Aoi Shiro



A sequel of sorts of Akai Ito, made by the company Success. Aoi Shiro is also a supernatural mystery story that takes place within the same universe.

This time the protagonist is a girl named Osanai Syouko, the new captain of the school kendo team. The kendo team goes to a temple for a training trip, but things start to get strange, especially when Syouko seems to remember coming to the place some time ago...

Originally for the Play Station 2, this game was eventually ported to the PC. An English patch for the PC version can be found here.

This game contains examples of:

 * Action Girl: Arguably quite a few characters but most prominently Migiwa fits this trope
 * All Myths Are True: ...but don't necessarily matter
 * All There in the Manual: Wanna know about Momoko's ? Want to see the oft-mentioned former president and vice-president of the kendo club? Better read the prequel manga found in Yuri Hime then, because you won't get any of that from the game.
 * Artifact of Doom: The <>
 * Ax Crazy: The result of using too much power from the cursed sword.
 * Back From the Dead: Kaya,
 * Back-to-Back Badasses: Syouko and Migiwa in several routes - including Migiwa's happy end.
 * Badass Normal: Syouko, but especially Munetsugu, an old man with the swordsmanship to behead bulls in a single stroke and take on superpowered oni moving at speeds even he can't follow. Only twice is he ever defeated in one-on-one combat: the first time is in the climactic fight against ; the second is in  (entirely offscreen ).
 * Barehanded Blade Block:.
 * Bare Your Midriff: Kaya and her one button; also see Underboobs below. Also Migiwa.
 * Berserk Button: The only way to ruffle up the cool and cocky Kohaku ? Call her the sekiganki.
 * Beach Scene: Almost every route has one, they serve no real purpose but to put the girls in bikinis and make for awkward situations.
 * Big Bad:
 * Bigger Bad:
 * Big Damn Heroes: In the Grand Route, Kaya, Migiwa, and Kohaku all appearing just as Munetsugu heads towards Syouko.
 * Big Eater: Momoko
 * Bittersweet Ending - In one of Yasumi's bad ends, . The End. Her bad ends are actually pretty sweet compared to her normal ends.
 * Cat Scare
 * Cool Old Guy: Yuukai..
 * Continuity Cameo: Turns out Sakuya from Akai Ito went to college with Aoi-sensei, in a less obvious one Aoi-sensei also mentions that an acquaintance of a friend has spiritual powers and is grade school age; Tsudura anyone?
 * Censor Steam: In the bath and.
 * Clean Pretty Reliable
 * Cute Mute: Nami
 * Cute Little Fangs: Kohaku, Kaya.
 * Cute Sports Club Manager: Yasumi.
 * Demon Slaying: Migiwa. Not demons but rather oni. Whatever.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: Although Aoi Shiro is not an eroge, all the blood-drinking scenes are EXTREMELY obviously stand-ins for sex. There's even have a special soft, romantic-porno style BGM track reserved for those scenes only. (This started with Akai Ito).
 * Also, the stretching scene between Syouko and Yasumi.
 * A non-erotic appearance of this trope is during
 * Dojikko: Kaya, of all people. Kendo is pretty much the only thing that she's not clumsy with.
 * Do Not Call Me Paul: Kohaku would like you to remember that her name is not Torahime . On a sadder note, she no longer uses, either.
 * Eldritch Abomination:
 * Evil Sorcerer: Ba Rouryuu
 * Expressive Hair: Momoko
 * Eyes Always Shut: Kohaku keeps her left eye closed.
 * Eye Scream:
 * Fainting:.
 * Feminine Women Can Cook: Yasumi is the designated chef for the trip and the most traditionally feminine of all the path girls. Syouko can cook too, though, albeit not quite as well.
 * Finger-Suck Healing: Yasumi is very displeased when she catches Nami doing this to Syouko.
 * Inverted in Migiwa's route, since blood can revitalize pretty much anyone.
 * From a Certain Point of View: How Yuukai justifies being able to drink alcohol, despite being a Zen Buddhist monk.
 * Food Porn: Every. Single. Meal.
 * Forgotten Childhood Friend:
 * Genki Girl: Momoko
 * Ghost Memory:.
 * Godiva Hair: Yasumi and Nami in the bath, . Even Kohaku sports it at one point.
 * Golden Ending
 * Gondor Calls for Aid: (manga only)
