Togainu no Chi [2025-Oct-06]

Date: August 2025

Format: Visual Novel

Original Release: 2005 [translation 2020]

Routes: Rin


Assessment:

Very high-concept BL set in a post-apocalyptic death game in the ruins of Toshima, where boys torn from their parents and raised to fight in a war they never saw wander aimlessly through life. Between the edgy art, edgy music, and story full to the brim with gore and rape, this is a product of its time in the best way possible. It's also shockingly mature (not just adult), which surprised me. Characters are mostly very fleshed out and deep, it can really tug at your heartstrings when it wants to.
As of writing this I have only done the Rin route, which upon completion made me cry for about two days. He's cute okay. That route really digs into some deep-set issues around trust in a way that felt extremely close to my lived experience. The story has themes of desensitisation, drug abuse, and the weaponisation of violence and sexuality within male socialisation. The extreme subject matter may look on the surface like cheap shock content, but under the surface there is a sincere story fascinated with the failings of masculinity and state identity. I'll definitely return to finish the other routes when I'm in a less fragile state.

Art:

The style is very distinctive, and really only could have been pulled off in 2005. The colours have extremely high contrast with lots of pure blacks and overexposed highlights, all tinted an uncomfotable slight greenish. I think the pre-rendered 3D backgrounds (which seem to include some photography?) are kind of jank, looking like something out of an old point-and-click game, but they have such great atmosphere. Generally I think the art looks good and fits the tone well. My only issue would be the portraits, which is a weird thing to fuck up in a visual novel - they all look wonky; their faces are too long and the perspective is off.