隷従人妻エージェント紫苑 ～潜入捜査官vs洗脳操作姦～
Developer: DWARFSOFT (Independent/Doujin Circle)
Release Date: 2023/10/27 (Japan)
Platform(s): PC (Windows)
Director: okomeman
Writer: Hirowo Tatsumi
Artist: Kuga Mayuri
Language: Japanese
Voice Acting: Fully voiced female characters
Censorship: Mosaic
Content: 25 sex scenes, 317 CG (incl. variations)
Price: ¥1800 (aprox. $12 USD)
VNDB page
ErogameScape page
Introduction
Orcsoft/Dwarfsoft has always been a competent doujin circle delivering some nukige of excellent quality over the years, but their forays into mind control have always been timid at best. With the exception of Saimin Eyedrops, which I'll admit to not have played yet, other Orcsoft games with mind control elements have them in the background. Shikijou Kyoudan (released in the West as My Life as a Cult Leader) is excellent, but the hypnotic drug used acts more like an aphrodisiac than anything else (it does have hypnotic/suggestive effects), and the main focus is elsewhere. Still recommended and I'll probably talk about that game here someday. But a game focused on brainwashing was not something I'd expect of the company, so I went into this game with curiosity, but not very high expectations.
And I'll just say right out of the gate that I was wrong to doubt them. Reijuu Hitozuma Agent Shion not only goes all in with telling its advertised "mind control revenge story", but it also utilizes a mix of mind control and sexual training as a catalyst to mold and transform the heroine in different ways in each route very well. Most mind-control themed eroge that come out nowadays are either kinetic (only one route), or have a good and evil route, one where the girl is degraded into a sex slave and one where she remains the same personality-wise but loves the protagonist now. This game does things a bit differently. In each of the game's 3 main endings, heroine Shion will have developed a distinct personality as a result of the different brainwashing regimens she was put through in each route. That's a good use of a route split and not something you see every day in the genre.
That said, I should also make clear not all routes focus exclusively on mind control. The protagonist uses a mix of brainwashing and sexual training, and some routes will lean more towards the latter.
But before going into spoilers, I want to give a general outlook of the story's premise and what erotic and fetish content can be expected. The next session will not contain any spoilers beyond those included in the marketing campaign of the game or roughly the first 1 and a half hours of play.
Story Overview
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| The same dream, over and over... |
Nose Shigeyuki is a middle-aged man who works a dead-end job at a convenience store. He used to be a pretty smart kid and even made it to college, but at some point, his life went wrong and now he's there. He doesn't dwell much on the past. Nose has a recurring dream about him controlling a beautiful woman with black hair using a hypnosis app, and forcing her to give him a blowjob. It's always the same dream, always the same woman. He knows hypnosis stuff is all bollocks - he majored in psychology after all -, but the dreams still bother him. Especially when he has those while dozing off in the middle of work and accidentally jizzing in his pants. While thinking about how to deal with the sticky situation, to his surprise, the woman from his dreams suddenly enters the store along with a guy who, from their conversation, he figures is her husband. They're just shopping like normal. On impulse, he decides to tail them.
During the pursuit, Nose notices tailing people comes as second nature to him, which is weird since he's never done it before. The woman, who's called Shion, suddenly says to her husband that she forgot to buy something and needs to go back to get it, and that he should go ahead and get the bath ready. Nose follows her and notices her entering an alley. Half-certain that this is a trap, but compelled to find out what the hell is going on, he follows, and starts hearing a loud buzzing on his head, before being confronted by Shion, who says he's "starting to recover his memories". He demands to know what's going on, but she says he'll forget soon enough. Then suddenly, he's back in the usual dream. Not knowing what's real or not, he subjugates Shion as usual... Until he's woken up. Shion's husband rushed into the alley and broke Shion's concentration. A busty girl in a school uniform told him Shion was dragged to an alley by a suspicious guy and he came running to help. Said mysterious girl then shouts to Nose to run, and he runs. He runs for miles, unable to control his legs. Being in a trance state, his body reacted to the command.
