"I'll be your leg!"
"Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death..."
— Atri, paraphrasing Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
ATRI -My Dear Moments- is a Visual Novel released by Frontwing of Grisaia fame, as well as one of the first releases of Aniplex's software publishing subsection, ANIPLEX.EXE.
In a distant future where sudden, worldwide sea rises flooded most of the land and destroyed civilization as we know it, Ikaruga Natsuki lives a hard life: even after losing one of his legs in a tragic accident when he was a child, he still feels agonizing pain coursing through the missing limb every night... only barely mititagted thanks a beaten-up, rusty prosthetic leg. After the death of her grandmother, the last family member he still had connections with, a debt collector approaches Natsuki - telling him he could pay off the debts by selling a precious, valuable item seemingly hidden inside his grandmother's sunken storehouse. Here, diving inside his submarine and into the depths of the flooded city, he meets someone who will change his life forever: A cute android girl named Atri...
The visual novel was released in 2020 on PC, with a worldwide simultaneous release boasting an English translation right out of the gate. You can get it on Steam
or DLSite, as well as a free demo containing the entirety of Chapter 1 (Or roughly a third of the game). ATRI was also released on Nintendo Switch in late 2021 (Albeit only on the Japanese eShop, though the English translation is available on all versions regardless of region.)
On September 24, 2022, Aniplex announced an anime adaptation of the visual novel was in production under TROYCA.
ATRI -My Dear Moments provides high-performance examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Averted with Catherine, who helps the kids on multiple occasions. Played horrifically straight with a nameless teacher who not only forced Atri's original master Shiina to continue going to school even after she was violently bullied, but even had the gall to claim she was the one causing problems and made absolutely no effort to put a stop to any of it. Is it any wonder Atri reacted the way she did?
- After the End: The base setting: The rising seas made most the land inhabitable, grinding technological progress to a halt.
- Ambiguously Bi: Minamo mentions several times that she loves Natsuki and Atri, though considering how love is discussed in the game she might have meant that platonically for the latter.
- Anti-Frustration Features: After you get one of the endings, the game gives you the option to skip straight to the choices, and since there are only three choices throughout the whole game, you don't start a whole new playthrough just to get the other endings, cutting down on time.
- Bookends:
- The first time we see Natsuki waking up, a program on the radio mentions a rocket about to be launched into space. At the very end of the good ending, Natsuki and the rest of the class witness this exact rocket lifting off.
- The page quote is also repeated by Natsuki as the final words before the credits roll, with a twist:Natsuki: Time is a cruel thief. But it cannot steal this moment.
- Catchphrase: Atri: "I am, after all, extremely high performance."
- Dark and Troubled Past: Chapter 3 reveals that Atri's real master was Natsuki's mother, Shiina, who wanted Atri to be her personal companion, but a combination of being violently bullied at school and being put off by Atri's lack of emotional expression made her resort to verbally abusing and beating Atri. The bullying escalated to the point where Atri found out that the bullies were trying to make Shiina jump off the school roof and kill herself. Atri was so enraged that she brutally maimed one of the kids in an attempt to protect her. But Shiina was horrified by her actions and disowned her on the spot. Atri was sent to be scrapped, but she escaped and stayed on the run for decades, searching for Shiina and watching over Natsuki later on.
- Distant Finale: The true ending happens 60 years after the events of the main game, showing the last day of a deathbed-ridden Natsuki as he connects his mind into Eden: He's now married to Minamo and has another, although much less expressive Humanoid named Kokoro. Over the decades, technology has apparently improved so much that even robots like Atri are considered
relatively rudimentary! - Emotionless Girl: Atri when she was ordered not to display emotions when alone with Natsuki and when she loses all her memories in the bad end.
- Foreshadowing:
- Atri deduces, jokingly with Natsuki she must be a military robot since she's bad at household chores and cooking, foreshadowing her unexpected incredible strength at ripping off Yasuda's enhanced cybernetic arm and beating him to a pulp
- Natsuki's recurring nightmare of his leg being crushed in the collapsing nightmare is soothed when he reaches out at night only for Atri to grasp his arm, later revealed she had saved him then.
- Funbag Airbag: At one point, Catherine and the kids are partaking in swimming lessons at school, and Natsuki slips and falls, getting a face full of Minamo's boobs, much to both parties' embarrassment.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: Atri was able to defy the three laws of robotics and direct order to stay away from school in order to rescue the hostages there.
- Her Days Are Numbered : Atri knew that she would shut down and lose all her memories on Aug 31, after a long run of 30 years.
- Kids Are Cruel: Natsuki's mother, Shiina, was often violently bullied by other kids at school, coming home with bruises almost every day. Shiina herself wasn't above verbally abusing and beating Atri, using her as an outlet for her own anger. Things escalated to a point where the bullies tried to make Shiina kill herself by jumping off the roof.
- Lethal Chef: Atri, seemingly not knowing how bad she was at cooking was this at first until she learned from Minamo and improved tremendously.
- Multiple Endings: ATRI has three endings: one good and one bad, depending on choices you make in chapter 2 and 3, and a Golden Ending once both are reached.
- My Greatest Failure: Atri learns from Natsuki that Shiina, her former master and Natsuki's mother, came to regret how she abandoned Atri and made no effort to stand up for her after Atri attacked a student who was bullying Shiina and had hoped to apologize to her should they ever meet again. Sadly, her death meant that would never come to pass.
- Noodle Incident: It's revealed that Atri's model of robot was completely recalled after an incident 31 years ago, where a robot of that model broke into an elementary school and attacked a student. Atri turns out to have been the robot behind the incident, though there turns out to have been more to it than anyone realized, as Natsuki learns later.
- Rage Breaking Point When Atri saw that her master Shiina was being pressured into jumping off the school roof to kill herself, this was enough to make her go berserk, override her programming, and attack one of the children who was bullying her.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Atri with and without emotions.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Atri
- Robot Girl: Atri, of course! As well as Kokoro, in the true ending.
- School Bullying Is Harmless: Completely averted with Atri's original master and Natsuki's mother, Shiina. All throughout her early school days, she would come home covered in bruises and took all of her anger and frustration about it out on Atri. When Atri sees how far the bullies were willing to go to make Shiina's life a living hell, it was enough to make her override her programming and attack one of the kids in a rage in an attempt to protect her.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Mostly averted. Atri is meant to be an all-purpose Humanoid with no particular traits, and as such is about as capable as a regular human (Massive strength and high resistance to pain notwithstanding). Still, she's physically able to maim or even murder a human being with nothing but her bare hands.
- Undying Loyalty: To her original master Shiina, Natsuki's mother, where even after she was hunted down she spent over a decade searching for her, found her and watched over both her and Natsuki for years from the shadows.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Shiina called Atri a monster for trying to protect her from bullies who were trying to make her commit suicide. Then again, it's understandable that she'd be horrified when Atri's method of trying to protect her is brutally beating the kid into a near bloody paste. Shiina does come to regret her past actions when she grew up, and she told Natsuki she had planned to apologize to Atri if they ever met again, but Shiina's death prevented her from doing so.
- Would Hurt a Child: 31 years before the story begins, Atri once brutally attacked a child who was bullying her original master Shiina. This incident was enough to incite a total recall of her Humanoid model.
- You Monster!: When Atri brutally attacked one of the kids who was harassing her original master Shiina, Shiina herself is so appalled by what Atri did that she calls her a monster.
