A Main Character with a name, but no eyes

This is one of the rare otome games where we don’t see the MC’s face on the cover art, and for a good reason: she doesn’t have any eyes! MCs are an important part of any visual novel since we are in their heads all the time and experience their inner thoughts. Sometimes, a protagonist can even make or break the game solely with their personality.

Sympathy Kiss is bit of an odd case. The MC isn’t the worst kind by any means, but it feels like Otomate tried to force a “self-insert” type of MC—even though she has a name (Amasawa Akari) and a distinguishable appearance and personality.

Even in the game itself, we never see her speak directly. Instead of saying, “I want my coffee with one sugar. Thanks!”, it’s written as, “I told him that I wanted a sugar with my coffee, and thanked him.” While the game wants me to feel like the MC, it actually did the opposite. I was too weirded out by her and by how everyone interacted with her. How did these guys (and there are eight of them!) end up falling in love with her when, from my perspective, she doesn’t even talk and has no eyes?!

On top of that, some choices in the routes aren’t about dialogue at all, but about different expressions like a smile 😁 or a sad face 😥. Can you imagine someone without eyes smiling? That would creep anyone out… but not our LIs, who are apparently entranced by the power of love.

Despite these visual and narrative limitations, Amasawa Akari ends up being a great protagonist far more expressive than, say, the MC from AMNESIA (who’s more of a self-insert). She’s mature, down-to-earth, knows when to stand up for herself, is diligent at work, and has actual desires when she’s with any of the boys. If her lines were writen more directly and she actually had eyes, she would be a more memorable MC. But for some reason, Otomate wanted to nerf her and robbed her of her voice and eyes!

Saotome Mitsuki (VA: Kajiwara Gakuto)

The guy who seems chill but can actually harrass you at work

We got off to a bad start because I really disliked this guy. I was actually anxious playing his route, since he embodies one of the worst types of people you can encounter in any professional or academic setting—the kind who sees others as dead weight slowing them down. What made it even worse was recognizing some of my own thoughts reflected in his dialogue!

Honestly, I don’t have anything nice to say about him. I mean, even his appearance can’t make me like him. I found myself fixating on dumb details, like those two hair clips, which were incredibly irritating throughout the entire route. Overall, his route wasn’t anything special, and the conflict felt really weak.

Kohei Minato (VA: Umehara Yuuichirou)

The guy who looks like he will harrass you at work but is actually really chill

I started the route without any expectations since he hadn’t particularly caught my eye. But he really won me over! Due to circumstances explained in his route, he’s a stickler for maintaining a balance between his personal and work life. He doesn’t like after-work outings and always leaves the office on time. He’s not a slacker by any means, he just wants other people to respect his time and his firm boundaries. I found myself relating to Kohei, and that made me immediately like him. Visually, he also reminded me of the rising Korean actor Byeon Woo-seok!

His route was genuinely touching, and the emotional weight was handled well within the slice-of-life tone of the game.

Yoji Kobase (VA: Okitsu Kazuyuki)

The boss who wanted to recruit you for his team even though you don’t have the qualifications…?

I was looking forward to Yoji’s route because of his voice, the fact that he wears glasses, and that he’s our boss. Buuut, just like Minato’s route, the conflict here felt completely out of left field and a little childish, which pulled me out of the story for a bit.

One thing I haven’t mentioned before, and which is especially noticeable in this route, is that all three LIs up until now have a dubious scene where they warn us about how men can be dangerous once they’re involved with a young lady like Amasawa. I hate this trope (if we can even call it that) and I don’t find it sexy in the slightest.

Yoji is apparently 31, and presumably has had past romantic experience, yet he talks like someone who has never interacted with women before. It clashes badly with his professional image and gentlemanly behavior, making his characterization feel inconsistent.

Rokuro Yoshioka (VA: Yamashita Seiichirou)

The character who’s even too perfect to be a 2D man husbando

If you like perfect LIs, Rokuro is probably your dream man. Personally, I prefer my husbandos a little rough around the edges, with a few noticeable flaws, so I had trouble connecting with him.

