Community Visual Novel Book Club - Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star

[Exzyleph]

Visual Novel Book Club - Hatoful Boyfriend and Holiday Star

Welcome to the fourth MetaCouncil visual novel book club!

For the fourth MetaCouncil visual we will be reading Hatoful Boyfriend and the season appropriate DLC, Holiday Star. The expected reading time is 9½ hours for Hatoful Boyfriend and 6 hours for Holiday Star (via HLTB). You are of course welcome to join for only one of these if you've already read one or if that is all your schedule permits. This is an informal book club, so there is no fixed schedule; you simply read the novel at your own pace, and share your thoughts along the way or when you are done reading. Just remember to use spoiler tags liberally.

For general information and past and future book clubs, please see the main MetaCouncil Book Club thread. For the next month, we'll be reading the free visual novels Narcissu 1st & 2nd as well as the non-free Narcissu Anthology Project side-stories.


The story

Hatoful Boyfriend

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted as the only human student at the prestigious St. PigeoNation’s Institute, a school for talented birds! Roam the halls and find love in between classes as a sophomore student at the world’s greatest pigeon high school. Finding happiness won’t be easy, but it’s not all academic - there’s always time for a little romance in this delightful remake of Hato Moa’s popular visual novel / avian dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend!


Holiday Star

The loveable birds of Hatoful Boyfriend are back in the remastered holiday-themed sequel Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star! Travel to fantastically styled worlds, meet interesting new chickadees, and find romance in the elegantly designed winter wonderlands. Dust the snow off your wings and take flight with familiar faces and new friends alike in extraordinary adventures hatched from the whimsical mind of the series creator Hato Moa and developer Mediatonic!


The games

The original game and DLC are currently discounted on Steam, Humble, and GOG for another 48 hours:

Hatoful Boyfriend

isthereanydeal.com

Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star

isthereanydeal.com

In addition, the base game (not Holiday Star) is free via Xbox Game Pass for PC:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/hatoful-boyfriend/9ncpxwlm4152

Thanks to Axisofweevils for the tip.

 

[Gevin]

I'm leaving for a trip in a week and Halo comes out in a few days so I won't have time for this, but thanks for organizing it as always. Maybe I'll play these some day down the line

 

[Axisofweevils]

I've owned this on Vita (!) for some years but never got past the first hour. Excited for the hot pigeon action.

 

[Knurek]

Obligatory best pigeon post:

 

[Kvik]

Oh, I had this for a while but I never picked up the DLC. I'll do just that, then.

 

[Kvik]

I just finished Ryouta's route in HB. I didn't realise it's rather short! Why is Hiyoko living in a cave, though?

 

[Kvik]

Pompous prig! lmao.

Finished with Sakuya's route. That was quite hilarious. Hiyoko's tsukkomis are the same kind of absurdist humour I like.

 

[Knurek]

I want to see the 's when you all reach the True Route.

 

[Exzyleph]

I finished reading the character routes for Hatoful Boyfriend, leaving just the true route, so spoilers for those ahead:

Spoiler

Overall the routes ranged from lackluster to pretty fun, with Yuuya and chuuni-bird, best-bird (Anghel) being my favorites. Okosan also deserves a shout-out for his route going in a place that I never expected and I am curious to see if the existence of ghosts will play a role in the true route.

The most interesting thing about the character routes is probably all the things that do not directly relate to the love interests. The protagonist in particular is puzzling. Not only does she live in a cave, but she constantly refers to her "hunter-gatherer" instincts and life-style, at one point describing it as a "uncultured, stone-age lifestyle". This is never presented as something unusual, making it seem as if all humans live in this manner. When the protagonist goes running we also see a city in ruins; this could relate to the Ave's High City building in Area A23 mentioned in the archive, but it seems more likely that this represents the remnants of human civilization. The implication is that this is a Planet of the Apes situation, with the role of birds and humans having reverted, somehow.

But bird intelligence also seems like this is something relatively recent; Brian the Pigeon started blogging when "when birds were barely intelligent" and he is still around, and the protagonist seems to have memories of the Buckingham Palace ceremonial guards performing (mentioned when Sakuya brings a marching band), though that could be the bird version. In addition, the process of birds becoming intelligent seems to be still ongoing; the near feral Okosan seems represent the birds that have not yet attained full intelligence and in Ryouta route it is mentioned that the Swallows are nesting later than they used to, and that is taken as evidence that they too are becoming intelligent.

The role of the MC at St. Pigeonation is a bit unclear to me. In Yuuya's route it is stated that the Hawk Party means to use her to develop a biological against against humans, but that does not fit with her being described as a "goodwill agent" and being killed for not getting close to anybirdie (in the bad end). But despite wanting her to get close to somebirdie, anybirdie, the Hawk Party seems to care very little for the MC; her death at the hands of Shuu was seemingly not a concern, except insofar that he ran off with her preserved head.