After he calms down, the girl shows up and introduces herself as Karin, his loyal sex slave. She also explains that Nose is the developer of a hypnosis app, and a notorious "mind control criminal". He has a hard time believing any of that, but can't just ignore the stuff that just happened. According to Shion, mind control technology has existed for years but is kept under wraps by the government, with criminals who use it being dealt with by a special task force, of which Shion is the top agent. Nose was caught one year ago, and had his memories erased before being placed under surveillance. Karin had been looking for him ever since. Shion has a mysterious power that allows her to not only resist most mind control technology but also to put people into hypnotic trances through eye contact. Her husband doesn't know of her life as an agent, which is why she stopped when Karin brought him into the alley.
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| Seeing footage of Karin's rape and brainwashing while the real article jerks you off would convince anyone |
H-Content
Aside from the blowjob delusions at the beginning, the first half of the game features exclusively sex with Karin. While she is a bombshell in her own right, this may come as a disappointment or feel slightly annoying for people who want to get into the "mind control revenge" part faster, or who are just more into Shion's look and aggressive personality. The sex scenes are good and the storyline that goes between them is necessary to establish Nose getting a footing back into developing and distributing his technology while Karin acts as his helpful assistant. These scenes are mostly vanilla with only some breast kneading and light spanking to spice it up. And since Karin is already a fully brainwashed slave, there's also no mind-control content in this part. But don't worry, the game is about to kick into high gear from now on.
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| With a secretary like this, it's impressive Nose ever got any work done. |
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| Most of the brainwashing is done through apps and implants, but we do get one scene with a mind control helmet |
At the midpoint of the game, Shion is captured. Given the nature of the story, I don't think this counts as a spoiler. Nose and Karin take her to a secluded location to start her training. Her resistance to mind control and her powers come from implants in her eyes, and the means and time available to try to circumvent that will depend on the route. I will go into more detail in the spoiler section. But for the rest of the game, the content gets more hardcore.
Nose doesn't only want to brainwash Shion into a sex slave, he wants revenge for the one year she took from his life. So from now on we get a lot of BDSM and rape content, with pillory, handcuffed/chained sex, extensive use of sex toys, as well as mental manipulation, both of the mind control variety (particularly common sense alteration and orgasm triggers) and of the gaslighting and emotional manipulation varieties.
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| No matter the route, Shion's training is intense. |
All in all the game has good variety, with each route having its own focus - in simple terms, as far as the h-scene content goes, one is the anal route, the other is the cosplay route, and the secret route is the threesome one. All three have a pregnant ending, but I'll go into more detail about the endings and the mind control element (which I haven't talked about much because, due to being invisible, done by EM waves and implants and whatnot, only really comes through in the narrative) on the spoiler section. So without further ado, let's get into that.
Spoiler talk, Endings, and the Mind Control element
Like I mentioned before, Shion is captured in the middle of the game, and from there the game splits into three routes. Let's call them A, B and C (with C being the secret, unlockable route) for ease. I'll go into detail about each one. If you don't want to know, skip to "Conclusion".
In routes A and B, the protagonist has the least amount of information about Shion's powers and is concerned about being tracked down by her organization. So, he uses special headgear to get through her special defenses and from there, while he can't brainwash her in one go like he did with Karin, he can use his improved Hypnosis App on her when her mind is tired. The best way to achieve it is by having sex with her, both due to her nature, Nose's sexual skills, and suggestions implanted during the first round of brainwashing (he can't just brute force the whole process with the helmet because it would turn her into a useless doll, and he wants Shion as a useful slave).
In route A, he decides to remain holed up in the hideout he prepared and use simple and efficient suggestions: the more she orgasms, the more her feelings of disgust towards him will be overwritten with affection. This is an approach to mind control I don't particularly like, but the writing outside of that is pretty good because Nose gets to show his skills as a psychologist and manipulator as well. He gradually cracks open Shion's insecurities by figuring out that she always had a high libido and probing into the dissatisfactions she had with her married life. It leads into the usual "I wasn't satisfied with sex with my husband, but it doesn't matter because he is kind", but the focus is more that Nose convinces Shion it's her fault, that she's a weird pervert who can't be satisfied with normal people (something she already believed but he fully draws out and reinforces through hypnosis). Nose also discovers she has potential for anal sex, something she never tried before but immediately shows positive response to, and decides to get her hooked on that pleasure while using the app to reinforce her brainwashing after each sex session. After a while, Shion is unable to deny the pleasure she feels having sex with Nose. After a final push, he gets her to admit her own depravity and that she can't live without the deviant sex only he can give her. Shion becomes Nose's sex slave and agent, working with him to undermine her former organization.
