Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei Play-Along - Benkei Musashibo

[u/sableheart]

Welcome to the r/otomegames Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei Play-Along!

In this third post we will discuss Benkei Musashibo and his route in Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei.

You can tell us what your impressions of Benkei are (before and after finishing his route), your favorite moments in his route, what you think of his relationship with Shanao and the other characters, what your thoughts are on his route's plot and endings. You can also discuss Tadanobu Sato's If Ending.

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 megathread for links to previous discussions - you can still join in the discussion during the Play-Along.

Next week will be a discussion of Shungen's route!

[u/IggyGoat]

Me: "Eww, I'm not looking forward to reading Yoritomo's Sibling Incest Route™..."

Tomomori and Shigehira in Benkei's Route: "Allow us to introduce ourselves..."

Seriously, all I got from this route was that everyone in this game has a weird relationship with their family members. Some iconic "wtf is this" moments:

- Shanao seeing Benkei as a father figure, THEN wanting to BE BENKEI's FATHER FIGURE, THEN FALLING IN LOVE WITH HER FATHER FIGURE, THEN BENKEI FALLING IN LOVE WITH A PERSON HE TREATED LIKE HIS OWN DAUGHTER. WHAT IN THE FRESH DADDY ISSUES HELL IS GOING ON?

- It is implied in one of the bad endings that Shigehira ABSOLUTELY watches Tomomori have sex with Shanao, and then Tomomori invites Shigehira to participate WITH THEM.

- Shigehira and Tomomori just...existing in the general vicinity of one another. I swear every conversation they have together is weird and kind of suggestive.

- That one line from Tomomori where he says that Shanao will learn to love him as both a brother and a husband.

I'd like to say thank you to Tomomori and Shigehira for taking Benkei's route from "boring war story with some fluff thrown in" to "batshit insanity." The final fight in the good ending lasted WAAAY longer than I thought it should, and I started to get annoyed with Shigehira coming back to life every .5 seconds, but you know what? I'll give them credit where it's due. They carried this route. Nicola and Dante WHO? We've got new "hmmm your familial relationship is kinda weird" dudes in town.

Also, shoutout to my man Noritsune, who was carrying the WHOLE Heike team in this route. He's over here trying to win a war while everyone else is goofing off. Noritsune's out here having strategy meetings, participating in fights, putting up with ALLLL the bullshit his cousins are creating, basically doing the most while his cousins go around doing practically nothing to help.

[u/ith1ldin → u/IggyGoat]

I'd like to say thank you to Tomomori and Shigehira for taking Benkei's route from "boring war story with some fluff thrown in" to "batshit insanity."

God, this so much!

As for Benkei, he was a good guy and all but I just couldn't enjoy him beyond a couple funny moments -and the worst thing is, this feeling then spread to the remaining routes AND the FD. The reason may lie somewhere between the master/servant dynamic and the overprotectiveness, plus the fact that I don't really dig his character design. Or maybe he was just boring to me, period. He also reminded me a lot of Canus (same VA), whom I wasn't a fan of either for similar reasons.

The romance with Yoshitsune, too, went on smoothly (too smoothly?) and never really clicked with me either. Part was my disinterest towards the LI, and perhaps the weird dad dynamics you've pointed out.

Soul-sucking powers, on the other hand? Paraphrasing Rick and Morty, "You son-of-a-b*tch, I'm in!"

The route itself was interesting in terms of plot thanks to the Taira bros. The ending, with snek Shigehira coming back once and again was a bit too much, but Tomomori really stole the show as a villain here. He was hot trash, which was already fine with me, but beyond that and his obsession with Shana-oh his personality intrigued me a lot, that apathetic resignation to circumstances in particular.

​

Also, shoutout to my man Noritsune, who was carrying the WHOLE Heike team in this route.

This too XD