Flowers have a language, and there’s a word for that in Japanese (花言葉 – hanakotoba).
This article was originally written on 12/20/2015. May contain mild conceptual/structural spoilers.
Boku wa Kimi dake o Mitsumeru (BokuKimi) is inre’s newest release. For those unfamiliar with the company, inre produced ChuShinGura 46+1 (CSG46+1) a work which was met with very positive reception domestically, and a work which I personally enjoyed and wrote about. While BokuKimi is technically inre’s newer work, a doujin version of BokuKimi was released prior to CSG46+1 in 2005 by raindog (the company which later became inre). With this being the case, it should come off as little surprise that there’s a lot of elements found within CSG46+1 found within BokuKimi. While the two works are fundamentally very different works, with this work, it’s apparent that inre has effectively established (or rather, made more prominent) a distinctive ‘style’ to their works.While I’m unsure as to what inre ‘s style dictates necessarily, I’ve noted two, positive dimensions to their works. To begin, BokuKimi & CSG46+1 are both works which focus on the smaller, but very meaningful details. In particular, all the characters (minor and major) are voiced and have their own discrete sprites. Indeed, even the most minor characters (who had only a handful of lines) got unique sprites. This is a rarity in modern games; I can’t think of a recent work which has done something similar on the scale that these two works have. This is given greater appreciation when you take into account that inre, at its core, is a company which writes ‘ensemble works’ — meaning, their stories tend to be large, and include a wide cast of characters. While we could think of this as just a ‘nice feature’ of the work, it actually significantly affects one’s perception of the work (on level of immersion, and on just of appreciation of aesthetics). Further, on level of the detail which inre puts into their works, BokuKimi provides an ample amount of consistent CG for its more climactic moments, leaving every sentimental, or meaningful scene visually satisfying. On topic of its soundtrack, BokuKimi, is a work which is centered around the activities of the heroine Towa, who is a singer. While BokuKimi isn’t close to being classified as a ‘music work’ (say, in the same vein as White Album 2), during the performances and the rehearsals, there actually are vocal songs which play, and there actually is context given to the songs. This is to be held in comparison with certain works that use a general soundtrack in lieu of anything special during a large performance.
Second,as far as BokuKimi (and perhaps CSG46+1) go, a great deal of their success comes not from the appreciation of or the activities of one particular character, or even, a specified pair of characters. Rather, BokuKimi is an ensemble work insofar as it recruits, and develops a vast cast of characters. Retrospectively, I view BokuKimi as a pretty enjoyable work. The reason that BokuKimi was as enjoyable as it actually was, I’d wager, had to do less with what it was trying to discuss (i.e. its plot and themes), but more, in the way that it went about telling it (i.e. its execution). By this, I mean that even if one were to find BokuKimi’s plot ultimately disappointing, it should nonetheless still be fun to read. And indeed, I don’t think that BokuKimi’s plot was exactly good (nor was it bad though). If I had to classify the work, it’d be a lively work which constantly deviated between being a comedic, slice-of-life work and being a mystery/thriller-orientated one. I felt that the comedy was surprisingly executed well; I found it funny (this is a rarity, as I tend to accuse most authors of writing really boring slice-of-life). This was likely brought about by the work’s likable cast, and its better comedic writing. In comparison, the thriller/mystery side of the work was executed poorly, insofar as the mystery, while logical and properly developed, was first,rushed, and second, not-that-interesting. Indeed, to address the first point, in its latter half, BokuKimi got into the rhythm of brusquely introducing flashbacks and monologues from key characters in order to provide greater background to the mysteries surrounding the work. So, while on one hand, we could assent to the fact of the work having properly ‘explained’ its mystery, it wasn’t done in the most graceful, effective manner. And second, the final reveal of BokuKimi felt anticlimactic. Rather than go “Wow!,” the audience would probably have a greater disposition to go “So what?”
In a sense, BokuKimi is a good character work, and a fun work to read, in that it’s written in a straightforward, easy-to-like way. But, when it actually gets to the ‘meaty’ parts of the work, it fails to properly satisfy. It’s not to say that the work has a meaningless plot though — in the after story section of the work (which occurs after the main events of the story), Towa, the main heroine, is given a pretty nice ending (i.e. meaningful development). But, the other two after story routes (not Towa) were basically just fifteen minute routes consisting of h-scenes followed by “pseudo-bad ends.” Towa’s route itself was substantially longer (at least a few hours to fully read) — it was paced well, and it wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t exactly good or moving either (although I stress that the ending was written pretty well; it’s the way to the ending that I have a small fight to pick with).
So all in all, I don’t think that BokuKimi was a bad work. I think that a fan of CSG46+1 will appreciate some parts of BokuKimi, even if they’re of drastically different genres. This is due in part to the ‘pseudo-allusions’ (or throwbacks(?)) to CSG46+1 [in particular, some of the minor character sprites looked deceivingly similar to some characters from CSG46+1, which made the context a lot more fun]. For lack of a less specific phrase, BokuKimi has the same ‘heart’ or ‘feel’ as CSG46+1 in many respects. It’s not nearly as polished, but this is likely to be faulted to the fact that one work is fundamentally a plot-orientated work (Even if its success was not necessarily due to its plot), while another, is more of a chimeric work (What exactly is BokuKimi trying to be? Perhaps having to ask this question itself is sign of its weakness).1
