[Eroge Play Report] Ane Ane W Saimin, part 1 - Mind Control is More than an Instant Sex Button

Introduction

Today I am starting a new series. In Eroge Play Report, I take an untranslated game and post about it as I play, in a mix of discussion and storytime. It's intended to be more casual than a review and also allows me to focus on smaller details that would get skipped over in one. In hindsight, this first post still felt a bit stunted because I had to introduce the game, its characters and so on, but future installments will jump straight into discussing the game itself.

The first game I'm covering in this series is Ane Ane W Saimin (read as Ane Ane Double Saimin), a 2016 game by POISON with art by Tamaru Makoto (mostly known for his work on Ikusa Otome Valkyrie) and Kobapyon and writing Sakamoto Seinichi and Surounin. These two are familiar names in eroge featuring Sexual Training/Choukyou, Sexual Slavery and Corruption, though almost always as secondary writers in bigger projects or helming smaller titles. And neither was particularly connected to the Mind Control genre specifically before this game.

So it's surprising to me that this game came out so remarkable in how it utilizes hypnosis. Don't get me wrong, it's not some groundbreaking, never-seen-before use - it's using subliminals to alter the target's behavior over time. But the writing is concerned with the rules and boundaries of the hypnotic induction, it manages to maintain a sense of stakes and risk for the protagonist, and the way the girls respond to the subliminals feels realistic in the sense that it doesn't switch off their minds and robs them entirely of their agency, but it's a constant fight between the brainwashing and their increasingly deteriorating common sense. They may even act on the subliminals in ways the protagonist didn't expect. This is a step beyond several mind control eroge that just use mind control tech is basically omnipotent, able to wipe and reprogram the mind with extreme ease - not that these kinds of scenarios can't be hot as well, they can, but more often than not in eroge, they're used as a crutch in stories that barely feel like they're about mind control. Ane Ane W Saimin reads like a mind control story first and foremost.

At least the parts I played. As it's obvious, I have played this game before and hold it in high regard. But I have never completed it. I played two of its routes and saw 3 of its endings, but something or other always kept me from really diving deep and doing all the content in a single playthrough. In part, it's because often the ending I reached left me satisfied. Plain bad luck also played a role - I couldn't buy it years ago, and getting its crack to work can be annoying. I happened to lose a laptop mid-playthrough and the game simply refused to agree with my next machine. I've been meaning to replay it since early last year, but something or other always got in the way. In part, that's why I'm starting this series, so I can maintain focus.

Now that I introduced the game and my history with it, let's start.

Hypnosis App? Seriously?

This text was translated from several promotional materials.

First things first. I know a lot of people are rolling their eyes at the mention of a "Hypnosis App". It is a tired concept. But, not only is this game from 2016, before the concept really exploded in popularity in its current form, but the app is also completely different from what you're probably imagining. We're not talking about a phone app that puts people into a mindless trance instantly. It's a set that consists of a bunch of small speakers that look like wiretaps that the protagonist has to hide in the house that send out subliminal signals tailor-made for each target, and a customized tablet with the Hypnosis App, effectively a tool to make the subliminals and manage this network of devices. 

The signals are a mix of the user's heartbeat (sounding akin to how a baby hears the mother's heartbeat from inside the womb, meant to create a sense of security and comfort related to the user) and the subliminal instructions to be imprinted on the victim's mind. It initially takes a long time for the effects to manifest, but with continuous exposure it takes less time and eventually, lasting changes can be made. In addition to the mental changes, the body can also be messed with, as long as its something that can happen through a placebo or hormonal activity. Stuff like changing the target's sense of taste and smell, lactating without being pregnant, and feeling sexual pleasure during urination are possible, while making one's penis bigger or regenerating a wound faster are not.  

While the pseudoscience of how it works is just bullshit and far from realistic hypnotic induction, the slower and more involved process makes for a more engaging story than just waving a smartphone in front of a woman and turning her into a puppet. As I said before, the limitations of the device, how the girls may react unexpectedly to certain instructions dictate the tension of the story.

Not the usual approach for Hypnosis App stuff.

Falling for Internet Scams Always Works Out in Hentai

Tsukishiro Junichi is a very successful man. He not only climbed the corporate ladder on a major conglomerate pretty fast, he also married Kumiko, the current CEO's daughter. Kumiko grew up very sheltered and became a very gentle and naive woman, good at cooking but not really knowledgeable about anything else. They live on company housing in an upper-class neighborhood, where most of the houses around also belong to the company's top brass. In fact, Kumiko has a good relationship with several of the neighbor wives, who are mostly former celebrities, models and stuff like that, who often come to Kumiko's house for tea and to learn from her how to bake sweets - in reality, they just want to curry favor with the boss' daughter, but Kumiko doesn't pick up on their ulterior motives.

Most of the heavy-duty housework like laundry, gardening and cleaning is handled by contractors, so all Kumiko really does is cook, read, and do some minor housekeeping. Alongside the couple lives Kumiko's younger sister Yuka, a bright young woman who's attending a university of renown.

