How did you discover otome games genre?

[diamond_rose]

And also what was your first otome game?

For me I discovered otome while playing flash games on my favourite site. It was in 2017 and I was around 13. I saw an add with a beautiful blonde guy in anime style. Tbh back then I used to not like anime cus I thought it was just stupid cartoons for perverts So when the add came up I realised that I actually like how the guy looked. And it also said "come and seduce me" wich made me think it was something inappropriate lol. But the guy was so attractive so I couldn't resist the temptation and clicked on the add and the game's site popped up. It was an online otome game called My Candy Love. I used to play it for years! Still have a few episodes left to finish the game. That game was the reason I got into anime, because I realised that I really like the art style and find anime guys attractive. So I started watching a lot of romance anime with hot guys Also I started looking for other games like that and discovered that it's a whole genre! I was so happy about it ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵) So since then I've been an otome fan (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

 

[nerim-w]

I was looking for games to play on the app store and came across the Shall We Date games... a classic. I literally downloaded every one and they had me in a chokehold for years but I never finished them since the games were always so money hungry lol. I moved on to Voltage otome games and Kings of Paradise was such a blast omg (specifically Yosukes route)

But now that i have my own adult money I can buy more VNs and play more otome games without worrying about microtransactions!

 

[Arisara]

Back then I read a lot of shoujo manga and anime. MCs often talked and played otome games. So one day i just decided to try it. Honestly i don't remember much about my very first VN. I don't even remember if it was otome. Some dating sim. But the next otome i remember and maybe my first was The Second Reproduction, Tokimeki Memorial 1-3, Storm Lover Kai and Sweet fuse.

 

[AkaTe]

I think I stumbled into it while "doom surfing." That was around 2010. Starry Sky in Spring ended up being my first otome game. My Japanese was pretty mediocre, so I mostly played otome games on Windows, using a combination of programs to translate them. It was a bit of a clumsy setup, but that's how it all started.

 

[rickaz_z]

I used to love watching visual novel playthroughs on YouTube from my favorite bloggers back then (it was so long ago, and it's a shame they switched to politics and totally abandoned their YouTube channel).
Those bloggers had a website where you could find both translated visual novels and original projects that people uploaded themselves. That's when I started downloading VNs and really diving into the whole scene. Later on, I also discovered visual novels on Android from the Play Store.[/COLOR]

The Arcana was a real game-changer for me — beautiful art style, amazing characters, the story... Back then my English wasn't great since it's not my native language, but thanks to VNs I actually started understanding it better.

 

[Fruitcup]

My first introduction to otome was the shall we date series. Otome has come a long way since those days (つ≧▽≦)つ

 

[lanying]

I really like playing games, especially those with female protagonists. But I don't like games that test your reaction time; I prefer visual novels instead. The first otome game I played was probably some romance-themed visual novel on a reading platform. The first otome game I really experienced was Amnesia.

 

[ruuuiii]

I loved reverse harem anime when i was younger, and kept looking for more. Realized a lot of the ones i liked were based off games, and that playing them meant getting to romance the other guys (sometimes i really disliked the main li) and actually understand the full story that they usually don't give you in the anime.

 

[Reizerolei]

Hmm... for me, it's been a really long time lol

Ever since I saw drawings of otome game characters that I made over 10 years ago, I think? Honestly, I can't really remember anymore. Back then, I was really into BL. I think I first discovered otome games while searching for games to play, anime to watch, or songs to listen to on YouTube. I saw those beautiful cover arts and got curious about what they were, so I looked them up… and then I completely fell into the trap lol.

I used to play both BL games and otome games, but I played more BL games at the time. Then I drifted away from them for a while. I only got back into otome games and drama CDs around 3–4 years ago, I think.

Because I was going through some difficult things, but playing certain games made me unable to stop smiling. They made me really happy and healed me a lot. Honestly, I truly love otome games so much (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

 

[salelsa]

It was all thanks to YouTube's recommendations back in 2016; the best thing I could have done was click on that video, it was a game by Genius Inc named Reverse Alice, if I remember correctly. I was so in love with Chesire and Seofiras

 

[mirasaki]

It's a long time ago and I don't remember very clearly. but all I remember is scrolling through the website if I can find interesting games for my PSP and I found Amnesia bc I love the artstyle, intrigued with the synopsis, and win for me finding a female protagonist game. That moment, it was my first encounter on Otome games

 

[Syntaxcha]

I remember my sister showing it to me lol ... She somehow discovered shall we date games and got me into it and never stopped being a fan of the genre ever since. shame tho that she seems not to care too much on it now..

 

[Pastels]

I kept on getting bombarded with the Shall We Date: Guard Me Sherlock ads and it finally wore me down . Great game tho but I hated how long it took for tickets to regenerate and I was a broke 3rd grader.

 

[marzipan]

Oh gosh. If we're counting flash games, then my first was probably something by nummyz... decades ago!

If we're sticking to the visual novel label exclusively, then it was Yo-Jin-Bo! It was a pretty natural progression; I liked video games with dating elements, like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, and that led to visual novels. There weren't a lot of them available in English at the time, and a localization company, Hirameki International, had a pretty solid lineup of games, the only otome being Yo-Jin-Bo!

I'll get the urge to revisit it sometimes but I always get worried I won't like it as much now, with more years on me. I still think about you, Muneshige!

 

[DucknGeese]

And also what was your first otome game?