His route starts off like a fairytale, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, because every other route up to that point had started off fine before taking a turn. Buuut… it never happens. Rokuro really is just a prince who’s head over heels in love. There is a small obstacle in his route that got me excited. I was thinking, “Finally, something spicy!” But even that gets resolved surprisingly easily.

At this point in my playthrough of playing Sympathy Kiss, I understood that the writers probably felt the need to insert some kind of conflict into every route to add drama and keep things interesting. The problem is that the routes are pretty short (only four episodes), so any tension between the MC and the LI has to be resolved very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that it made me question why those conflicts were included in the first place.

If you’re a fan of rom-coms (especially Korean drama rom-coms) I think this route will be right up your alley. Besides the LI’s archetype, it also features a very popular trope.

Secret Route 1 (VA: Saitou Souma)

The guy who got casted in the wrong game

I spoiled myself and looked up what the guy from this route looked like before actually playing it. As a result, I was really excited: his personal style is exactly my type, and he felt quite different from the other LIs we’d gotten up to that point. But this route was a complete mess!

His character archetype is already pretty polarizing among players, but honestly, even from a fan’s perspective, he just wasn’t well executed. It doesn’t help that the secret routes are even shorter than the main ones, with only three episodes. By that point in the game, I had really grown to like Amasawa, but here it genuinely felt like she was gaslighted into falling in love with him. It doesn’t help that he basically acknowledged that he messed up, and then goes to justify himself with his “tearful” past experiences.

This is arguably the “darkest” route in the game, and maybe the worst one too…

Nori Tainaka (VA: KENN)

The sweetest cinnamon roll

We encounter Nori early on, and I was really racking my brain trying to figure out how they would make his route exciting. His whole thing is that he’s basically homeless and has to stay over at women’s places in order to survive. Usually in otome games, I prefer to be the MC who ends up staying at someone else’s place (which happens in one of the previous route…), but I wasn’t prepared to be the one to welcome a poor soul into my apartment!

As a woman, this set off every possible alarm bell in my head, and I was honestly mad at Amasawa for being so careless. Every single man in that game warned her that men are basically wolves in disguise, full of testosterone, yet somehow that didn’t seem to stick with her. Fortunately, Nori turned out to be the sweetest man ever.

This route feels like a fantasy for any woman who has ever wondered what it would be like to have someone take care of all the household chores. He looks after the MC, cooks her amazing meals, cleans the apartment, and even gives her hugs when she’s overwhelmed with work.

As we dive deeper into his route and learn more about his circumstances, we realize that his lifestyle is actually a way of running away from his problems. And I have to say, I really empathized with his backstory. Just like Minato’s, it felt mature without being overly heavy for this type of game.

Nori also has tattoos and piercings, and I love how that contrasts with his bubbly personality. His voice actor did an amazing job too, shifting from a boyish tone to a colder, more intense one during the more intimate scenes, when Nori wants to highlight his attraction to Amasawa. I liked his voice so much that I actually turned off the music just to hear it better. It made Sympathy Kiss feel even more intimate and perfectly suited to the slice-of-life genre.

Secret Route 2 (VA: Toriumi Kousuke)

The wholesome guy with a possible drinking addiction

Just like the first secret route, I knew what I was getting into and I was excited for it because this type of LI is rare!

One issue that I had with this route is that it felt like 30% of it consisted of the LI apoligizing to us. If it had been due to clumsiness, I would have found it cute. But here, it was more frustrating than endearing. Since he’s supposed to be a reliable and experienced man, I expected a bit more confidence from him.

Another small detail that bothered was the repeated mention of alcohol. This might be a very personal observation, but at one point we go to his place and he offers us to drink alcohol beverages. He even talks about how he like a certain brand for its variety of flavors, to the point where he buys their limited editions bottles. It’s not uncommon at all for Japanese people to drink after work, but within the context of his route, it made me feel slightly uneasy. Alcohol can sometimes be used as questionable comedic relief, but that wasn’t really the case here. Instead, we’re shown that he’s a regular drinker, and given what we learn about him throughout the route, I didn’t particularly like that detail.

