Line #16 VisualNovel/MyForgedWedding


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/my_forged_wedding_736.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Left to right: Saeki, Yuta, Takao, Ren, and Yamato]]
3
4	->''Would you be my unlawfully wedded wife?''
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6
7	''My Forged Wedding'' is a RomanceGame VisualNovel by Creator/VoltageInc for iOS and Android devices. It's also been very loosely adapted by the company's US subsidiary with the title ''White Lies & Sweet Nothings''.
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9	The protagonist, a recent university graduate, has just moved to Tokyo from her hometown in Kyushu in the hopes that family friend Kunihiko Aikawa, a successful entrepreneur, will be able to help her find work.
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11	Upon her arrival, the heroine is quickly introduced to Kunihiko's circle of friends: Yamato, the snarky high school teacher; Takao, the kindly attorney; Saeki, the flirtatious scriptwriter; Ren, the quiet scientist; and Yuta, the aspiring comedian. She also learns that Kunihiko's help isn't going to come without strings attached, because each of these men has a problem that only a woman can help them with. If she agrees to help one of them - and ''only'' if she agrees to help - then Kunihiko will help her find a job.
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13	The trouble is, "helping" means having to pose as the fiancee of a man she's just met.
14	----
15	!!''My Forged Wedding'' features examples of:
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17	* AffectionateNickname:
18	** Yamato quickly dubs the protagonist "Pouty" at the beginning of his route, a nickname which sticks throughout the route and all of his later stories.
19	** The DoorstopBaby in Takao's second sequel is named Nozomu but quickly nicknamed "Nom-Nom".
20	* AnimatedActors: The "Commercial Outtakes" is framed as a behind-the-scenes look at the "filming" of the game's promotional video. Everyone retains their usual personalities, and the side story avoids actually breaking the fourth wall by never actually mentioning the game in specific during the story itself, instead being very vague about just what the characters think they're filming an ad ''for''.
21	* ArtifactTitle: The faked marriage or engagement that gives the game its title only factors into the initial main route for each guy; subsequent content such as epilogues, sequels, and side stories track the continued development of the protagonist's romance with her guy after the ruse has been abandoned and is no longer an element of their relationship. As of the third sequel, appropriately titled the "Wedding Bells" sequel, they are in fact married for real.
22	* BecomingTheMask: Inevitably, the staged relationship in each route quickly becomes more real than the participants had intended.
23	* BrickJoke: In Kyoichi's route, he drafts the protagonist into posing as his fiancee by having her sign a contract with him under the assumption that he's hiring her for a job. He doesn't hold it over her for very long, however, and the contract is soon forgotten as the protagonist gets to know him and comes to understand his reasons for staging the deception. At the end of the route, [[spoiler:the protagonist makes her LoveConfession to Kyoichi by telling him she wants to re-negotiate the terms of their agreement and presenting him with a modified copy of the contract on which the duration has been changed to "forever."]]
24	* TheCameo: VisualNovel/{{S\|educedInTheSleeplessCity}}atsuki, [[VisualNovel/LoveLetterFromThiefX Atsumu]] and [[VisualNovel/DreamyDaysInWestTokyo Johji]] are friends of Kunihiko and attend his wedding. [[VisualNovel/OfficeSecrets Goda]], [[VisualNovel/BeMyPrincess Maximilien]] and [[VisualNovel/MetroPDCloseToYou Kirisawa]] are not there in person, but all send their felicitations.
25	* CaptainErsatz: The protagonist's boss in Takao's route of the "Working Couple" side story is a thinly-veiled copy of Miranda Priestly from ''Literature/TheDevilWearsPrada''.
26	* CareerEndingInjury:
27	** An eye injury on Saeki's route leaves him under strict instructions to rest and avoid eye-straining activities like reading or spending long stretches of time on a computer, which could prevent his eyesight from recovering. Unfortunately, Saeki has a screenplay due, requiring him to choose between his job and his eyesight. [[spoiler:The protagonist presents him with a third option, volunteering to take dictation for him so that he can continue to write while also resting his eyes.]]
28	** In Haruka's route, the protagonist eventually discovers that [[spoiler:due to an accident, Haruka has lost sensation in his right hand, severely impeding his ability to perform ikebana. He has continued to create arrangements in public performances, using showier designs than normal to hide his disability, but his family has had another follower of the Utsunomiya style doing the rest of his work for him. By the time he meets the protagonist, he has given up on physical therapy and resigned himself to quitting ikebana]].
