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Update 1: Introducing Emotional Pest-Control. And Crazy Kids.
Opening Video
Well that was a very anime opening, but with all flash and little substance or symbolism, you don’t really get an idea what the game is about. Oh well, let’s get this started.
BGM Link 1
As I said before the music was composed by Kenji Ito and in my opinion is actually really good, the DS’s tinny speakers notwithstanding.
The boy has beautiful ash hair and a feminine white face, but his black, shining eyes are especially unforgettable. Anyone who looks into his eyes are met with the feeling they are being hit with a strong searchlight.
Hey, its look up terms! Don’t worry, we’ll keep track of any important terms and characters up next to the OP if you get confused (You’ll get confused).
And remember what I said about being like a Persona Knockoff? Hi Yu! 
Wow, you look brooding this evening.
*Cell phone rings, Atsuki picks up*
Whenever Yu gets a call on his cell, the other characters will show up like this on the right hand side of the screen.
Less than a minute into the game, and we can all take out our “Anime Trope BINGO” cards. Free space is ‘Gothic Lolita girl sporting body length ponytails’, with a ‘blue spirit-shining magical macguffin pendant’ as call 1!
Magical girl tattoo powers activate!
Magic wire-frame hacking! 
You know, I should give points for subverting expectations based on anime stereotypes, as I would think her temperament would be dark and pessimistic to match her clothing style; instead she is a manic-pixie dream girl. However, she does act like a 7 year old child despite working for the government as a magic GPS, so that cancels it out.
: The target is a little past where Atsuki is now. There are many small shinen so I think it’s an apartment building.
: I can’t be sure which one is the target…
: It’s ok I’ll check it out.
: Ok, be careful.
That’s… really not much to go on. Furthermore, how is that the only thing they know about their target? 
: We know the Original is here because, the Shanghai Silent infectee started this. He infected 10,000 people in only three months. Resulting in 1000s of crimes and suicides. We found him and checked but he wasn’t the original. We found out he was infected in Kisaragi.
Our first taste of the many, many exposition dumps to come. Lux Pain’s favorite way of enlightening the player is to yank them out of the action and into a detached internal monologue, or not show it at all and force them to dig through its term glossaries and dossiers.
Everyone in the building seems to be asleep. All the windows are dark.
: Around there, Atsuki. Hurry, use Sigma to find the target’s hiding place!
: Ok, I’ll search now.
Archaic looking magical jewelry #2, Activate!
This symbol means we are about to enter Sigma Mode, which allows us to see… the spirit world? A tangible manifestation of the human psyche? Like much of the lore of the game, It’s never adequately explained what Sigma mode actually is.
Ok so here we have the main interactive element of the game, where we wield Atsuki’s Eye (DS stylus) to dig away at the real world in order to uncover lingering “shinen” and exorcise them. In doing so we get an admittedly pretty cool visual representation of the remaining energies left behind. As one of the few highlights of the game’s narrative, and in an effort to preserve the impact the developers were aiming for, I will link to a short video for each batch.
Filthy World and Black Urges
See? It really sets the tone, and the fractured style of the writing will change based on what the shinen wants to covey, as we will see fairly shortly. Basically any emotion strong enough will leave a mark (shinen)that can be “read” in Sigma mode
: Both Residual Shinen feel strongly like death. I’m gonna take on the target and bring Silent out!
: Atsuki, wait! Liu Yee will be there soon!
There is a foul stench and piles of trash in the room.
Hmmm… reminds me of my old 4 man apartment.
There are cardboard boxes and trash everywhere, like a garbage dump. Atsuki notices a large Residual Shinen on a cardboard box in the back of the room.
And here is one of the first times I noticed the jarring language issues when I played it back in 2009. On the surface it looks poetic, but it doesn’t really make sense. It’s supposed to convey that the shinen represents a scary, cowering feeling of someone/something being chased.
Reminds me of my old roommates. 
I Am God and Little Voice
: From the Shinen he died two weeks ago. The shinen of the animals he killed was on the box. He was a sadist who enjoyed torturing animals. He was infected by Silent, but not our target. If he were the original there would be traces of silent. The Res. Shinen on floor five must be it.
Ah so that’s why I was getting serial killer vibes. He’s eerily calm after seeing that shit. His lack of agency and emotion will be a recurring quirk. Well the first guy wasn’t our target so let’s hit up the other source.
