sweet pool
Content warnings: This
is an 18+ game intended solely for an adult audience. It contains
extreme, dark content, and is sometimes presented in a way that excuses
or romanticizes abusive behaviors. sweet pool contains content
including, but not limited to: body horror, gore, sexual abuse, rape,
religious themes, forced/unwanted pregnancy, self-harm, disordered eating, suicide,
cannibalism, and possibly more that I'm not aware of.
Contents
[Intro] [First Impressions] [Zenya's Ending]
[Makoto's Ending] [Diving Deep]
---
"It's not romance.
It's not even love. It's something much, much deeper..."
- official game tagline. notice the
"not a romance" part?? keep that in mind.
---
"While sweet pool is definitely a tough sell, with a very dark storyline and a
foot in several niche genres, it also deserves recognition for its terrifying
depictions of consent, uterine anxieties, and puberty in horror games — even if
it trips and falls at the finish line."
- Except from
a review of the game by Vrai Kaiser
sweet pool is a Nitro+Chiral BL game first released in 2008. It
was the company's second release overall, following 2005's Togainu no
Chi. Whenever I think about that fact, I always find myself amazed that
they would take such a huge risk so early in their company's existence;
but I guess it paid off, since people are still talking about this game
to this day. In fact, when JAST Blue first began translating
Nitro+Chiral's games into English, they picked sweet pool as their first
release, beating out the company's 2012 breakout hit Dramatical Murder.
sweet pool has a lot in common with Saya no Uta, a classic and somewhat
infamous game released several years earlier by N+C's parent company,
Nitroplus. Both games contain shocking, gory content, and are often
touted simply for the level of shock or 'fucked-up-ness' they can induce
in the viewer. While there's definitely an audience for media like that,
sweet pool and Saya also leave the viewer with a lot to think
about, which I think is why the games have continued to stay in the
public conscience instead of fading away into schlocky obscurity.
I've wanted to play sweet pool for a long time. I actually attempted it
once before, quite a few years ago, when I was wildly unprepared for the
game in terms of both maturity and 'ability to deal with yucky stuff'.
I'm honestly pretty glad I didn't play it when I was younger. I want to
treat the game and its themes with a level of respect that I wouldn't
have been able to dredge up as a kid.
I bought the game on sale from JAST Blue, and I hope to start playing it
soon. Since I played Saya and found it really provoking, I hope that
sweet pool will also be an interesting experience. I think it's been on
my mind moreso than usual because of its themes of bodily autonomy - or,
rather, lack thereof. The threat of unknown men controlling Youji's body
and his reproductive system has always been a terrifying thought, but
its timeliness with current events is what finally gave me the push to
buy the game and see what I think about it. I plan to write an overall
review of it here much like I did with Saya.
---
07/18/22:
JAST Quality Control is My Enemy
This game has given me an absolutely unbelievable headache. I'm not
talking about the content; I'm talking about the actual launcher and
game. I have to get this out of the way before I start talking about the
gameplay itself because it was the most frustrating thing on earth.
I bought the game around two weeks ago, and have been unable to truly
play it until today. The game - specifically the version with the 18+
patch, I believe - has a deadly game-breaking glitch that made me madder
than I have ever been at a video game before. Namely, it decided to
crash at every single choice selection screen. Also, it crashed whenever
I tried to load my save files to sneak around the choice selections.
I reached out to technical support, and they replied promptly and were
courteous and helpful, but they weren't able to solve my problem. After
a grand total of about 5-6 hours of fucking around with the first twenty
minutes of gameplay, I was finally able to get the damn thing to work...
by running it as an administrator in Windows 95 compatability mode with
graphics quality lowered and a resolution of 800x600. This is the only
way I can get through the choice screens without the game freezing. It
was a hellish debacle, but I can finally play it, and I am so grateful
to be done with that whole process. Okay, now, let's get started with my
thoughts on the actual game.
---
07/18/22 Part 2: First Impressions and Backstory
Let's talk a little about the actual plot of this game, shall we?
sweet pool's story follows Youji Sakiyama, a pensive and quiet young man
who attends a Catholic high school. Youji has recently returned to
school after being held back a year due to his poor health, an issue
he's had since childhood. Feeling isolated and alienated from his peers,
Youji spends most of his time around others with his cheerful and
energetic friend Makoto Mita. The other key players in this story are
Zenya Okinaga, an unpredictable and disquieting student who skips class
and does as he pleases, and Tetsuo Shironuma, whose stoic and cold
demeanor fills Youji with a sense of dread he can't quite place.
(From left to right: Makoto, Tetsuo,
and Zenya.)
