YMMV / Collar × Malice

• Abandon Shipping: Kei's route in Unlimited attracted ire from both the Japanese and Western fandoms, causing this among some. Ichika's overly-clingy attitude is considered unattractive, immature and out-of-character, but it's her stating she doesn't trust Kei that really made fans question the future of their relationship—after all, if she doesn't trust him, why is she with him?
• Adorkable: Shiraishi. Especially after he comes to terms with his newfound emotions, when he actively tries to get Ichika to like like him. It's the small gestures that make it, starting with buying her animal crackers that he thought she'd like because it's cute to trying to cook her favorite rolled omelette (and failing) to holding hands with her and smiling genuinely for the first time.
• Americans Hate Tingle: Takeru and Yanagi are easily the most popular love interests in Japan, snagging #6 and #8 out of 100 in Otomate's character poll. In the West, opinions on them are much more divided; Takeru still gets love, but he also has more detractors, while Yanagi gets a resounding "meh" overall.
• Ass Pull:
  • Ichika's plot-convenient amnesia at the end of Shiraishi's route. She gets poisoned in several other routes with no lasting effects, so it makes no sense this would be any different, and said amnesia appears and disappears in the span of about ten minutes of gameplay. It seems to exist solely so the player won't learn about Saeki being Zero, something that most definitely would have come up if Ichika hadn't lost her memories, outside the designated Golden Ending, and stands out as a bizarrely poor writing decision in an otherwise excellently-written route.
  • Yanagi's route tries so hard to be the Golden Ending that it tries to wrap up every plot thread at once, which in reality means that none of them get proper time to develop. Kei's Death Seeker attitude and Shiraishi's Brainwashing, for instance, are resolved after one conversation, which can seem cheap compared to the long and genuine struggle they had with those issues in their respective routes.
• Awesome Music: Tomoshibi, the ending song that plays when you get the true ending of the Adonis route in the -unlimited- fandisk is a solemn ballad representing the cumulation of Saeki and Ichika's relationship and the final fate they had together in the end of the true ending. A tragic ending between both where they yearn for a friendship and romance with each other but circumstances of their lives and how it affect them makes their relationship twisted beyond any means that they can only hope for a better outcome in another life.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Takeru Sasazuka is definitely the most polarizing character in the game. Some love him for his tsundere tendencies, his fleeting moments of kindness, and how his voice contrasts his appearance. Others believe his tsundere personality strays too far into Jerkass territory and don't like how he's constantly referring to Ichika as a pet. It also doesn't help that there's a general consensus that Ichika's character was the weakest in his route. Nevertheless, he remains one of the most popular of the guys in the western fandom and is even more popular in the Japanese fandom.
  • Aiji Yanagi is another hit or miss character for fans. Some people appreciate how down to earth he is and his maturity. While others believe that since the main plot gets heavy focus in his route, he comes across as a Flat Character and the romance between him and Ichika feels forced because of it. Despite his lukewarm reputation in the west, he's still incredibly popular with fans in his home country, only coming up second to Takeru.
• Breather Episode: Mineo's route can be considered this since it has the least amount of action and a lot of slice of life moments. Then there's the antagonist of his route branching away from Adonis, which leaves the Big Bad with the least amount of focus in this route.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Got some criticism upon release in the west from both otome fans and gaming journalists for being a game that glorified the police and cast them as heroes, which was seen as unfortunate timing thanks to the Black Lives Matter protests going at the time. The actual content of the game does very little to glorify the police, and instead criticizes it and points out the corruption inherent in the Japanese force. The vast majority of the heroes are also not policemen, being bodyguards, forensic scientists, and private detectives.
  • Before the fan-disk is localized, many fans assume the Adonis route to be an extension from Yanagi's bad ending route as one of the bad endings you can obtain has everyone but Sasazuka dead among the love interests and Ichika joins Adonis in despair. This is mitigated and revealed to be false when the fan-disk is localized.