29	* ChocolateOfRomance: The protagonist's effort to present her guy with homemade chocolate for Valentine's Day are central to most routes of the "Your 1st Valentine's Day" side story.
30	* ChristmasEpisode: The "Your First Xmas" side story focuses on the protagonist's hopes for a romantic Christmas Eve with her guy.
31	* TheClan: Takao has a huge family, including both parents, his grandmother, four younger brothers, and various extended family members of mostly unspecified relation such as four-year-old Ryutaro and his parents. His immediate family, at least, are depicted as a close-knit and pleasant bunch who quickly embrace the protagonist when she's introduced to them as Takao's fiancee. Kyoichi's [[DysfunctionalFamily family]] on the other hand...
32	* ClingyJealousGirl: Yuri, one of Yamato's students, is infatuated with him. She takes the protagonist's appearance on the scene as his "wife" very poorly.
33	* CoolOldLady: Takao's grandmother, for whom all of the guys hold respect and affection.
34	* {{Crossover}}: The epilogue to Kunihiko's sequel crosses over with ''VisualNovel/OfficeSecrets'' - although none of that game's cast appear, Kunihiko and the protagonist attend a gala held by Infinite, the clothing company at which ''Office Secrets'' takes place. In Kunihiko's wedding sequel, his friend at Infinite is revealed to be Tamotsu Goda.
35	* CultureClash: Exploited by Takao in his sequel epilogue - he suggests that he and the protagonist take a trip to Bali together, and towards the end of the epilogue admits that he chose the location mostly on the basis that, unlike in Japan, no one there would find it at all out of the ordinary if they were to hug and kiss one another in public.
36	* DisappearedDad:
37	** Yamato reveals on his route that he grew up being told that his father had died, only to find out after his mother's passing that his father is in fact still alive and currently working as the principal of a girls' high school. Yamato lied about his marital status to get a teaching position at the same school in order to get closer to his father and find out for himself what kind of man he is and if he cared at all about Yamato's mother or Yamato himself. [[spoiler:Turns out he didn't know about Yamato at all - she intentionally disappeared from his life when she got pregnant because it would have caused trouble for him, and he's spent the past twenty-odd years hoping to see her again.]]
38	** Kyoichi's father abandoned his family and got involved with another woman [[spoiler:when Kyoichi's mother developed a serious heart condition]], leaving Kyoichi with a dim opinion of love and romantic relationships.
39	* DarkerAndEdgier: Kunihiko's second sequel, in comparison to the others. [[spoiler:A disgruntled Aikawa.com employee's accusations of incest and [[WifeHusbandry grooming]] are picked up by the media, and the story snowballs until the company's stock price plummets, and the friends and family of Kunihiko and the protagonist are caught in the flames as well. And then the protagonist starts suspecting she may be pregnant...]]
40	* DoorstopBaby: In Takao's second sequel, an infant is left at the door of his law firm, and he and the protagonist end up taking care of the baby while they try to locate the parents and find out why he was abandoned.
41	* DrowningMySorrows: Takao's response to the announcement that Haruka and the protagonist are dating. He proceeds to get completely hammered, to the point where he doesn't noice when Kunihiko starts serving him water. This eventually turns into a running gag in Haruka's routes and side stories: The sight of the protagonist and Haruka being all couple-y causes Takao to reach for a drink - which Kunihiko and Ren have preemptively replaced with water.
42	* FakeRelationship: The game's basic premise. All of the guys have some reason or other for needing the protagonist to pose as their fiancee or wife. Just how serious the need is and how long the deception is intended to last varies from route to route.
43	** ''White Lies & Sweet Nothings'' retains the theme but switches the particulars - it's the protagonist who needs a faux husband in order to get her dream job, requiring her to rope one of several men of her acquaintance into playing the part.
44	** The ''PARTY'' Version actually has the protagonist needing a fake husband for her own reasons in addition to the original reasons: she had given up everything in anticipation of her future marriage, but her fiancé broke up with her just before she was about to introduce him to her parents. She gets stressed out over having to explain she’s suddenly now unemployed, homeless, and single, which is not helped by how excited they are. Luckily, the love interest swoops in to cover for her, and then they propose they keep up the lie and live together for three months, which should be enough time for her to find a new job and home.
45	* FerrisWheelDateMoment: In Yamato's route of the "Your 1st Valentine's Day" side story, he takes the protagonist on an amusement park date for Valentine's Day, ending with a Ferris Wheel make-out session.