She's not terribly changed in this route, this is the most standard one. She is the same person, just with her loyalties and worldview flipped on their head. She doesn't follow perverted orders as readily as Karin, but that's also because, as Nose puts it, Shion enjoys the humiliation of being coerced into doing it. It's not a weak ending by any means but mind control can be used for much more, and to my relief, Route B is all about that.
But first, I'd be remiss to not talk about the pregnant scene in Route A. Nose and Shion film a goodbye video to her husband. Nose convinces Shion to do it so her husband can stop looking for her and get some closure, move on with his life. This isn't the spiteful kind of NTR where the woman demeans and insults her husband. Shion definitely thinks she is doing the right thing for both of their sakes. But she gets so distracted by having sex with her master that she forgets, several times, that this is supposed to be a message for her husband, or even that she's being filmed. Ever heard that the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference? That's the feeling I get here. Now, I know even Netori is a controversial topic and I'll get to it someday, but I was laughing my ass off the entire ordeal. Also come on, "Hitozuma" is in the title of the game. You knew this cliché was coming sooner or later. We never see the husband's perspective, this is not a netorare-focused game. It also helps that pregnant Shion is just fucking gorgeous, too.
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| And they lived happily ever after. |
Route B is by far the most interesting to me. This is the one for the Mind Control fetishists out there.
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| Cosplay and humiliation are the bread and butter of route B |
Instead of staying holed up in whatever bunker he was in Route A, Nose realizes he can set Shion free and continue her training. He puts suggestions in her head that alter her memories making her think she escaped on her own, and put a series of subconscious triggers in place. Nose and Karin abandon the original hideout. Whenever Nose calls Shion, a trigger goes off that alters her common sense and makes her believe that, as part of her mission to apprehend him, they must have sex. She makes him cum first, she will be able to arrest him and erase his memories. She cums first, and he will get away for another day. And also further brainwash her, but she doesn't know that. Shion also doesn't know that their little game is rigged from the start since her sensitivity is up several times from the initial stages of training and, if push comes to shove, he can control her orgasms.
The whole contest is an idiotic farce in the best way possible and it's really fun to see Shion, who is a super serious and feisty kind of character, follow all this crap. It isn't the usual Taimanin style "you will act like a whore" either (well, not now). She's fully aware of the ridiculous roleplay situations they're doing, annoyed by it, but still needs to go along with it to make him cum. Sometimes Nose approaches her in public, sometimes he makes her cosplay, and for the grand finale he fucks (and chokes her, very hard) on her own bed while her hypnotized husband watches. Another part of their little deal held that, if Shion admitted that she can't win against Nose's cock, she would have to agree to become his slave. This happens in this last scene. Then nose takes Shion away to play with her mind more thoroughly
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| Novice prostitute Shion trying her best to please her customer is the cutest thing in this game |
Fast forward a bit and my favorite part of the game plays out. Shion is brainwashed into forgetting Nose's face and believing he's the top client of a brothel that attends VIPs (like CEOs, politicians, important figures of the underworld, and so on), and that the only way to get to him is by becoming the best prostitute in the brothel. Her mission is super secret so she can't contact anyone from her organization. Nose also made several adjustments to her personality, so this Shion is a lot more docile and amicable. While she does believe she is an agent infiltrating the brothel, that's because this is a deep-rooted and hard-to-remove aspect of her ego. Her personality and demeanor do resemble an inexperienced escort. Nose is, of course, her first client. It's really nice to see Shion act so different from any other moment in this or other routes. It's barely her anymore. Nose then leaves her at the brothel. Narration says he returns several times, and every time she thinks he's a different client. He also made sure to get her pregnant on that first sex.
By the time she's in the later months of pregnancy, Shion acts and thinks like a high-class prostitute, to the point Nose wonders to himself if she still remembers she's an agent on a mission there or if that faded away naturally as the months went by. Nose brings two important people with him, one is a politician and the other is from National Security. But they're brainwashed to not only go to a brothel with a notorious criminal but also not react to anything weird Shion does and just treat her like a regular whore. Not that she does anything but act like one, initially. This time Nose lets her recognize him as her first client, and she thanks him for all he taught her that day.