For some reason, this route didn’t include any truly spicy scenes. We only get a shy little kiss, and that’s it. While the LI is at a different stage in life, their age gap isn’t that extreme. However, both the narration and the LI himself make it feel much larger than it actually is, which was a bit odd. He even acts somewhat shy, almost as if it were his first time being intimate with a woman, and that took me out of the experience.

The writers also introduced an unexpected twist that didn’t really suit the already short length of the route and, in my opinion, didn’t add anything meaningful to the romance.

Overall, it’s still a sweet route, but the pacing and certain details made it feel underwhelming to me.

Shuya Usui (VA: Uchida Yuuya)

The DILF except he’s not a dad

While some of the LIs came accross as horny teenagers, Shuya felt more like a man already halway into retirement. I did appreciate that, as an older person, he tried to put some distance between himself and Amasawa in fear that he might robbed her of a more conventional romance. However, the majority of his route revolves around this worry, which makes it feel less like a love story and more like a therapy session for him.

Because of his self-doubt, he unintentionally infantilizes the MC and assumes she lacks agency or the ability to understand her own feelings. The writing simultaneously pulls Amasawa down by emphasizing how “immature” and lacking she feels compared to Shuya. It makes it seem as though Amasawa just turned 18 and Shuya is 35, when in reality she’s 23 and he’s 45. Age-gap relationships in games can already feel uncomfortable, and it seems Otomate didn’t quite know how to handle it here. It would have been sexier if they had both been more accepting of their mutual attraction, but at least they act like adults and don’t let their feelings rush the relationship.

Shuya is also guilty of scaring the MC with the whole “men are wolves” crap talk. He even goes to a greater length by saying the following: “Men have a tendency to take any kindness from a beautiful woman as a sign of affection”. I will excuse him and his incel-adjacent takes, because if we set those moments aside, he behaves like a gentleman throughout most of his route…

Final thoughts

Sympathy Kiss is virtually the only localized otome game that offers an office romance setting, some steamy scenes, and older love interests. It feels like a romance aimed at women rather than girls, which makes sense given the setting. If you’re like me and enjoy Voltage titles for their mature storytelling but are looking for a higher-budget game with voice acting, then Sympathy Kiss is your best bet.

One thing these men have in common is that they are really thirsty for our MC! It goes to a point where they have to warn her every occasion they’ve got: they are men after all, and she better be careful or else they might not how to control themselves. Maybe it’s just me, but the idea of these men as predators with pulsating dingles around any woman simply being herself didn’t feel sexy at all. Unlike other Otomate titles, there are some genuinely steamy scenes and hot kisses, but the “dirty talk” was in the same vein, so it didn’t really work for me.

The game fell short at times. Some of the conflicts on the routes felt really childish and like it was a bigger deal than it should have been. As a result, the overrall structure of the routes is often the same : you get close to one of the LI, then suddenly he has to put some distance with you when he understands his feelings, then the MC pushes through and uncover some hidden thing about him, and finally you get closure and a happy ending. Since it’s set up in a modern period with a realistic setting, the writers were clearly limited. In spite of this, they could have done something to make the game feels less monotonous. It doesn’t help how 4 of the routes took place in the same setting, your office at Estarci. You are basically seeing the same characters in their working mode, and it can get tiresome very quickly.

Another area were I noticed some laziness was in the character design. They are distinct enough, but sometimes they shared the same poses, which makes it feel like the designers were cutting corners on the budget.

At first, I thought an office-setting otome game was a great idea. But since it includes real-life problems you may encounter in your own environment (like bullying, baseless rumors and overwork) I’m not sure it really makes for a relaxing experience. The stakes are low, so it’s not like you’ll feel depressed or anxious while playing, but if you’re already stuck at a desk all day, I don’t know if this game will help you unwind.

Sympathy Kiss is best enjoyed in between sessions of a more lore-heavy or emotionally intense visual novel. If you decide to play one route after another, though, you might burn yourself out, since the routes’ structures are so predictable and repetitive.