Yeah, that’s right, each bird has its own ending! There’s even an unnecessarily dark “bad end” for avoiding any of the main love interests. The decisions you make and the evolution of your stats will have an influence on the scenario and on the course of events associated with it, as well as the possibility to get more “intimate” with a bird in particular. There are three of them (maths, gym and music) and they’ll allow you to increase your stats in its matching field (wisdom, vitality and charisma, respectively). Amongst them are of course multiple answers during dialogues, but it’s also possible to choose which class you attend for the day. Indeed, this is an interactive visual novel – at several points, you’ll be prompted for choices. Even the soundtrack, apart from its obligatory chessiness, fits the game very well. Of course, it’s incredibly campy, it’s even kusoge as its best! But the game in itself is actually well-paced, and perfectly enjoyable to play, and it’s on the level of many visual novels developed by more recognized doujin circles. And yet, the quality of production is certainly up to par. It’s a very small-budget (if there was a budget at all) visual novel developed by an even smaller doujin circle, it’s available for download for free, and it’s about pigeons. You can enable the display of human portraits, who are said to be the voice actors (even though there is no voice acting whatsoever) in order to catch a glimpse of what these birds would look like if they were bishounen… but these artwork only appear once per character and real men choose not to enable this option anyway, as a feeling of fondness towards birds is necessary to truly enjoy Hatoful Kareshi. If the screenshots haven’t clued you in yet, they’re the real thing – not some kind of anthropomorphic furries or anything, the characters’ artwork are actual photographs. And, of course, all these playboys have the common trait of being birds. PigeonNation, and you meet your new (male) classmates, all of which are unfamiliar faces with the exception of Ryouta, your childhood friend. And in the creepiest way possible, on top of that, which won’t be spoiled here, but it’s probably worth the nervous breakdown it induces. The most unsettling part of this is the fact that the scenario actually jutifies this strange state of affairs. That’s right, you’re a human being in the flesh, and yet you attend a bird school, which means you’re the only human amongst the feathered students. Which is odd because you are not a bird yourself. In this visual novel, you assume the role of a young girl (whose default name is Hiyoko Tousaka) who starts a new year at the bird school of St. …the cast is comprised entirely of pigeons. Why in the world, then? Well, what makes Hatoful Kareshi stands out is the fact that… It’s not an eroge either, but we can hardly call that something “original”. (See Kanon, at the very least, for that reference.) Pudding obsessed characters who have their own blogs? Well, that’s…pretty original. For sure, it has a whole load of clichés when it comes to character development or dialogues, amongst others. Well, that’s pretty cool…but what sets this one apart from the scores of school romance visual novels that clutter up their shelves? The fact is Hatoful Kareshi isn’t exactly like the others. The title can thus be translated to something along the line of “Heartful/Hurtful Boyfriend ~White Feathers in the School of Hope~”.
The word “hato” is also a type of pigeon. “Hatoful” is a transliteration of はーとふる, who can be understood as both “Heartful” and “Hurtful” since they are pronounced the same way in Japanese (“hatoofuru”). Talking about the translation, the game’s title is a bit peculiar – indeed, it’s an untranslatable pun. It’s now commercially available on Sony consoles. Obviously, it’s only officially available in Japanese, but a swell guy named Nazerine decided to translate it all by himself, and merely five months after the original release, an English-language patch was made available. for this project), and it was digitally released for Windows and Mac in July 2011. It’s the first game developed by the Hato-King doujin circle (who went by the name PigeoNation Inc. Hatoful Kareshi ~Kibou no Gakuen to Shiroi Tsubasa~ is one of those bazillions visual novels released each year in Japan. This particular instance definitely works in its favor. The Internet is full of surprises, though the jury’s ultimately still out on whether that’s a good thing.
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