How do you wanna be called: Temporary Agency Worker or Onii-chan for Hire?
Koikari is the latest localized Visual Novel which was created by ASa Project. After Sankaku Ren’ai: Love Triangle Trouble it’s the next game that has been picked up by NekoNyan.
The Story revolves around Yuki. A gloomy student who only really cares about one thing in this world, his little sister. When his sister declares that she won’t go to a university unless her brother does as well, he knows something needs to change. But going to University costs money, a lot of money. During his research, he stumbles upon a job posting that claims to pay enormous sums for little work. Following the shady advert, he applies, and soon he finds himself being a rental human.
His job has him play different characters for different customers. One girl wants him to be her boyfriend, while a pair of sisters want him to be their older brother. While each role itself isn’t hard to perform, it doesn’t take long until each role clashes with each other and lies have to be upkept. But as long as the girls have enough money to keep this lie up there won’t be any problems, right?
The premise of the game offers a lot of fun. Due to the circumstances of being a rental boy a lot of accidental situations happen. So while we have a plethora of funny interactions, the plot itself barely advances. It’s not a complicated story by any means. Without its hilarious characters and dialogue, the story itself would feel dry and uninteresting. But who do we actually meet in this Visual-Novel?
The first character we meet is Emi. A beautiful and attractive girl who seems to have a lot to offer for other boys. But in reality, she is just a show-off, lying to her friends about her relationship status. In dire need of a boyfriend, she turns to our offered services. Now we are stuck with a lying, temperamental pretend-girlfriend.
On the other side of the ring, we’ve got Hasumi. Due to her family money was never a problem for her, and it shows. Hasumi is easily able to buy us off for a whole vacation to be her friend. Now we are stuck with a girl that pretends to be a “Badass” in her free time, that likes cheese way too much. But are her intentions really pure or does she want something different from us?
I believe at this point it’s important to mention that Emi and Hasumi share a long route together before their routes split off. But even after choosing one of them, you don’t exactly get rid of one of them. You are gonna experience an ongoing battle between friends and rivals.
Next up we’ve got Chinatsu and Konatsu. Just reading those names strike fear in me. If you thought either Emi or Hasumi were crazy then you haven’t experienced those two. They may share the same goal, but they want to approach it differently. While Chinatsu wants to mostly be babied and have a dependable older brother Konatsu just wants to satisfy her earthly urges. While both want to have “Onii-chan” for themself, they don’t battle it out in the open Like Emi and Hasumi. I think it’s needless to say that one day you might find yourself being shared between those two sisters.
As the last main heroine, we’ve got Tsubaki. She is the oldest of the cast. At twenty-five years old she is long out of school and already being a teacher at cram school herself. Due to her affinity for computer games, she never had a boyfriend. Pressured from her family she decides to hire us as a paramour. Will this be enough to fool her parents?
It sure is notable that a lot of time gets to spend with Emi and Hasumi. But it never felt as if other heroines get left in the dust. Each heroine appears regularly in other routes. There we get to see how each heroine bounces off another. We see Emi’s and Hasumi’s reaction to Konatsu’s shenanigans or Emi’s face when she has to defend her relationship in attendance of her boyfriend’s paramour. Those are the driving factors that make Koikari great.
Besides the main routes we get some side routes that aren’t exactly long but it’s still nice to have those.
The sprites and art style are great. I can’t get enough of my favorite Konatsu sprite.
The sexual content isn’t exactly something outstanding. We get a lot of vanilla scenes with the odd outfit in between. But overall those are pleasant to read and do feel engaging and lewd.
If you want the sexual content you either have to buy the game on Denpasoft or get the free patch from Nekonyan if you want the Steam Version. It’s nice to see that the scenes themselves don’t feature any mosaics. Something which struck out odd was the white circle on the lower body on the naked sprites.
Something I didn’t like was the music. It just felt as if something was missing in every song. The background songs weren’t unfitting or straight-up bad, but they just didn’t feel rich in sound. Compared to HaremKingdom or Sugar*Style, Koikari just couldn’t deliver in that aspect. The same goes for the voice acting. The characters all had fitting VAs but nothing really stood out from them.
Overall I had a great time with Koikari – Love for Hire. NekoNyan delivered a great product once more. The overarching story was great. It set up funny situations that featured the girls brilliantly. If NekoNyan decides to translate the Fandisc as well it surely would be a must-buy from me!