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| The moment Shion the Special Task Force Agent ceased to be. |
Shion demonstrates her technique by riding Nose while jerking off and giving blowjobs to the two other dudes, until the moment where she first orgasms and the trigger that awakens her original self is set off, while her body continues having sex. While she goes nuts screaming about how she's going to kill Nose, and is also freaking out about her pregnant belly, Nose explains that when she cums again, the prostitute personality will return and completely erase her original self. Shion gets so desperate that, in what is maybe the hottest moment of the game for me, she starts crying and screaming for the two government men to save her, and starts sucking their cocks out of desperation, saying she'll do anything. It's the hardest sucking sound effects and craziest noises the seiyuu makes in the whole game. Shion is throwing away her pride out of survival instinct. Of course, it doesn't work, and as she's working the dicks her personality already starts slipping as she starts referring to the men as "dear customers". When she cums, everything is over. The valiant agent Shion is gone forever and prostitute Shion thanks her customers for for the good time while dutifully cleaning up her cocks with her mouth.
After the whole thing is over Karin shows up and, just to make sure, they put Shion under with the Hypnosis App (which is now perfected to the point of bypassing all her defenses) and asks who she is and what her goal is, to which she answers she's a prostitute named Shion and that her goal is becoming the best escort in that brothel. When asked if there's anything she's hiding, Shion secretively tells them that she thinks she's already the best prostitute but they're not telling her. Amused by how that's her deepest secret now, Karin congratulates Shion saying that she is indeed the best prostitute in the house, and that the next step is joining her as Nose's sex slave. Shion ponders for a bit but with her body so heavily conditioned by sex with him, she starts heavily panting and squirming as soon as she sees his dick again and readily accepts. There's a parallel to a scene in route A of her and Karin talking about how Karin as the senpai slave will show her the ropes, but Shion is acting so different it's really satisfying after playing both. Nose also decides that, while he could keep climbing and expand his influence with the saimin app, having two women so thoroughly molded to his tastes, brainwashed to their very cores into his ideal slaves, is enough for him to be happy. So the route ends in a bizarre bittersweet tone as he finds fulfillment... By deciding that erasing and reprogramming two hot women is enough for him. Delightfully fucked up as the best mind control stories should be.
I really can't stress enough how deep the change in Shion's demeanor and personality is, and how satisfying it feels to read, and listen to. Voice Actress Misonoo Mei brought her A-game to this.
Route C is one I'll keep briefer because it's the plot route, basically. And explaining the actual storyline outside of Shion's training would not only would take too long, but I have the feeling it's not what the people reading want to know. Suffices to say here is how we learn how and why Shion got her eye implants, and we also learn that Karin and Shion knew each other, as Karin was the daughter of the scientist who gave Shion her implants. While they weren't close, Karin admired Shion. She doesn't bring this up to Nose out of fear he would suspect she was conspiring against him (something he does in every route), and only comes clean when in route C Nose gets his hands on documents that not only give him full understanding of Shion's implants but also contains a picture with both girls present. Karin's admiration for Shion was warped by her new worldview as Nose's sex slave and she wants nothing more than to share the happiness of being his slave with the woman she admired. So Karin asks to directly help Nose with Shion's training.
With her help and the full knowledge of Shion's technology, which allows Nose to hack the implants and not only turn all defenses off but use her eye implants to speed up the brainwashing process, there's nowhere as much resistance as in the other two routes. Shion is reduced to a slave in a matter of days of being tormented by Nose and the daughter of her mentor while both Nose's app and her own implants deliver a beating to her mind.
