Genre: Visual Novel, Otome
Platform: PC
Release Date: April 27th, 2018
As mentioned in my previous review of the game, Majestic☆Majolical is an otome game divided into three volumes. As a matter of fact, I began playing the second volume soon after finishing the first, but I found myself at a standstill upon starting the second route. Although it’s been quite a long time, this review is intended to pick up where the last one left off. I’ll only be reviewing the new narrative since my thoughts on the other aspects of the game are already in the article for the first volume.
The second volume of Majestic☆Majolical features the Mibu siblings as romanceable characters. Shinnosuke is the younger brother, while Soutaro is the older brother.
To be honest, the age difference between Lapis and Soutaro is the reason I dropped the game so many months ago. I forced myself to finish it for the sake of this review, but the summary for his route definitely doesn’t have as many details as the one for Shinnosuke’s.
[spoiler]
Shinnosuke
Shinnosuke, also nicknamed Koko by his older brother, is an adorable and sensitive tsundere. Despite constantly trying to hide his true feelings, he wears his heart on his sleeve. Koko is incredibly cute and gets flustered easily – he even has his own sound effect that plays each time he runs away in embarrassment.
Koko is shown to have a brother complex: he idolizes Soutaro and is always extremely protective of him. Because of his attachment to Soutaro, he’s actually opposed to Lapis’ presence at first. Koko actively tries to push away any girls that might try to hit on his brother, thus he misunderstands the reason behind Lapis’ presence in the nurse’s office and accuses her of attempting to flirt with Soutaro. Shinnosuke’s love for his brother leads him to happily accept Soutaro’s nickname for him, yet he dislikes being called Koko by anyone else. Undeterred by Koko’s resistance, Lapis continues using his nickname throughout the route.
At the beginning of Lapis’ stay in the human world, the change of environment takes a toll on her health – she suffers from severe dizziness, fever, and even minor injuries that refuse to heal. Koko interacts with her often and frets over her health. A week after the initial symptoms, Lapis faints and Koko carries her to the infirmary. Her twin brothers, Euc and Lase, pick her up and take her home after receiving a call from the school.
The start of the route is filled with the blossoming friendship between Lapis and Koko, and since Koko seems to be at ease around her, Lapis attempts to collect gems from him on multiple occasions. Unfortunately for her, although the gems are very sparkly and beautiful – a sign that Koko’s heart is very pure and honest, their color isn’t deep and thus they don’t give particularly high scores. This makes Lapis conclude that her relationship with Koko isn’t as deep as it seems and she needs to grow closer to him to be able to obtain red jewels from him.
One night, Lapis runs into a panicked Koko. He explains that Soutaro left the house after an argument with his mother and admits that he’s scared that his brother won’t go back to the house, as he always displays a detached behavior that makes it seem like he’ll disappear at any given moment. Lapis volunteers to help him search for Soutaro, whom they find in the park. For once, Koko exposes his vulnerable side and asks Lapis to look after his brother along with him from then on. Being his tsundere self, he tries to dismiss it afterwards but Lapis doesn’t let it slide and agrees to take care of Soutaro too.
Out of all the love interests from vol.1 and vol.2, Lapis has the most chemistry with Shinnosuke. They play around a lot and tease each other all the time – basically, they understand each other extremely well, hence their interactions are very natural and entertaining. Soutaro seems to agree with the fact that they’re a perfect match, as he hardcore ships Lapis and Koko together: he repeatedly implies that they appear to be really close. Whenever this occurs, the two lovebirds turn into blushing dorks and deny his accusations.
The dramatic plot of the route begins once Lapis and Koko run into Kyoichiro, Koko’s second brother. Koko runs away immediately and later explains that although he, Soutaro and Kyoichiro live together, Kyoichiro is his biological brother. Soutaro is the eldest and was born from the union of the three siblings’ father with Soutaro’s mother. However, the two of them separated and the father got together with Koko’s mother, who then gave birth to Kyoichiro, and later on Koko. Because of these events, Koko’s mother and Kyoichiro are always extremely mean to Soutaro, despite the fact that Koko loves him the most among all of his family members. The discrimination against his brother is what led Koko to start “protecting” him – he didn’t want Soutaro to suffer anymore, and he was scared that Soutaro would eventually leave the house and he would be left all alone.
