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May this summer be a bright one.

Shiny Days is a spinoff of the (in)famous Visual Novel School Days in which most of the yandere murder fun has been traded for backstabbing shenanigans and a focus on subheroine Setsuna. At the beginning of the story, Sekai catches a cold that later turns out to be the mumps. She forces Setsuna to take over her waitress job until she recovers, a prospect that Setsuna dreads. However, it's not all bad. Though Sekai wasn't serious about it, it turns out that her workplace is quite close to where Setsuna's crush lives and after a horrible first day, she meets him on the beach, after which she begins meeting him every day after work.

The story is told both from the perspective of Setsuna and Makoto, but the latter is the one who makes all the plot decisions on how the story will play out. As such, while the story builds up to dating Setsuna, it's also possible to take numerous different branches of the story, including possible scenes with both main heroines of School Days, subheroine Otome, numerous side characters and even the mothers of Setsuna, Sekai and Kotonoha.

Finally, Shiny Days is itself built on the earlier release Summer Days and includes a bonus route focusing on the new heroine Inori. In this story route, while you are not forced to end up with Inori, you actually cannot end up with main heroine Setsuna.

Shiny Days was released in English by JAST in September of 2015 with certain questionable content removed, though there is a restoration patch for it.

Only examples from the JAST version with questionable content removed are allowed


This visual novel provides examples of:

  • Adorably Precocious Child: Kokoro insists that she's totally an adult, despite looking about eight years old, referring to herself in the third person, and falling asleep watching movies intended for adults.
  • All Take and No Give: Setsuna and Sekai consider each other friends, but judging by the way they behave, Sekai mostly treats Setsuna as a lackey. She orders her to do things she doesn't want to, and then takes anything she wants from Setsuna, such as boyfriends, with barely a second thought.
  • All Men Are Perverts: Noan argues that any guy Makoto's age is easily seduced and can be led around by the nose. With the sole exception of herself, she's basically right.
  • All of the Other Reindeer:
    • Setsuna has a way of attracting bullies. Eventually, though, her passively hostile co-worker, Noan, becomes a Cool Big Sis figure instead.
    • Kotonoha is bullied by Otome's group, but at the end of route A, the latter promises to stop if she agrees to help out Inori.
  • Alternate Timeline: Despite the narrative taking place during the summer before School Days, it still takes place in one to avoid Continuity Snarl with its Multiple Endings.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Kotonoha finds her little sister rather irritating at times, even though Kokoro does mean well.
  • Animation Age Ghetto: Discussed in-universe by Makoto and Kokoro when they're deciding which movie to watch at the cinema; she doesn't want to watch an animated movie because she thinks it'll make her appear childish, and she wants to be seen as more adult. You can then have Makoto point out that he likes cartoons and that they aren't just for kids.
  • Arranged Marriage: Inori and Makoto are engaged. See Childhood Marriage Promise below.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: In one ending, Karen tricks Makoto into thinking Setsuna doesn't like him, copies the selfless confession that Karen herself doesn't actually believe, seduces him when he's down, and gets Otome involved in her scheme. As a reward for all their backstabbing, theft, and relationship sabotage, they get what they want.
  • The Beard: In one ending, Makoto, without thinking, claims that Karen is his girlfriend. As soon as Setsuna leaves, Karen confesses to him because she thinks that's what he just did, so now he has to go out with her for real or look like a complete ass.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
    • Noan looks polite and smiles a lot, but she quickly dumps troublesome customers onto Setsuna, and then makes her clean out front in the stripperiffic waitress uniform. Oruha is rather irritable, but it doesn't really occur to her to do those kinds of things.
    • Karen seems cute, but she's actually selfish, possessive, and prone to using lies to hurt others and advance herself. In one ending, she even goes out of her way to rub Setsuna's nose with the fact that she manipulated events so Makoto would date her.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Kokoro tends to be obnoxiously demanding, but she's cute and means well so people overlook it.
  • Breakout Character: Shiny Days is focused primarily on Setsuna, though there are plenty of endings that don't involve her at all.
  • Brick Joke: During the scene that Otome mistakes Setsuna for being Psycho Lesbian, the imagination consists of her grabing Inori's boobs while the latter says "Setsuna-oneesama". The fun part? Setsuna is actually her half-sister.
