After reading approximately 178 otome routes, I am thrilled to say that Secret Route #2, my final route of Sympathy Kiss, was a completely new experience for me!
Seriously!
If you are burned out of the stereotypical otome troupes and you want to experience something new, give this route a shot!
I can’t promise you’ll like it.
But I can promise it will be different!
As always, character and plot analysis and spoilers after the cut!
To me, this route can be split into two different focuses, with one underlying theme running through it all.
The first two chapters focus on the Tsukihiko Higa (VA: Kohsuke Toriumi) who, in the present, works in the sales department at Tempesty. While competent at his job, Higa sees his work as a way to put food on the table, not life fulfilling work that he is passionate about.
The second two chapters of the route focus on the Higa who was a young unsuccessful actor turned music idol in the Japanese boy band industry. Due to his music idol past, Higa has a rabid passionate fan who blames Higa for the group breaking up after he left to pursue a more stable career with his wife.
And trying to link these two versions of Higa together is the Higa who is a widowed, devoted single father of five-year-old Hinata. This creates the foundation of Higa’s character throughout the entire route.
It was amazing to me the clear delineated split between the focus of these four chapters.
I LOVED the first two chapters! Whoever wrote this route, obviously has experience with children! It was just so real in terms of parenting and I could clearly see my daughter in Hinata! These chapters made me laugh out loud at how true to life it was!
From Hinata blatantly asking Akari and Higa to exchange numbers so Hinata can have another playdate at the park with Akari, which happens to me all the time. My daughter has no fear in loudly asking for me and her “new” friend’s mom to exchange numbers! Seriously. I get more numbers so my daughter can have playdates, then I did when I was single and dating!
Hinata innocently insisting his dad and Akari hold hands while they are at the park has happened to me with one of my daughter’s friend’s dads (my daughter’s friend was the one innocently insisting). Needless to say, that was a lot more embarrassing and, in the end, I did not hold the other gentleman’s hand.
And in the same scene, the speed that Hinata took off from his dad to get to the vending machine and then Higa having to chase after him happens with kids all the time. Chasing down your kid is part of parenting!
Hinata’s excitement to eat at a restaurant and be involved with what everyone orders is totally a lived experience for me and my husband. My daughter feels like she has to be involved with everything and part of the fun for her about being with mom and dad is the ability to be included in our lives.
How upfront Higa was about his seriousness in dating Akari was “adultingly” realistic. I really appreciated how the writers differentiated between the types of dating Akari experiences in Sympathy Kiss. In terms of Higa, he has more than just himself to consider when it comes to life changes. And both Higa and Akari respecting the fact that what’s best for Hinata matters too, was lovely!
Dating a person with a child requires a different type of consideration. A majority of Higa’s “free” time is spent playing with Hinata, doing household chores, or doing family friendly activities. After a long, tiring day at work, time with Akari in the evening looked like drinking some beers and talking in the living room after Hinata goes to sleep. And a “fancy” date (i.e. going out) was totally contingent on child care. This is daily life reality for many parents!
The guilt Higa holds towards how much time he spends with Hinata and if he’s doing right by his son, is so real. And especially in the case of Higa, who is a loving parent, he always carries with him a sense of inadequacy even though he is doing his best for Hinata.
EVERY PARENT in the world feels some version of parenting guilt at some point in their parenting journey. No parent is perfect. We all make mistakes and poor decisions. The point is to always, lovingly, be willing to assess what is working and what is not and make the changes needed to fix the things that need to be fixed.
There were so many more moments that I could mention, but I’ll stop there!
And so, after thoroughly enjoying the first two chapters, I was disappointed at the shift of focus for the last two chapters of the route.
I’m not saying that music idols can’t turn into the stereotypical unexceptional office worker but, to me, this reveal felt a bit forced. And I think, in part, it’s because, as part of Higa’s idol past, the writers gave him a passionate fangirl as the major source of conflict. It’s like the writers felt they needed an obligatory “otome style” secondary conflict to carry the second half of the route.
As mentioned earlier, Higa had a dream of becoming an actor, but after a string of unsuccessful auditions his management team decided to pursue a position in a music idol group. While our ever-humble Higa believed that he spent most of the time in background of the group, and was clearly not the star, the music group became somewhat successful and Higa, himself, had dedicated fans.
Well, because of Higa’s humility and naivety, when Higa left the group to pursue a more stable life, he believed that no one would really care.
Well, he was wrong.
Around the city, Higa occasionally bumps into a passionate former fan named Kiyomi Yamamoto.
Yamamoto very passionately supported the music group. She went to their concerts, bought their merchandise and talked and took pictures with them at meet-and-greets. Supporting the group was all she ever wanted.
So, when the group broke up after Higa left, Yamamoto bitterly blamed Higa for destroying all she cared about. She guilts Higa by telling him that if he had planned to quit the life of an idol, he never should have become one! She accuses Higa of not understanding the kind of pain he caused his fans.
Um, hmm…
At no point should a music group be responsible for your happiness and be your reason to live. That’s just not healthy. And I didn’t like how Higa takes responsibility for how his leaving the group was part of what led to Yamamoto’s emotional reaction and vitriol.
Like no…this is a grown-ass woman. She is responsible for her own emotions and words.
Well, one evening, Yamamoto helps a lost Hinata. Of course, Higa, Akari, Hinata, and Yamamoto end up finding each other, as Higa and Akari are frantically looking for Hinata.