On the days following the revelation, Koko and Lapis run into Kyoichiro and Soutaro. They notice that Kyoichiro is having a one-sided verbal confrontation with Soutaro, therefore they intervene. Lapis deals some sick burns to Kyoichiro, which results in him running away with his tail between his legs. Soutaro thanks them for their help… and then points out that Koko and Lapis had been holding hands all along. GIVE ME THIS SHIP OR GIVE ME DEATH.
Regrettably, Lapis’ defense of Soutaro makes Koko misunderstand: he starts believing that Lapis truly likes his brother romantically, yet he approves of it because of the way she stepped in to defend him. Koko reacts to his suspicions by trying to get Lapis and his brother together. Lapis quickly catches up on his thoughts, but Koko refuses to listen to her explanation. An exasperated Lapis attempts to collect a gem from Koko again, however, this time the gem is revealed to be a stage four dark pink. She concludes that he likes her back and is determined to fix the misunderstanding between them.
The next day, after their classes end, she grows frustrated by Koko’s continuous refusal to listen to her, hence she pins him down and confesses to him. He’s flabbergasted and doubtful but Lapis confirms that she loves him and not his brother. Lapis kisses Koko, and then Koko admits that her feelings are mutual and he’s relieved that he won’t have to keep pushing her on her brother.
After they start dating Koko goes from a constantly flustered, adorable tsundere to a manly deredere who enjoys teasing Lapis and making her blush. They’re cute as hell and I would protect them with my life.
Since the plot needs the familial drama to be solved, Lapis runs into Kyoichiro yelling at Soutaro in front of the Mibu residence. She once again manages to scare Kyoichiro away, and then has a chat with the teacher. Soutaro reveals that he won’t leave the house until Koko graduates and becomes independent, as Koko relies on him to gather enough willpower to stay in the Mibu house with Kyoichiro and their mother.
Moving on, at school, Lapis learns that Koko heard the conversation between Lapis and Soutaro, which made him start feeling guilty for being happy while his brother is sacrificing his own happiness for his sake. At night, Lapis runs into Soutaro, who states that Koko didn’t show up at home. Lapis reveals what Koko had told her and the two of them found him in the park. The siblings had an emotional heart-to-heart talk, with Soutaro explaining that as opposed to Koko’s beliefs, Koko made him happy and gave him a reason to live.
As all good things must come to an end, Lase and Euc confront Lapis. They explain that she needs to go back to the magic world, as she has collected enough gems to pass her exam with flying colors.
Good Ending: Unfortunately, a good route is accompanied by a sudden end. The day after Lase and Euc’s warning, Lapis attempts to come clean and share with Koko that she has to go back to her family. Conveniently, Koko starts off the talk with a statement of his own – he wants to take some time to mature properly before starting an actual relationship with Lapis. Lapis is relieved by this information and tells Koko about her planned leave. However, she promises to come back in the future. Koko promises to confess his love for her himself in return, and they part ways. Because of the rules of the magic test, everyone who came into contact with Lapis in the human world forgets about her, Koko included.
In the magical world, Lapis passes her exam with flying colors and is accepted into the department of her choice. Still, she convinces her parents of letting her move to the human world. Lapis goes to the park she frequented with Koko and finds a grown-up Koko contemplating his surroundings. She calls out to him, and although Koko is confused that Lapis knows his name, he admits that despite it being his first time meeting her, he feels like he loves her. Lapis responds to Koko’s confession by hugging him and stating that she loves him too.
The ending sounds sweet once written down, yet it all happened in less than five minutes. The writing was very abrupt, and the reunion was so… confusing and painfully cheesy. Koko doesn’t remember her, but he somehow confesses his love for her and then Lapis hugs this guy who sees her as a complete stranger. Yes, he’s attracted to her because his feelings somehow remained, however it still makes no sense that he would feel so at ease and ready to be pounced on by someone he’s never interacted with before. It’s just very unrealistic and, more importantly, it was uncomfortable to watch. I was mentally screaming when Lapis glomped a stranger.
