REVIEW | Mourning in Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly

Genre: Visual Novel, Otome

Platform: PS Vita, PC via Steam

Release Date: November 15th, 2018 (Steam)

Special thanks to Intragames for providing a review copy of the game.

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If you’ve ever wondered about what would result from a collaboration between Otomate and Sting (Date A Live, Utawarerumono), look no further.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly is among the latest Otomate visual novels to be translated – and thankfully, ported to PC. Although the original Japanese release has yet to receive a PC port, western audiences now have the opportunity to play the entry on Steam. Is this the game for you? Continue reading to find out.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly follows the story of our amnesiac heroine, who wakes up in a mansion with no recollection of her identity. She eventually encounters four amnesiac boys who are in the same situation as her. By piecing together text messages sent to each of them by the owner of the mansion, they conclude that they need to restore a mysterious kaleidoscope in order to escape. Unfortunately, they must defeat the monsters that lurk within the mansion to recover the kaleidoscope shards they require.

Since none of them can remember their names, they decide to name themselves after the nameplates next to the doors in the mansion’s dorms. Thus, their aliases are assigned as shown above.

The introductory world building is brief and easy to follow. There are both black and white butterflies roaming the mansion. White butterflies signal safe places, as the monsters avoid them. On the other hand, corrupted creatures gather around black butterflies. Beniyuri and the guys can summon guns simply by imagining them; these guns are the only weapons that are reliable against monsters.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly is mostly composed of a long common route that happens no matter which love interest you’re pursuing. The only changes are the addition of some filler scenes with the guy of your choice. To truly understand the story, the game makes it clear that it’s recommended to get the Best Ending first. In fact, it’s possibly the easiest ending to unlock. Trying to get one of the romance endings first didn’t go well – I unlocked it but didn’t understand the plot behind it.

[spoiler]

Common Route

As the group spends more time in the mansion, they encounter a young girl wearing a mask. The girl serves the owner of the manor and doesn’t share her name, so Beniyuri decides to call her Usagi because of her bunny mask. After Yamato suddenly turns into a monster, Usagi reveals that the five of them are stuck in a place between life and death. The master of the manor isn’t actually forcing them to be there; they had drifted into the mansion on their own. The kaleidoscope that the owner wants them to restore has the ability to grant wishes to its master, which is why he is giving them the chance to fix it for him. Upon repairing the kaleidoscope, they will be able to wish for something, including going back to the world of the living.

The white butterflies in the mansion are meant to guide visitors to the afterlife, while the black butterflies try to guide them to The Abyss, a place where they’ll turn into monsters and be trapped forever. If humans cling to their memories, they will be overtaken by black butterflies and become trapped in The Abyss. If they let go of their memories, they will peacefully pass on to the afterlife. By restoring the kaleidoscope, they have a third option of making any of their wishes come true.

The relationship between the remaining group members is strained by Yamato’s disappearance. As Beniyuri worries over their friendship falling apart, she spots white butterflies trying to get out of their safe zone. Curious, Beniyuri opens the door for them and hesitantly follows, as they know that white butterflies keep the monsters away. The butterflies lead her to a man wearing a fox mask, who had saved Hikage and her at the beginning of the game.

The man in the fox mask guides her to a bright and beautiful greenhouse. Inside, she spots Yamato cowering in a corner in his monster form. Beniyuri disregards his monstrous appearance and hugs him to calm him down. Yamato returns to his human form thanks to Beniyuri’s kind words, but refuses to go back to the others since a part of his human self is still infected by black butterflies. Beniyuri is determined to continue visiting him, so the man in the fox mask agrees to escort Beniyuri to Yamato’s location every night. Over time, Yamato and Beniyuri acknowledge that the man isn’t dangerous. Hence, they name him Monshiro.

Beniyuri insists that she and Monshiro are friends, so Monshiro agrees to join the rest of the group. Due to the fact that Beniyuri can’t reveal Yamato’s condition, the others are hesitant to trust Monshiro. Karasuba covers for her by saying that he and Beniyuri encountered Monshiro when they were scouting the mansion.

Later on, Beniyuri finds a picture of the group as children while looking for kaleidoscope shards with Hikage. The group collectively recover their childhood memories and realize that they had known each other all along. All of them are childhood friends, and Yamato and Hikage are twin brothers. This realization also casts suspicion upon Monshiro, as he is the only one in the group who isn’t in any of their memories. Hikage and Kagiha’s suspicions make Monshiro lock himself up in his room indefinitely.

