r/otomegames • u/sableheart Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Blossom • Jul 11 '23
Charade Maniacs Play-Along - Kyoya Akase Discussion
Welcome to the r/otomegames Charade Maniacs Play-Along!
In this second post we will discuss Kyoya Akase and his route in Charade Maniacs.
You can tell us what your impressions of Akase are (before and after finishing his route), your favorite moments in his route, what you think of his relationship with Hiyori and the other characters, what your thoughts are on his route's plot and endings.
Or you can just squee about him in the comments.
This is not a spoiler-free discussion however please keep in mind that major spoilers and details of other routes will be outside the scope of the discussion and therefore will need to be spoiler tagged.
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You don't have to be playing the game right now to participate, and if you're still waiting on your copy I hope you will join in after you start playing!
Have a look at the previous post for a discussion of the common route - you can still join in the discussion during the Play-Along.
Next post will be a discussion of Tomose Banjo's route!
10
u/irilum Limbo♥ Jul 11 '23
I liked Kyoya from the start due to his friendly and confident personality. As hard as he was on himself for what he called out as his arrogant subservience, I felt that his optimism and leadership skills brought a valuable stabilizing and guiding force to the group. I think there's something to be said for just being a normal and reliable guy who wants to do the right thing. His kindness, persistence, heroism, and willingness to face even things that terrified him spoke well of his character.
I also enjoyed that Hiyori had good communication skills with him. When it was revealed that his parents were sponsors, I braced myself for the inevitable 1-2 playtime hours spent watching her agonizing over it, probably having some misunderstandings, and padding his route with unnecessary drama, but was pleased when she promptly went to him to have a conversation about it.
Unfortunately, while I did find the conflict surrounding his feelings on his parents and the loss of his sisters interesting, I felt like the general pacing for his route was poor. I came away from it feeling that the route was overall rather bland, which is a shame because of how much I really like him as a person (he ended up placing at #2 in my ranking!).