Soutaro
The second romance route is Soutaro’s, the school’s nurse who often falls asleep in the infirmary. Soutaro is extremely kind and soft-spoken, yet Lapis can’t help but notice that he always seems distant – she gets the impression that he could disappear at any time, like a ghost. His weak and pale complexion only serve to reinforce his ghastly image.
Lapis chooses to collect gems from Soutaro, though she soon realizes that the gems are transparent despite her attempts to get closer to him. Euc and Lase state that Soutaro is, in fact, a special human and his gems are completely empty, devoid of any emotion.
As Lapis continues to hang out with Soutaro, he eventually trusts her enough to talk about his mistreatment at home, which was mentioned in Koko’s route. Lapis realizes that the empty gems are caused by Soutaro not having a will to live. The mere thought of him dying makes her burst into tears, which incites Soutaro to comfort her. Later that day, Lapis realizes that the latest gem she collected from him is slightly tinted pink.
Lapis and Soutaro continue growing closer and start dating after he kisses her. Regardless of Soutaro’s initially self-deprecating thoughts, he begins seriously considering the possibility of leading a happy life with Lapis.
Good Ending: Soutaro is suddenly struck by a severe fever, so Lapis lets him rest in her room because he doesn’t want to let his family see him in that state. Under some whack romance game logic, they decide it’s a good idea to get it on in spite of Sotaro’s sickness. Afterwards, Lapis hesitates while extracting a gem from Sotaro. She knows collecting it successfully will mean she’ll need to go back to her world and graduate. Sotaro holds her retreating hand and admits that he had known all along that Lapis was doing something to his body. Although he’s still not sure what it is, he begs her to finish what she was about to do; he just wants to be useful to her.
The gem is revealed to be the strongest possible shade of red. Unfortunately, Soutaro collapses following the gem extraction. Lapis is horrified and attempts to return all the gems she had collected to Soutaro’s body. However, his body mysteriously rejects them and he remains unconscious. Lapis desperately calls out to her butler, Jasper, and asks him to save Soutaro.
Jasper contacts Euc and Lase, who tell Lapis that Soutaro suffers from the symptoms of severe illness. He is rushed to the hospital and receives successful surgery. Lapis decides to stay in the human world with Soutaro and prepares to apply to a university to subsequently move in with him.
Euc & Lase
Continuing the tradition of having a route about family, Majestic Majolical introduces us to more of Lapis’ amazing brothers. The siblings that take up the spotlight in this game are Euc and Lase, a pair of mischievous and adorable twin brothers who do their best to cheer up Lapis at all times. Even if they do argue about the best way to go about it. Which actually makes everything funnier because they become an impromptu comedy duo.
In this ending, Lapis fails to find a human to collect magic gems from for her graduation exam. Euc and Lase decide to “employ” her as their own personal maid…which just translates to making her pamper them at all times. I ADORE THEM.[/spoiler]
The new love interests in Majestic☆Majolical vol.2 are far superior to the ones in the first game. So far, Shinnosuke has the best chemistry with Lapis, and the progression of their relationship is the most natural and endearing one. Although I was turned off by the 11 year gap between Lapis and Soutaro, his story is still more interesting than Mitsuki’s from the first volume. And for obvious reasons, both characters are better than Shiki the rapist. Yikes.
I’d skip talking about the voice acting since its quality is consistent with the previous game, but I feel the need to point out the utterly ruthless ASMR in Soutaro’s route. The character is voiced by Nishiyama Koutarou, and his voice is incredibly soft and soothing. Like, extraordinarily so. His voice is probably the main reason I was able to finish the route despite the awkward age gap. My ears feel blessed.
Taking into account the fact that the score I’d give this game would be identical to the one I gave the previous volume, I’m just going to close the review here. Volume 3 has the long-awaited Shell route and god Kimura Ryouhei, which guarantees that I won’t procrastinate on beating the game. See you in the review for the Majestic☆Majolical finale!