One day, Usagi notes that they’re very close to completing the kaleidoscope. However, Karasuba seems to be the only one unhappy with this outcome and locks himself up in his room. The next morning, everyone wakes up to find that Karasuba is gone. They split up to look for him, and Beniyuri and Hikage find him wounded in the mansion’s study.

As the three of them make their way back to tend to Karasuba’s wounds, they run into Monshiro pointing his gun at Kagiha. Although Beniyuri’s initial reaction is disbelief, thinking that Monshiro was evil for trying to harm Kagiha, Karasuba quickly clears up the situation by shooting Monshiro’s mask. Monshiro’s face is revealed to be that of Kazuya, Yamato’s twin brother. Thus, Hikage’s true identity as an impostor – and the owner of the mansion – is brought to light.

Hikage attempts to shoot Beniyuri, but Kagiha jumps in front of her and gets shot instead. Later, Hikage quickly pulls Kagiha’s bleeding body to himself and points a gun at his head, threatening to shoot him if anybody tried to harm him. Hikage departs with Kagiha, leaving Beniyuri, Karasuba, Monshiro and Yamato behind.

The remaining four head to the mysterious room that Yamato has been staying in. There, Monshiro admits that he didn’t expose Hikage because it would rupture the group they had formed. Since Monshiro has been comatose in the real world for 10 years, he has been all alone in the mansion for a long time. He was afraid of being alone again and didn’t want everyone to split up.

In spite of Monshiro’s secret being out of the bag, there is still one mystery Beniyuri can’t quite piece together – somehow, she is the only one who hasn’t fully recovered her memories of their childhood. The others try to reassure her and persuade her into accepting the gap in her memories. Nonetheless, Beniyuri grows increasingly frustrated by the others keeping things from her.

Days after Kagiha was taken away, Usagi approaches the group and asks Beniyuri to talk to her master. The last kaleidoscope shard is in Beniyuri’s hairpin, hence Hikage wants her to give it to him.

Beniyuri, Karasuba, Monshiro and Yamato arrive at Hikage’s location. There, they spot Kagiha calmly talking to Hikage as if they know each other well. The conflict reaches its boiling point when Hikage reveals that Kagiha had been cooperating with him all along, and then proceeds to reveal Beniyuri’s past to her despite everyone else’s protests.

When they were all children, they had gone to a summer camp together. As Ai (Beniyuri) wanted to see the mansion, they entered and admired the beautiful interior. It eventually started raining, so they began heading back before the water level got too high. Due to the fact that Kazuya (Monshiro) accidentally dropped the ribbon Ai’s mother had given her, he went back into the mansion to retrieve it. Ai and Natsuki (Kagiha) followed him to help him look for it. However, by the time they had found it, the water was too high. Kazuya and Ai fell into the river, and although Natsuki managed to pull Ai out of the water, he drowned while attempting to save Kazuya. Kazuya was found by a rescue party later on, but Natsuki’s body was never retrieved.

Beniyuri’s memories render her overwhelmed by negative feelings, as they lead her to believe that she is the reason that Natsuki died and Kazuya is comatose. Beniyuri figures that if she hadn’t convinced everyone to go to the mansion, they wouldn’t have been caught in the rain and drowned in the river. While Beniyuri’s body is overtaken by corruption, Kagiha despairs and admits he only trusted Hikage blindly because he wanted to be in the real world with the others again.

Beniyuri uses the last of her strength to walk towards Kagiha and apologizes for forgetting his death. Kagiha tells her he only wants her to be happy and gives her the ribbon from her mother, which is a good luck charm – presumably due to the memories attached to it. The ribbon undoes Beniyuri’s corruption and Kagiha holds Hikage down while convincing Beniyuri of shooting him to save everyone. Beniyuri tearfully shoots Hikage, aware that the bullet will hit Kagiha too.

With Hikage and Kagiha gone, the remaining four gather around the kaleidoscope and their wish of going back to life is granted. Back in the real world, everyone awakens from their comas – Beniyuri, Karasuba and Yamato had fallen into a coma that year during a gathering to mourn Natsuki. The bus they had been on had lost control and the three of them fell into the river.

Best End

A year later, it’s made clear that everyone retained their memories of what happened in the mansion. The group heads to the river to mourn Natsuki, whose dead body had actually surfaced miraculously at the same time the four of them came out of their comas. Although the reappearance of his body made it possible for his family to give him a proper burial, the four friends agreed that as they had seen Kagiha’s soul ascend to the heavens already, it was better to pay their respects by the river.

They leave flowers for Natsuki in the river and thank him, while concluding that they are moving on. During this scene, someone asks what the mansion was like before it deteriorated. Takuya (Yamato) begins telling the story he found – the owner of the manor had been researching how to bring someone back from the dead. He then passed away, and ever since his death, bad things would happen to whoever approached the place.