    • In the same scene Otome also mistakenly believes Setsuna is an S&M queen. She actually is one, complete with dominatrix costume and whip, which she brings out to to punish Makoto for having his way with Sekai and Youko with her mother's help, in one of the bad endings.
  • Brother–Sister Incest: If you know the School Days family tree, you know that a large chunk of Makoto's love interests are actually close relatives.
  • The Cameo: For whatever reason, Super Sonico of nitro+ appears as a waitress at Radish, and she has a farewell party that Inori "sings" at.
  • Cannot Spit It Out
    • People talking wouldn't solve all the problems that come up in the story, but if it would, they usually don't. If Setsuna were to tell Kotonoha that she's dating Makoto, for example, then that would avoid a lot of relationship issues, given that Kotonoha isn't as terrible as Sekai, if for no other reason than because of how shy she is.
    • A few years ago Makoto wanted to ask Yamagata out but ended up thinking she was going out with someone else, so he gave up. If she had just cleared up the misunderstanding they probably would have started going out. In the present, though, even setting aside Otome sabotaging her she doesn't have a chance anymore, as shown in one ending.
    • The driving conflict in the last chapter is that Makoto believes Setsuna has been in a secret relationship with Shun. She's not; she's close to Shun because he's her father. Whether Makoto figures out the truth and how he reacts to it is one of the biggest factors for which ending is achieved.
  • Cheeky Mouth: Everyone apparently has mouths on the sides of their faces.
  • Chick Magnet: Most guys dislike Makoto because all the girls seem to end up crushing on him. There's Setsuna, Sekai, Inori, Kotonoha, Yamagata, Reisei in middle school, Otome, Karen, and so on. More awkwardly, Youko's mom doesn't seem against the idea when the waitresses think he has a crush on her.
  • Childhood Marriage Promise: When they were kids, Makoto proposed to Inori because he figured that together they could rule the world.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl
    • Sekai baits Setsuna into taking over her shift while she's sick by bringing up Makoto. When Setsuna admits she does like him, however, Sekai frantically tries to make her stay away from him and tries to take her job back so she can't see him anymore.
    • The Katou sisters hate it when other girls get close to Makoto. The Nijou twins are even forbidden by Karen from talking to him unless she's there! Which might be prudent on her part, since the one time she isn't there they have a threesome.
  • Clueless Chick-Magnet: Makoto is DENSE.
    • Even when Inori starts talking about how he proposed to her when he was younger and how she doesn't want to just be seen as his best friend, he still doesn't entirely get it. She just thinks that he turned her down gently. It turns out that no, he still hasn't the faintest idea what she meant.
    • Setsuna makes fun of his density rather often, which he takes as a joke.
    • However, Kokoro is so blatant that even Makoto can tell after she kisses him. It makes him rather uncomfortable.
  • Cool Big Sis: Noan starts out bullying Setsuna, but somewhere along the line she starts taking care of her and giving her advice instead.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Makoto gets super jealous of Shun simply because his girlfriend actually talks to other guys on occasion. Of course he can't just ask her or anything, oh no, nor listen to her when she tries to explain. He believes instead that his girlfriend is cheating on him with someone old enough to be her father. Granted, Shun is in his early-to-mid-thirties at most, and then there's Karen's speculation about Futaba's sexual relationship with Shun, later confirmed to be true, so his suspicions do have a little bit of a foundation in the truth.
  • Cringe Comedy: It's possible to end up in some very awkward situations, such as Makoto seducing Setsuna's mom, having them sleep together in her room while she's at Sekai's, only for Setsuna to come home early, requiring her mom to frantically try to keep her from noticing Makoto, who has no idea that he's at Setsuna's house.
  • The Cutie:
    • Kokoro is a prototypical innocent little kid and is very cute as a result, though she's also something of a nosy brat.
    • Setsuna's cuteness also grows increasingly evident throughout the story, especially if you pick the right dialogue options. Unfortunately, the summer is littered with minefields for her so it's quite easy for her to end up heartbroken, You Bastard!.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: Setsuna points out that Sekai praising herself for not breaking plates one day is not exactly a great indication of her value as an employee.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Setsuna is both sarcastic and very inexpressive. She's capable of cutting down Makoto bit by bit as he flounders about trying to look cool.
