Mahoutsukai no Yoru
Speaking of things I’ve finished reading, I’ve finished the main scenario for Mahoyo!
Honestly speaking, between this, Fate, and Tsukihime, I think this has my favourite cast of characters. The smaller cast of characters helped a lot, and the linear story helped a lot too. The presentation was also stellar, fight scenes felt very alive, and the use of sprites/cgs was pretty well done too. It made the visual novel feel a lot more alive, and combining that with the pretty colourful descriptions really made the scenes come to life.
Of course, I have some minor complaints about the localization, mostly some typos and missing words here and there that were distracting, but overall I think it was serviceable at least. I’m sure there’s much to be said about how the Japanese prose was better but alas with my limited Japanese I am not capable of experiencing that myself.
To me the primary strength of Mahoyo was how great the characters and dynamics were. The trio are fantastic with how they bounce off each other whether it be during the slice of life scenes or even the more serious scenes, they compliment each other really well and it adds a lot of enjoyment to the visual novel for me.
One particular dynamic I liked was Soujuurou and Aoko’s relationship with each other. Specifically how Aoko is this character that is so strong and has such a well defined self, whereas Soujuurou is almost the opposite, where he doesn’t really have a self. The way the two clash and interact with each other is really entertaining, in addition to how they grow as characters as well with their interactions.
The side characters were also quite charming, in fact my favourite part of the visual novel was honestly when Soujuurou was talking with Tobimaru in one of the bonus chapters. Their conversation about their differing perspectives and Tobimaru offering advice to Soujuurou about the predicament he found himself in was really touching.
It was a serene scene and not even a “main” scene, yet it still shocked me with how… good it was. There was something about the down to earth nature of it and how it explored Soujuurou’s character in his situation that was just really good to me.
Another really good scene was when Soujuurou started talking about how he could start looking forward to tomorrow, and how that was something he couldn’t afford when he was living on the mountains. Now that he had been exposed to what city life was, he could never truly go back to the mountains and live the same way he did in the past. It shows a lot of growth in his character through the visual novel.
Speaking of Soujuurou, going in I had mostly expected Aoko to be my favourite character (call it melty blood and Tsukihime bias), but he ended up being my favourite character by the end. There’s something about this innocence and mystique that was really really interesting, and the way he interacted with everything was really good too.
The fight scenes of course were fun and good too. I must confess though, like with most Nasu visual novels, once they start going indepth on the magic I just file everything under “mhm yep that works” so some of the lore stuff is lost on me (sorry Nasu fans). Nonetheless I had a really fun time with them.
Anyways, I still have the bonus chapter left so I’m looking forward to that. I’ve heard that Nasu has written up to Mahoyo 6 but hasn’t released them, to which I say, why would you do this to us. Please write more of Mahoyo. I love this cast of characters a lot and really hope to see more of them!