Now that I finished the first half of Nagi no Koi, I figured I'd go ahead and start Love, Election and Chocolote (KoiChoco). I found the Anime adaptation to be a surprisingly comfy but a bit of a whacky watch several months back (see my original Anime review). Tonight, I'll be doing a bit of comparing and contrasting. Welcome to... I have no clue what I'll call these yet...
NOTE: This game is an eroge (erotic game). That means that it's NSFW. None of the screenshots will be of inappropriate content but reader discretion advised
This screenshot was from a scene towards the end of this first session. It's a full spread of the Food Research Club members (most of the main cast of the story). The adaptation surprisingly nailed these character's designs much better than I expected. The only one that felt off so far was Oboro (green haired guy on the far left).
His hair color and proportions were correct but the Anime made him a bit "prettier" than the close up shots in other scenes so far. His role remained the same: getting the player and in world characters into Yaoi (boy on boy romances) fiction - which I didn't realize was also the name of the core snack his family's company produced, the Yaoi Stick. Its packaging artwork displayed a cartoon character reading what most likely was Boy Love manga with a weird cat smiling about it, much in opposition of that character's disgusted face.
The series moved events around to make a more interesting introduction to Oojima (the player character), Chisato (the pink-haired childhood friend), Michiru (the black haired cat girl) and Mifuyu (the tall blonde on the left next to Oboro). It opened with Chisato sneaking into the boy's room and waking him up by laying on and pressing her breasts against him till he woke up. Here, it showed the wedding flashback that appeared later as the first scene instead. Then, it immediately dove straight into some raunchy elements.
Michiru's introduction was almost exactly the same in both. A core difference: there's full skin, partially transparent underwear and a camel toe on display in the VN. The Anime toned it down some but applied the same general effect. She received more screen time and showcasing of here personality, though, in my play. The Anime made her mooning the camera funnier, though, in my personal opinion.
The scene shown here is from after the club activities were finished for the day. Mifuyu was introduced at an earlier point in the first episode with everything here being mostly played the same. I adored the theatrics all three performed in my Anime review and it had mostly the same beats and dialogue here.
One place where the adaptation seemed to improve the story on so far: some of the earlier goofy moments and slower pacing (due to the nature of written vs visual medium more than anything) had been made comically absurd to the betterment of them. On a side note, I found it amusing that Doujin fairs were brought up. This VN was very much a "fan work" in its original release (according to multiple sources). Despite this version being a remake, some of the brands and real world names were still directly referenced to my delight.
I don't remember the Anime making it clear, but this girl's abbreviated name was literally Monkii (the Japanese word for monkey). She and Ai, the orange haired girl, were the butt monkeys of two jokes so far. I'm all on board the monkey train.
My overall impressions have been mostly positive. It feels like the original heart was translated well and that the artists and animators for that adaptation were fans of this original work. I would need to rewatch but I'm pretty sure at least some of the game's music was remade / reused in the series. If it ain't broke, why replace it, ya know.
I don't plan to write a full play by play of my experience for future posts here (this is a 50+ hour game after all) but if you enjoyed this content, feel free to reblog, vote and reply down below. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night.