For me I discovered otome while playing flash games on my favourite site. It was in 2017 and I was around 13. I saw an add with a beautiful blonde guy in anime style. Tbh back then I used to not like anime cus I thought it was just stupid cartoons for perverts So when the add came up I realised that I actually like how the guy looked. And it also said "come and seduce me" wich made me think it was something inappropriate lol. But the guy was so attractive so I couldn't resist the temptation and clicked on the add and the game's site popped up. It was an online otome game called My Candy Love. I used to play it for years! Still have a few episodes left to finish the game. That game was the reason I got into anime, because I realised that I really like the art style and find anime guys attractive. So I started watching a lot of romance anime with hot guys Also I started looking for other games like that and discovered that it's a whole genre! I was so happy about it ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵) So since then I've been an otome fan (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

Long story short I first saw my sibling play a few otomes(forgot the name) back in 2019 and thought nothing of it before trying it and quitting which timeskip later while browsing through the playstore I found a detective themed otome owned by a Korean company and played it and that's how it started and ever since then I played otomes but now in the recent years I'm more into vns now because the otomes usually in playstore got boring and we're money hungry most of the time

 

[totallyamanda]

lots of shoujo anime used to show dating sims in the show so it was ingrained, to me, that lots of teen girls play these cute games. ˙˚ଘo(∗ ❛ั ᵕ ❛ั )੭່˙

i'd always been into romance novels as a child and soon discovered fanfiction and quizzes with the internet and early ds games marketed to girls had some semblance of a romance or flirty male characters so it just evolved from there.

my first otome was probably TMGS1 or one of the shall we dates on mobile that were true otomes rather than a western game with a romanceable side character. i wish i had the memory to recall exactly!! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ

 

[judahslove]

I was pretty randomly looking for psp games on my emulator before i see starrysky i was like "oh well let's try" and even if i didn't understand anything back then i really liked the game and played all the games…i after starting searching for more games that look like that and i found out it was named otome games and to that…a whole new world opened to me xD i've been into this genre for almost 10 years now…

 

[myfrral]

When I was in middle school, I accidentally heard a friend talk about Japanese anime. I was curious at the time and was surprised to find out that there were love anime. I didn't understand love at the time, so I went to watch Japanese love anime out of curiosity. I was immediately addicted and couldn't help but love the characters in the anime. The male lead was handsome, and the female lead was also very cute and kind. There were many interesting and attractive plot types in the anime!

I watched a lot of anime at that time, such as DIABOLIK LOVERS, Hakuoki, and so on. The first time I learned about otomegames was through the anime Hakuoki and DIABOLIK LOVERS. Some characters in anime are not playable, so I played otomegames to be with the male lead I like!

 

[arson194835798]

Found out about otome through the sort of egregious anime adaptations of it–like Dancing with the Devil or Diabolik Lovers, and the Kuni no Alice manga series! I was so heartbroken to find out that Quin Rose suspended production when I started to try and find the games to play.

With actually playing otome games, I started off with mobile games, so just through browsing games on the Google Play store.

 

[Darmian]

Idk which one made me curious about otoge first: Anime, Shall We Date games, or era popular of Mystic Messenger.

Back then when i was in the middle high school. I was surfing around website anime, and i found name Diabolik Lovers. Forgot why i got interested it, but i just watch it right away. I kinda forgot too about my impression for this anime, i mean i even watched whole this show until S2. Thats when i found out the anime actually an adaptation from game, and it happened pretty popular back time.

I didnt have PSP, so i tried with mod. It was fully Japanese and i dont have any idea what i was playing. The most memorable thing i remember was Kanato asking me about his doll, then he gettin angry at me for no reason, i mean like he tried to harm me with fork????? And afterward he found his doll and just left without feeling guilty at all....

 

[rorudesu]

When I first came across I was actually pretty hesitant about otomes. As an otaku I was good with shojo mangas, even classic harems, but for some reason the sight of a pure & innocent heroine surrounded by a crowd of ikemens always made me instinctively step back from those.

That changed when a friend (longtime otome fan) insisted I watch the Amnesia adaption. A few episodes in I realized it wasn't the reverse harem I knew, but more a suspense story overall and I'm completely hooked.
Then the final episode ended right where MC was about to choose a route with all the mysteries unresolved. I asked if the rest was in the game, and my friend just gave me a knowing look. lolol

I completely fell for their trap and ended up clearing the whole game afterward. Looking back, I'm grateful they pushed me into it.

 

[yoryoshuku]

fell down into the rabbit hole by downloading mystic messenger and 100 sleeping princes XD

younger me genuinely curious about this type of game "does this game have specific genre? i need more of this" and just like that i fell down to the rabbit hole lmaoo

 

[3302325939]

My experience is a bit different, but I discovered otome games while playing online games. To be precise, it all started when I saw a user's profile image and wondered, "What is this?" and searched it up. So, my first game was Under the Moon

 

[ringring677]

i'm interested in female leading games / cds and i got stumbled upon the short otome games series here i forgot the names for now and it was interesting.
then I got into homicipher and lots of similar themed games on itch io

 

[nekoky]

Before I even knew what otome games were, I played a bishoujo raising sim on the minigame website 4399. While raising the protagonist, she would trigger side stories with some male characters, which could lead to romance. That might have been the first game I played with otome elements. The memory is so distant that if I hadn't seen this thread, I probably wouldn't have remembered it at all ∠( ᐛ 」∠)_ But my first proper otome game in the real sense would be Ikemen Sengoku, which I played later on my phone (˶˘ᗜ˘˶)