 * Good Is Not Nice: In Yasumi's route mostly, Kohaku has a nasty habit of needlessly killing (directly or indirectly) Syouko, Yasumi, and anyone else who gets between her and the <>. (Her way of dealing with a sinister ritual of human sacrifice, for example, is... to kill the sacrifices first.) Turns out in other routes that she's actually . Both Kohaku and Migiwa have their Kick the Dog moments, as well.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Several endings, like Munetsugu in and Yasumi in one of her ends.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Kaya is basically a black haired Signum.
 * Hide Your Lesbians: Despite advertising and playing up its Girls Love, the game does play itself fairly coy regarding any relationship confirmation. Yasumi's feelings for Syouko are blatant, and all of the main characters have some suggestive interactions with Syouko, but the closest Syouko ever approaches to romantic attraction is of all people!
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Lampshaded by Syouko in Migiwa's route.
 * Hime Cut: Ayashiro. She's even nicknamed Hime by the other kendo team members.
 * Hot Chick with a Sword: Kaya is a textbook example.
 * How Would You Like to Die?:.
 * Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Kohaku and her familiar, Oniwaka.
 * I Hate You, Vampire Dad: The oni version, with . Their first meetings always include her complaining about how her faulty body requires such length periods of sleep.
 * Ill Girl: Yasumi;.
 * Idiot Ball: Not by her own fault, but rather that of the player, Syouko holds this quite often. She wanders around on sinking rocks, runs about in raging storms, and falls into the ocean... many, many times.
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:, complete with lots of blood.
 * Impractically Fancy Outfit: Nami's outfit straddles the border between this and Pimped Out Kimono.
 * Improbably-Female Cast: There are only five male characters in the entire game; two of them are rarely seen, one is only heard, one of them is a Cool Old Guy, and the final one is the Big Bad.
 * Indirect Kiss
 * Intertwined Fingers
 * Intimate Healing - Blood is power, and there are some suggestive ways of extracting it, from to . Even better is when  do this at the same time.
 * Kick the Dog: Migiwa and especially Kohaku do this in many endings, usually killing someone irrevocably possessed by the Sword or some other sort of bad mojo. If you screw up your previous choices, Migiwa kills.
 * Kimodameshi: Momoko organizes one of these for the club.
 * Kissing Cousins:
 * Kendo Team Captain: Syouko
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia
 * Lesbian Vampire: Well considering it is in the same universe as Akai Ito...
 * Let's You and Him Fight: Expect to be killed by good-intentioned, but misdirected, characters. A lot.
 * Little Miss Badass: Kohaku
 * Load-Bearing Boss: Matamu's defeat in Nami's route causes the sanctuary to start collapsing, for whatever reason.
 * Male Gaze: One of the beach scenes spends an awful lot of time zoomed in on Yasumi's breasts.
 * The Man Behind the Man
 * Mayfly-December Romance
 * Mini Game - Getting the final happy ending unlocks a 2D Hack and Slash minigame in the main menu that has no apparent connection whatsoever to the main story.
 * Mismatched Eyes:
 * Ms. Fanservice: While Aoi Shiro is a rather tame game and Kaya is much much more than a pair of walking breasts, she never does learn how to button her shirt properly. At the end of Migiwa's route, she even fights Migiwa topless, with only a convenient miasma floating over certain areas.
 * Also, Yasumi, who ends up naked or wearing revealing clothing a lot more frequently than one would expect.
 * Multiple Endings: Fifty-six of them, in fact! Each route has one Happy End where you resolve the conflict, Normal Ends where Syouko survives, and Bad Ends where Syouko dies. (The normal "Possessed by the <>" end in Kaya's route is the odd exception; every other time Syouko is irrevocably possessed, it counts as a bad end.) Completing all of the other routes unlocks the Grand Route, where all of the characters team up.
 * Mystical Waif: Nami
 * Named Weapons: Kumouchi, Hoemaru, Ryuugeki. Strangely averted with the <> outside Kohaku's route, where its name is revealed to be --not that the name gets much use there, either.