  • Demoted to Extra: Sekai and Kotonoha, the main heroines of School Days, have a very small role in Shiny Days. Sekai gets sick and makes Setsuna take over her waitressing job while Kotonoha has no significant ties to Makoto or anyone else yet. As a result, even Sekai's mother and Kotonoha's little sister actually play larger roles.
  • Deuteragonist: Most of the story comes from Setsuna's perspective, but sizable chunks are also told from Makoto's, especially as time goes on. Also, the decisions are all made by Makoto, so it can be difficult to say which one is the actual protagonist.
  • Dialogue Tree: It is a visual novel, after all.
  • Emotionless Girl: Setsuna's apparent mood never seems to change much, and she speaks very quietly.
  • Entitled to Have You: Sekai feels that Setsuna stole Makoto from her, even though she never made a move herself and them hooking up was only a result of her own selfishness. In one ending, she lies to both Makoto and Setsuna to make them break up and then takes advantage of him herself.
  • Everyone Has Standards: When it's absolutely clear to Karen that she's not going to get Makoto even by being a huge sabotaging jerk, she admits that she stole Setsuna's confession and gives up. She might be super selfish, but she doesn't need to drag everyone else down with her.
  • Executive Meddling: Subverted In-Universe. Youko wants to have a large, complicated menu with certain items paired together and a skimpy uniform, but management wants to change things back to the usual. Manami points out that the only waitress who has managed to memorize the menu and manual is Setsuna, who is definitely an exception, and that the uniform attracts sleazy customers, meaning she fully intends to support the management.
  • Extreme Doormat:
    • Setsuna tends to get pushed around by anyone she's with in the early parts of the story. Later, she's earned the respect of the Radish waitresses and Sekai basically disappears from the plot, so we see more of her independent side.
    • Yamagata basically exists to get bossed around and prevented from getting anywhere close to Makoto.
  • Fille Fatale: Kokoro tries to be this to Makoto, but isn't as knowledgeable about romance or sex as she thinks she is... and finds herself horribly out of her element when Makoto is given the option to reciprocate. This results in Kokoro panicking and knocking him out before things go too far.
  • Forbidden Fruit: Take tells Makoto to never go to Radish — so the moment Take leaves, he heads right over. This is how he first meets Setsuna.
  • Friendly Rivalry: During several paths, Yamagata and Setsuna realize they both like Makoto and apparently decide to consider it a friendly competition. Yamagata's wording implies that while she's too timid to do anything about it, she really hates Otome.
  • Friendship Moment: After being consistently selfish and demanding, Inori steps in to defend Setsuna from annoying customers. Actually hitting them was, you know, probably not the best idea but it all worked out in the end.
  • Friends with Benefits
    • In one ending, Makoto sleeps with Ai for awhile while saving up money to go visit Setsuna in Paris. She assumed they were dating, he assumed she knew they weren't.
    • In others, he says his relation with Youko is just because he likes sex. This sets up Mai and Manami endings as well as a potentially polygamous relationship with both and Setsuna after he reconciles with her.
  • Genki Girl: Both Sekai and Niki are rather energetic girls. Well, Sekai would be if she didn't have the mumps anyway.
  • Girlfriend in Canada: When Makoto tries to pretend he has a girlfriend the best lie he can come up with is that she goes to another school. Of course, Karen appears at that moment to bail him out on accident through sheer fluke, which gives him a girlfriend that really does go to another school.
  • Gold Digger: All Noan really cares about in a relationship is money. Which is why she immediately dumps her boyfriend to seduce Makoto when she hears that he's the possible successor to a large hospital in the area and that Setsuna has no intention of making a move on him herself.
  • Green-Eyed Monster:
    • Otome resents Kotonoha for being so popular with boys.
    • Jealousy is also what motivates Noan to be hostile to Setsuna: Setsuna sometimes goes into the office reserved for the manager, causing Noan to mistakenly think Setsuna is receiving special treatment. Actually, it's because Setsuna is still trying to clear up the incident with Inori.
  • Guide Dang It!: There are dozens of endings and many counterintuitive choices. Good luck finding the one you want.
  • Harem Nanny: In one route branching, Manami narrowly avoids becoming a haremette and instead watches from the sidelines as Youko and Mai squabble over a boy that both of their daughters also have a crush on.