The final picture hints at Hikage being the owner who was researching how to bring Usagi back to life.

Kagiha

Kagiha is the reliable older brother type of character. While Beniyuri, Yamato, Karasuba and Hikage all agree that judging by their appearances they’re probably the same age, they also believe that Kagiha is older than them.

From the beginning, Kagiha shows subtle interest in Beniyuri. Still, he resigns himself to the brother-zone whenever Beniyuri comments that she feels calm around him since he’s like an older brother. Despite Beniyuri’s cluelessness, Kagiha continues offering her comfort and support. He always makes sure to check in on her if he suspects she may be crying and attempts to help her ease the atmosphere between their friends whenever it grows too tense.

In one of Beniyuri’s memories, she remembers being a young girl named Ai, often playing with a young boy named Natsuki. They had a mutual crush on each other, and during one of their playdates, Natsuki made her a ring out of clovers. He promised to give her a wedding ring instead once they grew up, and Beniyuri eagerly agreed to marry him in the future. This boy, of course, is Kagiha’s real-life counterpart.

Following Monshiro’s addition to the group, whom Beniyuri has a soft spot for, Kagiha starts showing poorly-masked hostility towards him. Even though I initially mistook this for jealousy, the real reason behind this behavior is that he has known all along that Monshiro is the real Kazuya, and his presence puts Hikage’s plan at risk.

While most of the other characters have two endings, Kagiha only has one, as there’s no possibility of him living in the real world. Kagiha’s ending consists of him manipulating Beniyuri to convince her to stay with him in the mansion forever. He brainwashes her to produce hallucinations of the two of them living a happy, married life in the real world, despite the fact that none of it is real. The ending is also incredibly abrupt – we don’t find out what happens with Hikage and the others following this.

Kagiha’s ending is basically a bad end, so the Best End is definitely the best alternative for his character. His own ending is also a disservice to his characterization – in the Best End, it’s shown that leaving aside his romantic love for Ai, he does care about the rest of his friends and wants them all to be revived together. In his own ending, he suffers from extreme tunnel vision and seemingly doesn’t care about what happens to the others, as long as he gets to keep Ai all to himself forever. This obsessive behavior is also shown in Monshiro’s route, so it’s safe to say he’s canonically selfish, yet he grows and gets over this in the Best End.

Karasuba

Karasuba is the carefree, flirty kind of character. Beniyuri and the others take what he says lightly, as he never seems to be serious. Contrary to Beniyuri’s suspicions, his flirting is far from being a joke. Karasuba is deeply attached to her and in his romance events, he “looks out” for Beniyuri in a VERY twisted sort of way. Whenever Karasuba notices that Beniyuri is behaving in a way that might lead her to get hurt in life, he would teach her that she should change… by enacting the exact twisted situations that he pictures she could get involved in because of her naivety.

Yes, he’s fucked up. For example, if Beniyuri innocently comments on how cold the weather is, Karasuba would take it as an open invitation to make her uneasy and pretend that he’s going to assault her. Simply because she said something that could be misinterpreted by others. Okay.

It turns out that Aki (Karasuba) was bullied as a kid and Ai (Beniyuri) saved him from his bullies. She was the only one who didn’t pick on him and instead offered him her friendship. These actions made Aki fall in love with Ai and he decided to become someone strong and capable of protecting her.

In a prologue side episode, what happened before the initial gathering that led to their drowning is revealed. Despite not seeing one another for 10 years, Aki and Ai reunite in high school. Aki begins hanging out with Ai often and they always walk to school together. It’s clear that Aki has romantic feelings for Ai, however, she ignores his advances as she hasn’t moved on from Natsuki’s death.

Aki and Ai end up reuniting with Takuya (Yamato) too, and Ai tries to restore their friendship to the way it was in the past. Takuya and Ai’s inability to move on from what happened in the river infuriates Aki, thus he lashes out at both of them. Due to the fact that Ai wants the three of them to have a fresh start, Aki proposes going to the river to pay their final respects to Natsuki and move on with their lives. Before the bus falls into the river, he is seen fighting with Takuya, accusing him of being the cause of the accident. (Takuya had tied Ai’s ribbon loosely around Kazuya’s leg, which caused it to fall off.)

The prologue episode makes it clear that Karasuba resents the past and is eager to get Beniyuri to move on from Kagiha’s death. Karasuba’s characterization shows that his weakness during his childhood left a big mark on him, leading him to change and making him express spite towards the weakness in others around him.

