Title: 年上彼女２
Developer: Azarashi Soft
Age Rating: 18+
Length: ~4 Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
Like many of Azarashi Soft's shorter series, Toshiue Kanojo is both a series that wears its heart on its sleeve and is only a "series" in loose terms (no recurring characters, just an overlapping theme). You can tell by the title exactly what you're going to get here – a romance with an older heroine. Though I will say that "older" in context of the Toshiue Kanojo series has meant a heroine only one year older than the protagonist in both games, so if you're looking for a romance with a substantial age difference then you won't get that here (I'd recommend the teacher games from the +1 sister brand in that case).
The first game in the series was a pretty standard but enjoyable romance offering typical of Azarashi Soft, so when a second entry was announced I figured it might be worth a read. Add the fact that the staff consisted of author Konohana Shina & artist Natsuzora Kirayaka, a duo who last worked together on the criminally underrated Purple Software game Lip Lipples, and I was even more excited. So how did they manage to mess it up?
This genuinely, and I mean this as someone who has played all too many moege, has to be one of the most dull, soulless eroge I've ever played. It's so painfully by the book, lacking any charm or wit, and honestly has nothing to make it memorable. If it wasn't such a disappointment it would be kind of interesting how they managed to make such a blank and frankly boring game.
I find this particularly interesting because while my opinion on Konohana Shina's writing has been mixed in the past (mainly down to my dislike of the Houkago Cinderella 2 protagonist), I would never say his writing is boring, in fact normally quite the opposite, with an almost childish, wacky writing style that doesn't take itself seriously. However in Toshiue Kanojo 2 this distinct style is turned down to zero – I'm not sure if it's a stylistic mismatch between director and author or if my man was phoning it in but it felt like there was no heart put into the scenario of this game.
The game gets off to a dumb start when our heroine Rena, the adorable childhood friend of our hapless protagonist Haruto, takes the him by surprise and pins him to the wall one afternoon, confessing her feelings for him and sealing the deal with a kiss. It's so sudden that Haruto goes along with this at the time but upon thinking about it at home, he decides to break the news to Rena the next morning that he doesn't actually feel the same way at the moment and wants to go back to being childhood friends.
This isn't a bad ending, right? RIGHT?!?!
I know it was pretty sudden and all but he really couldn't have just told her at the time/that day?? It also feels like the two of them just kind of talk around each other in this scene, as Rena immediately afterwards is all "let's hold hands on the way to school it'll be our first step towards dating" so was there really any point in this whole saga?
There's just genuinely nothing of note about this title – it's not funny, there's no particularly moe moments (other than the basic kind of kissing/H scenes you expect in this sort of game).
And this really sucks because I like a lot of the, hmm, qualities that this series should have. I love older heroines and childhood friends. I even think Rena's design is cute & the gap moe of "she's actually older than you but looks younger" is fun, especially for a company like Azarashi Soft where most of their heroines are, shall we say, on the more well-endowed side. It's just so frustrating for a concept that I'd enjoy to be wasted on something so bland, especially when the first game was decent.
I will say that the voice acting was fairly decent/good though and the seiyuu's name/alias (多田野 らっしー/Tadano Lassie) got a chuckle out of me, which is more than I can say for the game's content.
You don't really expect much from the protagonist of these type of games but Haruto truly was pathetic. The flip-flopping on his feelings at the start was exhausting but I had completely lost faith in him during the first H scene in the game where Rena is having, shall we say, a good time to herself on his bed during one of their dates while he's out of the room. In typical eroge fashion Haruto comes back and sees what she's up to through a crack in his bedroom door and instead of idk doing anything while your girlfriend is moaning your name, he watches and then goes to rub one out in the bathroom afterwards. I actually felt kinda bad for Rena lmao. To be fair this kind of scene is stereotypical in eroge but I think the combination of him being pathetic anyway and him specifically talking about how he was off to the bathroom afterwards just really pissed me off haha.
And you know something, they didn't even have the audacity to do the generic "by the books" shit well. You may expect a cute childhood friend heroine to have some sort of sweet/funny meeting with his parents or something? Well not Toshiue Kanojo 2, you just get a short aside like btw they've met all good. I know I'm just nitpicking at this point but even this feels rushed/no effort put in.
Well it would've been nice to read this scene in full
Final Thoughts
My Score: 3.5/10
Sure technically there's a romance story here and the heroine herself isn't the worst (her design is cute), plus there are marotaro SD CGs (important!!). But this game lacks any soul or spark that normally makes Konohana Shina's writing worth reading, and for a genre where reading is what you do, that's kinda important.
I have a feeling that this game was a victim of Azarashi Soft's ridiculous "one game per month" Azarush release schedule. This definitely feels like it fits the "rush" part of the campaign. Or I could be wrong and this could just be a rare off day for the staff involved.
I would not recommend this game. Go play pretty much any other Azarashi Soft low-price heroine game, play the first Toshiue Kanojo, play Aibeya 3 which feels like a better version of this game, hell go play Lip Lipples or the first Houkago Cinderella if you want to see this author at his best.
Of Konohana Shina's other works I own (basically his other Hooksoft/Smee works), I do plan to play Docchi no I ga Suki desu ka? first but honestly I'm not sure when… My backlog is out of control & I've given up all pretences otherwise lol.
As always, thanks for reading~
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