Genso Manege – Crier Route ~ Plot & Character Analysis

I started this route in late February and I never finished it.

A big part of this was that playing Crier’s route on my switch was the last thing I did before my body finally succumbed to the Norovirus (Stomach Flu) that, to that point, had already been in my home for two weeks.

So, honestly, picking up my switch and playing this route was just inviting reliving some bad memories. But as time passed, I realized I had no interest in picking the route up again. And this feeling had nothing to do with terrible memories.

See…even before my body gave up and I threw up eight times in five hours, I wasn’t really enjoying the route. And the distance of these past three months, hadn’t changed this feeling.

There are many narrative related reasons, why this route did not resonate with me. And rather than force myself to complete a route that I obviously have no interest in, I just decided to write up my thoughts and leave it at that.

So, full disclosure, I did not finish Crier’s route.

And here is why.

As always, character and plot analysis and spoilers after the cut!

I was rudely interrupted by my upset stomach during Chapter 6. So, everything I will be writing about comes from the Common Route and chapters four through six of Crier’s route.

Okay. So.

To me, this route is a friendship route with a consolation boyfriend thrown in.

Seriously.

Clara is the backbone of this route.

And she is a delightful character who I did emotionally attach to and I enjoyed every time she graced the Switch screen (except for one scene, where I felt she tried to manage her brother (Crier) too much).

The problem is that she is neither the heroine or the hero of this route. She is the sister of the hero and a great side character!  

Yet, Clara carries all the emotional weight and agency of the route:

• Clara is the one chained to the amusement park

• Clara is the one on death’s doorstep.

• Clara is the one who has to make peace with her own mortality

• Clara is the one to decide that she is ready for Emma to use her magic, which will “free” Clara from the amusement park and will most likely mean her death.

• Clara’s death is what the reader spends the entire routing waiting to see if it happens. 

• Clara is the one who genuinely befriends Emma

• Clara is the reason why Crier starts being nicer to Emma

• Clara is the reason why Crier is coerced asks Emma to be his “girlfriend.”

Clara is behind every narrative point in this route.

And, for me, the real problem with this route, is that Crier (VA: Hiro Shimono) is sidelined from having a narrative impact.   

Because there were severe narrative consequences when the writers chose to divorce Crier from the emotional center and main conflict of the story.

Firstly. Crier is not the emotional core of this route.

By not making Crier chained to the amusement park, but having his sister instead, Clara is immediately more important to the story in terms of emotional and narrative stakes. She is the one on death’s doorstep. She is the one who has to face her own mortality. She is the one who was sickly as a child. She is one who’s life is at risk.

She is one who is making the decision to choose the distinct possibility of death over her current “phantom-like” life and existence.

And Crier basically becomes a secondary character who has no say in the main emotional conflict in the story.

Secondly. His conflict involves him having to decide how to move on if his sister does die.

Which, okay. Like people all over the world are dealing with the loss of loved ones. And that is extremely painful to experience. And I do not want to belittle the pain that these people go through.

But, in this route, Crier’s emotional conflict is a secondary conflict to the main conflict of Clara’s impending death.

Clara is the one who could die once Emma ends the curse.

And Clara is at peace with her decision and Emma is willing to end the curse, which leaves Crier with simply having to accept his sister decision and Emma’s willingness to comply. He doesn’t have a say in his sister’s decision.

So, unless this game decided to let Crier dive into some dark places and have him go crazy, the reader already knows that Crier is going to accept his sister’s fate. What other choice does he have?

Thirdly. He has no agency within his own route.

So, Crier is not the center of the route’s emotional conflict or the one driving the route narratively forward because the writers didn’t give him anything else to do.

It is Emma, who is the person that Clara is depending on to break the curse. Emma is the one with access to magic. Emma is the one who practices her magic throughout the route to end the curse on the amusement park. Emma is the one to have discussions with Clara about the future for the people of the amusement park.  

Emma is crucial to the story, because she is the only one who can achieve what Clara wants and what Crier, kind of, dreads. Which leads Crier to feeling kind of resentful to Emma for a majority of what I read.

*Crier is probably also feeling resentful because the writers gave him nothing to do.*

Fourthly. So, for me, Crier became a whiny, grumpy, resentful teenage boy who kept saying he would not get in the way of his sister’s decision but, at the same time, resentfully treated Emma like crap, all because he didn’t want to lose his sister.

Not cool, Crier.   

I know Crier is a tsundere archetype. And, for me, that is hard to connect with, especially when Emma is being her delightful self and he’s being an unrepentant ass.

Fifthly. Crier didn’t even have agency over his developing (if you can all it that) relationship with Emma.

Let’s set aside that Crier actually tells Emma he decided to be kinder to her because of his sister, which, to me, does not strike as the preferred way of developing a romantic dynamic between characters.

What’s more romantic than a boy telling you that he’s decided to be less of an ass, not because you are a human being who deserves respect, but because he sees his sister enjoys spending time with you?

Sigh.

Now. Clara sees that her brother is struggling with losing her. So, she (with a a heavy dose of Hugo’s assistance) tries to manage her brother by coercing encouraging him to attach himself to another person. And the person in this case is Emma.

This is supposed to be romantic?

Clara is basically saying, “Yes, I am choosing a scenario where I will most likely die. Now, brother, I know you have given up, out of guilt, having a life of your own to follow me around and watch over me. And since I don’t want you to be alone once I, most likely, die, I am coercing encouraging you to develop feelings for Emma. See, what a great plan! I’ll be dead, yet you’ll have your consolation girlfriend to help you recover from my death.”

This just felt icky to me.

I understand the writers gave Clara and Crier a very close, sibling relationship. They are all each other has. And it is admirable that Crier wanted to take care of his sister.

But.

If I were Emma, I would have a serious problem with a boy essentially being told by his sister to make me the female replacement in his life.

No woman should become a sister-replacement in her boyfriend’s life.

Because let’s be clear: A sister and a girlfriend is a very different type of relationship! And if you have a boyfriend who wants to treat you like a sister, some therapy needs to be had.

So, flat out, I did not enjoy this dynamic.

And, even if I had enjoyed this dynamic, the problem still remains that Crier is robbed of any agency in his relationship with Emma. Did he even want this relationship? We, the reader, don’t know! Because it took Clara and Hugo coercing Crier into starting the relationship with Emma for it to happen.

This is not character growth or character development for Crier. This is, what are supposed to be secondary characters, coming in and managing our hero’s life.

Asking Emma to become his girlfriend, should have been a character defining moment for Crier. It should have been an important moment for his character arc, yet the poor boy gets nothing! He gets treated and managed like a man-baby by his sister and his boss. And, I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t create a very engaging hero for me.

Sigh.

For the five reasons mentioned above, I did not connect with this route.

And, honestly, I’m ready to move on, so I’m going to end the critique and not belabor this route any further.

This route was not for me and that’s okay.

-Final Thoughts-

Crier was an annoying hero for me. And maybe if he had had a role in the route beyond being a bitchy teenager, I could have appreciated him for his narrative role. But no. I get, he is having a hard time processing his sister’s situation and that is very human. But his character didn’t go beyond that. Instead of making him a prickly character that has some good traits, he became, to me, one dimensional and this was well into Chapter 6 (out of eight). He didn’t carry the emotional drama of the route. His actions didn’t move the story forward. He just complained and was mean to Emma. And, personally, I didn’t not find that engaging.

To me this was an annoying route. By the time I stopped, I was already getting bored and wishing for the route to end. There was just a combination of factors in this route that did not work for me.  

And that’s okay.

P.S. And simply because I had to know, I read part of the Good Ending Epilogue.

Clara lived! Yay!