A Nostalgic Galgame Memory — Mirai ni Kiss o -Kiss the Future-

Note: This is a piece I originally wrote for a doujinshi a few years ago.

　It's said that many adult video directors originally aspired to make mainstream films, only to end up drifting into the adult industry after those ambitions fell through. Even among famous directors today, it's not unusual to find people who got their start in pink films. There's even a world where Gamera: The Heisei Trilogy might have turned into a joke-filled spectacle if left entirely to the instincts of a director raised on Nikkatsu Roman Porno productions.

　Naturally, directors carrying around that kind of smoldering ambition can't help but try to inject originality into their work whenever they get the chance. In mainstream cinema, whether that originality succeeds or fails depends on talent and luck, and such creative ambition is often praised. Adult videos, however, are ultimately a medium intended to serve a specific purpose. Their first priority is satisfying the audience's expectations. Elaborate direction and intricate storytelling aren't necessarily what viewers are looking for. If a director starts constantly changing camera angles and adding artsy, subcultural flourishes, viewers may find themselves pulled out of the experience entirely. What was supposed to be their experience suddenly becomes the director's.

　So why this lengthy preamble? Because Kiss the Future is, quite simply, the equivalent of an "unusable adult video overflowing with the director's personal vision."　 And that's exactly why it's wonderful. It's the rare experience of having a creator's self-indulgence thrust upon you, only to find yourself captivated because the act itself is so beautiful.

　The artwork was done by the well-known Misakura Nankotsu. The game's tagline was, "Onii-chan, will you make me your slave?" With that combination of artist and tagline, you'd naturally expect something focused on erotic training scenarios or little-sister archetypes.

The scenario writer, meanwhile, was Motonaga Masaki, a name familiar to any fan of visual novels. He's renowned for philosophical storytelling. I love his work.

　Both the illustrator and the writer were top-tier talents. But chemistry matters, and sometimes combining great ingredients results in a spectacular collision. What Kiss the Future does is present itself as the kind of game you'd expect from Misakura's artwork, only to reveal a philosophical, highly meta narrative once you actually start reading.

　For people like us, that's pure bliss. The relationship between a heroine living in a programmed two-dimensional world and the player who exists as a human being. Questions of self and other. Endless streams of intellectual, philosophical discussion.Keep going. Make it more pretentious. Make it more complicated. Make me enjoy every page.

　But what about the eroge fans of the time who bought it expecting a “slave-themed” game? They were given scenarios that felt half-hearted as pure fap material, and on top of that, the heroines started discussing questions like “What is a character?” It was exactly like having an AV director hijack the experience for his own artistic self-indulgence.

　As I said, people like us love that sort of thing. The moment you hear this premise, you already have a reason to enjoy the game for its writing, regardless of how divided reviews may have been at the time.

　What's especially clever is that the familiar, conventional romance-game structure of the early sections is necessary for the later twists to work. The more firmly you believe you're reading a standard genre piece, the more effective the contrast becomes near the end. For that reason alone, I want to praise Motonaga Masaki's willingness to take risks. Most of all, I was blown away by the theme song. At first it sounds like a fairly ordinary love song, but once you reach the true ending, you realize the lyrics had been describing everything all along. That's the kind of trick that leaves an impression.