Yamamoto proceeds to start her bitter attack on Higa, switching to Akari once she realizes that Akari is there and accuses her of being Higa’s wife. And then this emotionally unhinged woman turns to blaming Hinata.
Yes, let’s pin the decisions of adults on a five-year-old child…this woman is not okay.
Then she declares, in her selfishness, that Hinata should never have been born.
SOMEONE DUCK TAPE THIS WOMAN’S MOUTH SHUT! These are the kinds of comments that cause emotional trauma for children!
Of course, after our sweet little boy hears someone say that he never should have been born and that he ruined his father’s life with knowing the reality that his father works all the time to support him, Hinata immediately runs off in tears!
Higa and Hinata are reunited and Higa assures Hinata of his love for him that he is not sad that Hinata was born.
Personally, I thought Higa should have used stronger words than saying that Yamamoto misunderstood the situation. Um, this was much more than a “misunderstanding.” Yamamoto was flat out wrong to say what she did and I do wish that Higa had been firmer on that.
To Yamamoto’s credit (even though it felt somewhat stalkerish) she does find Higa and Hinata at the park and apologizes, to them both, for what she said. I did appreciate that she admits that her head knew that Higa had every right to make decisions in regards to his own life, but that her heart and emotions were still very angry. I liked that Yamamoto admits that she wasn’t emotionally mature enough to deal with her problems. To handle it all, she blamed Higa and the group breaking up for everything that went wrong in her life.
After this, everyone reconciles, and Yamamoto walks off in a hopefully healthier emotional and mental state.
Whew! The drama!
But I don’t think this type of conflict was needed.
If anything, I wished the writers had gone harder into the realities of dating someone who is raising children.
When you are a parent, you are on call 24/7. Even if your child is at daycare, school, or an activity, your phone is always with you and it can ring at any moment. It could be your child gets sick, has a behavioral issue, or breaks a leg. Once you have kids, you are always on call.
Also, every child (and adult for that matter) has bad days and when you are a parent you have to handle these conflicts no matter how you are feeling. Sometimes you will handle your child’s meltdowns well and sometimes your own emotions will take over and, after everything blows over, you will be the one making apologies to your kid for how you handled everything.
And I wish Akari had had these experiences before committing to basically become Hinata’s mother figure.
A perfect example of this is how the writers completely skipped over the conversation that Akari and Hinata have when she finds him at the playground after he ran away from the confrontation with Yamamoto.
WE NEEDED TO READ THAT CONVERSATION!
What does Akari say to comfort a child that has just been told that he never should have been born? How does Akari get Hinata to open up? How does Akari encourage Hinata to go home? Was Hinata resistant or defiant to Akari (which is a typical reaction for a child in a flight or fight state of mind)? And if he was, how did Akari deal with Hinata’s resistant attitude? How do Akari and Hinata connect deeper emotionally? This conversation could have been so formative to Akari becoming more like a mother figure to Hinata.
And how does Akari handle her emotions? We never see Akari have to contain her anger or frustration with Hinata. Because, believe it or not, when you live in close confines with a child they sometimes get on your nerves! Some kids are perpetually in a bad mood. Some kids need attention 24/7. Some kids want attention 24/7. Some kids specialize in being whiny. Some kids talk non-stop. This is completely normal and human! And managing your emotions, when all you want is silence, while handling children on a day to day basis is a learned skill!
As it stands, to me, by the end of the route, Akari still feels like the fun, highly-involved family friend, who consistently pops in and out of Higa and Hinata’s lives.
We don’t see Akari make the full commitment to being a mother figure, because becoming a mother is 24/7 taking the good and bad that comes with parenting. Being a parent means being present with kids through their worst and their most vulnerable. Sometimes, it isn’t pretty. Yet, it’s part of parental responsibility.
The writers never gave Akari a chance to work through one of these types of situations. Which means, we never saw Akari take the next step from being the fun, highly-involved family friend to becoming more like a mother.
The whole conflict with Yamamoto really squeezed out character development and conflicts that could have been centered around Higa or Akari.
And I really don’t think the writers had to do this.
To me, there was enough drama simply in Akari coming to terms with what it means to become a mother or with Higa coming to terms with dating and falling in love with someone besides his late wife.
Now, I understand for singles, the idol conflict is probably much more appealing and relatable to normal otome standards, so I don’t fault the writers for making the choice they did.
But as a married mom, I would have loved to dig in deeper to the experiences of parents!
Overall, I do believe this is a positive step forward in parental representation in otome games! I would love to see more love interests as healthy parents! And hopefully, the next time this kind of character comes along, the writers will dig deeper into the gold mine of parenting experiences!
Parenting can carry the drama and conflict needed for an otome route, all on its own!
No rabid fangirls required.
-Final Thoughts-
Higa was a good hero for me! As a widowed, single father, Higa had a lot on his plate which forced him to be in survival mode for a majority of the route. However, by the end, you could see how Akari being there helped take some of the burden off Higa’s shoulders. Higa was a very good man, simply doing his best with the situation. And it was great to see him come back to life in a way. Being able to trust Akari with Hinata allowed Higa to think about himself again and create more of a balance in his life. Which every parent needs!
This route balances out to average for me. I LOVED the first two chapters but the second two kind of lost me. I REALLY wish the writers hadn’t forced the Yamamoto conflict, because I don’t think it was needed to create a compelling conflict in the second half of the route.
Parenting is an adventure all its own! And I would love an otome route that could embrace all facets of raising kids!
Otomes as Novels 