragmentary backstories and we can tell that the Sakamaki brothers' childhood wasn't all sunshines and rainbows, but the entire psychological aspect of their traumas and their impact on their lives was generally omitted in the anime. This got me really mad, because in my opinion, that's one of the game's strongest points - the exploration of the minds of twisted people and how they became who they are. From the very beginning, I picked up this series thinking it would be some kind of case study about difficult topics such as Stockholm syndrome and I was extremely disappointed.
However, as I already said before, when I picked up the game, my opinion turned 180 degrees. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, because it's surely not perfect, but I truly enjoyed playing it. You can focus on one character and completely skip the other ones if you don't like them and each one is presented as they should be - as complex individuals with a lot of interesting story to tell us! to tell! Yui also gets more freedom - if the player wants to, she can be more harsh towards the brothers (S and M points mechanics) and different choices can lead to different endings. Overall, there are far more content. The plot finally gets a chance to develop, but some endings can get pretty confusing, not gonna lie.
By the way, I still can't get over the fact the anime producers completely changed Reiji's attitude. In the game, he smiles in most of his sprites and is always ready to play tricks on Yui for fun whenever he feels like it. That's one of the reasons why I liked him – he's terribly strict and always demands perfection, but on the other hand, he can still be playful and really funny. In the adaptation, he's only cold and washed out of emotions most of the time. TELL ME, WHY????????
It's been a long time since I wrote such a long text in English, because it's not my native language lol. If I like any other otome games in the future that have their own anime, I'll definitely watch it even if it's not good. I'm that kind of person who just needs to see absolutely EVERYTHING of their favorite franchise and doesn't believe any reviews.