46	* HostessClub: During Yamato's route of the ChristmasEpisode, several of Yamato's students are discovered to be working for a shady-looking "store" which is implied to be, if not a hostess club, then something very similar (in the general sense of persuading men to spend money by letting them get cozy with attractive female employees). Since Yamato is a high school teacher and his students are thus underage, he understandably feels the need to intervene.
47	* InformedAttribute: The quirks that the game tries to assign to the guys don't always match up to how they're actually written.
48	** Takao is often accused of being a CovertPervert, both in-game and in things like a bonus CG that labels him "Mr. Muttsuri" (from a Japanese slang word that means roughly the same thing as the trope). His relatively few suggestive moments would look downright tame even if Saeki weren't around to make everyone else look like choirboys by comparison.
49	** Yuta is designated the resident CrazyJealousGuy. He does have moments of jealousy, but nothing particularly remarkable considering that most Voltage guys tend to get a bit possessive sooner or later.
50	** Kyoichi purportedly has NoSenseOfDirection, but he's never actually shown getting lost.
51	* ItsACostumePartyISwear: A variant occurs in Kyoichi's route when his cousin's fiancee calls the protagonist to invite her to a party which she claims is a pot-luck get-together. It's actually the birthday party of Kyoichi's very wealthy grandfather and a much classier affair than the protagonist was led to believe, and it's clear that the cousin's fiancee intentionally set the protagonist up to be looked down on by the rest of Kyoichi's family for showing up with a humble homemade dish and no other gift.
52	* LaserGuidedKarma: Kyoichi's aunt and cousin and his cousin's fiancee are uniformly horrible to him and to the protagonist over the issue of the Kunichiro inheritance, especially when his aunt states up-front that [[spoiler:she's planning on demolishing Kyoichi's childhood home purely out of spite towards his mother]]. When his aunt finds out that he and the protagonist are only pretending to be married, she immediately and triumphantly informs his grandfather... who, after hearing Kyoichi's reasons and the protagonist's defense of him, decides to retract the "first to marry" inheritance rule that started the whole mess. At which point the cousin's fiancee promptly dumps him, since she was only interested in the inheritance herself.
53	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In the prologue, Kunihiko blithely informs the protagonist that Yuta's problem isn't that serious and she doesn't need to worry about helping him. At the time of the game's initial release, Yuta's route was not available, making it impossible for the protagonist to choose him.
54	* LeaveTheTwoLovebirdsAlone: In Takao's first sequel, when the protagonist is temporarily staying at Long Island, Kunihiko gives her and Takao an excuse for some time alone by suggesting that Takao help the protagonist change a light bulb in her room. It goes over Takao's head at first, but he catches on eventually.
55	* LoveAtFirstSight: In Takao's route, Takao's youngest brother is very put out when the protagonist is officially introduced as Takao's fiancee, as he'd run into her briefly beforehand and decided on the spot that they were destined to be together. [[spoiler:He gets over it eventually, after Takao makes it clear that he has no intention of giving her up.]]
56	* MistakenForCheating: For a couple of hours in Takao's Wedding Bells Sequel, the combination of a birthday note signed "Aoi" and the feeling that Takao is keeping some kind of secret from her causes the protagonist to worry that he's having an affair. It's cleared up rather quickly, however: while Takao ''is'' keeping a secret, it has nothing to do with another relationship, and "Aoi" is just a (male) co-worker.
57	* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: The Maruyama clan is just ''thrilled'' that Takao's found himself such a kind, beautiful, wonderful fiancee. Meanwhile, Takao and the protagonist are cringing internally the whole time.
58	* OnOneCondition: Kyoichi needs the protagonist to pose as his wife because his wealthy grandfather has stipulated that the first of his grandchildren to get married will inherit the entire Kunichiro estate. [[spoiler:He retracts the requirement at the end of the route, at Kyoichi's request, and admits that it was a silly requirement that only caused problems for everyone.]]
59	* ParentalMarriageVeto:
60	** Invoked on Haruka's route - he chooses the protagonist as his sham fiancee expecting his parents to object to her middle-class origins, which will give them an excuse to break the "engagement" once it's served its purpose. [[spoiler:It's subsequently subverted when the protagonist learns that Haruka's mother came from an ordinary family herself and feels a kinship with the protagonist because of it.]]
