Kaichu - The Kaiju Dating Sim is, as the subtitle indicates, a visual novel in which you play as a Kaiju that dates other Kaiju, developed by Squiddershins and published by Top Hat Studios, Inc..
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign (viewable here
), a demo was released during the 2022 Steam Next Fest, with the full visual novel officially releasing on September 7, 2022.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: The playable Kaiju, Gigachu, is a pink, heart-themed Godzilla Expy whose default pronouns are "chu/chu"; the player can change the pronouns to be he/him, she/her, they/them, xie/xer, and a variety of other gender identities without altering their appearance in any way.
- Better as Friends: One of the bad endings you get if you fill the failure gauge during act 2.
- Big Bad: Major Panjandrum is the game's main antagonist, attempting to break up Gigachu and their partner.
- Chastity Couple: Megaricus has a force field between her and Gigachu at the end of a date. It's implied this is because she's afraid her spores would poison Gigachu.
- Collateral Damage: Gigachu can trample trees, level massive sand dunes, and demolish the Egyptian pyramids as they run across the world map.
- Expy: Every Kaiju is based on a famous cinematic monster; Mossra is a plant version of Mothra, Seadora is a seahorse version of Ghidorah, Mechachu is based on Mechagodzilla, etc.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Whenever Gigachu is asked to choose between one of three options, their potential replies are close-ups of their hands with one, two, or three of their four claws held up.
- The Four Loves: One of the traits described in the Kaijus' profiles is which ones of these loves fits them the most.
- Hero of Another Story: During act 2, a "World Breaking News!" segment will show one of the other five Kaiju dating a Kaiju that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game. For instance, in Turpio's route, the segment will show Garudan with Sarth, a snake Kaiju.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Mechachu CAN'T be won. Eventually, the questions will always offer nothing but wrong answers.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: A Kaiju "date" doesn't involve direct combat, but Gigachu and their partner do show affection by working together to utterly demolish whichever famous landmark their date is set at.
- Interspecies Romance: Gigachu's an ambiguous dinosaur species, which none of the dateable monsters are. Instead there's a giant three-headed seahorse, a giant bird, a turtle/scorpion hybrid, a tree/moth, an anthropomorphic volcano and an anthropomorphic colony of fungus.
- Kaiju: With the exception of the two news anchors narrating the dates and the military leader Major Panjandrum, every single character is a giant monster of some kind.
- Lore Codex: You can access profiles of the six Kaiju anytime. At first, they only show their likes and dislikes, but by progressing in the route of a specific Kaiju, you unlock more data: what they look for in a mate, how they express their love, their main virtue, the Greek definition of love they fit the most, and the greatest challenge Gigachu will have to face to make the relation work.
- Monumental Damage: Every date happens at a famous landmark, which the kaiju destroy if they have a good time.
- Multiple Endings: There is a different ending for each of the six Kaiju that can be courted, as well as two different bad endings for failing to court any of them.
- Plant Person: Mossra is a mossy moth with wings made out of leaves, and Megaricus is a feminine-presenting, non-binary fungus person.
- Portmanteau Couple Name: In-Universe, the newscasters will refer to Gigachu and their date this way if the relationship is going well, such as "Mosschu" for partnering with Mossra.
- The Power of Love: How Mechachu is defeated is, of course, by the couple affirming their love and destroying him with a Care-Bear Stare of laser hearts.
- Removable Shell: Turpio's is shown to be in their ending, obviously meant to show them being comfortable enough in their relationship to lower their guard.
- Robot Me: Once Gigachu's relationship with another Kaiju progresses far enough, Major Panjandrum starts piloting a giant mech called Mechachu to run interference and try to break them up before they break any more famous landmarks during their courtship rituals.
- Sick Episode: In Garudan's route, the army's plan to break him and Gigachu up at the end of act 2 is to infect him with bird flu near the end of his playthrough. For the rest of the route, he's visibly sick, does a weak thumbs-up instead of flexing when you give a great answer, and doesn't help trash the landmarks.
- Single Parents Are Undesirable: The end of the Mossra route reveals that Mossra has already laid eggs, leading to a brief break-up while Gigachu seeks out the other Kaiju for advice on whether they can accept the responsibilities of parenthood and that Mossra will always love her brood more than Gigachu. Ultimately, however, Gigachu decides that Mossra is still desirable, and helps rescue Mossra's eggs after Mechachu captures them.
- This Just In!: Between each date is a "World Breaking News!" segment in which the two news anchors that narrate Gigachu's dates provide some additional insight on their date partner and their destructive courtship rituals.
- The Unintelligible: Gigachu and the other Kaiju cannot speak the language of humans, but the news anchors are able to translate all communication successfully, and Gigachu can respond to questions with a positive, neutral, or negative expression, or by holding up their claws.