While navigating his own anxieties and discomforts about his health and
education, Youji is seemingly confronted by Tetsuo and Zenya everywhere
he goes, no matter how much he tries to avoid them. At the same time,
Youji has been struggling with confusing changes to his body. He fights
through nausea, hallucinations, and periods of intense lust, without any
rhyme or reason. These stressful symptoms culminate when he inexplicably
begins producing lumps of living flesh from inside his body. This is the
core of sweet pool's story, and it only grows more confusing and
alarming from this point. Get your mpreg and omegaverse jokes out of the
way now so you can carry on (if you even want to!) - those are indeed
heavy themes in this game.
I am a little bit over 4 hours into the game in my first playthrough. There are six possible endings
in sweet pool, with some of them unlocked only after finishing certain
other endings. The recommended play order I found - and
am sticking to - is as follows: Zenya, Makoto, 'Diving Deep', 'Red
Road', and then two distinct versions of an ending called 'Miracles
May'. Zenya and Makoto each only have one ending, while the other four
are Tetsuo's. As you play, your choices are presented only as 'reason'
(blue)
or 'instinct' (red), with no explanation - these are your only tools to
control Youji's behavior. I'm using spoiler-free walkthroughs that tell
me which choices to make in order to guarantee each ending.
The first thing that really stood out to me in this game was the
soundtrack. It's really exemplary. Even the calm songs that play in the
slice of life scenes carry a sense of forboding, and it's only amplified
when Youji is actually threatened or anxious. The tracks are really evocative,
at least to me. I was super impressed.
Scene 02 - a 'peaceful' song with forboding beats underneath. it
gives you a sense of melancholy and hints to something larger looming
ahead.
Strain 01 - anxiety time! a low,
synthetic riff with screeching sounds interspersed. it grows more
frantic and metallic as it goes on.
Onto the characters - Youji is extremely sympathetic as a protagonist.
The game is written in third person, and we get glimpses into other
scenes with characters besides him, but this really is his story. He's a
lonely, perpetually on-the-edge young man who wants to avoid burdening
others with his problems, yet aches for connection simply to make his
life easier. He always seems to do or say the wrong thing to make his
classmates look at him the wrong way, and it continuously weighs on him.
He has an older sister who occassionally checks in on him, but he is
acutely aware of the fact that she's living her own life and doesn't
want to get in her way.
His listlessness, stress, and pain - unfortunately - lay the groundwork
for this story. This is the 'Youji has a terrible day' game from
beginning to end. The writing grants weight to all of his feelings. It
never feels like a 'oh, woe is me' moment - even when the circumstances
become suspension-of-belief levels of unlucky for him, or he finds
himself laying awake at night over something miniscule, it's presented
without painting him as weak, even if Youji himself feels that way.
Players who have experienced depression or anxiety, disordered eating,
health issues, or even just normal menstruation will probably relate
heavily to him, which is why I think he's a very effective vessel for
this story.
Makoto, Youji's cheerful friend, serves a few purposes in the game
simultaenously. He's a means of exposition in many cases, a friend and
confidant for Youji, and also a source of comic relief for the
narrative. He's extremely charming, in a really goofy way. His voice
actor really knocked it out of the park - I chuckled out loud at quite a
few of his deliveries. He seems almost one-note for quite a while, until
we get some insight into how he sees things and how he acts when he
isn't around Youji. I'm interested to see what else he has to offer as
his own character.
Zenya is... a character, alright! Jokes aside, he's extremely
interesting. He purposefully drives people away from him, and enjoys
being as difficult and odd as possible. He can often be found holding
onto the gates of the school and shaking them wildly, screaming just for
the hell of it. There isn't a single person in school who wants to be
near him. His circle of acquaintances consists of his
bodyguard-slash-family servant, Kitani, who pledged his loyalty to the
Okinaga family when Zenya's father was still a member of the yakuza, and
Kristi, Zenya's pet iguana. Zenya's father is extremely religious, and
also suffers from senility and loss of himself, which makes for a very
tense household between the two of them.
(Kristi is here just to help break up the
text. Don't worry, there's nothing unsettling going on in the uncropped
image, I promise.)
Zenya has a hair-trigger temper, and he's also the only one who knows
about Youji's condition. He's extremely interested in it, to be precise,
and sets his sights on Youji much like an animal sets its sights on its
prey. Zenya is operating on a higher narrative importance than any other
character, it seems - the one doomed to know the truth, and to realize
the stupidity of it all, accounting for his absurd and potentially
nihilistic behavior. It's very hard to tell what his actual motivations
are, but he believes that he is the only one worthy of Youji's attention
and the strange things happening inside his body.
