Friday, March 29, 2024

Recommending my favorite Miel games, because why not?

I recently played Miel's newest title, Tomodachi no Kyonyuu Mama wa Zenbu Ore no Mono!, and since it really surpassed my expectations, I wanted to talk about it. But I've always had trouble with how to approach writing about Miel: not only most of their titles are too similar, meaning reviewing one would mean I'd have nothing to say about others - essentially locking myself out of reviewing more -, but even my favorites are so simple and straightforward there's not a lot to be said about them. But then I realized that was something I could take advantage of - since I don't need many lines to get my thoughts on each game out, they're perfect for a list format.

I started trying to make a top 10, but soon realized that wouldn't work either - my own biases made me choose games that were way too similar for the top spots, which is counterproductive to my goal of not being too repetitive. Moreover, I felt like ordering the games was a completely arbitrary process influenced strongly by both recency bias and nostalgia, in a list that was already very biased by taste. So I decided to group the games by category - that allowed me to talk more freely about the games while drawing attention to what I thought was the highlight of each one. And since I wasn't constrained by a top 10 format, I ended up with 12 recommendations. A number of them have been translated to English by Cherry Kiss games, and I'll put the localized title in parentheses when a translation exist.

Common points among most games

Almost all Miel harem games follow a similar formula - a protagonist that is hated, mocked or simply ignored by women around him gets in a position where he can rape them, makes them submit to him after one dicking (something called sokuochi, instant fall, something that will figure on a future Hentai Glossary post), becoming his adoring slaves. So the first few scenes of the game are dedicated to conquering the harem while the rest is putting it to good use. The sex scenes can get pretty hardcore, but the tone is kept light-hearted all the way, with the focus being on the absolute devotion the slaves experience.

Some games break this mold but they'll show up as their own category and be explained then.

Fantasy Harem

Let's start with the most popular type of Miel game. Honestly, I mean to get them out of the way first, as it's what most will probably be familiar with already. 

The Fantasy titles usually have some magic explanation for the protagonist's suddenly being able to turn the tables - from contracts with evil artifacts and beings, to cheat skills, to simply being summoned as the only male in a female-only world where they're unable to resist a man. As for the protagonist's origins, the majority of the titles feature the stock Isekai premise of someone being summoned or reincarnated in a parallel world, but there are a number of titles with a MC native to the fantasy land as well.

Riruka's experiments went horribly right
One highlight of this category is Isekai Haramase Harem Party (localized in English as Harem Hunter: Sex-Ray Vision). After dying from overwork, the protagonist is reincarnated in a fantasy world, but he didn't get any of the perks that usually come with it - no special powers, no godly guidance, no cheat skills, and so he's basically an ordinary guy. He still tries to become an adventurer, but he's just a pushover who gets made fun of by the others. He gets tricked by Riruka, the mage of a prominent all-female party, into helping her with an experiment, which was actually just testing dangerous potions and drugs on him, However, this has the unforeseen effect of granting him the ability to see the sexual weak points of people. It's like seeing their stats, but instead, he sees what kinks and weak spots they have buried deep into their bodies and psyches, and takes advantage of that to bring them to their knees. It's as good an excuse as any for sokuochi antics and has more thought put into it than simple "power of the dick" scenarios, and making every girl revolve around a specific fetish helps make them distinct even after mindbreak - something other Miel games struggle with. My favorite is definitely Moa, the Priestess who develops into a huge exhibitionist.

Besides the four main party members the protagonist conquers (made up of the aforementioned mage and priestess, a beast folk swordswoman, and an elf archer), there's also 3 side heroines the party encounters during their questing and the protagonist brings to their knees: a dark elf thief, a demon girl and a stuck up princess. It adds a nice variety to the scenes.

