Triangle Blue (visual novel)



Another installment of the BLUE series made by Lilim Darkness in 2007, Triangle Blue is an Eroge/Visual Novel focused on the love story of Asato Sawamura and Akane Himeya. In his last day as a high school student, Asato finds confidence to confess his love to Akane, who also is graduating with him; he nervously manages to get his confession through, and to his surprise the love was mutual, Akane also had her eyes on him for quite some time, though they were both shy and were waiting for right moment to confess, and what’s a better moment than graduation? If it fails, it’s their last day at school, if it gets through, they will enjoy a love life without interfering in their study.

After graduation Asato and Akane allegedly becomes a couple, and now they work together towards their dream and living a heartwarming life as couple while at it; Asato wants to become a novelist, he was known for his love of literature in his school days, and Akane wants to become an artist, one who draws for novels and picture books. There it is, the couple has a dream which matches perfectly, now Akane searches for a studio which teaches the art style she looks for and Asato, who is quite a writer already, tries to submit pieces of his writing to different publishers hoping one of them will hire him. During these events the young couple finds some trouble in managing their love life, focusing more in their dreams, mostly on Asato’s part, he became desperate in sending new pieces to publishers after getting rejection after rejection, Akane feels for this but tries to understand him by also working harder in becoming an artist.

Months after they started dating, and having problems in managing their love life, Akane and Asato reaches the conclusion that they must disregard their work a bit and have a nice time together on December of that year, but a tragedy befalls them; on the day to their rendezvous, Akane finds a stray cat and gets distracted by it, in a playful manner the cat runs to the street while a passing truck is approaching, Akane runs to save the cat and is hit by the truck, getting a severe head trauma in the process; meanwhile Asato wonders why Akane is late for their date and he sees a cat, the same cat Akane saved, suddenly he feels the need to follow the cat, later Asato finds Akane covered in blood layered on the ground, he gets desperate to move Akane to the nearest Hospital. There Akane seems to be in her impending death, the head trauma was deemed too severe and she was likely to die, Asato breaks down and blames himself for disregarding their love life and this incident would’ve been avoided if he paid more attention to Akane, in his mourning next to Akane for months to come, she miraculously recovers to the surprise of Asato, her family and medic. After this Asato vows to make their love life flow in the right direction and invites Akane to live together with him... and that’s for the prologue.

That’s for the average Visual Novel romance, and that’s not what Triangle Blue is known for, as being part of the BLUE series, this eroge is one of the most well know work of Netorare ever made, as far as being seen as one of its codifier due the year it was released the genre was mostly new.

Differing itself from other eroges, Triangle Blue is not about The Protagonist scoring different girls in different routes, though you can also do that, but it is about a well established couple being destroyed by another party mostly composed of men, more than half of the available routes is about Asato losing Akane to ill mannered men close to them:


 * Kyousuke Kamisaka: Akane’s childhood friend, a pretty boy from a host club who is running from the Yakuza due a huge debt, currently taking shelter in Asato and Akane’s apartment.
 * Ryota Sasaki: High school drop out who is taking home lessons from Akane due his mother begging him to enter college and Akane needing the money.
 * Ryuuji Sawamura: Asato’s uncle, a restaurant owner who offered Akane a job as a waitress for her to pay the art studio expenses.
 * Yuuma Mikami: An overweight otaku obsessed with Akane, he takes art lessons in the same class as Akane.

Each of these men have routes with multiple endings with Akane falling in their hands, but Kyousuke is the main offender, his route is the longest of all, even than the girls routes, and has many endings. With that the player will witness Asato falling into madness, sadness or murderous hate, and Akane falling into a mindless lustful doll depending on the route, while there’s only one route with Asato and Akane ending up together.

In 2009 the game received a two episode animated adaptation, it’s loosely based on Kyousuke’s route and disregards most, if not all, of Asato and Akane’s initial and harmless love story and it ends where Kyousuke receives the least damage for what he did to Asato and Akane gets off free of Asato’s rage.

Before all the BLUE wave by Lilim, there was Trouble!, the Visual Novel which actually spawned Triangle Blue, it was a fairly generic love story with the same characters, there was no dark scenarios, it was just Asato getting on with Akane and other possible girls.

