Holiday Star is the sequel to Hatoful Boyfriend, though that seems like a bit of a misnomer. It was one of the more outlandish but memorable experiences I’ve had with the genre. Both a silly tale of a human girl going to school with, and consequently falling in love with, pigeons, and a striking commentary on visual novels as a whole, it managed to parody many aspects of the genre while still creating a tale uniquely its own. If you'd like to pick the book up, I got mine from Boyfriend was one of the stranger games I played this year. If you decide to play them, let me know if you enjoy them! Have any of you already played the games? I have a club for Hatofans on here so any of you pigeon-lovers out there should join <3 When I bought the first game it really was under the intention of laughing at it, but I quickly discovered that it stands on its own as a great VN that just happens to be about pigeons. I hope some of you will consider playing the games, they're really very good and well worth your time. On these pages it's Ishida Akira and Wakamoto Norio. The last section has an interview with MOA, and interviews with the whole voice cast for the four drama CDs which includes some VERY big names like Ishida Akira, Koyasu Takehito and Saiga Mitsuki. The book is mostly text, actually, so if you can't read any Japanese at all it might not be that interesting. There's a bunch of information on Holiday Star as well, mostly screenshots from the game with lots more text. Almost every picture has some notes with it. It has character profiles for all the main characters and smaller ones for every side character in both the first and second games, along with a walkthrough for each character's route in the dating game segment.īBL has its own section with plot summary for each chapter and notes by the creator MOA, as well as special character profiles specific to that storyline.
The actual front and back covers have big group shots of all the main characters and all the side characters in their human designs.
Both full games can be purchased on the English DLsite for 420 yen apiece and I highly recommend picking them up!īuy here: Now that you know what I'm talking about, this is the "Hatoful Boyfriend Official Fanbook," and it's packed full of goodies for the Hatoful fan.
You can play a free demo of Hatoful Boyfriend here clione.halfmoon.
There's also a second game, Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star, which is a sequel of sorts and isn't a dating game at all, instead comprised of a series of short stories that tie together into a larger story (although this one isn't as long as BBL.) Holiday Star has SPOILERS for BBL, so play the first Hatoful Boyfriend FIRST. The first "half" of the game uses the standard otome game/dating game model, with 8 amazing characters to choose from (and some characters have two possible paths.) The other "half," really the bulk of the game in terms of time investment, is devoted to a longer, more serious story, designated in the game as "BBL." Without spoiling anything, let's just say the world of Hatoful Boyfriend is a lot darker and more complicated than it seems at first glance. This seemingly insane premise provides the framework for a surprisingly compelling story and a great cast of characters. You play a human girl who is the only human to attend St. The name is a dual-language pun hato is pigeon or dove, but the game's title is written はーとふる, which can be translated as "heartful." You could say it's both "full of pigeons" and "full of heart." It's a visual novel called Hatoful Boyfriend and it is an otome game where you date birds. Today I'm going to review a book from something most of you have probably never even heard of!įirst, some background on the source material so you aren't completely confused.