Another game I really like of the fantasy selection is Dekachichi Muchishiri BBA Kishidan (or Hot & Steamy Knights) where the protagonist is the only male in a female-only world and has already built an empire (this game is a thinly veiled sequel of Bakunyuu Himekishi wa Haramase Onaho, but the connections are only references), but a shipwreck leaves him stranded on unfamiliar territory protected by a troupe of 4 mature knights. Deciding to take them one after the other and rebuild his kingdom, he goes after them, plays them against each other, and so on. It got some really good moments like the Priestess Martina renouncing her faith to devote herself to cock or how the enslaved knights will set up traps and fight their former companions for the protagonist, but other than that, it's the standard fare - only with Akagi Rio's artwork instead of Ishii Akira. The artwork alone makes this one worth it honestly, it's the best art and scenarios among the Miel games with Akagi's art.

Lastly, I'd be remiss not to mention Elf Tanezuke Bokujou (Elf Breeding Farm), a game with only elf heroines getting enslaved and treated like livestock (but without pet play and actual pig or cow cosplay involved for the most part. It's more in the sense that Elves are a race of cattle themselves, which gets my seal of approval). The premise rings similar to Haramase Harem Party as the protagonist is subjected to Dark Elf's Melvy's experiments, but ends up overwhelming her. It turns out elves, being a long-lived and chaste race, are extremely weak to pleasure and even stuff like the smell of semen. So the protagonist pushes forward against the extremely prejudiced Elves and puts them in their place as his personal breeding stock, from their knights and princesses to their ancient queen Iris. This one got really good character designs (Ishii does some really delicious Elves) and lots of bondage scenes, it's sole sticking out point to me is that the girls are naked the entire time after being enslaved. It helps drive the point that they're lower than humans, but I always look forward to perverted clothing in Miel games. Plus, the lack of secondary heroines or scenes with one-scene extras takes away from the feeling of "becoming the ruler of the Elvish country" the game has going for it. Some titles later in this post will make what I mean by this a bit more clear.

Iris, the purple-haired elf in the top right image, is my favorite among the many elves Ishii Akira designed over the years.

That's about it for the fantasy harem titles. While they're the most popular in Miel's catalog, they're not my favorites. I tend to prefer modern settings. That is not to say I dislike the Fantasy titles, I do like them. But to me, Miel is at its best when it's doing...

Modern-day Harem

Basically the same structure as the fantasy games but taking place in a contemporary setting, I find them to be more varied when it comes to both the games' themes and the looks of the heroines - I find that a lot of the time, the fantasy Miel games are limited by the stock races/classes and by having the main clothing be very similar-looking armor. In that sense, a modern setting allows for more freedom as far as the designs go, and that's why I like them better. On the other hand, the scenarios are much less varied - almost all modern-day Miel games take place in a setting where male fertility rates have plummeted and the birth rates are at an all-time low. There comes along the protagonist who not only can get hard but has an abnormally large member that can churn out ridiculous amounts of semen, and all the girls are his for the taking - sometimes by law, sometimes in spite of it. Hentai logic through and through.

First, let's start with the game that motivated this post. Tomodachi no Kyonyuu Mama wa Zenbu Ore no Mono! was released on March 22, 2024. The protagonist grew up with an inferiority complex about his dick thinking it was below average because of his childhood friends always telling tall tales about theirs when in reality he's incredibly well-endowed - at one point he says his dick is "just" the size of a PET bottle and that he can "only" cum about 30 times a day. He also constantly fantasizes about these friends' mothers, who are all hot women from different walks of life - a businesswoman, a teacher, his neighbor who helps look out for him (the MC's parents are out of the picture), a refined and proper stay-at-home mom, and a former delinquent who now works retail, and thinks that if he had a big dick he would make them his, as polygamy is allowed for men who have outstanding fertility. Then, when the very strict teacher (and one of the aforementioned mothers) Atsuko catches him having an erection in class and decides to discipline his spirit through a judo lesson after school, the protagonist ends up with his pants down due to a poorly executed grapple and the truth about his dick is out, giving him the confidence to rape the teacher right in front of him and, when she submits, proceed with the harem plan he always dreamed about.

