A Kiss for the Petals/Sono hanabira ni kachizuke wo 1 - A true classic in the yuri visual novel genre
A Kiss for the Petals 1 (that I will be referring to as Sonohara 1, so as to not type the entire title all the time) is the first installment of the 'A Kiss for the Petals' series of visual novels. It was first released on 22 September 2006 by the doujin group Fuguriya and then rereleased on 30 July 2011 with improved graphics and voice acting. Now chances are that if you like yuri media you've heard about it before, even if it was passingly. But, unless you actually know these games, you most probably have a very wrong impression about this serie, since it's way less fluffy 'kyaaa but we're both girls' . So in this review, I'll talk about what this series is, how the first game is, and my opinions.
This review is 18+. Scroll at the end for a simplified list of pros, cons and rating.
What is this series even about?
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| cover of the game |
Well, if you'd want to be frank, and summarize it in as few words as possible, I'd just say this. 'Lesbian/Yuri porn'. Really, these games are NOT complex at all, yet very few people are aware that they're borderline if not straight-up nukiges ( that is, a visual novel erotic game whose main focus is on the pornographic material, instead of the story or characters. Basically the story/characters exist for the porn, not vice versa). I also wasn't aware of this fact until I opened the cg gallery and saw like 4 non-NFSW images out of 20. Like the entire title is one big innuendo -> the petals just represent the vagina. While I knew the game was going to be an eroge, a fact that many people don't know, I did not know the full extent of it. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This misunderstanding often comes from the fact that only Sonohara game you can easily access in english is Sonohara 15 on Steam, which is 15+. It also stems from the cute fluffy gifs that were online and the prejudice that yuri media is only cuteness and rainbows. Now Sonohara, as a humble vn written in 2006 does not in any really meaningful way challenge these prejudices, but I do think it's an interesting piece of writing, that can be analyzed while keeping in mind the year it was released in and also contemporary ideas.
Yuri erotic content and the flaws of the genre
Any person who actively consumes yuri media and also doesn't believe lesbians are fictional creatures invented so men could jerk off to them will understand when I say there is a difference between a yuri piece of media and a lesbian piece of media. And no, by that I don't mean that one is made in Japan and the other in the west.
Yuri as a genre, although in theory a very flexible and vague tag, actually tends to have a pretty defining trait - It is the fact that the girls must all, to some extent have this air of innocence to them. Think pink sparkles, true love, and lilies. Those type of thing. This is very easily explainable - The people who write this media tend to believe men have a sort of tainting air to them, that destroys the innocence of a girl. It comes from the decades-old assumption that men are the perverted ones who take women's innocence from them. It's always 'men protect your daughters' never 'men protect your sons'.
This could evolve into a very long and complex discussion, but this isn't what this post is about. Maybe I will one day actually write a post about that, who knows. This post is about Sonohara though, and this section is about its gratious amount of porn. Since non eroge moments are so scarce not much can be said about them. The plot is pretty cute, a classic in the genre, a younger student (Nanami) who just got into a new all-girls boarding school. helped by an older student and falls in love with her. Then, later, she finds out that the older student (Yuuna) also loves her, and bam, relationship and fanservice ensues. As this is in fact a nukige, it makes sense that the story is only really there to serve as a build up to the porn.
So let me start with my two main complaints.
- The relationship develops extremely, and I mean extreeemeellyyy fast. On one hand, I get it because them falling in love is not the main focus of the game, but it is pretty hard to believe it.
- The bg music is sooo repetitive. Like I think they have 3 tracks? maybe 5. If there's more they were too similar to differentiate. And this really diminishes the impact of specifi scenes. For example, the last scene in the game, which was supposed to be heartwarming, had very little impact on me because the music was the same I've heard for the last 2h. I hope the next games will have more diversity because the lack of it was genuinely annoying here, and I'm not an audiophile in any way.
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| Yuuna left and Nanami right |
Another small issue I had comes from the artstyle. While it nails most of it, the anatomy being good and the shading pleasant, almost all nsfw cgs will have one face that looks weird, usually because the angle it's in and some obvious issues the artist has with perspective. I assume these things will get better with the newer games though, and it didn't bother me that much, just a small addition.
