[Eroge Play Report] Ane Ane W Saimin, part 2 - Forks in the road

When we last left off, Kenji had decided to use the Hypnosis Device more subtly, just nudging Kumiko into trusting him more instead of turning her into a puppet. And we saw that even when Kenji isn't around, the device is doing its work on her head. I also took the opportunity to talk about how I think mind control can be compelling and erotic even outside of sex scenes, so check out the last post if you want to catch up. Now, we finish the introduction proper, entering the first route we're going to do.

Kenji M.D.

We start with Yuka kicking Kenji again. Kenji is trying to imprint in her the urge to give him a good morning kiss, but instead, all he gets is violence. He still sees this as a win because Yuka is coming to wake him up every morning now. Small victories.

The suggestion that Kumiko should rely on Kenji and consult him on things are taking root and she has asked him to teach her how to use a smartphone, often asks him about the day's menu, and so on. Yuka is annoyed at this, throwing tantrums over not wanting to eat food Kenji picked and that Kumiko is pampering him too much "just for teaching her how to use social network sites".

After a few days, the subliminals have done enough work Kumiko can be made to believe things that go against common sense during trance. Kenji has also set up the devices in the Bathroom to focus on the body modification stuff, mostly making her breasts more sensitive and increasing her milk production. When that device is ready for a deeper trance, Kenji has to come up with a reason to come to the bathroom with Kumiko and, while she is hypnotized, manages to trick her into believing that there's a new disease that affects women with body type similar to hers, that causes hormonal imbalance, with lactation and excessive sensitivity being the major symptoms. He makes up a whole story about Junichi calling to ask if Kumiko was safe because the disease was becoming really common in the West, but was still rather unknown in Japan, etc. She buys it hook, line and sinker especially when Kenji uses her husband's worry as a way to wedge past her resistance.

He also makes her very afraid of it, saying that the milk needs to be extracted in a specific way to remove the bad substances otherwise it will make the symptoms worse until she can't control herself anymore and goes insane from arousal and starts just jumping random men. The whole talk about how to remove toxins and whatnot sounds hilariously like anti-vax or bullshit supplement talk, it's great. There's even the added scare that very few practitioners in Japan know the correct way to treat her, and that many claim to know the method to take advantage of women's bodies, so she can't trust the doctors. And of course, conveniently enough, Kenji did his research after the talk with his brother and learned the proper way to identify and treat the disease. This new knowledge, along with the preexisting suggestions to trust and ask Kenji for help, leads Kumiko to ask him to examine her. All this so he can get Kumiko's mind to accept the idea of getting in the bathroom with him, and it still fails. Kumiko absolutely doesn't want to get in the bathroom with him. This makes Kenji force his hand a bit and just take her deeper and whisper that she will until she reluctantly agrees.

Once in the bathroom things get easier, as the device there is running the "Lack of Sexual Awareness" subliminals that make her have trouble recognizing clearly sexual situations as sexual. Getting her into the bathroom was harder than actually getting her naked, for instance.  The fact she now can be convinced of things that go against her common sense also comes in handy for Kenji to justify anything he does as "necessary for the examination". Including filming Kumiko with the YAMI Tablet, and engaging in this totally non-sexual activity:

Anything weird she feels in this normal medical procedure is because she is sick, which pushes Kumiko to let Kenji do more extreme things in a positive feedback loop. He also takes the opportunity to learn a bit more about her relationship with Junichi, which I already went through in the previous post. Kenji tells Kumiko to admit she came from both her tits and pussy and she goes silent for a moment, making Kenji think it's still too early for that kind of bold declaration from her (using dirty words and everything), but then she says loud and clear:

Once again her VA does a great job with the line delivery, by the way.

Kenji is somewhat taken aback by how much just two sessions have affected Kumiko. The sensation of rewriting the feelings and the common sense of a woman so out of his league is overwhelming to Kenji. And then we get our first choice, which is, all things considered, extremely obvious: whether to fuck Kumiko right here and now or to take a step back and act more carefully. Kenji recalls what YAMI said about doing something too forceful and breaking the hypnosis, but look at all he made her do already. Maybe he can?? 