=== Tropes associated with Triangle Blue: ===
 * Babies Ever After: In the good ending with, she has Asato's baby and marries him; other routes does not end up on a good note for this,.
 * Badass Bookworm: Asato, the narration and other characters always talk about how he spend his whole life imersed in the books, reading and praticing his writing, and yet Asato can do all sorts of crazy stuff in the darker endings with little visible effort, but the most notable are the things he does against Kyousuke since that's the only offender in the game that is shown to have a great body psyche and fighting skills, Kyousuke even taunts Asato when they are about to fight in those endings, still Asato overpower him even with his bare hands.
 * The Bad Guy Wins: In a way, the game considers "Good/Complete Endings" the ones which triggers the credits, and most of the endings in the darker routes have the credits rolling when Asato fails to keep Akane away from the offenders and later failing at rescuing her from their grasp; in contrast with the endings where Asato loses his cool and becomes revenge bent against the offenders, the game ends with no credits roll and goes right back to the title screen.
 * Beware of the Nice Ones: Asato can become someone with the mindset of a cold blooded killer in certain endings of the dark routes:
 * Kyousuke route, ending in which Kyousuke manages to completely taker over Akane's mind, she willingly wants him now, but Asato still thinks it's only Kyousuke's fault:.
 * Kyousuke route, ending in which Kyousuke manages to completely taker over Akane's mind, she willingly wants him now, and Asato comes into realization that Akane doesn't like him anymore:.
 * Yuuma route, ending in which Asato can't wait for the police to find Akane where she is being held captive and being raped by Yuuma & friends:.
 * Ryuuji route, ending which Asato feels something wrong is going on his uncle's caffeteria, he decides to see what's this all about:.
 * Bigger Is Better in Bed: Kyousuke is gigantic, he triumphs over all other men in the game and also is an expert in bed, as Akane later gets to know well..
 * Blonde Guys Are Evil: Kyousuke.
 * Buxom Is Better: All the cast coments on Akane's big breasts, men and women alike, and how Asato is lucky for having "fun" with them.
 * Cool Big Sis: Ayumi Himeya, Akane's 26 years old big sister, she is the nicest character in the game, very supportive of Asato and Akane's relationship, even though ; Ayumi is a Love Interest of Asato in case he chooses to spend quite some time with her, but not completely disregarding Akane, in the end he.
 * Compressed Adaptation: The anime tries to adaptate the longest, Kyousuke's, route in the whole game in just two episodes, and for some reason tries to squeeze some of Ryota's in the very end as well.
 * Darker and Edgier: A huge step away from Trouble!, the characters will become unrecognizable from their counterparts in Triangle Blue, in the darker (read: more than half) routes.
 * Did Not Get the Girl: It's kind of complicated, Asato and Akane are a couple by the time the main game rolls in, live in lovers as a matter of fact, but . Thing is that in all routes but two,, and if the player chooses so, Asato will give up on Akane.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: Make Asato a man who thinks more about being at home than at work, and you will be rewarded with:.
 * Easily Forgiven: Ryota, the guy is an isolated individual who lost all interest in socialization by watching his parents constantly fight and argue about their doomed marriage, the father leaves them and the mother pampered him; with this Ryota does what he wants, developing a crush on his home tutor Akane, he, then the mother steps in and tells Asato and Akane of Ryota's "sad past" and they instantly forgives him, accepting that he still is a child (despite being 19); and Ryota grows up to become a doctor, the end.
 * Asato gets this by none other the judicial system,.
 * Evil Costume Switch:, in the endings for Kyousuke's route in which , she drops her shy and composed character, starts talking in a more rude manner, sports heavy make up and a daring outfit, and in some cases.
 * Evil Uncle: Ryuuji, he is introduced as good relative of Asato, offering a job in his caffeteria to Akane in order to help her art classes expenses, later in the main game ; Ryuuji eventually deranges into.
 * Fat Bastard: Yuuma, even in the tame prologue there was something odd about him.
 * Guide Dang It: If a player just wants the only good Akane route, it means he only needs to choose to stay at home pay visits all the time, right? Wrong, remember that Asato is working towards becoming a novelist for his and Akane's sake, there will be times he must overwork to impress his colleagues and boss; Akane will have to go through mild harassments even in the good ending.
 * Guilt Based Gaming: It is very easy to lose Akane to other men in the game, the tricky thing is to which one; the standard Visual Novel choices all boil down to this: "Spend more time at the publisher's office working", "Eat lunch/dinner out, not at home", each time you make Asato do this, the player will be rewarded with a event on what Akane is doing meawhile Asato's absence, getting harassed by any of the other men. Also these specifics choices hardly change, so the player will know what is coming to them by choosing it.
 * Hot Teacher: Akane dresses as one for Ryota's tutoring, she even sports fake glasses for it.
 * Lighter and Softer: The OVAs went for tamest ending in Kyousuke's route, while in the game Asato does some henious stuff against Kyousuke and/or Akane, like.
 * A Man Is Not a Virgin: One of the reasons Kyousuke had for stealing Akane away from Asato, the fact Asato waits for a perfect opportunity for their first time is considered a waste for Kyousuke.
 * Mood Whiplash: The prologue is absolutely tame, a believable and quite well written introduction to the main couple in a heartwarming way, even the men who will wreck their relationship in the main game are introduced as good guys in the prologue; completely different from what the game will turn in most routes.
 * Netorare: Known as one of its codifiers in Japan, not so much in the west since there's only the anime with Fan Translation to take notes from, and the anime is much tamer than the game.
 * Older Than They Look: Ryota is 19 years old, while Akane is 17, she comments on the strangeness of tutoring an older guy who looks younger than her.
 * Police Are Useless: Yuuma's route, ending in which Asato decides to wait for the police to solve Akane's kidnapping,, Asato eventually decides to investigate himself,.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Yuuma's route, ending in which Asato can't wait for the police to find where Akane is being held captive;.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Asato has striking red eyes in the game's art (subdued a bit in the anime), quite odd considering he is a nice and decent guy; very fitting when.
 * The Remake: Of Trouble!, with a really Darker and Edgier spin, it eventually overthrew the original in popularity as many don't even know Triangle Blue spawns from it.
 * Stalker with a Crush: Yuuma recognizes Akane in their art class, but only him does so, from there he starts harassing Akane during and after classes.
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Kyousuke to Akane in the proper route, leaving peacefuly without laying a finger on Akane since he starts to think being around in one place is not safe and the Yakuza will eventually find him, or he decides to stick around and harass Akane, then Asato finds out and Kyousuke gets really unlucky.
 * Victorious Childhood Friend: Kyousuke to Akane in the proper route, in the most rage inducing way possible.