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| Without her usual defenses, two sessions were all it took to turn Shion into an adoring slave. |
Like in Route A, Shion becomes Nose's agent and undermines her organization to the point it is now crumbling. Nose improved his own technology with the data from the documents and is now unchallenged in the underworld of mind control crime. One day, Nose is having a threesome with his two slaves, Karin mentions it's her riskiest day in the month, and that she wants her master's child. Shion says under her breath that it's risky for her too, but when Nose actually gets to it, Shion gets cold feet. She still has some lingering feelings for her past life, namely her husband, buried deep inside her, resurfaced due to the perspective of having children with another man. Knowing that she just needs a push he starts switching to Karin and making Shion beg to get his dick back whenever she second-guesses something he asks of her. This leads to Shion, without use of hypnosis (as she was fully indoctrinated into a slave months ago, This is just a small lingering part), to reject her husband in a far more aggressive way than in the other route (blaming him for being unable to satisfy her, and also for not saving her), says that Master's dick is the only thing that matters, and swears to become his Slave-Wife and give him all the children he wants. This isn't seen as the moment she fully becomes a slave like in Route A, as she was serving Nose with her full loyalty for months in this route (without the rebellious streak from the other one), but as the moment where she abandoned every aspect of her life that wasn't about serving her master. Like Karin, being Nose's sex slave isn't just Shion's priority, it's her whole world.
There isn't anything remarkable to say about the pregnant scene, sadly. It is a good scene and shows how low Shion can fall in a route that doesn't involve erasing her personality, but it doesn't have anything as interesting going on as the previous two routes' preg scenes. The biggest attraction is a pregnant Karin is here too.
After the sex, Nose is watching the city from the hotel suite they're at when the girls get up and ask who the next target will be. Nose is confused at first, but the girls keep going, with Shion saying she thinks the new popular idol is his type, while Karin says that she noticed him eyeing up the wife and daughter of a billionaire at an event party they attended recently. Shion says that they want to teach all these women the joys of being pussy-slaves, with Karin adding that there is no higher happiness for females than becoming his thralls.
Seeing their enthusiasm, Nose, who was probably satisfied with just them like in Ending B, reevaluates things and decides to climb higher and acquire real power and influence through the brainwashing of beautiful women. Realizing that Shion wasn't his end goal, but his beginning.
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| It feels deliciously twisted to see Shion enthusiastically talk about enslaving other women. The perfect way to cap off the game. |
Conclusion
While by no means a new classic of the genre, Reijuu Hitozuma Agent Shion utilizes the strength of multi-route storytelling in a way I seldom see in modern Nukige to tell a revenge story that is not only effective and interesting but also really hot to see unfold, especially on the routes that put a more heavy focus on mind control. It's also one of the best spins on the Hypnosis App formula I've seen since a decent amount of time is dedicated to contextualizing its development, and it has a bunch of weaknesses that are addressed differently depending on the routes. But in the end, it's all in service of the sex scenes and of Shion's enslavement, and that aspect works in all three routes regardless of whether it leans more strongly towards mind control or towards sexual training with lighter hypnosis elements.
I recommend it for fans of mind control, mindbreak, sexual slavery, and seeing a strong and determined female character twisted into a horny slave. The routes having different focuses adds variety, and the NTR elements lean towards Netori (protagonist stealing the girl, no sympathy towards the cuck who is a tertiary character with like 10 lines).
My only gripe with the game is that I think it could have explored other facets of mind control, but I won't pretend it's common for nukige to do a better job than this. Great mind control games are few and far between. And from a company that has almost no tradition in the genre? Impressive.
Pros
- Good storyline that integrates well with the erotic themes
- Good use of the route structure to focus on a wider variety of fetishes (anal, cosplay, 3P)
- Some pontual uses of mind control figure among the best I've ever seen.
- Excellent voice acting from Misonoo Mei
Mixed
- The first half focusing entirely on Karin could disappoint or annoy some players.
- The art has some exaggerated expressions and the body shapes in general may not be to everyone's tastes. (they're definitely to my taste).
- For people who are here just for mind control and are uninterested in other forms of power play, some routes may be disappointing. For others who like choukyou and mindbreak stuff but get cold feet with hypnosis, this may be a feature.
Cons
- Sound mixing is pretty terrible. Like most Eroge, you can fine-tune the volume of everything in the configurations menu so it's fixable, but damn it still took me a while to figure out a comfortable volume for everything.
- Some of the NTR elements feel like they're there just because it's a married-woman game, particularly outside of Route A.
- Despite the standout moments, it doesn't reach full potential of what could be done with the mind control technology it so lovingly explains in its own lore
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