Of course not. There's no chance this ends up well. Since I smell a bad ending, let's go with the stupid one first.

Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes

Kumiko does agree to get "examined" by his penis, but as soon as it actually enters her the hypnosis breaks and she's fully conscious, with no idea of how she got there or why she is naked. She tries to reason, to scream, to plead, but there's no stopping the rape train.

Despite her mind being now awake, the body-affecting subliminals are still in place so she is still super sensitive, not to mention she was already aroused from the previous interaction. She orgasms every time Kenji cums inside her. Kenji also shows her the recording of her earlier "treatment" and uses this as blackmail, since she's clearly doing that willingly.

So a few weeks pass, and Kenji has been fucking Kumiko all this time using the video and then their continued sexual encounters as leverage. Kumiko is a meek and weak-willed woman to begin with so she just accepts it. Kenji isn't even using the Hypnosis App anymore and muses that he never needed it, he just needed the confidence, and that once Kumiko gets pregnant, then she will be his, tied to him forever, because she doesn't have the guts to get an abortion. This logic would fly in other games, even some mind-control ones where the protagonist just transitions to good old rape and blackmail, but surprisingly, not here. Because the recurring theme that humans aren't so simple you can predict their every action pops up again.

One morning Kenji gets a box very similar to the one the Hypnosis Device came in, but black in color. He realizes it must have come from YAMI, but isn't terribly interested, as he has no need for it. But might as well check out what it is. It's a gun.

As he's still recovering from shock, YAMI contacts him and scolds him for being such a dumbass. Kenji fires back that he's been getting around fine without their Hypnosis, but then YAMI drops the bombshell that a police report has been filed against Kenji that morning. Despite taking the abuse for weeks, something changed in Kumiko and she finally decided to report him. Of course, that was getting pregnant. Kenji is such a leech that he never considered that Kumiko could take the other route to protect her child - report Kenji, have him arrested, and then, as the victim, and as her father would want to hush such a scandal as cleanly as possible, the kid would just be adopted by Junichi. At least that's one of the possibilities YAMI brings up. The happy one. YAMI also says it's possible that Kumiko reported him and then, unable to bear the shame she is bringing upon her family, will kill herself. She is weak-willed, after all. Neither Kenji or YAMI have a way of knowing for certain, and of course when Kenji searches the house Kumiko is already nowhere to be found. It's left up to the player's imagination. As for the gun, it's obvious why YAMI sent it: it's for Kenji to kill himself with before the police arrives, because he's such a coward he'll surely spill the beans about YAMI. After hurling more insults towards Kenji, they cut communication.

Kenju obviously doesn't want to die and selfishly thinks that it doesn't matter. Maybe he can get away with a slap on the wrist if he can spin it as just a love affair between him and his brother's wife. He has the video evidence of her willingly going along with his actions. Even if he is found guilty of sexual assault, it's not a crime one can get the death penalty for. He will come out of jail eventually. While he's panicking, and the distant sound of sirens gets closer and closer, his thoughts keep drifting to the gun. He isn't planning on killing himself, but it is an interesting sight - remember Japan has very restrictive rules on firearms, so most people never see one up close. There's only one bullet, but Kenji loads it anyway and plays pointing around for a bit. When he catches himself thinking that one bullet is enough to shoot himself, he realizes what is really happening: he's been hypnotized to kill himself. His room has a Hypnosis Device too, which is basically the control unit of the others. It isn't supposed to hypnotize him. But of course, YAMI has access to it, and can brainwash the user if they ever become a liability. Kenji has been had.

He shoots himself as "YAMI (闇)" (darkness) envelops his vision.