That just leaves Tetsuo. Tetsuo is a strange character, in the fact that
I... actively dislike him. I truly do think that this is purposeful; I
think Tetsuo really needs all of those four seperate endings
for the player to crack open his cold shell and see what kind of person
he really is. Tetsuo, on his own, is nothing special; he's quiet, scary,
is often left on his own, and yet people are sort of amazed by him. The
part that makes me dislike him is how much Youji dislikes him.
Youji is constantly terrified and upset around him, and it's very hard
for me to ignore those sentiments.
Tetsuo, at this point in the game, really has no personality. He clearly
has a connection with Youji, yet no other character knows what it is.
It's possible that even he doesn't know what it is. I don't think that
he's malicious, but so far his actions haven't made any sort of
impression on me like the other characters have. Tetsuo really only
exists - so far - to be an object of fear and lust to Youji,
because we don't know anything about him besides how Youji and the other
characters view him. There's only rumor and hearsay; the real Tetsuo is
still waiting to be found, somewhere at the end of this game.
Also, I'd just like to add one thing here while I'm discussing the main
characters: All three of the other main characters
assault or attempt to assault Youji at least once throughout the game. I
do not excuse this behavior in any way, but due to the type of game this
is, I kind of have to 'gloss over' it if I want to talk about the
characters in terms of personality and writing. Just because I talk
about liking a character or I seem to minimize this part of the plot,
it's not my intention. I just want to make sure that it doesn't sound
like I'm ignoring this huge red flag that every character shares.
07/25/22: Zenya and Makoto's Endings
(This is probably a good time to
mention that this game doesn't have any 'good' endings, just 'not as
bad' endings.)
As mentioned above, Zenya and Makoto only have one ending each, and it's
recommended to play them first. This makes sense, as these are the first
two 'chronological' endings you can reach in the game. That is to say,
Zenya's ending cuts the game extremely short, and Makoto's cuts
it short as well. It would be really annoying to play a longer route and
then come back and do an ending with less substance and payoff
afterwards.
Zenya: VLG
Verdict: Unsatisfying and also extremely yucky, it sort of made
sense while still pissing me off, but at least the
ending song
fucking rocks for some reason (seriously why does this go so hard??) so that was
a nice surprise.
Zenya's ending is the first possible ending you can get in your normal
playthrough. As I played, I followed a guide that gave me specific
choice instructions, but it turns out that I could have ignored all of
that juggling and just picked instinct
throughout the entire game. I would recommend doing all red for Zenya's
route; that way, when you do Makoto's right after, you can get all of
the different dialogue in any given scene. I had a lot of repeats when I
did Makoto's, so I don't know how much the dialogue actually changes,
but full completion right?
Anyway, Zenya's ending branches off when he approaches Youji with the
promise to answer any questions he has about the strange things
happening to his body. Youji makes the decision to go with him, and
Zenya immediately welches on his promise, kidnapping Youji for the
second time in the game. Zenya explains to Youji that there are
lots of dangerous people around, and he's sick of seeing other people
trying to get their hands on him; so he decided to simplify things and
just take Youji for himself. This was completely in character for him
and I was honestly not surprised at all by this turn of events.
Things get ugly once they arrive back at Zenya's house.
[Grotesque NSFW warning and spoilers ahead. Highlight to read with caution.]
> [Zenya takes Youji back to the same room
where he kidnapped him before. He hooks up his video camera to the
television in the room and sets it to record him and Youji, broadcasting
it to the TV screen and forcing Youji to watch. He graphically assaults
Youji and tells him that he's going to use him for the purpose of
breeding, because Zenya is a 'Male' and Youji is a 'Female'.
After the scene, there's a time skip of a few months. Youji has been
kept inside this room without sunlight and hardly any food, and is
simply used for Zenya's whims whenever he wants. It's revealed that
every single time Zenya assaults him, Youji 'gives birth' to groups of
the same chunks of meat that have been plaguing him throughout the game.
Zenya intends to continue doing this to Youji until his body eventually
gives out and he dies.]
While the game has already hinted at (and a savvy player already knows
about) the > [pregnancy] theme, this is
the first time they explicitly say it, and it's really disgusting.
Zenya's dialogue had me physically recoiling during this whole scene,
and I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible. However, ignoring
the grotesque content, this ending was actually really disappointing to
me. > [Zenya had already shown so much
contempt for whatever 'force' had disrupted his and Youji's bodies, as
well as the implication that his father was worshipping the very same
entity, so it was kind of anti-climactic for Zenya to just... follow the
imperative to breed like he was 'intended' to? It seemed a little bit
strange for that to be his actual, personal desire.]