  • Headbutting Heroes: Kotonoha and Otome are both good people, but they hate each other. Otome hates Kotonoha for being so popular, especially with the likes of Makoto, which causes her to bully Kotonoha. Actually, Otome doesn't get along well with a lot of the cast since she's incredibly possessive of someone she won't even admit she likes.
  • Heavy Sleeper: Most of Kotonoha's scenes at least begin with her refusing to get out of bed at increasingly later points in the day.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Ryuuji and Tohma, the two lecherous surfers that cause trouble at Radish, reforms in Inori Route after she beat the shit out of them for harassing Setsuna.
  • Heroic Bastard: A large part of why Setsuna doesn't like Shun is because he won't legally recognize her. The other part is that his attempts to be fatherly come off as insincere when he won't quit sleeping with everything that moves, despite his promises.
  • Hidden Depths: In this game, we learn that Makoto sometimes spends his free time fishing, a hobby that didn't come up in School Days. He's really good at it, too; at one point, he catches enough fish for him, his sister Itaru, and his mother to eat a fish dinner.
  • Hikikomori: Kotonoha is accused of being one since she just spends the whole summer inside unless almost literally dragged outside, but she doesn't display any particular anxiety about it.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Sekai pushing her work off on Setsuna results in Setsuna talking to Makoto more often and starting to go out with him. If she had at least not faked sick she might have been able to stop it too.
  • Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Inori and her backup singers when they perform at Sonico's farewell party.
  • Hopeless Suitor
    • Otome tells Karen that Makoto will probably never look at her as a girl and while her ulterior motive is obvious, she's basically right. However, when he uses her as The Beard very briefly without thinking she takes it as a confession and returns it. Makoto can't bring himself to tell the truth, so it ends up happening for real. After, he sits waiting for Setsuna to show up at the beach again since he was interested in her, but she stops coming. She does get some better endings, but they involve manipulating Makoto when he's at an emotional low and lying to him.
    • Even more so, Yamagata basically exists in order to fail. She doesn't have an ending. At best, you get one sex scene where it's made very clear that no matter what she thinks, Makoto considers them Friends with Benefits before flying off to Paris to reunite with Setsuna.
  • Hot for Teacher: Kokoro's friend Uzuki is going out with her teacher. She's about thirteen. Pretty sure there's a song about this relationship.
  • Hypocrite: Sekai actually has the nerve to get mad at Youko for 'stealing' Makoto from her. Despite the super bitchy stunt she just pulled on Setsuna.
  • Informed Attribute
    • Apparently, Makoto is the coolest guy in school... somehow.
    • Sekai has the mumps. Honest. Just check out her horrible swelling that is totally there and not cut out because it would make her look less cute.
  • Innocently Insensitive
    • Inori is a manipulative little leech, but she doesn't mean to be so obnoxious. She hasn't the slightest idea why Setsuna doesn't like her.
    • Kokoro is rather childish and doesn't understand that just because she thinks Makoto is great that he'd go out with her sister. She also can't tell that Setsuna likes Makoto and causes problems along that front as well.
  • Insane Troll Logic: In the middle of a fight over whose family is most important, Makoto admitted defeat and then proposed to Inori, arguing that together they would rule the world AND his father's hospital.
  • Irony: Of the dramatic sort. After Makoto starts sleeping with Youko, she and Mai discuss their daughters' love lives. Youko wishes that Sekai would get a boyfriend already and wonders about that nice boy who helped Setsuna out at the beginning of the year. You know, the guy she just seduced.
  • It's All About Me: Sekai is never concerned about what Setsuna wants to say. She also feels entitled to steal her boyfriend and doesn't feel at all guilty about constantly lying to her. The former comes back to bite her when she ignores Setsuna trying to tell her she's dating Makoto until it's too late. In one ending, after tricking Makoto and Setsuna into breaking up, she also has the nerve to accuse Youko of stealing him from her.
  • Jerkass: An unfortunately high percentage of the people around Makoto's age are complete assclowns.
    • Sekai will steal Setsuna's boyfriend without a trace of guilt, going so far as blatant relationship sabotage. She also spends most of the story lying to her and pushing work off on her so she can have more fun by herself, despite knowing that Setsuna hates the service industry and is probably bad at it.