This is by all accounts a stock Miel plot. What makes it special is that scene-to-scene writing and the girls' voice acting are really good. It's one of their games that gets the "degrading strong women into slaves" the best, and little moments like the one who used to be the most dedicated housewife complaining that her husband and son get in the way of her serving her Master and that she wants get rid of them already are the cherry on top. The protagonist is also deliciously cruel to them - something that isn't rare for Miel protagonists, one of their selling points being the whole erohidoi ("lewd and twisted") nature of the content, but I feel this goes a step beyond with setups like the protagonist spanking them while they prostrate themselves and then choosing the two who had the nicest screams to be "rewarded" by sucking his dick and lick his ass while making pig sounds. The chosen girls also happen to be the tough former delinquent and cold businesswomen who were the hardest characters for him to approach and rape at the beginning.

Those little moments make Miel games stand out for me and this one is full of them. And this game has some of the best blowjob sounds I've ever heard in an eroge, the voice actresses and directing really deserve some praise here. The writing does help with the girls losing themselves in the act instead of talking while giving head, giving an impression they're really ruled by their female instincts - the protagonist jokingly thinks in one scene that they're so single-mindedly dedicated to the act it's almost like they forgot how to speak. Good stuff.

The netori is the cherry on top with staples like the "sex while on the phone with the husband" scene having good twists like every lovey-dovey line she says having a double meaning and being actually directed at the protagonist's dick. The protagonist chooses to not have his slaves divorce the husbands right away because he wants to enjoy the thrill of cheating for a while, and that leads to some fun moments, especially with how ready the girls are to just drop their families including their sons as soon as he gives the order.

I'm going to stop myself from gushing about the game right now, being something I just played and is fresh in the memory, it's unfair to compare to others I haven't played for years. Stuff like this is why I didn't want to make a top 10. But still, I do feel that the writing is above average by Miel's standards. The art by Maki Daikichi can look a bit off at times, but nothing major.


Anyway, moving on.

Tanetsuke de Hame Ana Kagu ni Naru Namaiki Ojou-sama tachi is an older title where not only fertility is down but society has shifted from a male-dominated one to a female-dominated one, with males being treated as second-class citizens and most pregnancies being done via artificial insemination. There's a prestigious Girls School owned by the Goouin Group, one of the biggest conglomerates in Japan, and one day, the third-year student and board chairwoman Goouin Madoka brings in a naked man saying that he's going to be the dorm's pet from that day on, so the girls get used to the presence of a male for when they go into the workforce. That man is a young CEO of a company who, despite also being unable to get his penis hard, has a strong interest in the opposite sex and molests his female employees frequently. However when he got up to his usual shenanigans at a party hosted by the Goouin group he got busted and, under pressure, his family disowned him, and he essentially became Madoka's slave.

The protagonist knows how to
treat royalty

At the dorm, there are other girls from influential families, including my favorite, Alicia Vorstein, a princess from a foreign country studying abroad in Japan who is the only one to treat the protagonist with some kindness - but more out of pity and embarrassment of being around a naked dude than any actual empathy, the protagonist notices. Alicia has some great scenes focused on her breasts, a scene where she live streams getting fucked while wearing the crown jewels, and is often called "Alicia Holstein" after becoming a slave (something this game does often actually, Madoka gets called Masoka a couple of times and another girl, Sakurai Minaho, starts calling herself Sakurai Onaho). Anyway, surrounded by stimulation all the time, the protagonist who always felt a weird sensation on his penis and a pit on his stomach does manage to get hard for the first time, and from there on it's what you expect. The kagu in the title means furniture, and that's the nature of the role reversal here - from treating the protagonist as less than human to being treated as less than human themselves.

The art is also something I want to bring attention to. Older Ishii Akira girls have a "softness" to them I often find missing in his more recent work. The trade-off is that some of his expressions from back then can be pretty derpy. It doesn't bother me as I like insane, over-the-top silly ahegao, but many consider it a negative.

