Product of the bygone era of golden age, when everyone were experimenting and trying to reach the success in the new chaotic market. The manifestation of people knowing they’re doomed to fail, but still giving it their all. This visual novel is interesting both as a history artifact and a story. Rakuen is a galge released in 2004 by Terralune, and it’s also a work that turned out to be the last produced by them. Most of the staff never worked on eroge ever again. This is very noticable in the work, since it’s unusually self-aware. I’ll say it in front, it’s not a story for everyone. It doesn’t always have good writing, and there are some rage inducing moments that you wouldn’t see in any typical charage. But it is worth trying out if you like the artstyle and comedy focused stories. It’s a good comedy with a style.
Story
Protagonist whose name is literally 僕 (Boku) is a failure, ‘ronin’, who is repeating a year at preparatory school for univeristy exams. He starts working at an eroge company as an artist, while living with his two little sisters. The plot in this VN is pretty thin, mostly it’s focused on interactions between the characters, self-deprecatory humor, and some melodrama in the routes (that are pretty short). I’m not sure if I disliked the fact that there isn’t enough “plot”, or that authors tried to do it at all. And where there is “plot”, it’s either underdeveloped, poorly written, or bland. In my opinion, Rakuen is more moege leaning, so this isn’t such a big problem though—you’re mainly reading this for the romance and the comedy.
The style. ROCK.
This work has a very unconventional artstyle, music and prose. Perhaps that is the reason why it was the last work from Terralune, but that's beside the point. Music is simply amazing. The whole soundtrack consists of energetic american rock tracks that, combined with atmosphere of sweaty otakus and corporate sloppiness, makes the reader feel dirty and very immersed. There is also a melancholic track that I like a lot, it reminds me of welcome to NHK.classic examples of OST
Spealikng of the devil—rakuen is surprisingly similar to anime/novel Welcome to NHK. Not in the story, but in the atmosphere. Humor is kind of similar, although Rakuen’s one is much more sexual and incest leaning, the city is similar, the “author’s self-insert” aspect is strong in either works. I forgot to say, the direction in rakuen is awesome, and very unique. Mainly I’m talking about the placement of text, sprites for comedic effect. Sometimes they will use manga style text boxes to convey just how miserable is the mood in the office, sometimes there are random text covering the whole screen that flashes so fast it’s impossible to read… Imagine monogatari but in a visual novel form - that’s basically it.
The artstyle is cute. Some people will probably think it’s dated, but as someone who values uniqueness, I was very satisfied. Although the fact that artist is amateur is very telling - CGs with unusual perspective always have weird proportions, but it’s a 2000s VNs so it’s something we all are used to.
The prose is also one of the stands out in this VN. It’s highly energetic, has a lot of puns, references to all kinds media and events, with short sentenceses and great comedic timings. I noticed it has a lot of emojis which I never have seen in any other VN. It’s not particularly hard to read, but it took me quite some time to get used to. Also I white-noised a lot of jokes.
Characters!!! and their routes....
The cast is simply amazing. Pretty much everyone is fun to watch, excluding one heroine. Protagonist is a classic Tsukkomi kind of person who also likes to do Boke, and he's an absolute failure. he's a kind of person who can fail entrance exams 3 times, won't wash for a week, and is a huge eroge addict. Personally I liked him a lot, and the fact that you can always see his portrait on the screen makes dialogues feel even more alive. I wish more VNs did this.My personal standout is Mishiba senpai. Yes, the character on my pfp. She’s Boku’s coworker who colors his CGs. Mishiba is extremely energetic, violent loli, who is very serious about eroge—she almost doesn’t come home, and tends to neglect herself to the point of almost dying in her work place. Her route is not the best one, but still satisfying. There is a certain moment where protagonist does very bad thing that felt very out of place, and the way the route’s drama’s is solved is a classic deus ex machina, but at it’s core it is about the desire to finish something despite all the struggles, the unity of ヲタク souls, meaning in meaningless piece of art.
An’s route is very underdeveloped and cliched. She’s a little sister who “comforts” protagonist when he burns out from working, and that’s it. Yes that’s the whole plot. Heroine is self is cute, but come on.
Now we have come to Sae’s route. First of all, she has a dialogue that is the best one is the whole game. Basically it’s about the essense of visual novels, here: but ignoring this diaglouge, her route is the main problem of this VN as a whole. Her character is the problem. Because her route is focused on…
spoiler
NTR. Oh boy. Even if you enjoy NTR, there are no h-scenes like that, it's just pure humiliation. Sae felt lonely, and protagonist didn't respond to her calls, so she decided to give her first time to her mexican friend. After that she immediatly comes up to protag, he forgives her, and he immideatly fucks her to "make her forget" that mexican guy. During h-scene Sae says that protagonist's dick is smaller than Mexican's, that he was better at sex etc., but since she loves protagonist this sex is better. Alright.
Aki’s route is pretty interesting. Second twin sister who tries to be a voice actor so that she can get along better with protagonist. This route is pretty realistic, it shows how studios and market kill the talent of young workers.
At last, Miki’s route. The paradise. In my opinion, it’s the core of the game, hence it should be played as the last. Miki is protagonist’s rival artist who works in a different company, but I’m glad the route wasn’t focused on this aspect. I don’t want to spoil it, but I’ll just say it’s the route that represents the ideals and story of the developer Terralune.