Konna Atashi demo

vndb • erogamescape

Intro:

Konna Atashi demo is a 2001 ultra-NTR nukige from Winters.

Story: 7/10

Konna Atashi demo is the story of young love. The heartwarming tale of an adolescent boy’s first romance. Unfortunately for this boy, Tooi Atsunori, the girl he falls in love with, Shinonome Mafuyu, is a slut. And not just your regular, garden-variety slut. A huge slut. Atsunori, being blinded by love, says he will love her no matter how much of a slut she is, and so she agrees to date him.

When you boil it down Konna Atashi’s story is about the relationship of these two young lovers being constantly challenged as Atsunori learns time and again just how much of a hardcore slut Mafuyu is. Not that there’s a whole lot more to it to be boiled down in the first place. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Yet the twisted premise gives rise to an utterly fascinating story. The focus of the game is the ero but the dark, depressing, and melodramatic story that frames the sex and infringes upon it is what makes this eroge special.

Konna Atashi is so NTR that at times it doesn’t even feel like NTR. I’ve seen more extreme NTR, but Konna Atashi beats out any of them in terms of sheer impact. It’s one of the few times where NTR has emotionally affected me. Far too many NTR eroge and manga try too hard to get a rise out of the reader with extreme sex acts and mindbreaking and degradation of characters and so on. It’s too over the top to take seriously. Konna Atashi is over the top in its own way but at the same time its approach feels more understated and as a result hits harder.

The storytelling of Konna Atashi is very terse, particularly in a medium where the norm is to narrate every minute of every day of the protagonist’s life. In Konna Atashi the norm is abrupt scene changes, very brief scenes, and bad ends that are two or three sentences long. There are a lot of choices in the game but most of them are just between continuing the story or hitting one of those short bad ends. Only a few influence the branching of the story. In a similar vein the writing is overly simplistic. It isn’t bad, however, and at times it can carry surprising power.

Characters: 8/10

Shinonome Mafuyu: The main heroine of the game. Despite appearing to be sweet and charming she’s a crazy, slutty, broken girl and thus an exceedingly charming one. It’s natural to have an intense love/hate relationship with her as the reader. Or maybe it isn’t. But either way her ability to make the reader feel the same types of obsessive and dysfunctional feelings for her as Atsunori does is incredible and unprecedented in all the eroge I’ve played.

Tooi Atsunori: Our protagonist, who initially sports the “average high school boy” attribute of many eroge protagonists. He changes as his relationship with Mafuyu develops, and the psychological depiction of his descent into madness and obsession is a major part of why I liked this eroge, even if it’s as rough and simplistic as the rest of the writing. Depending on how you look at him and his devotion to Mafuyu he’s either a remarkably strong or remarkably weak man.

There are two other characters in Konna Atashi, who are best described as subheroines. There’s the childhood friend Yuka and the college student at Atsunori’s part time job, Youko. Neither receives very much development but they’re both given their own psychological issues, which while not nearly as extreme as Mafuyu’s still manage to keep them interesting as characters.

Sound: 7/10

Konna Atashi has a small but good soundtrack. Most of the individual tracks are good and they have an odd and not particularly cohesive overall sound. It helps contribute to the bizarre atmosphere of the game. I particularly like the two “oh shit!” tracks that play when something happens that crushes Atsunori’s mind. Their deep, vibrating bass made them some of the most effective atmospheric tracks I’ve heard.

Mafuyu’s voice acting is average and the voice acting for the other two girls is below average. They’re all good at chupa sounds though, so that’s a big plus.

Art: 6/10

Konna Atashi’s art is rough but I like the older style it has. Some CGs have glaring anatomical errors, but not very many. My only real problem with the art is the shortage of CGs. Some ero scenes will feature two or three sex acts but only one will get a CG, which is displayed for the entirety of the scene.

Ero: 8.5/10

About the only thing that makes the ero in Konna Atashi good is the situations, but they’re just short of godly. I already talked about how good the NTR component of this game is. Even the non-NTR scenes are usually given some factor that adds to the hotness, most often by poisoning any romantic potential.

The ero scenes are very short. I prefer shorter scenes over longer ones, but even for me some of Konna Atashi’s scenes were too short. They’re light on description, but for my taste they just about hit the sweet spot for descriptiveness. There aren’t many voiced lines but luckily a large portion of them are chupa sounds. You might be wondering what the ero scenes are made of it there isn’t much description or dialogue, and the answer is the protagonist’s thoughts. This is fitting, perhaps essential, for this game but I wonder if it was the best choice for maximizing the appeal of the ero scenes.

Overall: 80/100

Pros: NTR; Mafuyu; Deliciously melodramatic and twisted portrayal of a man’s descent into madness and obsession

Cons: NTR; Mafuyu; Rough presentation

By most standards this should be a bad eroge. Yet there are two reasons why I love it. The first is its masterful approach to NTR, which combines a novel premise with compelling, powerful execution. The second is its bizarrely surreal atmosphere, which didn’t really come up in this review because it’s hard to describe the nature of it and what specific elements create it. It’s just such an antithesis to the archetypal eroge and has such curious aesthetics.

Oh wait, I forgot the main reason I love Konna Atashi demo: Shinonome Mafuyu. A one-of-a-kind world-class heroine in the best and worst ways.

Despite being crudely constructed in every way Konna Atashi demo packs serious power and dare I say soul. Anyone who likes NTR needs to play it. It’s a classic right up there with True Blue. Except that where True Blue paved the way as the model NTR eroge Konna Atashi is a more experimental, adventurous attempt (yes, an avant-garde netorare nukige). Because it succeeds at this Konna Atashi demo has surpassed True Blue as my favorite NTR game.