Yuka and Kumiko

This story is not about Junichi, but about his brother, Kenji. Kenji is, not to mince words, a loser. He's lazy, lecherous, has poor hygiene, and a tendency to blame others and "bad luck" for his own poor choices. Having failed to secure a job or enter a good school, he lives with his brother's family while attending some third-rate college, when he doesn't skip class that is. 

His relationship with his sisters-in-law is not good either. Kumiko is pleasant and accommodating, but Kenji knows behind that front she's put off and grossed out by him. On her part, she tries to convince herself that she's just not good around males in general due to her upbringing, but deep down she knows that she does dislike Kenji in particular. Yuka is just openly aggressive. What pisses her off the most isn't even that Kenji is a failure, is that he doesn't try. She's a high achiever, so seeing Kenji mope around and not put in real effort towards anything is infuriating. His perverted tendencies only make that worse, and turned her distaste into open hate, as she's borderline paranoid that he might do something to her or Kumiko (not without reason, Kenji has done shit like steal her socks to masturbate), and frequently uses of violence to "discipline" him. As for Junichi, he's often not home, being currently working overseas at the South American branch of the company.

And of course, the aforementioned housewives parasiting Kumiko treat him like shit as well.

With a home life like that, Kenji spends most of his time holed up in his room fapping and wallowing in his own misery. When one of his favorite sites is taken down, he starts searching for an alternative and ends up in an obvious scam site offering a Hypnosis App and Hypnosis Device. The site has a bunch of slogans that sound like an infomercial, it got a chuckle out of me. Try it now for Free!, even. But to get it, you talk directly with the site Admin. Thinking it would be funny to bullshit a scammer in circles for a bit, Kenji takes his brother's old phone (he's not stupid enough to use his own) and contacts the administrator. The site's name as well as the admin's handle is YAMI, written in allcaps romanji. Kenji ponders whether it's supposed to be 闇 (darkness) or 病み (sickness), and this double entendre comes back a few times. For example, after Kenji talks with the admin (under the guise of a cutesy avatar called YAMI-chan) they say they can feel Kenji's YAMI oozing from the way he texts. It could mean both his evil, dark intentions or his perverted, sick mind.

YAMI-chan

YAMI takes a liking to Kenji, and Kenji himself gets pretty into the idea of the Hypnosis device once it's explained how it works and what it can do, which I already did above. Also, the Device is free, but the actual price would be around 100 Million Yen. The catch is simple: it can only be installed in a few rooms, and additional devices cost money.

Anyway, Kenji ends up getting one, giving his address and everything to this shady-ass mascot, gets the device and inputs the layout of the house and all sorts of personal information about the girls on it (like their age, height, medical history, etc). He briefly wonders if he's somehow been hypnotized himself to really be putting all this sensitive information on this thing. But his desperation to turn the tables on Kumiko and Yuka is much greater.

The app's interface as Kenji enters the information necessary

Something worth noting is that Kenji is pretty twisted from the start. His intentions are not to get some self-righteous retribution he thinks he's owed or simply steal the sisters as his lovers. He knows what he is and what he wants (and that's why YAMI took a liking to him): he wants to degrade them, make them his slaves, his cumdumps. The Hypnotic Device isn't a way to turn his bad fortune into good fortune. In his own words, it's a way to drag down those who have good fortune and have them crawl on the ground while he rises. This is not one of those games that tries to dress up the protagonist's evil with pretty words. And I like that. While revenge stories can be nice, it's not a make-it-or-break-it for me that the heroines of a corruption or mind control game need to "deserve it". On the contrary, seeing innocent women dragged down and turned into slaves just because the protagonist can and is selfish enough to do it can be very satisfying.

Anyway, after a few weeks after setting the device and thinking he's been duped, it finally gets a reaction one morning he skipped college after getting kicked by Yuka for staring at her underwear.

Breast Massaging and Questionable Analogies

It says Time Stop but it's really not. Described as "her perception of time" or "the time inside her" being stopped, Kumiko is unaware of her surroundings and doesn't respond to anything around her, but still reacts to direct touch. For all intents and purposes, she's just in a trance. An "easy mode" type of trance that turns off her awareness completely so it's easier to take advantage of her. This being the first time she's put under (at least for enough time for Kenji to be notified, YAMI later explains that she entered light trances several times in the past few days, chipping away her resistance), it's also rather fragile and her consciousness partially awakens when Kenji starts fondling her breasts. However, she's still hypnotized, in a dazed and dream-like state, and Kenji takes the opportunity to implant some deeper suggestions directly, namely reinforce the notion that she feels good from her breasts.

He also learns that his brother didn't fondle her breasts too roughly. Getting ahead of the story a bit, eventually, Kenji realizes Junichi doesn't really care about Kumiko. Their marriage is basically a business deal, he treats her well but his "kindness" Kumiko loves so much is actually him treading very carefully to not offend the boss' little princess. He never really acts on his desires, assuming he even has any. His position is more important than their love life. As a result, his sex with her was very lackluster, and Kumiko, being super sheltered (she didn't even masturbate before marriage because her parents instilled into her the notion that she shouldn't do shameful things before marriage), has nothing to compare him to and believes that their way of doing things is how good sex feels, so she never experienced the more intense stimulation Kenji puts her through. Since the best way to make the direct suggestions given during a trance is to associate them with pleasant feelings, this works out in Kenji's favor.