While the stats seems to be mostly pointless fluff, they do seem to match how the protagonist relates to other characters: Her intelligence and charisma appears to be in line with the birds, mostly evident from her intelligence stat; she starts out kind of dumb but can match the birds (e.g. Sakuya) with some training. On the other hand, her vitality is off the charts and she can easily man-handle the birds. The implication seems to be that birds are still the sizes that we are used to, despite them becoming as intelligent as humans (or at least as intelligent as the protagonist).

The archive is interesting, but I was not able to draw any firm conclusions and I am still missing a few pages. The fact that the journal seems to be kept by a group that seemingly tampers with both birds (e.g. "Subject 00" aka. the "Reference Bird") and humans (see "Homo Sapien's Resistant Capabilities") makes me wonder if there is a third group (a third species?) that is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. There is also a mention of a student that "acts as a neurotransmitter, producing a trance-like state in bystanders". Could this be Anghel? That would explain the trippy (read: perfect) ending to his route. And then there are the diaries. I initially thought that the diary like pages in the archive were written by the protagonist, but the page mentioning a "noisy girl" seems to contradict that idea. And what is this promise?

I guess I'll find out when I start on the true route.

 

[Kvik]

I just cleared Nageki's and Yuuya's route. I ... didn't expect that.

I guess the broken building which can be seen during Hiyoko's run is starting to make sense now.

 

[Exzyleph]

So I finished reading the true route in Hatoful Boyfriend, and I have thoughts:

Spoiler

It was certainly an emotional whip-lash once the true route started; I never expected to see the protagonist die outside of a non-canonical ending and I certainly didn't expect the Danganronpa-esque murder mystery in a sealed up school. The way the mystery unfolded was nicely paced and I liked how almost every detail in the character routes ended up fitting into the true route.

There was also a lot of good misdirection, but I didn't find the background and the overarching driver behind the plot to be that interesting. Dr. Iwamine's entire motivation just fell flat for me, in part due to it all being introduced at the last moment, and the stuff like the dome ended up feeling like a distracting and ultimately unnecessary attempt at adding tension and mystery.

I am also left with a few questions that I didn't find the answer to, such as why the the protagonist would get killed by Hawk agents in the bad end. That doesn't fit with project hatoful and it doesn't fit with the protagonist being a goodwill agent, though I suppose it could just be an attempt at increasing the inter-species tension. The whole making Ryouta a carrier business also felt a bit messy, with the implantation of Nageki's cells feeling like it was just there to justify Kazuaki going nuts. At that point the doctor had already made Ryouta a carrier once, back when Ryouta ended killing the protagonist, seemingly without implanting those cells. It also felt a bit odd how One ended up being a Dove agent, while Yuuya's role as such was largely forgotten.

It was definitely a fun read, but perhaps not as mind-blowing as I had hoped.

In conclusion, Anghel is best bird.

Onwards to Holiday Star!

 

[Kvik]

I just finished Dr. Shuu's route a few minutes ago...

 

[Theswweet]

so are we reading Baldr Sky next month or

 

[Kvik]

The genre shift in the penultimate route...

 

[Exzyleph]

Finished up Holiday Star a couple of days ago and found it to be a nice supplement to the original, despite my being somewhat disappointed that it did not follow up the BBL route from the original game. The story of Miru and Kaku was probably my favorite part along with the radio episodes, but the shrine dates were so short as to feel pointless. The cut scene involving the Crimson Angel of Judecca and his mom was delightful, though it was a shame that Anghel did not feature in the Holiday Star story-line past the 2nd episode.

​

 

[Phoenix RISING]

I feel terrible because this is the fourth thread and I am just now noticing.

 

[Exzyleph]

I feel terrible because this is the fourth thread and I am just now noticing.

That's a shame, but hopefully you'll be able to join us for future book-clubs

 

[Axisofweevils]

I still intend to beat this before year's end. I just got distracted.

 

[Kvik]

Hopefully, I can stop playing Scarlet Grace for a few hours so I can finish this. Feelsbad.

 

[Kvik]

'Twas a good read. I teared up a little.

More thoughts later, but I'm reading Holiday Star first.

 

[Exzyleph]

The fifth VN Book Club thread is now up and this time we will be reading Narcissu.
You still have a day or two to grab the Anthology collection at a discount if you are thinking of joining us.

Thank you to everyone who joined in reading Hatoful Boyfriend!
This thread will of course remain open, and I hope that you will still share your thoughts if you are not yet done reading Hatoful or if you find this thread at a later date.