Comyu Black Dragon in a Gentle Kingdom Review :
*Unmarked Spoilers begin with Common Route*
I wanted to like this a lot more than I can objectively say that it deserves. A genuinely interesting world with well thought out mechanics in which random groups of 5 individuals are linked together and granted the ability to call down mythical beasts, is squandered by what amounts to a borderline nonsenical progression of events. A genuinely enjoyable cast of characters whose banter amongst each other often times leaves you smiling or laughing along with the action is often times overshadowed by a gloriously idiotic MC who's immense amount of stupidity can leave you wanting to turn the damn thing off
multiple times. Most of the individual character routes have their shining moments proceeded with a but or an if only, never really reaching a level where you feel entirely satisfied with what went down.
And as for the sex (and this is something I usually don't even bother mentioning in a review) there are scenes that are so poorly handled (not even written in some cases, just the very circumstances in which they're presented) as to literally ruin the development of a character. This is the first time in a long time (since I read Fate/Stay Night) that I've encountered sex in a VN that's actively lowered my opinion of the piece as a whole.
Such is where we begin with Comyu.
Unmarked spoilers below!
Common Route :
Simultaneously the highlight of the VN and the source for all of my frustrations that come with the latter half of the story. You're presented here with the world and its inherent mechanics. Groups of 5 random individuals are brought together and given the power to control a ridiculous beast. There are no rules or any guiding principal binding the way in which they should use their power, its just handed to groups of 5 at random intervals. They can literally do what they want. Any individual person can summon the beast as they please but naturally they're easier to handle when more people in the group are present. Disagreements within the group with respect to controlling the monster are handled democratically, if 2 people want monster to do X and 2 people want monster to do Y then the thing locks up until the 5th in the group makes the decision one way or another. And naturally, if the monster dies everyone in the group dies along with it. There's a really neat potential for storytelling here that becomes immediately apparent. What happens when a normal dude finds himself in a group filled with fucking serial characters? How do you stop some selfish dude in your group from summoning the group's beast in a terrible situation and getting themselves killed while taking the rest of the group with them? There's a lot of directions you could take with a story like this and the dynamic between the individual members of the group and the group amongst other groups is something that could be really crafted into an interesting story. I'd started writing my review after reading the common route and my enthusiasm at that point in the tale was palpable and the way in which the main group progress from a perspective of ignorance about the world around them to being exposed to the much larger community of people who can also summon crazy super duper animals is one that honestly had me excited to see more of the story. It's unfortunate that the VN never really capitalizes on all of it.
Benio Route :
The biggest problem I find with this route is that you're given a character that has a clearly naive worldview in wanting to be a "Hero of justice" for all, this person finds themself in situations where that worldview should be actively challenged and developed through the course of this route, but never ultimately changes in a way that I could say was meaningful. In the common route you're tasked with taking on a guy named Jack the Ripper who had gone completely insane and started fucking shit up in super duper crazy monster land. In this route you learn a bit more about Jack and the people he was connected to before things went down but it's never really made a significant focus in the development of Benio's character. The entire line connecting Jack with the people around him is never actually expanded on either, its just something thrown out there as a "hey, that's neat" and moves on to other things.
And the other things kinda suck because they highlight how much of a shit our MC is. This is a quote from him during one particular scene :
Fighting
probably won't change anything. It could make the situation worse, but not better. It's easy to talk about reasons to do it when you know that it's useless. Taking something away from someone else. There's nothing special about that. It happens all the time, everywhere you look. It's everywhere. But does that mean we're going to stay quiet? Will we do nothing just because we can't do anything? Will we just keep letting it happen?
That's why we won't forgive him. We have no idea what's right in this situation. But so what?
WHAT? This is the first time he pulls this shit but its a common thread throughout other parts of the VN. Our MC will actively point out why his idea is fucking stupid or insanely hypocritical given his previous actions. He internalizes this thought and is fully cogent of the ramification of what he's going to do, often times giving really good fucking reasons as to why he shouldn't be doing it. And then he does it anyway. In this case he's about to fight a guy trying to institute a new government within the community of teenagers who control ridiculous monsters. The previous government was pretty shit and incapable of doing their job in a time that the community needed them the most so he's going about it in a constructive way. We're fighting him because fuck it this route needs a climatic battle let's goooooooo. What? Is this the Benio route? No this route isn't really about her at the end of the day.
Purple Haired Girl Route :
This one was more traditional battle shounen. Like I love me some tournament arcs and our group stumbles on an underground fighting ring in which they have all the excuse in the world to just fuck shit up over and over again. And this is great up until the point where they tell a compelling story along with it. The only memorable thing that comes out of this is that the VN has sex with the main girl of this route a mere hours after half a dozen people in his classroom get their heads chopped off
in the same school in which said students had their heads chopped off. Bad ending was pretty good.
Mayuki & Chipmunk Routes :
These are more like side routes I feel like. The Mayuki route ended up being a bit of a disappointment because of all the people in the group she's probably the most likable with her random quips and references to fan-fiction and internet memes. She's funny and is the source of a lot of the enjoyment I had in the VN
unfortunately she's the best outside of her own route. For one reason or another it seems to focus a lot on the world building of the fan-fiction that shes working on? 80% of this route is focused on
1. Image board trolling and the effects of cyberbullying
2. Idols
3. The world and characters that Mayuki's fan-fiction revolves around???
Like I'm all for more mellow routes but there's a line to be drawn when you're diverting attention away from the instant access to a goddamn dragon monster that anyone can pull out at anytime. What made them think this would be a good idea?
Chipmunk was warm and fuzzy and short enough to where it didn't overstay its welcome. There aren't any asspulls or bullshit justifications for starting a fight with someone either. For that reason it ends up probably being the best dedicated route in the entire story.
Kagome Route :
-sigh-
Where to start with the Kagome route. As the last and seemingly most climatic route this one pretty much exemplifies everything right and wrong about the VN. There are a lot of answers to questions that have been dangled in front of us since the beginning of the series. Who is the person giving out these super duper monsters? What's causing it? Who are the owners of X or Y mysterious monster that show up out of no where? There are a lot of very cool and interesting twists here that I enjoyed reading
but again they're all flavored with an MC who is still a colossal tit and writing that creates characters and events that doesn't much the means in which they're developed or the particular moment they're presented. It's all the VN and its flaws condensed into a single route.
Like I said, I wanted to like this VN a lot more than I can ultimately say that it deserves. The world is interesting, the platform is interesting, and I'd absolutely love it if the developers came back to this world with a more keen eye for storytelling. There's potential here that's not being made use of and it's unfortunate because its been a LONG time since a VN's been able to thoroughly sink its teeth into me like this one did, there are elements here that could absolutely be salvaged with some cuts and rewrites but the final product just doesn't come together outside of the common route.
2/5
I'm assuming there's not way to patch the iOS or android version, huh? >_>