    • Karen and Otome will steal people's phones, conscript them into losing their summer, ban them from talking to Makoto and lying to Makoto himself so they can steal him away from any potential rivals.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: While Manami's criticisms of Setsuna are overly harsh, it's really not that much to expect your waitress to be familiar with the menu and how good things on it are. Notably, Setsuna agrees with her and works to remedy her failings, unlike Oruha and Noan.
    • Sekai calls out to Setsuna for not telling Makoto that Shun is her father which can prevent the problem of Makoto's jealousy in the first place.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kotonoha's mother is a demanding and rather rude customer. However, she's actually just testing the restaurant on behalf of the store's HQ. When Inori chews her out she openly says it was probably an appropriate reaction to seeing her friend being harassed. In the other main route, she's amazed that Setsuna managed to memorize the entire manual and menu, which she believed at that point to be impossible. It's simply too complicated for an ordinary restaurant like Radish.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: In what could be considered the main route, Sekai first pushing a job onto Setsuna she doesn't want and then continuing to fake her illness at her expense after she recovers results in Setsuna spending a lot of time with Makoto and starting to go out with him. Woops! Setsuna feels bad about it when she realizes Sekai also liked him, but Sekai kind of had it coming.
  • Lighter and Softer: For the most part. There's no rape or murder going on except one route to evil ending involving Kyouichi, which can result in Kotonoha killing those involved, at the very least, but on the other hand characters like Otome, Karen and Sekai can be completely terrible human beings.
  • Love at First Sight: Youko thinks Makoto is super hot the moment she meets him, so she sleeps with him immediately. At work.
  • Love Hurts: A lot more people try to get Makoto than actually get him. Kokoro and Kotonoha, two of the more sympathetic teens, are devastated in the routes where they realize they're too late; they're less selfish and aggressive than the other girls, generally because they're kinder and more emotional in general, so they take it particularly hard.
  • Love Triangle:
    • Setsuna and Inori both like Makoto. Setsuna is apparently willing to step aside without a second thought, though. You can't get a Setsuna ending on this route.
    • During the second route, there's a bit with Sekai, but she's too late to win fairly. So she decides to jerk it up if given the chance because jerk.
    • Setsuna and Kotonoha both try going for Makoto. Setsuna confesses first, but Makoto hasn't realized Kotonoha likes him and Setsuna didn't bother to tell him or even tell her that they were dating.
  • Making Love in All the Wrong Places: While Inori is busy outside collapsing, Makoto and Kotonoha are screwing in the changing room. Well, so much for that!
  • Mama Bear: In a short comic sets after Inori's happy ending, Natsuhi wields vicious devices to torture Makoto for secretly having sex with her daughter(in the hospital of all places).
  • Marry Them All
    • The Nijou twins and the Katou sisters both have endings together. So do Sekai and Youko. The first two could actually be considered bad endings of sorts, however, since they end the story prematurely. And with jerks.
    • In one complex example, Makoto begins sleeping with Youko but doesn't consider himself to be dating her. He sleeps with Mai and barely avoids Setsuna finding out. Then he actually starts going out with Setsuna. When he finally gets to what would normally be Setsuna's good ending, the two mothers are in the background musing at how unlikely this development was and ceding 'first place' to Setsuna before starting to argue about who gets to be second. While there are several endings that tease like this, this one actually confirms it, with Mai, Setsuna and Youko all pregnant and suggesting that Sekai join them.
    • In one ending, Makoto gets together with both Kotonoha and Kokoro. Another variant of the same ending has their mother in on it too.
  • Matchmaker Crush: Kokoro thinks that Makoto suits her sister really well. She completely fails to recognize Setsuna's feelings for Makoto and ends up acting pretty insensitive as a result because she doesn't even realize that Setsuna was competition. While Kokoro claims to like a boy name Sho, she acts much more interested in Makoto in general and gets worried at the idea he won't want to talk to her anymore, which her friend points out on her behalf.
  • Mistaken for Gay: Inori led Otome to believe that Setsuna molested her. When Otome confronts her about it, the subtext flies completely over Setsuna's head. The conversation goes on for several minutes before they finally get around to realizing they're having two entirely different conversations.
  • Mistaken for Pedophile: If Makoto jokes that Itaru is his girlfriend, Setsuna believes him even when he tries to tell her he's a joke. You get a bad ending.