Moving on, Ie o Tamariba ni Suru Dekapai Gyaru-tachi o Kyochin de Wakarase! (localized as Hentai Houseparty: Gyaru Gangbang, despite featuring no gangbangs) is a game that is worth it for anyone who likes gyarus. The setting doesn't use the whole "protagonist is the only fertile man" thing, he's just an awkward Otaku who gets pushed over by a trio of gyarus who make his house a hangout spot and treat him like their gofer. When he can't take being surrounded by these hot girls anymore and starts masturbating in his room, Mea, the sluttier of the three, finds him and, impressed by his size, decides to just give him a spin, while still being very condescending, calling him a meat dildo and everything. The tables are quickly turned and Mea falls for his dick, even helping the protagonist plot to get her friends Riri and Yuina fucked as well. After that, it's an inversion, with the gyarus sucking up to the protagonist instead and doing everything he wants.

The art for this is by Yatsuki Hiyori and it looks great. That's really it honestly, good art and hot gyarus. I don't have writing highlights to bring up, it's the standard Miel experience otherwise.

Last but not least, Tomodachi no Galge Mitai na Gikazoku o Musabori Netotte Haramaseta is a bit different in that there are only two girls, but damn the quality is top-notch here. The protagonist this time takes advantage of his friend going on a student exchange program to another country to take his stepmother and stepsister - both of whom secretly harbored romantic feelings for said friend. The protagonist has a state-issued license to fuck because of course he does so there's nothing they can do, and soon enough nothing they want to do.

The highlight here is that the art is great, one of Ishii's finest works in my opinion, and the amount of 3P scenes. One of the few Miel titles that draws proper attention to Oyakodon. Ultimately though, this is another one that is worth it for the artwork over anything in the writing, though there are some nice touches, like how the girls greet the protagonist in naked dogeza almost every morning and he does something different to them every time. This also happens in Tomodachi no Kyonyuu Mama above, but I didn't have a chance to bring it up there. 

Slower Corruption

Miel's bread and butter are their sokuochi games, but that's not all they do. Once in a blue moon, they release a game, usually with a single heroine, that takes things slower and has a lengthier corruption and moral degeneration progress through sexual training. Obviously, this leads to stronger writing and a more satisfying climax as you get to see the defenses of the heroine slowly break down. Miel used to do games like this more often in the past, but they're rare now and when they do it, it's always related to Netori.

Joushi no Kyonyuu Kishi Danchou wa Ore no Niku Onaho! (localized as Virgin Knight is my Onahole Tonight) is a fantasy title, but I thought it fit better under this category. Hilda is the tough captain of the royal army who protects the kingdom of the monsters, while the protagonist is the vice-captain who only got there through political connections and sees his post as a punishment from his family. He discovers that Hilda is dating one of the other female Knights, and leveraging that knowledge manipulates things so Hilda ends up in his debt (for covering for a mistake her girlfriend made, though it was really his fault to begin with) in a deal where she will serve him as a sex slave for two months, and then they'll be even and he won't let her secret out. So Hilda very reluctantly subjects herself to all the perverted plays the vice-captain comes up with, and in the process starts awakening her masochistic side.

Hilda's training and gradual transition from denial of her masochistic feelings to a willing participant in hardcore submissive play is a joy to watch unfold, as is the ultimate decision the protagonist mercilessly thrusts upon her once the 2 months are over of either moving on with her life and never interacting sexually with him again or throwing away her position, girlfriend, and dignity and becoming his sex slave for real. I think I don't need to say what she chooses.

