One of our long-term goals when we started working with Nitroplus more than a decade ago was to help bring all their darkest and most awesome stories to the West. No sub-genre of visual novels has been revolutionized quite as much as the Boy’s Love genre that the Nitro+CHiRAL brand has come to define in the eyes of many fans. Let’s look at the newest release, Slow Damage, which you can preorder in physical form from J-List, or preorder the digital version from the JAST USA site!
Let’s Look at the Newest BL Game from Nitro+CHiRAL: Slow Damage!
The problem with trying to write about Slow Damage is that the game is such a hugely rewarding experience that I don’t want to spoil even the smallest thing before people have had a chance to play it for themselves.
It’s everything fans have come to expect from Nitro+CHiRAL: compelling, attractive love interests, intricate and involving storylines, utterly devastating bad ends, and — most importantly — a protagonist you can’t help but fall in love with.
Slow Damage is coming out on November 14. Preorder the limited physical release or digital release now!
Towa is very different from previous Nitro+CHiRAL stars, however. He’s approaching his late twenties, making him older than any point-of-view character that the games have had before. He’s had a lot of life experience for his age, at that, though his memory is bad enough that entire swathes of his life are missing from his recollection.
Even more striking than his age is Towa’s relationship to his sexuality — you won’t find any “but we’re both guys!” here; Towa is forthright from the start about his promiscuity with men. This offers a very different spin on the BL experience for the player, as Towa is far more experienced than some of his love interests.
The most important thing about Towa, the driving force behind his choices, is his art. Towa wants to paint people’s darkest desires at the moment of fulfillment. This lands him in life-threatening, taboo-breaking situations, pushing the player to places far outside the realms of where most BL publishers will go.
Some of the other key characters from Towa’s world:
Taku is Towa’s doctor, who has taken care of him for many years. They spend every day together, but how well do they really know each other?
Rei works at Taku’s clinic and at Towa’s favorite bar, Roost. He’s happy-go-lucky on the surface, but darkness lurks in his past and threatens his everyday life.
Once a feared member of the yakuza, Madarame died a long time ago… or did he?
Here’s Towa’s first impression of the lawyer Fujieda, from one of the routes. What common ground could these two possibly find?
Eiji, Kotarou, and Mayu work for the local yakuza, offering bombs, brawn, and sharpshooting. They’ve been friends with Towa for a long time, much to Taku’s chagrin.
The setting of Slow Damage is as important as any of the characters. The city of Shinkoumi is a fully realized world, with a huge number of locations that the player can choose to explore for characters’ secrets and for inspiration for Towa’s art. The whole city is a seething, decadent, decaying wonderland of desires, and Towa’s determined to discover them all. But in the process, he might uncover things better left hidden.
Slow Damage is the latest masterpiece from Nitro+CHiRAL and their most ambitious title yet in terms of gameplay and maturity of themes. We here at JAST BLUE are honored to bring these titles to the West, and are so pleased that fans have been so enthusiastic in welcoming each new release. Of course the visual novel is being released with no censorship and no changes from the original, other than translating the game from Japanese into English.
Slow Damage is coming out on November 14. Preorder the limited physical release or digital release now!
Thanks for supporting licensed visual novels from JAST USA and Nitroplus!