From my point of view, Karasuba’s aggressive response to any mention of Kagiha’s death came off as insensitive. Don’t get me wrong, he was right about Beniyuri and Yamato needing to move on. The whole deal with Beniyuri being hung up over a guy that she promised to get married to 10 years back – when they were children – was too irrational. I sympathized more with Yamato’s grief since his brother was comatose, but Beniyuri’s reasons were too dumb. Still, the problem was this: Karasuba’s resentment towards their mourning was simply because Beniyuri didn’t want to give him a chance. He was just pissed that Kagiha’s death was cockblocking him. Overall, Karasuba came off as an incredibly selfish and vile person. Thankfully, the real-world ending turned things around.

Karasuba Ending: Karasuba convinces Beniyuri to let go of their past in the real world. Beniyuri drifts off to sleep and wakes up the day after, but all the other guys have disappeared, along with her memories of them. Karasuba and Beniyuri continue spending their days on their own with no explanation whatsoever of what happened to everything else in the plot. Hikage, the owner of the mansion? Who knows where he is! The guys? No idea where they are! The kaleidoscope? Ask someone else!

The ending is very confusing, and no explanations are given. I’m gonna go ahead and headcanon that Karasuba made a deal with Hikage to help him restore the kaleidoscope if he would allow Karasuba to stay with Beniyuri, something along those lines. I mean, it’s the only plausible explanation for the others just disappearing. Karasuba wouldn’t be able to kill them all. I guess another possibility would be Karasuba figuring out that Beniyuri’s hairpin was the last shard needed to complete the kaleidoscope. Still, there is no way of him finding that out on his own.

Aki Ending: Some time following their discharge from the hospital, Ai and Aki skip classes to visit the park. Aki tells Ai all about his insecurities growing up, his wish to protect her, and the sense of powerlessness that overcame him after the accident in the river. He also apologizes for what he said in the prologue scene (telling Takuya and Ai to get over it) and for all the twisted things he did when he had no memories as Karasuba.

Ai accepts his apology and apologizes herself for not taking his advances seriously in the past. She explains that she hadn’t gotten over Natsuki, but she’s now ready to move on and be with Aki. Ai asks if they could start dating while taking things at their own pace, and an ecstatic Aki agrees and hugs her happily.

In the end, I didn’t dislike Aki. I personally think his character had more depth to it than Kagiha, and in his good ending, he apologized to Ai for everything he did when he was his Karasuba self. I was more open to forgiving him since he never actually went through with anything non-con as Karasuba, so it’s easier to forgive empty words. Unlike other creepy yanderes nowadays, he was all bark and no bite.

Yamato

Yamato is a tough-looking tsundere. His manner of speech and appearance seem like those of a thug. However, Kagiha aside, he’s the one with the most tact when interacting with Beniyuri. Even if he sometimes speaks in a brash way, he’s quick to realize his mistake and apologize for his atrocious social skills.

Initially, Yamato has a lot of walls surrounding him and refuses to overshare with anyone in the group. He’s more open towards Beniyuri as she’s always patient and kind when dealing with him.

Out of everyone else, Yamato is the one that wants to leave the mansion the most. Beniyuri notes that he appears to be in a rush to get out, so she attempts to learn the reason behind this. Yamato reveals that the memories he recovered contain his twin brother, Kazuya. Kazuya has been in a coma for a decade and the doctors say that daily interaction could help him wake up. Since Yamato’s parents often travel for work-related matters, Yamato makes sure to visit his brother every day. For this reason, he needs to get back to the real world as soon as possible – he worries that his brother will pass away if he doesn’t visit.

Beniyuri’s childhood memories show that during their childhood, Takuya (Yamato) was that one stupid kid who would annoy the girl he liked. Ai tried to get angry at him, yet everything was forgotten as soon as he shared his dream of becoming a professional football player with her. They ended up running off into the sunset playing around together. Ai noted that even though both were stubborn, she wanted to keep playing with Takuya like that.

Yamato has cute events and a lot of chemistry with Beniyuri. Since both of them are innocent, the usual teasing from previous routes isn’t present here. They are at ease with one another and it’s endearing to watch.

In one of the side scenes, Yamato admits that he hasn’t been sleeping due to the sound of the rain in the greenhouse, which is too distracting. He states that talking to Beniyuri helps him as it takes his mind off the noise. Beniyuri suggests sleeping on her lap – it will let him feel that she’s still there so he might be able to fall asleep. They both blush like dorks once Yamato lies down on her lap, but they push through their embarrassment with small talk.

