The archetypical traditional romance for scandal is the thing that makes Romeo and Juliet sensible, as star-crossed lover where a gap beyond their reach separates two true lovers. That gap could be circumstances or fate or whatever. In Fortune Arterial it’s vampirism…except it is not.
So it goes, Ms. Veep obviously feels for Hasekura, and vice versa (in this animated branch of an eroge). Erika doesn’t want to live like a traditional “vampire” or whatever that gets labeled as that in that universe. Erika has her own thought about how to live, how to live like a human, and how to live with humans. For drama, her mom makes some familial rule about it however, and there’s this conflict/pride nonsense which acts as the main point of conflict in their story, arising from the conflict of the expectations upon her as a vampire and as a human. And also there’s the whole vampiric blood and biology doing its job making Erika wanting to suck Hasekura’s blood.
To put it in other words, it is like as if Erika’s mom is trying to get her wedded off for their family’s fortunes, she resists because of pride, except she’s OTP with Hasekura. In eroge speak, you (Hasekura) are actually going after her and trying to get inside her gym shorts or whatever, and her vampiric urges that she is trying to suppress with her foremind is trying to get her p0n0’d. Oh wait, it just means she wants to suck some blood. Same difference.
I’m not sure how this is suppose to work. Or rather, I think I know how this is suppose to work and it is ringing the “this is not a feminist work!” bell in my mind. I mean think about it, Hasekura is a nice guy and all, but basically he is a tool for tradition and against independent thought, that his kindness torpedoes not just Erika’s human dignity (if she had any), but is both on the surface what he ought to be doing (encouraged) and underneath what he should be doing to unlock the CGs.
Such a pleasant story about unpleasant regression of individual’s power to choose as an underlying theme, yeah? Aren’t female vampires suppose to be exactly the opposite? Or is this just the logical offshoot of what happens when a Japanese family of vampires raises a kid like how Japanese humans do? What does that say about conservative Japanese family values? LOL.
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