Now that Kenji knows the app works he also tests the second input, "Breast Milk Ejaculation". And no, this isn't an awkward translation, that is the word used, and Kenji does compare the hardness of her nipples and the way breast milk sprays forward while her body jerks in spasms to himself rubbing one out. That's... A decision. I don't like these comparisons, but the way her breasts get handled is still pretty damn hot.

Even under hypnosis, Kumiko is upset by her sudden lactation, and Kenji takes advantage of her confusion and vulnerable mental state to imprint the suggestion that her breasts lactate because they're lewd and quick to cum, and that she is an indecent woman for having a body like that. Kenji wants to go on but runs out of time - the "time stop" trance only lasts 20 minutes. Kenju then instructs Kumiko to forget everything, like a dream, but that she will subconsciously remember what he taught her about her body. He also says that he was feeling sick after getting kicked by Yuka, went to bed, and didn't come out of his room all day. He does this because he doesn't have time to tidy Kumiko up and has to leave her still soaked in breast milk.

Brainwashing Kumiko, or Mind Control as an Erotic Narrative Tool

After a chat with YAMI (who, smug little shit that they are, makes fun of Kenji for thinking the Device would not work), Kenji learns that the reason it took so long was that the breast milk setting is an advanced one and shouldn't really be done first. YAMI finds it super fun and interesting that Kenji did though, and that he has potential. To what, they don't say.

Kenji also learns that strong direct commands like "Time has stopped" or "You are in love with me" will always yield short-term results. The victim will act against their will for the duration of the trance and then it's over. Imprinting more subtle suggestions like Kenji did during his breast fondling session, if done right, will pile up over time and make lasting changes to the target's personality. YAMI suggests Kenji starts with instructions that make Kumiko want to rely on him more. "If there's anything bothering you, we can talk about it", "instead of googling it, ask me", and other small things like that. The trust it will build can be a foundation to truly brainwash her into loving and obeying him on his own, eventually. And that's what Kenji does, offscreen, over the course of the following week.

To wrap things up for today, one moment that really jumps out to me and is an example of why I think this game uses mind control effectively as a narrative tool happens the night after Kenji first hypnotized Kumiko. Yuka arrives late, and Kumiko is in the kitchen making dinner. Or rather, she is standing there in a daze. Kenji didn't do anything, she just slipped into one as the device reinforcea her subliminals. Yuka calls her a few times and she snaps out of it, saying that she was deep in thought. Yuka gets worried, and immediately asks if Kenji did something that made her uncomfortable. Kumiko answers in a monotonous and somewhat distant tone:

Props to Shibuya Hime's delivery on the line, by the way. It's super easy for VAs to fumble the delivery by making it too wooden, but she nailed it, making Kumiko sound just the right amount of "not there". After Yuka is convinced (but not satisfied), she goes to take a bath and Kumiko stays there. She thinks about how she simply lost track of time for half an hour that morning and woke up feeling all tingly and covered in breast milk, and that this is weird. She thinks about contacting a doctor, but then she "remembers" that she lactates because her breasts are lewd and cum easily. She snaps out of that, surprised by the fact she was thinking obscenities. But ultimately decides that the situation is too embarrassing to call anyone because they will think she is indecent. And then, she breathes out, calms down and, and slips into a deeper trance again.

THAT'S some good stuff right there To me, mind control erotica is at its hottest not when it's just used as "the easy sex button" in a situation that could use rape, blackmail or seduction, but wants to keep things simple; but when it permeates the whole work even outside the sex scenes. Mind Control is about how it rewrites the heroines' personalities in their day-to-day lives, how it changes their thought process. The fact YAMI even addressed this in the earlier conversation with Kenji makes me think this crossed the mind of the writers as well. That it's no fun to just have the girl do something outrageous and then forget every time. I think that when done right, Mind Control can be appreciated even by people who aren't hypno-fetishists but are still into corruption, as it really is a slow, hopeless downward spiral into depravity and obedience. And this isn't the one scene where this happens, this is just scratching the surface of the kind of pretzel logic and warped sense of self the sisters will develop throughout the game.

And we'll see more of this next time. As Kenji follows YAMI's suggestion, Kumiko starts opening up to him, and we reach the first few branching choices, and things will get more interesting both in the sex scenes and out of them.

I hope this first post was entertaining. Due to having to do the introductory part I didn't get as far with the events as I wanted, originally my idea for the first post was to stop after the first big branching choice, but the post would be too big. I think it is already too big for the more snappy and short format I had in mind.

So I hope you guys stick with me for the next one, and if by then you are not feeling this kind of content, feel free to say so.

We didn't get to see much of Yuka in this first part, so here's a pic of her underwear. This is what got Kenji kicked in the chin. Worth it.