Hitori no Qualia and Futari no Qualia
A set of two yuri-themed visual novels with an intertwining story by the team behind the cult hit, Katahane.
Speaking of which, Katahane is getting a remaster this summer, and I highly recommend checking it out even if you’re not much of a yuri fan. It’s great.
Developer: T̶a̶r̶t̶e̶ R̶o̶c̶o̶c̶o̶W̶o̶r̶k̶s̶ Katahane crew, whatever their current name
Publisher: 10mile
Platforms: PC
Genre: Visual novel, yuri
Sold digitally: Not that I know of
tl;dr synopsis
Makiri is living a typical shut-in lifestyle, skipping school and only going out to buy beef bowls and magazines, spending all of the remaining time playing an online video game. One day she is saved from getting run over by Karin, a somewhat mysterious girl who ends up trying to fix Makiri’s lifestyle and to get her back to school. Meanwhile, Makiri’s best friend Natsume is also trying to understand the reason behind Makiri’s non-attendance, but her own life is thrown in disarray when she saves Ginza, an older girl with a memory loss, from freezing under the rain. Each game deals with the budding relationship between the respective pair of main characters and overcoming solitude, complicated by each girl holding a mystery of her own.
hitori no qualia
As much as the promotional materials imply the games are of equal importance, out of these two Hitori no Qualia is hands down the primary storyline. It’s a retelling of the classic “fix a hikikomori” plot, except with lesbians... or so I would say, but the yuri part of it was relegated to the very end and felt pretty out of place considering the characters’ previous interactions. The plot was mostly slice of life with some drama and tantrums mixed in, the latter since the characters not only look like little girls, but also act like ones despite supposedly being of at least high school age.
The fun parts of the game are Makiri’s internal monologue and her daily interactions with Karin, who ends up living with her without even realizing it at first. It’s sort of a tug-of-war between Karin trying to discipline Makiri and on the other hand Makiri trying to get Karin into her hobbies. Which is, for the most part, eating beef bowls and playing Midnight Walker. The less fun parts of the game are when both of them end up throwing said tantrums.
Strangely enough the game explains or at least hints at the things you’re almost ready to take for granted in a half-silly, half-serious yuri game after batting an eyelid at first. Like why Makiri can lead such a lifestyle yet afford whatever she wants up to expensive gadgets, why is Karin not going to school despite trying to make Makiri return to her own — and so on. Unfortunately the actual big revelation is completely out of nowhere with the plot up until that moment leading to another thing entirely.
A special note goes to the aforementioned Midnight Walker, an online game about post-apocalyptic Tokyo with a unique mechanic that forces you to change jobs and reset most of your skills once your level is too high, leveling the playing field and not letting the players fall into endlessly min-maxing a single character — a rather common thing in most MMOs in the real world. While completely unrelated to the plot besides using the game chat for instant messaging, the game elaborates on it quite a lot and it’s a pretty interesting read in its own right. And it’s a good example of the little things that make Hitori no Qualia entertaining — novel-like dialogues and ruminations about the little things you’d generally consider unimportant in an eroge. It helps that the writing is great and makes everything life-like and relatable — and the second game shares this trait, too.
And all would be well, but the game just had to have plot. And it keeps making the girls act uncharacteristically stupid and generally ruining the mood. At some point my hands became tired of being slapped against my face. It would have been tolerable, had the game at least followed its own foreshadowing, but stuff kept happening out of the blue. And the surprise epilogue that made no sense at all after a heartwarming and conclusive ending. It did shed some light on a few questionable points, but what the actual fuck was that, introducing a huge cliffhanger and a supernatural element after all of that slice of life.
futari no qualia
In a complete reversal of priorities the second game throws mystery into the mix right from the get-go, with Natsume, its protagonist, having an ability activated in moments of indecision to observe both of the options available before her in a sort of split reality. Unfortunately, though, there is no guarantee that the world that sticks is the one that she wants or expects, so to avoid the resulting memory inconsistencies complicating communication Natsume usually keeps to herself outside of talking to a couple of friends. This explains her behaviour in the first game, but just how is this superpower related to basically anything else besides the abstract theme of the games is completely beyond my comprehension. It’s criminally underused, too, although it made for some nice trolling on the author’s part. You could’ve used it in an H-scene, J-MENT! Just imagine, double the fun!