Yamato Ending: Hikage grows suspicious of Beniyuri and finds out that she’s been leaving at night. Because of Hikage keeping watch every night, she’s unable to visit Yamato. The loneliness causes Yamato’s negative feelings to consume him and he becomes corrupted by the black butterflies. Beniyuri finds Yamato as he’s turning into a monster, and she gets killed by his transformation.

Takuya Ending: Back in the real world, Takuya goes to the park with Ai and confesses that he loosened the ribbon Ai had used to wrap up Kazuya’s leg injury. Takuya continues on to place the blame on himself for the river accident and is certain that he only visited his brother out of guilt. Ai convinces him that his constant visits to his brother were out of love, as he wouldn’t have felt so desperate to come back to Kazuya if he’d only visited him out of guilt.

Ai accompanies Takuya to the hospital, where he apologizes to Kazuya for what happened. Kazuya admits that he was jealous of Takuya too, since he was strong and popular, while Kazuya was a loner. The two of them patch things up and Ai promises to keep visiting Kazuya until he’s discharged from the hospital.

On their way back home, Takuya confesses to Ai. Ai accepts his confession and tells him that she reciprocates his feelings. They kiss and Ai notes that they will help each other move on and grow as people.

Hikage

My initial plan was to play Hikage’s route last because he’s the poster boy and all. Of course, I’m a weak maiden, so as soon as Monshiro showed up, I fell head over heels for him. I was paranoid about ending off the game on a bad note, hence I tried to leave the best for last. Wait for me, Monshiro.

Hikage’s initial impression is that of a guy who tries to be responsible and yet is actually a closet dork. For obvious reasons, this impression crumbles when he exposes himself as the traitor. Ironically, Hikage was the one always scolding Beniyuri whenever she tried to approach someone new. According to him, they couldn’t be trusted. Well played, Hikage.

Hikage has some cute moments like carrying Beniyuri princess style when she was too tired after a fight, and getting tangled up with her as he tries – and fails – to stop her from falling into a room. The problem lies in his characterization: because he’s known to fake his personality and friendliness, it’s difficult to figure out when he’s being genuine and when he isn’t. There’s a very blurry line between his genuine interactions and his acting, making it hard to understand where the lie ends and his real personality starts.

Unlike the other routes, Hikage’s route doesn’t follow the common branch. As soon as you trigger his ending, the story branches out onto a unique path, which begins after Yamato turns into a monster. Hikage’s route is linear and only has one ending.

The plot kicks off with Beniyuri expressing interest in getting to know Usagi better. The two of them become pen pals, and Usagi even invites her to her own room and takes off her mask around her. One day, Beniyuri grows frustrated at how distant Hikage is, thus she ends up venting about it to Usagi. Usagi mistakes Beniyuri’s emotions as her being in love, and attempts to help her come up with questions to ask Hikage every day. These daily questions are meant to help Beniyuri learn more about Hikage.

Although Hikage is surprised at this development, he ends up gradually warming up to Beniyuri. Beniyuri’s happiness is short-lived, however, since Hikage grows agitated one day after she finds and reads a book named Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. The picture book portrays the story of two white butterflies who loved each other. One of them passed away, and the surviving butterfly was told that he could see her again if he went to Psychedelica, the place where the dead resided. The white butterfly was slowly corrupted throughout its trip, becoming a black butterfly. When it arrived at Psychedelica, it turned around and made its way back, as it was afraid of the white butterfly’s reaction to its new appearance.

Beniyuri spots Hikage having a nightmare following his remembrance of Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and she wakes him up. However, his personality is twisted. Hikage accuses Beniyuri of only looking for attention, and forcefully kisses her while telling her that he’ll do more if that gets her to stay away from him. Beniyuri slaps him and cries while explaining that that’s not what she wanted at all, but Hikage calls her cruel and leaves.

The next time Beniyuri and Usagi meet, Beniyuri tearfully recounts everything that happened between her and Hikage. Usagi decides to tell her the truth: she’s the sister of the owner of the manor. When Usagi was alive, her body was very weak, and her medicine was very expensive. Her mother married a rich man just for his social status, but he already had an older child with a mistress.

One day, Usagi is introduced to her older brother, Hikage. Her stepfather decided to focus on raising him as the family heir since Usagi could die at any time. Usagi loved her brother and was satisfied with his company. Hikage often read books to her, one of them being Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. Usagi said that she wished his brother would find his other half like the two white butterflies.

Eventually, the family’s company went bankrupt, so there was no money left to pay for Usagi’s medicine. Despite Hikage’s efforts to acquire the medicine, one of their relatives lied to him. Their uncle promised to give him Usagi’s medicine, but it never arrived. Usagi passed away, and Hikage killed his uncle in a fit of rage. He then started researching about black magic to bring the dead back to life.

