IxSHETell: Dating Drought Creates Thirsty Girls

IxSHETell is a rare visual novel with a premise directly linked to dating. Our hero, Nanomiya Hajime, has removed a longstanding total ban on romantic relationships at his school, Kenseikan Academy. Anime-innocent that he is, Hajime has sought the school council presidency to end the dating drought, but has no idea how removing the ban will affect his own life.

Ending the romance drought has immediate consequences for Hajime. Overnight he goes from polarizing political figure to the most popular boy at his school, and has to flee hordes of girls who want to ask him out now that they can. As he runs to preserve other people’s feelings — he knows rejection hurts — he starts to grapple with the idea of being able to date, and who he might be interested in. Five thirsty women take the power into their own hands though, and confess to him. He decides he will consider them carefully before returning or rejecting anyone’s feelings.

IxSHETell is pronounced aishiteru, a play on the statement “I love you”, and the idea that “she” is confessing her feelings. An English version of the sentiment could have been expressed in a translated title like: SheSaysILoveYou. Instead, the original title is untranslated, which was confusing at first since it’s in English but the meaning is ambiguous, and the pronunciation obtuse. Thankfully, the voice actresses say it during scene transitions, and with the meaning, I’m happy it wasn’t changed.

IxSHETell is structured like many romance-oriented visual novels. You start playing on a common route that the girls share, interacting with all of them to get to know them. Unlike many VNs that are focused on the protagonist point-of-view, IxSHETell contains scenes that are defined by the word ‘meanwhile’, scenes from non-Hajime view points. Through the “cross-view” mechanic, you watch what is happening elsewhere during lulls in Hajime’s story. Such as, while Hajime is fleeing a flock of overactive girls looking to confess to him, his friend Shiori runs interference because she kinda-sorta revealed to her own close friends that she has feelings for Hajime, and they have taken it upon themselves to capture him so Shiori can confess.

Mechanics

Cross-viewing shows the occasional POV of characters outside of the romance. Most notably Hajime’s little sister, who is hilarious. It’s a breath of fresh air from Hajime’s perspective, and it’s a shame that once you get onto the heroine routes cross-viewing goes away. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The other mechanical concept IxSHETell introduces to the visual novel is heart points. Heart points replace the usual ways you choose heroine routes.

The way heart points work is you are allocated a certain number of hearts per day, which you assign to heroines. You don’t have to give out all the hearts, and you can take them away and hand them out to another heroine at any time during the day, but once your day is complete they’re locked in. I played this organically, handing points out whenever they did something fun. Whichever heroine has the most hearts by a certain day is the one that you confess to. You choose how to resolve ties, so if you really want to game the system just keep everyone tied and pick at the end.

Like kissing in OniiKiss: Onii-chan, Where’s My Kiss?! the heart points mechanic is an interesting experiment, but I don’t find it replaces just picking a route. I was happy when I was handing out hearts organically, but let down by realizing ties just result in a choice. If ties had resulted in a bad/neutral end, or bonus scenes to convince you to decide for good, with one last giant heart to hand out, it would have felt better integrated.

Still, handing out hearts felt like falling for someone, one moe or comedic moment at a time, so it has its merits.

IxSHETell has competent sound and formatting design. The music fits the tone, and the buttons and menus are clear. Voice acting is great, particularly with lots of humorous moments the voice actresses sell well. The game does have its serious moments, and the voice acting stands up then too. CGs are vanilla — few kinks here — and uncensored, which is great. The artistic standout though is the way characters emote during the main game, with blushes, anger, good humor, and so on. Sex scenes add intimacy, and demonstrate private moments even if they can sometimes feel shoe-horned.

But who exactly will you be getting intimate with?

The Girls

Koshimizu Kasumi. The transfer student of love, coming to Kenseikan academy with the goal of meeting Hajime again, years after his good nature led her sick-bed ridden self to have a reason to live. She is very moe, and very aggressive with her intentions, confessing to Hajime quickly. Realizing he doesn’t know her very well is what jump-starts Hajime’s decision to get to know the heroines better before returning any feelings.

Yamabuki Yoshino is the student council vice-president. She ran against Hajime, and against removing the ban on romantic relationships, but he made her his vice-president anyway because he respects her convictions. She wants Hajime to do dirty things to her so she can point to a loss of morals to ban romance again — or so she says. Really, she’s tsundere for Hajime.

Yuuki Ayaka, the school idol, and literal idol. She’s kind and hard-working, but very stuck-up. The ojou type. She wants to date Hajime because only the most popular boy in school is the equal of the most popular girl in school.

Kozuka Yui, the student council president of Kenseikan’s sister school. Acts mature, but would like to be pampered sometimes. She is the underdog of the waifu wars, very self-aware that she’s not sharing a school with Hajime, as well as lacking the impressive busts certain of her competitors wield. These qualities may make it impossible for her feelings to be returned.

Hanamori Shiori, the childhood friend. Has always been there for Hajime, and will support him always, whatever he decides — but he ought to decide to return her feelings since they know each other better than anyone! Is terminally shy around strangers, which causes misunderstandings.

IxSHETell is a solid visual novel with quality writing, plenty of comedy, and serious storylines about self-esteem, identity, empathy, and the complexity of relationships. The design choices — yes, even the critiqued heart points — create an emotional investment in the story of these characters’ lives, and what else can you ask from a visual novel?

IxSHETell is available for digital purchase from JAST USA (NSFW) and on Steam.