Again, the best part of the second game is character interaction, and this time Ginza, the girl saved by Natsume, really makes it shine. Acting like a gigolo, being way too smart for someone with a memory loss, flirting with Natsume throughout the entire game with a slowly changing power dynamic — all while being much more kind than you’d think from how she acts. Perhaps Natsume seeing through that was the only reason why she didn’t kick Ginza out at first, as Ginza forced herself on top of the poor girl, with a rather questionable amount of consent from the opposing side, more than once during the very first week. Unlike the companion game, this one is a yuri game through and through, and that part of Futari no Qualia is fun, hilarious and actually very exciting. Especially as Natsume, who is no shrinking violet as the game makes you believe at first, gradually learns how to deal with the horny tomboy and develops feelings strong enough to eventually one-up the gigolo girl. And as the pair becomes more and more dependent on each other’s support, which is super lovable and moved me to tears at one point.
Oh yeah, the relationship development in Futari no Qualia is brilliant, especially compared to Hitori.
And all would be well, but like before the game just had to have plot. This time around it deals with the plot of the first game as Natsume keeps trying to find a way to drag Makiri back into society — and keeps failing horribly — and falls into despair every time things don’t quite go as planned. Ginza’s memories? Split realities? Ha ha ha nope, wait for the sequel, half of the game is about Makiri — despite the girl in question only appearing on stage barely even twice. Which doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else to happen. At least the side characters leave a more meaningful mark in this installment as there’s no big revelation to hide until the last moments. So you get to know more about all of these people who randomly pop up in Hitori, and they’re a curious bunch.
some more words
The title of the games is actually meaningful, with both games setting difference in perception of the world between the characters as its main topic. Qualia, an experience that can’t be shared, that causes isolation — and the story of both games deal with breaking this isolation and attaining intimacy on the way there. Which is, to an extent, a saving grace for the Makiri-related asspull in Hitori and actually makes for good food for thought and really nice character development in Futari.
One Japanese reviewer called this series “Fadeout no Qualia” for the tendency of these games to literally fade out and timeskip right before some of the interesting scenes should have happened — and also before any serious action in the H-scenes takes place. While the latter doesn’t bother me, as I prefer cute-lewd to lewd-lewd and the games deliver plenty of that, the former is indeed confusing until you learn about the audio dramas. There are actually two discs with a total of 100 minutes worth of content that fill up some of the spaces intentionally left blank. So when you hit the amusement park fadeouts in both titles, you now know where to look for the respective scenes.
Both games end with a sequel hook that leaves you waiting for Owari no Qualia, a sequel that is in the works for a few years now. And, despite finally being confirmed not too long ago, still having no release time-frame whatsoever. With Hitori introducing a very odd cliffhanger, which may or may not be related to other games from this team, after tying things up quite well as a standalone game and Futari leaving the big mystery unresolved (while also ending on a nice note), the sequel is sort of forced upon us. And I hope it brings a better balance and consistency between the various aspects of the game, especially regarding the more fictional ones.
the good
- Fue’s art is as good as ever;
- Great characters, daily interactions are fun and very comfy;
- Ginza’s flirting alone is worth it (and hilarious H-scenes in Futari);
- Focusing on the little things and building a small but solid lore, very novel-like writing in general;
- Music is good until you get tired of the same tracks by the end of the second game;
- Midnight Walker should be a real game.
the bad
- Plot in Hitori is one asspull after another, the cliffhanger is rage-inducing;
- Plot in Futari is too obsessed with plot in Hitori;
- Many things the games spend too much time on end up being completely and utterly pointless;
- Owari no Qualia fucking where.
afterword
I’ve expected either something short and cute and not very serious — this is technically a “low-priced title” — or something that can rival Katahane in emotional investment and world-building. What I got was something that tried to be a bit of both and I still have mixed feelings about it. Enjoyed the hell out of both games, but this enjoyment was riddled with frustration about all of the great concepts that could have been put to a better use and left me confused about the reason some of those were even introduced.
If you like cute and emotional yuri, I recommend reading these Qualias because they give plenty of it and then some. Just don’t expect any serious plot even when the games imply they have some and be lenient towards the drama, which is sometimes good and sometimes weird. And prepare for WHAT. There will be quite a few occasions of WHAT.
And don’t forget to download and apply the update. It adds a few BGs, fixes bugs and most importantly makes these feel more like visual novels rather than light novels by actually adding sprites to the games. Just faces, but this is much better than nothing at all.
For some reason the developers thought this wasn’t necessary until initial impressions started popping up.
Japanese difficulty: medium, slightly inclined to high. The language used is not hard per se, but the style can be slightly confusing — or it’s just me being shit at moon— and keeping a few dictionary tabs open is helpful. The audio dramas are surprisingly simple to understand.