Anyways. One of my first surprises when playing this game was that the overly childish talk wasn't actually as prevalent as I expected. It's too often in yuri novels to have 16 year olds talk as if they're 5. While it does have its moments, especially related to sexual stuff on Nanami's part (ex: barely if ever using actual words to refer to her body parts, and always just saying stuff like "down there" "those places" or overcomplicated metaphors), but those can be forgiven to an extent. In the end, their talk is not totally unbelievable for older teens, especially considering that this is Japan and the 2000s. On this subject, I was also pleasantly surprised by the voice acting. Maybe I've been consuming too much Japanese moe media, but I really didn't find their voices as forced and high pitched as I expected them to be. Yes, Nanami's voice was obviously a bit more towards the childish side, but it still sounded believable. And in general, the quality of the voice acting is above average, especially during the erotic scenes. I liked the kissing and moaning sounds they did, which is a surprise since usually the moaning in these games is abhorrent, just high-pitched screaming. But here it was leaning more towards the believable side (with some exceptions, of course)
Another thing that i loved at the erotic scenes was how they did NOT just constantly describe what the other was doing to her. This is one of my biggest pet peeves in Hentai and Eroges. Half the dialogue is just the girl/bottom screaming how "oooouughh [other's name] dick/finger is touching my pussy/dick! It's going inside of me!!" after the narrator has already said it, and the cgs are also showing it. Like I'm sorry but who in real life live tweets their sex experience??. Thankfully this game did not have this issue, except at one sex scene by the end, but I am down to forgive it.
One thing i also appreciated is Nanami actually expressing her discomfort and explaining to Yuuna when she didn't like the way she was touching and referring to her. It was a nice detail, yet important one.
The specifics of the sex scenes and a surprising kink
Here i wish to describe the sex scenes for anyone interested. If you don't want spoiler over them and just wanna experience them with no forewarning then you can skip this part.
The sex scenes are actually pretty diverse and interesting, and the writer definitely knows something about fucking women. Yes them both coming at the same time is pretty unlikely but that's a shared delusion by every and all porn creators so yeah. I was surprised when they actually said the word clitoris, the first scene giving me the impression it wouldn't use such language.
As such, the sex isn't in any way insane, nothing actually that extreme is done, I'd argue the most adventurous part is them scissoring twice, and then the game implying they came more than 5 times in a row (we're only showed 2). They barely even finger each other, mostly just rubbing or oral. But there was one thing that did surprise me a lot. Yuuna actually has a kink, and it's not any kink, she has a piss kink. Now I did not expect that, but she's pretty dedicated, even attempting to drink Nanami's piss at one point. This entire kink isn't really explored, but it is interesting to see something like this in a yuri game (although she was presented as being 'perverted' because of it, but in the end ill have to cut some slack since this is still japan 2006)
I'd say they really did hold up pretty well for how old they are.
Summary, pros, cons and rating
Sonohara is a yuri visual novel that's mainly a porn game, with little focus on the other story parts. The characters are nothing to write home about but they're still pleasant to read about, and their conversations are neat, and their sex even neater. The game is not that innovative, though it might just be because nowadays we have so many games with this idea, i am not sure how innovative it was at the time.
Cons
- Super repetitive music, to the point where it gets annoying and destroys the atmosphere of certain moments
- The relationship develops at a light speed, extremely unbelievable
- Artstyle makes many faces look wrong.
- The sex scenes while nice are not anything wow
Pros
- The voice acting is above average especially considering when the game was made
- Their language is mostly not overly childish and the character that gets fucked doesn't narrate her experience word by word
- The writers clearly know something about having sex with women which greatly improves the experience and credibility
- There is a wide variety and diversity of sex scenes in a pretty short game (playtime ~3h 30 and there were 9 sex scenes)
Rating:
A big thing i took into account when i gave this game a ranting is its genre. I appreciate the fact that its not attempting to be something it isn't. Overall if i compare it to other more complex and deep games, Sonohara 1 would be below average, but as a simple yuri nakige i will rate this:
6.3/10
(ps I might end up changing my rating later depending on how the other games are.)
Thank you for reading my review, i will attempt to play more games of the series, perhaps trying to finish the entirety of it (except sonohara 7 and 9 because those include a relationship between a teacher and a 6h grade child - which is apparently more promiscuous and experienced than the adult, thing which I'm not ever touching.), see you later :]