  • Mistaken for Prostitute: Otome thinks Setsuna is a professional S&M queen for several minutes before Setsuna finally mentions that all she did was kick Inori. At another point, Makoto somehow ends up think Setsuna is a callgirl when she won't tell him where she works after describing her uniform.
  • Mrs. Robinson: Youko has a thing for younger guys. The moment she thinks Makoto is interested in her, she starts making out with him.
  • Multiple Endings: There are three main routes, totaling dozens of different endings. Also, unlike the first game, this game features poor endings in addition to the standard bad endings. Guide Dang It!!
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The part about the rumor of Radish Restaurant being used for prostitution can be traced back to the original Summer Radish Vacation where in the bad endings Tomaru would use the heroines to prostitute the customers.
    • The Bar that Shun's brother owns is named "Sky Time". Shun's younger sister and brother's names are "Toki" and "Kuu".
    • Youko going after one of her brothers AGAIN.
    • In one scene, Kotonoha shows off the family katana to Makoto, who jokes that she'll use it to cut the neck of a potential love rival. Though he's off on the weapon, he's basically right.
    • Another one regarding the School Days anime: in the Inori route, the post-credits scene for Kotonoha's ending has her and Makoto on a boat. Only this time, Makoto is alive and well with no visible scars on his body.
  • Netorare: It's pretty easy for someone to get stolen away due to various circumstances, such as Noan seducing Makoto. Sucks to be you, Inori. Once Makoto sticks it into someone he generally decides he loves them, forgetting about the people before. Manami also watches in exasperation from the sidelines while Youko and Mai start up a love triangle over Makoto, which she also knows involves Setsuna.
  • Never My Fault: In one bad ending, Makoto refuses to accept that his paranoia drove Setsuna to Paris, choosing instead to go home and sulk.
  • Nice Girl
    • Setsuna is rather quiet and occasionally sarcastic, but she's probably the least selfish girl Makoto knows. She tries to help people out without expecting anything in return and will quietly stand aside for any of her friends if she knows they like Makoto as well.
    • Kotonoha is one of the other kind girls around Makoto. She doesn't intentionally interfere and tries to be nice to everyone and actually treats Setsuna better than her supposed best friend. Nor does she try to steal Makoto like everyone else, though she is largely appalled at the idea of her little sister and Makoto together and will work against that without hesitation.
    Manami: I guess you don't have the guts to try to steal him away from his girlfriend.
    Kotonoha: It's not an issue of guts. I could never do that. It's wrong!
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: 'Hero' might be stretching it a little, but Shun's attempt to warn Natsuhi's group away from chasing Inori causes her to panic and start pursuing her in earnest immediately.
  • No Campaign for the Wicked: Sekai doesn't really have a proper ending for herself while her School Days rival has at least three. This may be because while Kotonoha remains a kind and sympathetic character, Sekai is portrayed as a backstabbing, selfish little git. In the game's myriad routes, her "happy" endings with Makoto here number exactly two: one getting rightfully interrupted by Setsuna, and the other being a harem ending that she stumbles into.
  • Official Couple: Setsuna is the main heroine here. There are other relatively good endings, but odds are good that getting them will guilt trip the reader for breaking Setsuna's heart or have Makoto end up with a lying jerk. However, for route A, the 'main' heroine is Inori, though endings with Noan or Kotonoha are also possible.
  • The Ojou: Kokoro and Kotonoha are rather wealthy, but they aren't aware of it. Kokoro talks about a 1200~ dollar dinner for four as if it was normal and thinks Makoto is kidding when he says his entire apartment could fit into her living room.
  • Older Than They Look
    • Setsuna is in high school, but she doesn't look it.
    • Kokoro is thirteen, but looks like she's maybe eight to ten. Then again, her friend Uzuki (who is ten) does look a bit younger.
    • Makoto mistakenly believes that Youko is in her early to mid 20s rather than at least a decade older than that. He's quite shocked to learn that she's Sekai's mother. He's actually kind of horrified to realize this.
  • One Degree of Separation
    • First, most of the cast is related to the extent that they're rather inbred, but generally nobody realizes that they're dating a half sibling or cousin and sometimes both at the same time.