In one of his books, Hikage found the legend of the kaleidoscope. He managed to buy it by spending the entire fortune he’d accumulated through hard work, and it successfully paved the way between the world of the death and that of the living. As it turned out, rather than granting wishes, the kaleidoscope served as a connection between the two worlds. Following the creation of his own Psychedelica, Hikage shot himself in the head.

Even though Usagi had already passed on to the afterlife, the creation of Psychedelica reversed her death and she appeared in the mansion between life and death. Still, Hikage lost his memories just like Beniyuri and the others at the beginning of the game. To avoid corrupting him, Usagi hid her face with a mask and stayed in the mansion looking after Hikage without revealing her identity.

Beniyuri and Usagi team up to confront Hikage and finally restore his memories. Hikage grows increasingly agitated by the memories that threaten to return, so he attempts to shoot Beniyuri. Usagi protects Beniyuri with her body and fades away into white butterflies, while Hikage despairs as he recovers the memories of his sister. Following a breakdown, he repeats the story Usagi had told Beniyuri from his point of view. Before parting from Beniyuri, Hikage points out that the last shard needed to complete the kaleidoscope is in her hairpin. He also states that she’s his white butterfly, and then shoots himself in the head while Beniyuri helplessly watches.

In the real world, Beniyuri visits the river. She finds out that the manor was demolished, but right as she’s about to leave, she spots a rainbow butterfly. By following it with her gaze, she sees it fly past a familiar pair of siblings. The younger sister remarks the beauty of the butterfly, while the older brother agrees with her.

Yes. That’s it. The route ends with that short exchange between the siblings. We don’t find out if they remember – I presume they don’t – nor how they got to the real world. Judging by their state, it appears as if they were reborn. Obviously, the flow of time is odd, but maybe it has to do with the fact that they died a long time back. It’s possible that they were reborn at a point in time set shortly after their deaths, despite dying recently in Psychedelica.

The plot in Hikage’s route was interesting, however, the romance was extremely lackluster. The fact that the writers wanted to portray Beniyuri and Hikage as the equivalents of the two butterflies in Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly is tragic, since they failed badly. Honestly, every other route had more romance than Hikage’s route, so it’s ironic that they would try to introduce the one guy with the least chemistry and romance as Beniyuri’s soulmate. The ship and the tale told in the book feel supremely forced.

I’m also torn about the ending. I don’t know if they were trying to imply that Beniyuri would approach the pair, or that Beniyuri would just feel satisfied and walk away. Honestly, the vague writing of the ending infuriates me because of how sad it makes me. I’m salty. I guess I at least want closure for this big tale they attempted to portray. The romance might be mediocre, but the writing really got me.

By the way, not so fun fact: in the end, we never find out Usagi’s and Hikage’s real names. We also don’t know what Hikage’s real face looks like, as he only uses Kazuya’s appearance in Psychedelica. To rub salt into the wound left by the ending, the developers conveniently leave Hikage’s face out of the final CG. I’m dead inside.

Monshiro

Monshiro is a reserved and soft-spoken boy. Since his last proper social interactions were a decade ago, his personality can come off as a bit childish, and he’s touch-starved because he hasn’t experienced human contact since his childhood. His lack of interaction with others is also evident in his inability to pick up basic social cues.

Monshiro’s route begins before the final confrontation with Hikage in the common route. Monshiro tells Beniyuri that he wants to help them go back to their world, but his phrasing causes Beniyuri to suspect that he doesn’t plan to go back with them. Her suspicions are proven true when we’re thrown into Monshiro’s point of view – he wakes up at night, while the others are sleeping, and heads to face Hikage on his own. He’s aware that he probably can’t beat Hikage. However, he’s determined to kill Hikage even if it means dying himself.

During their encounter, Hikage projects some of Yamato’s real-world memories onto Monshiro. The memory is set in one of Takuya’s visits to the hospital: Takuya admits that Kazuya annoyed him when they were children and that he wished Kazuya would just disappear. He notes that even in the present, Kazuya continues shackling him with his comatose status.

Yamato’s memories make Monshiro lose his will to live. Kagiha saves him from getting shot by Hikage, yet the asshole still admits that he wished he could’ve traded places with Monshiro. Of course, this implies that he wished Monshiro was the one who had drowned instead. Then Kagiha digs an even deeper hole for his character by adding that he wanted that change to protect Beniyuri himself. Yes, Kagiha’s likability went from like a 60 to a 0 really fast.

