Today the new release to talk about is Koichi Natsukawa’s sequel- can your unfaithful husband prove he really does love you and mean it when he says he will only love you from now on?
This sequel starts a year after the original route from In Your Arms Tonight. For those of you who don’t know, Koichi is the main cause of conflict in the story. You’ve been married three months and never shared a bed with your husband, only to find he has been having an affair. Choosing the route of staying with your husband can be frustrating sometimes, and the route is controversial in the fandom, but also comes out to be very popular in the fandom. For some reason I can never quite say no to Koichi’s route, despite how badly I want to kick him in the groin sometimes.
After the year, you’re growing strong with Koichi. For instance, you’re actually having sex! Holy carps. That’s a big deal. Again my biggest problem with Koichi’s affair wasn’t even that he lacked chemistry with you, he never even bothered trying to have sex with you. Just kind of did what he wanted and was a big dumb brat. But since being demoted he works very hard to try and make up for his failure. The same goes for the two of you, he actually appreciates you and tries to keep things going.
There are three conflicts in this story, because what would a voltage dating sim be without conflict, and they’re as follows:
1. You are bothered that Koichi is still sleeping in seperate bedrooms with you.
2. A girl has a photo of Koichi naked and sleeping and claims to be having an affair with him.
3. You have to renovate Koichi’s office while all this conflict is going down, and he makes it clear he doesn’t want you there.
To start off with, the photo of Koichi naked was so completely unnecessary to this story. When your husband has visibly and admittedly cheated on you before there is no need to give some kind of proof. ESPECIALLY if the proof is fabricated. It turns out at the end of the story to have a regular shoujo excuse and that’s what bothers me the most: There was no need to draw out some kind of fabricated crap. The girl claiming to have an affair with him only needed some obscure detail about him to make the MC rightfully insecure, and the picture just made Koichi seem lacking to have fallen into a dumb trap the way he did.
But besides that pitfall- the story is actually very cute. Koichi’s entire problem is he never bothered to think he had to do things before, but he is constantly trying to be better in this game. And as the MC mentions, not just to you. He’s not quite the stuck up asshole he used to be. He actually listens to what everyone around him needs and that lends him success as well as happiness. I also enjoy that after a year of trying he was still paying for his infidelity with the bosses wife. *leans back and sips soda from a wine glass* Yessss suffer Koichi suffer! Wahahahaha!
In fact, all of Koichi’s co workers are shunning him BECAUSE he cheated on his wife. It wasn’t even about who he cheated with, just that he cheated on his wife pisses them off. And I appreciate this. Thank you IYAT. They even suspect YOU of being his mistress because Koichi doesn’t want you to tell anyone you’re married. But when you do reveal it, man is it cool.
The best part is probably that Koichi and the MC act exactly like a married couple would. Or should. And they’re both passionate about their work, which is a bonus. They get a long, and when they disagree, they try to compromise. So Koichi isn’t perfect, but the drama involved in his story always makes me a little more interested and impressed. They handled the sequel very well, and I JUST WANT THEM TO FREAKIN’ MAKE THE ANOTHER STORY.
DUDE SERIOUSLY ANOTHER STORY.
Depending on the route you pick Koichi is usually never completely awful, except in the Aiba routes. For some god forsaken reason the writers just think Aiba can’t be a good love interest without making Koichi go from ‘I’m just using this other woman from sex’ to ‘I’m serious about her and you’re ugly kthxbye’. So I have to say, Koichi never bothers me too much, even though I do always want to smack him. So play this route if you like Koichi, and if you don’t, play Kippei’s other route, because that’s really ferocious. My invite code is is HuR101d if you do want to play any of the routes, but it’s not necessary.
Remember, if there’s a review of a Voltage game you’d like to see, just comment and I’ll do it! And remember, IYAT is brought to you by GET A DAMN SPINE WOMAN FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS
Oki