What a trashy apartment complex.
There’s garbage in the entrance and the paint is peeling off. The atmosphere is very creepy.
If you think that’s creepy…
Ignore the past tense here, the creepy miasma filling the room means its still hiding.
*Dark cackling laughter fills the room*
The darkness is teeming with violence, waiting. It feels like it’s waiting for an opportunity to pounce, like a hungry beast.
Jaws theme music plays
Despite his shadowy appearance and his entry after the tension building lines and ambience we’ve just heard, this is actually a good guy. We’ll add his info to the profile sheet as well.
: The silent infectees must have gathered together to die. This one was alive but he wasn’t the original.
The writing don’t convey it well, but his voice actor in the actual dialogue let us know that the guy in red killed the silent infectee that was about to attack Atsuki. Hence the sudden lack of dark evil blur filter in the room.
AKA: Government Sanctioned Assassin.
Us? Assassins? Atsuki is nowhere near that cool. And boy does Liu look pissed.
: Your job is finding infectees and targets right? Don’t do that again.
: Liu, listen to me. You should tell us when you arrive!
: When I moved in, they were having a falling out. If I didn't hurry, they all may have killed themselves.
: Okay, okay, I got it. You'll have PLENTY of reports to write... I look forward to them.
Ooooo interagency tension. Hopefully this will add intrigue and flesh out some character backstory.
And having accomplished nothing, we are back outside again.
Even the game admits it.
*A Barking Dog in the distance can be heard, coming closer by the second.*
Get it? Because of the Treble Cleft!
[img]http://lpix.org/2695513/43.png[/jpg]
Well good thing we’re not actually an assassin, because this next scene could have been pretty dark.
The girl bows her head and points to the second floor apartment Atsuki was just in.
: Um, mister... do you know? The guy on the 2nd floor killed a bunch of animals. I'm gonna turn him in! So I came again with Melody to look for evidence.
: Woof!
: But that guy... He never comes out of his apartment. … It’s like he’s dead. That's what Melody says.
Nancy drew and Dr. Dolittle got busy and had a psychic love child apparently. Or she’s schizophrenic.
By the way: A random psychic girl runs into presumably stealthy and competent psychic (?) government operatives while running after her dog, at midnight, on a separate quest to expose the very guy they just killed? Sounds believable to me!
: What do you think?
Here is where Lux Pain flexes its visual novel skills, by giving binary, clearly right and wrong choices with the subtlety of a blinking neon sign. In this case, both answers even give the same outcome with minimal flavor text difference. However, we are going for a Nice Guy approach this play-through, so I say “Maybe you’re Right”.
So we have no context for this yet, but our answer resulted in a change to their wavy profiles (their spirits?) on the upper screen. The color and direction of the arrow it forms lets us know that the subject’s demeanor has changed toward us. We’ll see a full list later, but for right now this purple down arrow means her hatred for us has gone down based on our response to her commentary on the animal killer’s life force. Apparently Atsuki is so repulsive he inspires hatred in young children until he can talk his way out of it. That or the game is trying to coyly explain obscure game concepts out of the blue, unnecessarily, and without context.
Personally I imagine he has awful B.O. because we never see him change out of his clothes or take a shower.
: So you have special powers, too. I knew right away because… Melody said so!
: Bark! * Melody runs off screen*
“Come back! I’ll shower, I swear!”
: Ah! Melody, wait!! *Turns to Atsuki*
Whats that? A bolded colored name? She must be an important character we’ll see again later. I’ll add Schizophrenic Girl to the OP.
: I won’t tell anyone about your powers. If someone finds out you’ll get bullied, like me.
“And the voices telling me to rend their flesh become annoying after a while, so trust me its just better this way.”
The girl chases after the white dog as it runs up the stairs to the apartment. As he watches her run away Atsuki regrets not having checked her mind.
The game is hinting at another mechanic we’ll get into next update, it is possible to use Atsuki to read the emotional state of anyone he wants to while in Sigma Mode.
Why is she able to see his power? The power of Sigma is top secret. No one has ever found out about it before. The shadow of uneasiness grows over Atsuki’s heart.
“Our Secret plans, we would have gotten away with them too if it wasn’t for that psychic kid and her mangy dog!”
*Fade to Black*
Next time we’ll explore a bit of Kisaragi city. Thanks for reading!