hashihime of the old book town

Hashihime of The Old Book Town
Developer: Adelta
Release Date: September 26, 2019
Genre: Boy's Love, Mystery, Historical, mindfuck


I just bought this game out of whim since I love visual novels and why the fuck not the art looked nice and the protagonist looked cute so!! I was pleasantly surprised that it was a R18 BL game considering I didn't read the genre of it like.. I literally went in and bought it blind LOL. BUT I DON'T REGRET!!!!!!!!! THIS PURCHASE AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A FUCKING FANTASTIC GAME

Story:
Hashihime takes place around the Taisho era (1920s) of Japan. Our protagonist, Tama Mizumori, or Tamamori takes his chance into getting into an Imperial University in Tokyo along with 2 of his closest friends, Minakami and Kawase. Unfortunately he fails and becomes a "roninsei" (someone who's studying to retake the exam because they failed) while Kawase and Minakami pass. He gets kicked out of the house he is staying in due to his failure and ends up working in Umebachidou, a book store. Although he just pretty much lives his life without a care in the world and just writing stories and spends his time with Kawase and Minakami. He is content with his peaceful life until one of his friends commits suicide. His refusal to admit that his friends death was an act of suicide he rushes off and stumbles upon a pond realizing he had come back from 3 days into the past. He begins to repeat those 3 days over and over for the sake of his friends. And to top it off a person with a Noh mask seems to lurk around wherever he is seemingly causing havoc in his peaceful life.

Since there's a lot of time travel to be done in this game you'll expect to see different timelines. Some pretty outrageous and others just downright depressing. Some of the scenes kind of get repetitive but I mean hey Tamamori does basically go back trying to redo those 3 days so!!!

The game doesn't really feel like most VN's I've played tbh you get locked in the first route (Minakami) immediately. After finishing Minakami's route you get to move on to the next guy and after finishing the next guy you get to do the other guy so on so forth. Basically you have 0 way of choosing which guy you wanna fuck until you fucked the previous dude. The sex isn't really essential to the plot but I just ain't going to say "pass" to R18 gay boys jacking it plus some of the sex scenes are kinda romantic NGL even though the descriptiveness of the sex kinda throws me off sometimes LOL. But you can basically just move on from the fucking if that's not your thing.

The art style is pretty good imo! I liked how vibrant the art was and I felt like it executed the hallucinations of Tamamori perfectly. Despite being vibrant the colors didn't feel stressful to the eyes and were rather "soft". There's really a lot and I mean. A. Lot. of CG's in this game compared to your average BL game. I believe the game was developed by one person and only one person did the CG's as well. WHEW a lot of love and thought was put into this game I feel!!!

I honestly really loved the story but well mainly for Minakami's route. It was the longest and most well-thought out route (imo) everything felt like it was explained there and the chemistry between Tamamori and him was fucking AMAZING but I might just be a little biased because I really love characters who dedicate their whole life to one person and... Minakami is exactly that. All the other routes felt meh in comparison all leading up to the true route which pretty much mindfucked me but it was so damn short and I felt pretty unsatisfied for the like every route except Minakami's which is like. Sad. Because I was really most excited for Hanazawa's route lol. Though if you're just here for all the gay stuff and whatnot (I mean yeah..) then you might like the other routes cuz it's just gay fucking most of the time.


I think it's safe to say that Tamamori is definitely my favorite BL protagonist (so far!!! since I have much BL games to play). His dynamic with the characters and as well as his hallucinations were interesting! He realizes his selfish desires and he acts on it. He shows indifference to some revelations and acknowledges that but he is also self-aware of that indifference and it even scares him. His desire for "true friendship" or companionship is pretty realistic as well. No one wants to be alone or feel lonely and the way Tamamori handles his loneliness is well... pretty interesting if you know all the context. There's a kind of "breaking the 4th wall" whenever there's a flashback it's as if Tamamori is speaking to the audience himself.

Rating: 4/5

Overall I would definitely recommend the game!! The characters are all interesting and you get to see the motivation behind their actions or why they act the way they are even. However the game does fall flat on the resolution part. The romance aspect only seemed to make sense with Minakami's route but I feel that they did kind of go out of their way to imply that Tamamori is in love with Minakami in pretty much every route...(except the last) So it felt kind of off seeing him suddenly fall in love with other characters? lmao. But I think at the very end of the day Tamamori just desires companionship more than romance.
It's the first I've ever heard of Adelta but I look forward to any games they might create in the future!! If you like psychedelic and the aesthetics of Taisho era (plus mystery) then take your trip down to this mysterious old town!