Sesbian Lex

SubaHibi is a flawed masterpiece.

The story's strongest moments are some of my favorite moments in any visual novel. Particularly, the very first scene when Yuki meets Takuji on the rooftop, the end of Down The Rabbit Hole I, and basically any other time when Yoru no Himawari is playing—those moments on your first read when you know pretty much nothing about the truth behind the story—are especially evocative. However, I found that as I read further through SubaHibi and learned more about what was really happening, the story became less impactful, and less enticing overall.

The first half of Jabberwocky I was where I felt this most prominently. After the exciting events of the previous three chapters, it suddenly halts all of the momentum for slice of life about two siblings who are both secretly in love with each other. On top of that, most of Jabberwocky II before the cut back to the rooftop felt superfluous since most of its events had already been revealed prior to this chapter. Even if the author wanted to explicitly show what happened, I think the scenes in Jabberwocky II could have been massively cut down, and doing so would have made the sequence from the end of Jabberwocky I to Which Dreamed It to Tomosane saving Hasuki on the rooftop much more impactful.

Of course, I have other small issues with SubaHibi: the inconsistent soundtrack that has both some of the best and some of the worst songs I've heard in a visual novel, the tonally jarring end of the Kiyokawa scene, the way the fairly clean and standard CGs during its rape scenes don't match the horrific descriptions of those same events in the text, and the immature nature of most of its comedic moments.

However, the most prominent issue with SubaHibi in my view is that it frontloads all of its most interesting scenes and story beats, leaving the ending feeling somewhat unsatisfying. I don't hate it by any means,—I still think SubaHibi is an incredible visual novel, and I can easily so why it's so many people's favorite—but I do become a little sad thinking about how much better it could have been.

8/10

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Here I will leave this beautiful capybara, whoever pass by can pet it and give it a thumbs up (I need Steam Points)