Kagiha’s words are the final nail in the coffin for Monshiro. He starts mumbling that everybody would be better if he didn’t exist, and the negative thoughts corrupt him with black butterflies. Because of the number of dark feelings accumulated over the course of 10 years, rather than being turned into a monster first, Monshiro is dragged into The Abyss right away.

The next day, the remaining three split to look for Monshiro. Beniyuri encounters Kagiha and a giant hole that leads to The Abyss. As soon as Kagiha explains what happened to Monshiro, Beniyuri ignores the bitch’s warnings and jumps into The Abyss to save her man. Her mother’s ribbon keeps her safe and leads her to Monshiro’s location. On the way, she gets a glimpse of some of his memories.

Monshiro had no memories when he first woke up. Kagiha and Hikage found him and Hikage accepted him as a second assistant due to his relationship with Kagiha. He returns Monshiro’s memories in exchange for his help gathering the kaleidoscope shards. This way, Kagiha and Monshiro cooperate with Hikage in guiding the people that appear in Psychedelica to gather the kaleidoscope shards.

Shortly after, Monshiro grows tired of their actions continuously leading people to The Abyss. Everyone ends up getting corrupted by the black butterflies following extended periods of time in Psychedelica. Monshiro talks to Kagiha about it, but since Kagiha is an asshole who only cares about himself and his stupid marriage promise to Ai, he refuses to go with Monshiro. He argues that he’s fine with his fucked up actions as long as he gets to see Ai again. As Monshiro is an actually good person with a sense of morality, he leaves Kagiha and wanders around the mansion on his own.

Monshiro drifting apart from Hikage takes away the possibility of further memory restoration, thus his memories begin to disappear as the years pass in the manor. Forgetting everything causes souls to move to the afterlife, but Ai’s ribbon, which is tied around his neck, is the one memory he retains.

Beniyuri finds Monshiro in The Abyss and realizes that The Abyss is just a pitch-black place that connects to the real world. When they come into contact with the entrance to the real world, Kazuya’s entry is rejected, presumably because of his comatose state.

Monshiro Ending: Monshiro lets go of Beniyuri’s hand and she’s dragged to the real world. Even though she wakes up with all of her memories, Kazuya, Takuya and Aki are still in a coma. Ai visits them every day, and the game closes with Ai promising to wait forever for Kazuya to wake up.

Kazuya Ending (aka Kazuya gets shafted): Ai and Kazuya wake up in the real world, although Aki and Takuya are still comatose. Ai and Kazuya keep visiting and talking to them every day with the hopes that they’ll wake up. Kazuya confesses to Ai but clarifies that he won’t make any move on her until the other two wake up. Shortly after, Aki and Takuya open their eyes.

Monshiro was adorable and I really felt for him. Unfortunately, both of his endings sucked.

Happy End

We finish the game on a high note with the Happy End. This ending is acquired by making Ai tell the others that it’s better to stay in the mansion until the rain stops, rather than trying to make their way back to the camp. The five children spend the night in the mansion and are found the day after by the adults.

Fast-forward to the future, the five of them are still best friends. Takuya, Kazuya and Aki banter comfortably, and Natsuki reminds Ai of their promise to get married in the future. The other three boys oppose this arrangement, and a jealous Aki argues that the expiration date for a childhood promise is long overdue at their age. The five of them enter Ai’s house while Ai notes that the five of them have always been together, and thinks to herself that hopefully, things will stay that way forever.

Of course, this ending is bittersweet just like any other ending in the game. If you stop to consider it for a moment: Beniyuri and the others never get to Psychedelica. This means that Hikage continues corrupting people who are trying to pass on to the afterlife, while Usagi helplessly watches her amnesiac brother collect the kaleidoscope shards to ruin the balance between the worlds.

Beniyuri and her friends might have gotten their happy ending, but Hikage and Usagi are far away from theirs. Honestly, I don’t feel sympathy for Hikage. The only one I consistently felt sorry for was Usagi. Every good ending with one of the other guys means Hikage never remembers her or passes away as a monster.

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Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly’s plot was great. The cast was very diverse, allowing the game to portray different forms of mourning. The overarching story was amazing, and the Best End really concluded everything as nicely as possible. No matter which route you talk about, the message the game leaves is always about moving on. This path never leads to everyone’s happiness, since there’s always someone who doesn’t quite achieve their own good ending. Still, those who choose to move on from their grief while keeping their loved ones in their hearts are the ones that grow stronger and manage to overcome their trauma.