    • Second, Setsuna, Kotonoha and Sekai's mothers all work together. Sekai, Niki and Setsuna are childhood friends and Niki hangs out with Hanon as the local Good Bad Girl duo. Hanon is the older sister to Futaba and Kazuha, who are friends with Karen, who is the younger sister of Otome. Otome and Makoto are friends and Inori is his childhood friend and sort of fiancĂ©e. Otome bullies Kotonoha and forces Yamagata to help out during the festival preparations to keep her away from Makoto since he used to like her, and they're still somewhat distant friends.
  • One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Otome thinks Setsuna sexually assaulted Inori. Setsuna apologizes for kicking her. It takes several minutes for them to figure out that they aren't talking about the same thing at all.
  • Only Sane Man: In the Four People In Paris ending, Sekai realizes that her best friend, her mother, and her mother's best friend are all pregnant with Makoto's children. She's treated like the weird one, while the other three all suggest that she should get pregnant too.
  • On the Rebound: Not all endings where Makoto fails to fix things with Setsuna or Inori end with him being single. Some of them result in Makoto finding a new partner quickly afterward, of which there can be many to choose from depending on the route taken.
  • Parental Incest: Shun is sleeping with Futaba, mostly on her insistence. He has a large number of other children, but the only one he seems to actually treat like a daughter is Setsuna. Justified in Sekai's case since it is implied in School Days that Youko has no intention of allowing him to come back into hers and her daughter's life again.
  • Playing Sick: After Sekai gets over the mumps, she pretends that she's still sick so she can lounge around and make Setsuna do her job for her, even though she knows Setsuna despised the experience she had on her first day.
  • Poor Communication Kills
    • Youko goes to Paris without actually telling her boyfriend Makoto, leaving him to assume he's been dumped when he can't even get in contact with her during the big festival and generally starts going out with someone else as a result.
    • The mandatory relationship drama before you get Setsuna's good end could have been quite easily avoided if she had just mentioned that Shun was her father. She instead seems deadset on trying to hide this, which horribly bites her when Makoto instead jumps to the conclusion that she's going out with Shun and mistakenly tries to invoke I Want My Beloved to Be Happy by distancing himself.
    • When Ai and Makoto start hooking up in one path, she assumes that they're dating and he assumes that they're not. Of course, it leads to issues.
  • The Pornomancer: Makoto can quickly get into anyone's pants if he makes any effort. He normally doesn't because of how oblivious he is.
  • Precocious Crush: Kokoro's friend Uzuki has a crush on her teacher Kasannoin which he kind of creepily reciprocates. She urges Kokoro to go out with Makoro based on her own experiences. She thinks they're dating, Makoto thinks she's the cute kid that talks to him occasionally.
  • Properly Paranoid: Karen not wanting to let the twins talk to Makoto alone might sound irrational, but the one time they get the chance ends up in a threesome.
  • Pun-Based Title: Some endings are based on puns that don't translate. For example, the route A ending with Kotonoha is called Mikotonoha, a contraction of miko and her name. There's also Karen's ending, Lovely Summer. Karen means lovely.
  • The Quiet One: Setsuna barely speaks unless she has to, and even then she mostly just mutters.
  • Really Gets Around: Hanon sleeps around a lot. Niki hangs out with Hanon, but she's never said to do more than sell dirty pictures of herself.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Literally Kotonoha and Setsuna. Which even wears red and blue dresses as their default civil clothes.
  • Relationship Sabotage
    • Otome doesn't have the nerve to make a move on Makoto herself, so she just cuts down anyone else who tries to get near him. Karen is perhaps even worse, actively stealing cellphones, manipulating people when they're at a low and lying to them.
    • Even worse, Sekai will backstab Setsuna without a second thought, preventing her from reconciling with Makoto.
  • Relationship Values: A meter at the top tracks how close Setsuna is to Makoto.
  • Retcon: Route A was added later and adds in a poor relationship between Radish and the local shrine area, mostly because of Shun's actions. Going by the original content, though, such a feud never occurred and Shun doesn't have the poor reputation with Otome and Karen that he should.
  • Self-Censored Release: Most of the sexual content remains intact, but the obviously underage Kokoro and her friend had their sex scenes removed from the English version for legal reasons. This caused an outrage and many pre-orders canceled due to JAST bowing down to censorship. However, JAST USA made good on their promise and released an uncensor patch to restore the content.