I was really surprised by this ending. The first time I had never seen it before, the first time I played I probably avoided the obvious wrong choice. I didn't expect it to have a full sex scene and even show more about how YAMI handles things on their end. As I already mentioned, this is an ending brought about by Kenji's failure to understand how his targets would act, due to his lack and empathy and inflated ego. This is what I meant last week about how the believable reactions of the characters drive the stakes, and I'd even say add some complexity. I did not expect Kumiko to take such bold action against Kenji since up to this point the game hammered how passive she is (I thought Yuka was going to find out and do something), yet it does feel believable she would do that to protect her family. Good writing.

But let's rewind and take the non-stupid decision, shall we?

The long con

By loading and picking the option where Kenji thinks with his head instead of his dick, he stops after fingering and wraps up Kumiko's "treatment", reassuring her that she will be fine for the time being, as the toxic substances have been extracted with her milk and the lewdness that was taking hold of her mind was erased through the "relaxation" treatment. After coming out of the trance, Kumiko is so much more comfortable with Kenji and so unable to recognize the inherent sensuality of what they just did that she even agrees to let Kenji take care of her underwear, undressing in front of him and handing him her bra and panties with a smile on her face.

As the days go by, Kumiko grows more and more dependent on Kenji, asking for his input for pretty much anything. This is how she reacts when Kenji says that she could pick what to do for breakfast by himself that morning:

Her treatment is also advancing, and she, unprompted, shows Kenji her panties, as he needs to check the smell every morning to keep track of her health. Normal medical stuff. Kenji also comments that her choice of underwear is too plain for a woman her age and that she should wear something sexier, but Kumiko says she isn't good with that kind of thing. When Kenji offers to start picking out her underwear for her, she refuses, as there are lines she won't cross. There's a limit to how far the "lack Sexual Awareness" imprinting can go.

As for Yuka, she's as aggressive as ever, lashing out at Kenji at every little thing and getting angry and frustrated that Kumiko always seems to take his side (though I should note she acts as a mediator and always puts emphasis on how they should get better as a family, which is how Kenji usually convinces her to do things she's uncomfortable with. She doesn't really takes Kenji's side over Yuka, that's just how the younger sister sees it). Kenji configures two out of the three Hypnosis Devices to change Yuka's Sexual Awareness as well, because she is getting in the way of Kumiko's training, but no noticeable changes occur.

One day a box arrives from YAMI containing a second Tablet and Device set. It's an upgraded version that can take subjects up to the third level of trance, put people under faster, and also hypnotize people who are resistant to the lower intensities of the signal.

When Kenji questions why he's getting something like that for free, YAMI explains it's a reward... For the video. As we know from the bad ending, YAMI has backdoor access to the devices Kenji has, and that includes the tablet's storage. They took the video and uploaded it to a special, VIP members-only site. Kenji gets angry that his face is out there but Yami reassures that the user's face is censored, and while the target's is not, everyone is very tight-lipped, and also very rich. If Kenji delivers more quality entertainment, he further compensation.

Not like Kenji can do anything about that, so he focuses on the fact that now he can probably hypnotize Yuka, and even train both her and Kumiko at the same time if he wants to. This is when another choice presents itself. Training both is tempting, but messing with Yuka at all is a risk, Kenji thinks. She's tech-savvy and paranoid, there's always the chance she notices someone is wrong with her, assumes it's Kenji's fault and searches his room, finding all these weird devices. So the choice is between trying to balance both sisters' training or focusing all efforts on Kumiko first, as a way to get experience with the device, so he's more prepared to take on Yuka later.

The choice of focusing on Kumiko sounds like the more sensible one, and I'm hoping that by the time Kenji focuses on Yuka, he's not only gotten his "experience points" but also has turned Kumiko into a full-on helper. That would be hot.

So Kenji takes his extra 3 devices and installs them in the toilet, Kumiko's bedroom, and the kitchen. He voices his objective in internal monologue as wanting to make Kumiko beg to be embraced by him of her own volition. Let's see how that pans out next time.