• Foe Yay Shipping: In the Japanese fanbase, some fans wish that Saeki can be romanced by Ichika due to The Reveal giving their relationship a lot of nuance and potential to work. This comes to fruition to a level in the fandisk where there's an Adonis route where Ichika joined Adonis.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: He's hardly unpopular in Japan (#21 out of 100 is nothing to sneeze at), but Shiraishi tends to get overshadowed by Takeru and Yanagi there. Due to the pair's cooler reception in the West, he enjoys more attention on that side of the Pacific, getting top poll placement alongside Kei.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • The game tries to paint Yanagi as being in the wrong for savagely beating Ichika's kidnapper into a coma. Thing is, the guy had kidnapped a nine-year-old girl and savagely beaten both her and Yanagi when he tried to rescue her. Yanagi was rightfully afraid they were both going to die, so his actions instead come off as an extreme but understandable self-defense.
  • During his route in Unlimited, Kei is supposedly horrible for turning down Ichika's marriage proposal. But consider his point of view: they've only been dating a few months, the topic of marriage was never raised before that point, and he's still working through his personal issues. It's natural he'd be surprised and might not feel ready, yet everyone from Ichika to Yanagi treats him like the bad guy for saying no.
• Misaimed Fandom: A portion of Shiraishi's fans say they prefer his fifth Bad End, where he and Ichika stay underground presumably forever, to his Good End, where he brings her aboveground and turns himself in. However, one of the game's themes is that while criminals can be sympathized with, that doesn't excuse their actions, and they still need to face legal repercussions in order to rehabilitate and atone. Shiraishi recognizing that is both the crux of his Character Development and ties into that theme, whereas if Bad Ending 5 were the Good Ending, he'd essentially get off scot-free for murder just because he's Ichika's love interest.
• Moe: A combination of his love for cats, surprisingly pure delight at new things, horrific backstory, and clumsy but earnest affection for Ichika has gotten many of the fanbase declaring they just want good things for Shiraishi.
• Strangled by the Red String: A problem on Yanagi's route. He spends much of the route either distant or acting like a surrogate big brother for Ichika and the majority of the route's screentime is devoted to trying to wrap up all plot threads, so the romance comes off as rushed and underdeveloped. Especially since they get engaged after knowing each other for one month.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The end of Shiraishi's route is regarded as full of missed opportunities. It's the only time Ichika breaks her Thou Shalt Not Kill policy, in order to protect Shiraishi. Her feelings about that in itself is something ripe for exploration, but then Yanagi's route reveals that Zero, the person she killed, is Saeki. There is so much potential about Ichika coming to terms with unknowingly killing her best friend, who was a terrorist, to protect the man she loved, but instead she gets amnesia and the events are kept hidden from her. And when said amnesia lifts, the route ends. Fortunately, the fandisk sequel at least tried to address this.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: In Unlimited, Kei is presented as being in the wrong for not automatically accepting Ichika's proposal despite the fact the topic of marriage have never been brought up before the aforementioned scene. The game goes out of it's way by having the characters convince Kei that he's acting like a terrible person and that he needs to make it up to her. Considering he and Ichika have been dating for a few months, you really can't blame the poor guy for hesitating since marriage is a big commitment.
• Values Dissonance: The crime that Yanagi committed was beating up a man to the point he was in a coma out of self-defense. Japanese laws are a lot less lenient about crimes done in self-defense than most Western countries are and the record of it would remain with Yanagi for the rest of his life and it's implied that is why he chooses to remain so distant from his family so his record would not affect them. Additionally, getting a record on one's person at all regardless of the crime is considered to be tarnishing your reputation forever in Japanese society.
• Wangst: Yanagi's Dark Secret caused him to cut ties with his family and is a matter he spends about half his route brooding over. Said "secret" is that when he was sixteen, he went to town on a man who had kidnapped and beaten a nine-year-old Ichika, and was also going to kill him for trying to save her. Upon learning this, he seems less Troubled, but Cute and more like he's pointlessly moralizing in an over-dramatic fashion. Values Dissonance is in play, however, as Eastern players don't find it as dramatic and think it's understandable.