  • Shipper on Deck: None of Sekai's arguments to make Setsuna take her place at work get her to budge in the slightest, so she eventually brings Makoto into the equation. This isn't really enough either, but Setsuna says a little too much in response and Sekai playfully blackmails her into it. That said, once Setsuna admits that she does like him Sekai panics and tries to make Setsuna give up on him immediately because, you know, she's just such a great friend and all.
  • Shout-Out: When Inori announces she wants to take a look inside the school Setsuna and Otome go to, she suggests sneaking in under the guise of a cardboard box.
  • Shrinking Violet: Yamagata is very quiet and timid.
  • Smarter Than You Look: Setsuna doesn't look stupid, but she doesn't particularly stand out either. However, she memorizes the entire complicated Radish menu, the manual and the different ways the menu items combined with just a few days study when employees who have been there for months have no idea about any of it. Manami is so impressed that she gives her glowing praise for her unexpected accomplishment.
  • Smug Smiler: One of Setsuna's few facial expressions is a smug smirk. A normal smile is almost unheard of from her.
  • Strange-Syntax Speaker: Inori's speech is imperious, somewhat archaic and fairly masculine.
  • Stripperiffic: The uniforms for the restaurant look more like something that a stripper or porn star might wear than an actual waitress. However, this results in the restaurant's reputation going down and they start getting sleazy customers.
  • Story Branching: Depending on the player's choices early on, the narrative focuses on one of three major plot threads. From these, the player can engage in a myriad of sub-plots and endings.
  • Surprise Incest: Most of the cast is related to each other to some degree, but they don't know it. Kotonoha, Kokoro, Karen, Otome, and Ai are one of the few exceptions.
  • The Thing That Would Not Leave: Inori forcibly moves into Setsuna's apartment then refuses to leave or give any indication as to how long she'll be staying. Other people just assume Setsuna is okay with this, largely because she's a doormat. This is justified at first since it's to atone for an earlier incident where Setsuna accidentally knocked Inori out—however, Setsuna doesn't bring up the fact that she only knocked Inori out because Inori accidentally embarrassed Setsuna in public.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Overall, the characters are significantly more unpleasant than they were in School Days. Sure, someone might stab someone else to death there, but they weren't as bad in just day to day interactions.
  • Too Long; Didn't Dub: Some puns go untranslated. For example, Karen's ending could be read either Summer with Karen or Lovely Summer. JAST went with the latter.
  • Twin Threesome Fantasy: Twins Futaba and Kazuha both share an ending where Setsuna is just a little too slow on asking Makoto to the festival.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Yamagata rejected Makoto in middle school, which he took pretty hard. Now she's trying to get him while he barely even considers her a friend. However, when asked about it, it turns out to be a subversion. She had already liked him back then and the rejection was actually little more than a misunderstanding on Makoto's part.
    • It wasn't a misunderstanding: Makoto was in love with Ai and wanted to confess then Otome persuaded him she had been in love with his best friend for a long time, so he decided to tell her he'd help her getting his best friend instead of confessing.
  • V-Sign: One of Setsuna's only obvious emotional cues is when she's feeling confident and gives a smug V for victory.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Niki and Setsuna used to be friends, but Niki started drifting into Good Bad Girl territory, which Setsuna hates. She also considers her a bad influence on Sekai.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Leading up to two Manami endings, she calls Makoto out on so easily abandoning girlfriends after claiming he loves them, claiming that if he had cared about Youko he wouldn't have started dating Setsuna almost immediately after she left Japan nor would he have given up on Setsuna so quickly either to flirt with her daughters. Unfortunately, the point is undermined when she gets seduced mid conversation.
  • What You Are in the Dark: Setsuna calls up Sekai to ask her to contact Makoto and ask him to meet up at Radish the next day as a last ditch attempt at reconciliation. Sekai promises to help, even though she likes Makoto herself. She quickly betrays Setsuna, making sure to keep Makoto far away from Radish, justifying it by saying she should have met him first.
  • You Bastard!
    • Fail to end up with Setsuna, and the games will guilt trip you for it as often as not. You monster, you made the cute little girl cry.
    • Kotonoha and Kokoro also end up heartbroken on the way to one of Setsuna's endings, especially the latter, who curls up on the beach to cry.

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