 * Naughty Tentacles: A rare female on male example is used in Migiwa's horror story.
 * Nerf Arm: That poor wooden sword; not much good against real steel.
 * Not Growing Up Sucks: Kohaku embodies this trope the most. Yasuhime and also are stuck perpetually young but don't angst about it on camera.
 * Not Quite Dead:
 * Oblivious to Love: Syouko is completely oblivious to poor Yasumi's blatant feelings for her. Momoko knows but never outright tells Syouko.
 * The Ojou: Ayashiro
 * Ominous Latin Chanting: Some of the BGM, especially anything involving the Gate.
 * The One Guy: Monk Yuukai
 * Our Vampires Are Different
 * Out-of-Clothes Experience -
 * The Promise: Syouko's promise in Yasumi's route to protect her. It's brought up quite a bit.
 * Pinky Swear
 * Rapunzel Hair: Nami; it's implied she's never had it cut.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old:
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: . Subverted with, who we're led to believe is a baddie for quite a while.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Migiwa and Syouko respectively; just look at their preferred colors. However, despite Syouko's cool exterior and Migiwa's playful one, Syouko's far more reckless.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: ; her mission is to kill those who she deems responsible.
 * Rules Lawyer: Yuukai. Hence, being able to drink alcohol and eat meat in a Buddhist temple while technically not doing anything prohibited.
 * Save Scumming: Due to the massive number of bad ends.
 * Say My Name: ROURYUU! ROURYUU! BA ROURYUU!
 * Scary Shiny Glasses: Aoi-sensei is prone to these when she's in the midst of a talking about a particularly gory legend or ghost story.
 * Secret Test of Character:.
 * Sempai-Kohai: Syouko and Ayashiro are sempai to Momoko and Yasumi; both are also greatly admired.
 * Single-Stroke Battle: Munetsugu is fond of this.
 * Smashing Watermelons: According to Momoko a trip to the beach just isn't complete without it.
 * Spoiler Opening: In case you never bothered to watch it, in order (and not comprehensive):.
 * Summon Magic: Goddamn Bats and a Giant Mook.
 * Super-Powered Evil Side:  At least for the former, it's sexy.
 * Taking You with Me:
 * Talking Is a Free Action - During Kaya/Munetsugu's final fight in Kaya's route.
 * Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Kaya and Ayashiro.
 * The Many Deaths of You
 * Theme Music Power-Up:
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Most notably used in Yasumi's route with Syouko/Yasumi.
 * Tsurime Eyes: Fittingly, Kaya and Kohaku; also, much less fittingly, Ayashiro.
 * Undead Tax Exemption: After the events in the game, Kaya is simply alive again in the eye of the society. She was even offered to continue her job as a cop. This despite missing for eight years without explanation, and looking exactly like she was the day she was missing . Granted, there were some papers to be processed...
 * Underboobs: Kaya doesn't seem to like buttoning anything more than the top button of her shirt, not that anyone minds.
 * Unwinnable: Not helping Migiwa when she falls into the water in Day Two of her route causes her to glare at you afterward but apparently nothing more... until the last scene of the game, where you are suddenly hit with a bad end.
 * More than one bad ending is a result of making some completely unrelated choice earlier in the game.
 * Villains Out Shopping: Syouko and friends meet a fairly-friendly Ba Rouryuu in the shopping district, though they don't know who he is at that point.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * Wet Kimono Scene
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Ba Rouryuu
 * White-Haired Pretty Girl: Kohaku; Nami is a nicer version
 * Wingding Eyes: Momoko
 * Wistful Amnesia: Syouko in the normal end, though "despairing amnesia" is probably a better term.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: Kohaku . Though not quite a Bifauxnen, there were some who (prior to the release of the game) were unsure about her. Considering the kind of game it is, though.
 * Worthy Opponent: What Migiwa and Syouko end up being by the end of Migiwa's route--this is even the title of her happy end,.
 * Girls Love