Slow Damage: Clean Dishes is a mobile visual novel and is a spinoff of Slow Damage. It was released on April 27, 2021 on both iOS and on Android.
For Clean Dishes, Fuchii Kabura returns as the scenario writer. Uiro Yamada provides the character design of the protagonists, whilst Sakurako Yamada (who was previously credited as a staff artist for the parent game) takes the helm this time around as the main artist.
A drama CD, which covers the aftermath of the main events of Clean Dishes, was released on June 30, 2023.
The story is as follows: Shinkoumi, a special administrative region of Japan ruled by the Takasato Group, is a city of rampant crime propelled by the country’s crippling recession. Here, fights and murders are a daily occurrence. In such a city, a certain presence is vital. Enter Clean dishes.
Clean dishes, also commonly known as "Sara-ya," is a cleaning service that tidies up the rooms where people have died, by suicide or by other means. The story revolves around Baku, a worker at Sara-ya, and his partner Shiro, who is eager to die.
Slow Damage: Clean Dishes provides examples of the following tropes:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: As a spin-off, the story focuses on a different set of protagonists.
- Beta Couple: Following Baku and Shiro, who are the official couple of Clean Dishes, Ruu and Kimika eventually get together in the drama CD.
- Cleanup Crew: This is Sara-ya's main job in a nutshell: spruce up the rooms where someone died, regardless of how the victim met their demise.
- Continuity Cameo: Kotarou, Mayu and Eiji — who appeared in the main story — also show up in Clean Dishes as an acquaintance of Baku. Towa, Igarashi, and the manager of Roost also make an appearance in the drama CD.
- Continuity Nod: In one of the epilogues, Kimika is revealed to have gotten sentenced to prison for only two years despite the fact that he was the leader and founder of a suicide cult... which partly has something to do with his lawyer who has ties to the Takasato-gumi, and Eiji introduced Kimika to said lawyer. Though the lawyer's name is never given, the players can easily guess who it may be.
- Mistaken Identity: In the drama CD, Shiro is mistaken to be euphoria, who the players know to actually be Towa.
- Official Couple: Baku and Shiro are established as a couple early on in the game, and there's no alternate love interest for the player to have either of them pursue.
- Prequel: An independent one, at that. The drama CD subtly confirms that the events of Clean Dishes take place before that of the main game.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Clean Dishes makes use of the background music of the parent game.
- Spin-Off: Like Slow Damage, Clean Dishes also takes place in Shinkoumi, but features entirely new characters with a plot that isn't connected to the story of its parent game. In fact, the drama CD even confirms that the plot of the spin-off takes place before that of the main visual novel.