Kekkon Seikatsu o Mamoru Tame ni Dairi Kozukuri de Netori Ana Yome ni Sareru Niizuma (My Married Cousin's Need for Seed) is another slow corruption game but taking a different approach. As the protagonist's cousin Nodoka failed to produce an heir and it came to light that her husband was impotent, the protagonist's great-grandmother, head of the family appoints the protagonist to impregnate her in her husband's stead, else she would be forced to divorce him. The protagonist, who always had a thing for Nodoka, decides to seize the opportunity to not only give her a child but also to steal Nodoka from her husband and make her his slave-wife.

The character dynamic here is very different from the usual for Miel as Nodoka is bound by duty to have sex with the protagonist so she isn't exactly unwilling, ashamed and regretful would be the more accurate words here. She loves her husband and feels she is betraying him to save her marriage, a classic NTR setup. Of course, as their physical relationship progresses, sex with the protagonist proves beyond anything she's ever experienced and the protagonist's training combined with Nodoka's meek and submissive disposition soon start shaping her into a slave to pleasure.

This is what I like about the "slower corruption" Miel games, they don't feel as similar to each other as the harem titles. The longer time dedicated to the development allows to flesh out the heroines more, while in the harem titles even though the characters have their quirks and personalities, after enslavement they're pretty similar with the "crazy slave" act taking centerstage (which isn't a bad thing in itself, this is just an observation).

While most slower corruption games have only one girl, Otto o Aisuru Bakunyuu Hitozuma-tachi ga Toshishita no Saru Seiyoku ni Jurin sarete Tsugou no ii Harami Omocha ni Ochiru Made (or Horny Housewives Booty Call Blackmail) has two. The protagonist is the son of a rich family sent to live in the countryside because he was causing too much trouble to the family due to his debauched behavior. But there he finds two alluring married women: the kind and mature stay-at-home wife Maika and the spirited and determined grocer Kyouko. Setting his sights on them, he leverages his money to blackmail them into a relationship and corrupt them. 

He goes for Maika first, as she's the easy target of the two - too innocent and reserved to really fight back, and her husband is an employee of a company owned by his family. Plus her house provides a secluded environment for him to play around, and after she's become his plaything, he moves on to Kyouko, who he simply rapes and takes compromising photos of. As the game has to share screen time between two girls, it's not as in-depth in the corruption process as the previous ones, but it's still good and there's a nice hot springs trip with both girls at the end. Also the break-up video they make for the husbands is just brutal, wearing a mockery of their wedding dresses, talking about how they don't need them anymore and pissing on pregnancy tests to show that they're pregnant with their Master's kids now. One of my favorites of this kind of scene.

Pet Play

Among the modern-day harem titles, there are a couple that focus on treating the girls as animals - usually livestock like pigs and cows, but sometimes also domestic animals like cats and dogs. Some may be thinking "but every Miel game has a scene like that". I mean games that have that as a main focus. Unfortunately, most of them have never been translated. My picks are all older games but there are newer ones using the concept.

First I want to talk about Tanezuke Bokujou Gakuen. It's another one where society has flipped to a female-dominated one with males having reduced rights. The protagonist is bullied at school by his appearance and interests, and spends most of his free time watching porn (which is illegal), until he's caught and is not only about to be expelled from school, but the headmistress pulls out a horsewhip and decides to give him a beating. But as she straddles him in their tussle, the protagonist gets hard. Taking down the headmistress, the student council president, and his bully who is also a famous Idol, the protagonist changes the name of the school to the titular "Breeding Farm School" and orders the headmistress to change the rules to expel all males, change the uniform to a depraved pig cosplay and after fucking the three most respected girls in front of all students, declares everyone there is his now. 

Their reward for standing up for their daughters
is joining them as livestock.

Some girls gladly give themselves after witnessing him drive the three women crazy with pleasure while others try to resist, and from that point on the protagonist, with the headmistress and student council president acting as his secretaries, deals with these problem students who refuse to accept their place and inspects the high-quality livestock who embraced their new roles. It's a game with a ton of side-girl content, some who show up for only one scene, but it really enhances the feeling of you being the "administrator" of the school/breeding farm. One scene that stuck with me (I played this one years ago) is when the moms of the student council president and idol come to demand the protagonist gives their daughters back and get tied up and dressed in the "uniform", fucked into submission by the protagonist, and then their daughters just guide them to their pens. They show up later in one more sex scene each, fully willing. It's all just really fun.