The main concept Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly plays with is grief and death, and if you sit down to consider it: in each one of the good endings the game portrays, the ones who get to be happy are only those who have decided to move on. This visual novel is tragic at its very core, but the presentation of tragedy still manages to deliver a hopeful ending in every turn.

Another good aspect of the story is the flowchart system that the game employs. Through a handy flowchart, it shows every possible branch in the story to help you unlock every scene and ending. This flowchart is pretty easy to understand thanks to the first side events you unlock – they serve to give you an idea of how the system works.

The main reason I loved the flowchart was that you don’t need to start a new game and skip through all the text you’ve already read, nor keep multiple saves at various points in the story to change your choices. The flowchart lets you access any chapter to change your choices, and you can exit it right after picking the option you need for a certain route. This way, you only revisit the chapters with important choices, change them, and then quit without needing to skip through repetitive walls of text.

It’s worth mentioning that despite me praising the story to hell and back, I can’t do the same for the romance. The otome nature of Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly is decent at best. Obviously, the game doesn’t become bad simply due to a lack of romance, but players who buy the game looking for this definitely won’t find what they wished for.

You see, as the game is just a long common route, the “character routes” are side events that can be unlocked in the flowchart. Precisely because they’re side events, they’re very disconnected from the current flow of the story and feel like filler. For example, you can be in a chapter filled with tension and distrust between friends, but the side events that are unlocked depict everyone getting along well, which throws you off from the main story.

Another weird aspect that disconnects you from the story is that since the common route remains unchanged for most characters, there are odd discrepancies. For example, you may be romancing someone, but Beniyuri appears to be in love with another character no matter what you choose. The writers should’ve kept the bias towards one character at a minimum since all the routes share the same common route.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly’s visual department is very stylized and unique, and it might garner mixed opinions because of subjectivity. Personally, I think the art style is amazing. The environments are, for the most part, black and white, so the characters are the only thing painted in color within the game window. The UI is on point with the gothic and dark look that the novel is going for, and it is easy to navigate.

The CGs are great. Yuiga Satoru is very talented, and any anatomy issues were hardly noticeable. Most of the ones I spotted had to do with Beniyuri’s eyes or face. The coloring is eye-catching, and the artist did a good job keeping a balance between saturated and desaturated colors. I especially appreciated the fact that the number of CGs is quite high, so throughout most of the story, there are illustrations to go along with the narration of emotional or important moments in the story. I was rather happy with the quantity of CGs, as they helped a lot with my immersion in the game.

The music was up to the usual Otomate standard. I liked how it set the depressing and hopeful atmosphere at the right times, and I could pinpoint multiple tracks that I was drawn to. My favorite track is definitely Master of the Manor, which first played during the plot twist that left my jaw on the floor. Other particularly nice tracks were Sorrow and Tears. As their name implies, they went together with the emotional moments. It’s not often that I pick favorites in the soundtrack of a visual novel, but Master of the Manor really hyped me up at the right times.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly’s voice acting department has a lot of potential, yet didn’t meet my expectations. The actors are all big names – Ishikawa Kaito, Kakihara Tetsuya, Toriumi Kousuke, Matsuoka Yoshitsugu. Even so, this is far from their best work. Ishikawa Kaito could’ve brought out a lot more potential from Hikage, and basically everyone sucked at portraying the right emotion for grief.

The problem might be a combination of the direction and the voice acting. Nonetheless, they left more to be desired when it came to basic stuff like crying over someone’s death. The voice acting is far from bad, but there is a lot of wasted potential. If they had pushed themselves more, the cast could have easily moved me to tears every other scene thanks to the narrative. Instead, some of the better written scenes became cartoonish because of the disconnected voice acting.

In conclusion, Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly does a great job as a visual novel. The writing is great, the characterization is neat, and there’s depth to the character’s personalities. Each of them has motivations or reasons that push them to be the way they are. The game actually explains why their personality developed this way, rather than just giving you a personality stereotype to fulfill a trope and rolling with it.

It does not, however, do a great job in the romantic aspect of the narrative. This isn’t a big deal to me as the game makes it clear that its primary focus is presenting an already set story and concept, but if you’re looking for a fluffy romance novel, that’s not what Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly aims to be. It’s not just some pointless fanservice put together to present you virtual boyfriends that you can date by projecting on the main heroine. The novel is more like reading an interactive book – there is a lot of canon already set in stone, yet you can subtly change the flow of the story to see different outcomes for each character.

I can’t stress enough how much I recommend this game. If you enjoyed games such as The House in Fata Morgana, delivering a powerful story like that is what Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly aims to do. There are some otome elements thrown into the mix, yet you will mainly be exposed to a story about dealing with grief and death.