“My Neighbor Is A Yandere”, is a hentai visual novel developed by Maranyo Games, published by Super Hippo Games. Sold at Nutaku’s download store for $5.00. Available for PC Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.
Yandere is a trope in Japanese erotic fiction. A yandere is often an ultra feminine, psychopathic young woman that’s obsessively in love with you. She’s fiercely jealous of any love rivals, and has no qualms about chopping them to pieces with a meat cleaver. She can use knives, poisons, explosives, whatever violent means necessary, to destroy any women who might seduce her man away from her. Yanderes are mentally unstable, broken girls who employ tactics of war in their pursuit of romance. It’s not unheard of, that they eventually kill themselves, and their beloved man, despite no outside threats to the relationship.
My Neighbor Is A Yandere, is the debut game of a new western developer. You are wise to lower your expectations.
STORY
Seijuro was in a coma for the past 7 years. During his time between life and death, he was taken care of, not by his relatives, but his neighbor, Nanase. Everything about this story is dubious, starting from Nanase’s description of how Seijuro was in an accident, to Nanase assuming his legal custody. Nothing adds up, and that’s the mystery.
Seijuro has total amnesia. He is completely dependent on Nanase for everything, including information of his past. Little hints here and there suggest that she may have plotted the entire chain of events, or exploited an opportunity brought about by Seijuro’s vulnerability.
This game is very damn short that continues the storyline.
GRAPHICS
The art is the game’s best asset. Nanase’s sprite is beautifully designed, with many sexy alternate costumes. The CGs are also high quality, with industry-standard coloring and detail. Sadly, you cannot view the images in full resolution. For whatever reason, the game doesn’t play full screen. The only logical reason for this impractical design decision I can think of, is that Maranyo Games was planning an exclusive mobile release. Something must have changed their minds. The screenshots embedded in this review, show the maximum size of the game.
GAMEPLAY
My Neighbor Is A Yandere, is a kinetic novel. You “turn the page” by clicking the screen. There are multiple endings, but I haven’t unlocked anything like different routes. The buttons for “menu”, “skip”, “auto”, and “back” (rewind), are easily accessible in the upper screen. Press “H” to hide the text box. Save your progress in several save slots. Set the game on auto-mode, when you want to free both of your hands.
MUSIC
The opening theme is a light, playful tune. It would be more fitting for a comedy, which I’m not convinced this game tries to be. There’s a couple tracks for different moods, that basically flow in your ears, and out of them. The problem is the song that plays during sex scenes. It’s completely terrible. The dark, synthetic melody sounds like something from videogames made in the 1980s. I cannot understand the choice to compose a song like that for a sex scene.
AUDIO AND VOICE ACTING (SFX)
My Neighbor Is A Yandere, has partial voice-acting. Nanase’s actress will occasionally blurt out a line of Japanese. She’ll say things like “of course”, “sorry”, “idiot”, plus she utters the name of the game’s title. The audio quality dips notably during some of her lines. I found the voice-acting lacking in emotion, and by that, I don’t mean the actress successfully conveyed the flat-lined base emotional state of a psychopathic character. To accompany Nanase’s voice clips, there’s sounds like “smack”, when she hits something.
HENTAI
The game has two sex scenes: A tittyfuck, and a vaginal penetration scene. Both scenes conclude in a happy ending, with seminal fluids flooding Nanase’s insides. The images were good, but the synthetic musical track that plays during the scenes, was completely terrible for its intended purpose. The images had multiple variants, mostly showing Nanase’s changing facial expressions. After three playthroughs with different choices, I was unable to unlock any additional costumes, or scenes. The sex scenes were decent porn, but the lack of relationship development, and limited foreplay, made my fap less than a mind-blowing experience. Also, because you can’t view the CGs in full screen, the experience is not very immersive.
CONCLUDING WORDS
Maranyo Games seems like a developer of decent potential. Their actual product is far from a wholesome, satisfying hentai experience, but for content-starved fans of yandere-themed games, I recommend checking these guys out. If you got a fiver to burn, buy the game like Nutaku’s store was a wishing well. Snatch yourself a download copy, and utter the words “I wish more yandere games will be made in the future”. May the hentai fairy grant your wish.
Download My Neighbor Is A Yandere.