61	** The protagonist's parents occasionally have reservations about her choice of partner, particularly her father, who wasn't terribly happy about his [[DaddysGirl daughter]] moving to Tokyo in the first place. Of the love interests they have met so far, only Yamato and Takao have met with immediate approval.
62	* PullTheThread: In Takao's route, [[spoiler:his grandmother figures out pretty quickly that he and the protagonist are faking their engagement for her benefit, and decides to play along by booking a wedding venue for them and buying the protagonist a wedding dress. Only after they've actually held a wedding ceremony does she reveal that she knew all along. Rather than being upset, however, she's touched that they'd go so far to make her happy, and indicates that she strung them along as far as she did mostly in the hopes that they'd realize how good for one another they are and fall in love for real. Which is of course exactly what has happened.]]
63	* RealMenWearPink: Takao is frequently compared to a housewife for the amount of thought and attention he puts into housekeeping, such as making homemade cleaning supplies and keeping separate sponges for washing dishes versus pots and pans. The other guys tease him about it a little, but he's never depicted as any less masculine because of the habit, and the heroine occasionally has fluttery moments over Takao's strength and manliness. Justified, he's the eldest son coming from a family with many children. Yamato is also very proficient in housekeeping, because he and his mother were on their own.
64	* RomanticRunnerUp: Yamato falls rather obviously in love with the protagonist during Kunihiko's route.
65	* RunningGag: The LI crew suggesting ways Long Island could be improved to draw in the crowds, and Kunihiko reiterating that he doesn't ''want'' more customers.
66	* SleepCute: In Takao's route, the protagonist goes out shopping and comes back to find Takao and Ryu asleep together. She decides to join them and falls asleep with her head on Takao's arm.
67	* SmokingIsGlamorous: In his first sequel, Takao demonstrates this trope to Yuta, who needs to learn to handle a cigarette for a role he's playing. The other guys and the protagonist comment on how Takao makes smoking look ''tres'' classy. [[spoiler:The scene actually exists for the purpose of foreshadowing a CharacterTic of the sequel's antagonist.]]
68	* SnowballLie:
69	** In Takao's route, his intention is to have the protagonist pose as his fiancee only long enough to introduce her as such to his grandmother. He doesn't manage to let the rest of his family in on the charade, however, and when his grandmother's health takes an unexpected turn for the better, the two of them find themselves cornered into their quickly-escalating lie.
70	** Haruka does his best to defy the trope by choosing the protagonist to pose as his fiancee on the basis that her lower social standing will prevent his parents from getting to like her so much that they'd end up cornered into their fake engagement. [[spoiler:It doesn't exactly work.]]
71	* TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: In Takao's route of the ChristmasEpisode, Takao and the protagonist's plans for a romantic Christmas evening at home together are derailed when Takao's younger brother Tatsuki shows up unexpectedly, complaining that he's been dumped by his girlfriend. Tatsuki proceeds to invite himself to dinner and refuses to leave, to Takao's mounting frustration.
72	* TooLongDidntDub: A few Japanese terms go untranslated, such as Yamato's favorite [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warabimochi warabi mochi]], and references in Haruka's route to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenzan kenzan]] used for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikebana ikebana]] and a shishi-odoshi at the Utsunomiya house.
73	* TrashOfTheTitans: Saeki's apartment is a ''disaster''. The protagonist insists on cleaning up when she moves in with him, but when she can't keep up on cleaning for a little while, the mess soon reasserts itself.
74	* TrueCompanions: The main cast members are a very close-knit circle of friends. The heroine is soon adopted into the group as well.
75	* UptownGirl: Gender-inverted, but subverted in Haruka's route. Despite early indications that Haruka's parents disapprove of the protagonist because of her lower social class, it never actually becomes an issue. [[spoiler:In fact, Haruka's mother came from a normal family herself.]] Also gender-inverted in Ren's route, [[spoiler:as he's the crown prince of a little European country.]]
76	* ValentinesDayEpisodes: The "Your 1st Valentine's Day" side story.
77	* WeddingsInJapan:
78	** Takao's route ends up involving an actual wedding ceremony, Western style, although neither of the participants consider it anything other than a sham performance.
79	** The side story "A Wedding Kiss with Yamato" involves Yamato and the protagonist getting roped into participating in a "demonstration wedding" - also Western style - as publicity for a wedding planner.
80	** The Wedding Bells sequels show the protagonist's actual wedding with each of the respective guys.

Context VisualNovel / MyForgedWedding