And to wrap things up, a game that for a long time sat as my favorite Miel game and is still one of my favorites, Kyokon de Tanezuke Bokujou ni Naru Machi. The protagonist is the son of an important family that rules a provincial town. Society is once again female-led, though males don't have it anywhere as bad as in Tanezuke Bokujou Gakuen or other games mentioned above and are a functioning part of society - but the women are in charge. For instance, the protagonist's dad is the head of the Fujishima family, but it's his step-mother Ayame who really calls the shots. The protagonist just endures all the abuse and teasing he gets because he intends to change things when he becomes head of the family... Except that his stealing of one of his relative's panties comes to light, and he's kicked out of home and, while not disowned by the family, loses his right to inheritance.

Languishing in poverty and scorn, one day he is caught with his pants down - literally - by his cousin Ritsuko, a stickler for the rules who... Offers herself to him. Turns out there's an old Fujishima rule that states that a Fujishima woman must give herself to men who can still get hard. No one follows this anymore but Ritsuko is obsessed with rules and proper conduct. And the usual happens, and she becomes the protagonist's slave. After that, the protagonist decides to climb his way to the post of family chief by taking all the Fujishima women for himself - starting with Ritsuko's mom Rena, to his other aunt and cousin Momoyo and Ruri, and finally going after his step-sister Saki and his step-mother Ayame. And after Ayame is his, it's time to change how things work in town.

It also features plenty of the girls scheming
against each other to help the protagonist -
here, Momoyo enthusiastically offers her
daughter to be raped and enslaved by her Master.
This game was the 50th game released by Miel and to commemorate the occasion it was their biggest yet (and still bigger than many they release today), so there's a lot of content for all 6 heroines, and as an appreciator of Oyakodon and Netori both it's a no-brainer this is one of my favorites. The idea of ruling over the entire family is just super appealing to me. The art by Ishii Akira has the issues common to his older work but as I said before, I'm not bothered by it.

Another fun aspect is that each mother and daughter pair is treated as a different animal - Rena and Ritsuko are dogs, Momoyo and Ruri are cats and Ayame and Saki are pigs. This, along with the scenes mixing and matching different girls, the scenes out in town fucking random women (as the Fujishimas can do whatever they want), and the netori scenes (one that sticks to my mind is when, as the protagonists teases Momoyo, who is the kind and gentle one, about how can she act so lewd in front of her husband, she says "I'm Master's sex slave. I don't have a husband" right to his face. When he tries to say anything his daughter Ruri tells him to stop bothering them while they're being pampered by their Master.) help give it variety, though not as much as Tanezuke Bokujou Gakuen which is focused on said variety. Still, the quality of the 6 main heroines and the focus on complete household domination wins out for me.

All the dehumanizing pet play and the triple-serving of Oyakodon make me forgive any shortcomings early Ishii Akira art might have.

And this was my overly long post about Miel. Probably the most positive piece anyone ever wrote about them. Still, I really wanted to get this out somehow and talk about all these games in some way. I hope those who read to the end were at least entertained and maybe had their interest piqued by some of these games - Miel's catalog being so expansive (they have 163 released games as of this writing) and at times so repetitive can really bury some gems, in my opinion.

Then again, these are just the 12 games among the ones I played that appeal more to my taste. As is probably clear I strongly favor oyakodon, netori and dehumanizing treatment (like treating the heroines as objects or livestock), so if that doesn't resonate as much with you, these games will probably hit no different than any others in the Miel pile. Conversely, if you are into the stuff I highlighted when talking about the games, they might be worth your time, regardless of how you feel about Miel's output as a whole.

No comments:

Post a Comment