Selfishly staking his claim on Youji didn't surprise me, but I wanted
Zenya to at least give Youji a hint of what he was dealing with, to
commiserate with him a little bit as two people that were being
biologically tortured by an unknown force. I guess I just expected a
little bit more of him/of the writers in this one regard, but then
again, this is an 'early game over' ending, so I guess they didn't want
to start breaking apart the mystery this early on. However,
while I still personally feel that he should have given Youji some
information because it fits his chaotic personality better, the longer
main route does better explain why he might be so obsessed with doing
this to Youji, so this ending seems better written in hindsight once you
get to that dialogue in another ending.
Makoto: The Hunger
Verdict: This ending made
me way more upset than it had any right to. While at first it seemed
quite brisk and sudden, the more I reflect on it, the more I think it
was a great idea to present it the way they did.
Makoto's ending follows Zenya's chronologically, and is the first ending
that allows you to experience the longer main route. I was honestly
shocked at how much longer this game is than I originally thought. I
kept going and going and going expecting every choice to be the last,
but no, there's a lot of content here that Zenya's ending
doesn't even hint at. In order to get Makoto's ending, you must stick to
your reason and pick
blue for all of the choices.
Makoto's ending branches off after he delivers Youji a message that he
needs to meet Kamiya, their science teacher, down in the old chemistry
lab in the basement. Youji makes the trip down there, but Kamiya is
nowhere to be found; instead, Makoto enters and locks the door behind
them, confronting Youji about all of the time he's been spending with
Tetsuo instead of with him.
[Grotesque NSFW warning and spoilers ahead. Highlight to read with caution.]
> [Makoto pins Youji down on a desk with a box cutter against his throat, admitting that he's
been obsessing over Youji and stalking Tetsuo to make sure he doesn't
get too close to him. Makoto tells Youji that Tetsuo isn't safe and he
needs to stay with Makoto, because he's his only friend and the only one
that he can trust. Makoto demands that Youji tell him who he loves -
him, or Tetsuo. When Youji picks Makoto, attempting to placate him,
Makoto grows furious that Youji would lie to him and violently assaults
him, since love doesn't matter if he can get 'what he wants' from Youji.
During the assault, Makoto stabs Youji in the hand with the boxcutter,
and proceeds to lick up his blood. Spurred on by the taste, he proceeds
to stab and cut Youji all over his body, making him bleed out until the
scene fades to black. Two weeks after the incident, Youji has
disappeared from school entirely, with the students postulating that he
must be in the hospital again. Makoto was absent for a week as well, but
is back to his old self, happily chatting to all of his classmates as if
nothing has happened.
Makoto takes the train home - to Youji's home. He enters the apartment,
which reeks of filth and rot, and enters Youji's bedroom. Over the
course of a week, Makoto had systematically eaten every piece of Youji's
body, leaving only bloodstains in his bed and fragments of his bones on
the floor. With Youji gone, Makoto began to have withdrawls, unable to
find anything else that could satisfy his hunger. He unwraps a bandage
on his arm, revealing chunks of flesh missing. He's so hungry that he
would eat anything.]
This ending really affected me in ways I wasn't expecting. Hunger and
consumption have already been a big theme in this game; this ending is
kind of a parallel to Youji's disordered eating. Themes like this are
always sort of fascinating and feel very intimate to me, and this is no
exception. Makoto was also a character I really, really liked throughout
the entire game; like, I really liked him. I cared about him so
much that it really surprised me. He makes me feel very melancholy.
Seeing him treat Youji so violently is a huge betrayal, and the event is
more traumatic for Youji than when Zenya or Tetsuo acted similarly,
because Makoto really was the only person he trusted in his life. In a
weird way, though, this ending actually isn't about Youji at all.
Throughout the game, Makoto was the only one of the main characters
whose feelings were uninformed by an biological imperative. Makoto
really loved Youji, or at the very least he was struggling with his
feelings for a friend, and another man at that (lest we forget that this
whole plot is framed by religious guilt). > [Right
at the very end of Makoto's route - just a minute or two before it's
over - there are a few sentences that completely turn this assumption on
its head. Although Makoto was human, he could smell Youji, and
it was this scent that drove him over time to grow more and more
possessive of Youji until he couldn't handle it anymore.] I can't
tell if this is worse than my other assumption or not. It's highly
upsetting, but I feel like I might be biased because of my love for
Makoto as a character; > [having such a
genuinely kind and caring person be corrupted by a force he doesn't even
understand or know exists just makes me so sad. It's also pretty
horrifying; this game really hammers in the fact that you can know
your desires and actions borne from the fleshseeds are harmful, but you
cannot stop yourself from acting on them. Makoto admits his guilt and
remorse several times throughout the main route, and at the very end of
his own route, where he cries over how much he misses Youji. The
confusion between how much of Makoto's feelings were real and how much
of it was forced upon him is just a very upsetting theme in my opinion;
at least Zenya and Tetsuo are aware of such a presence in their life,
but Makoto had no idea what was happening to him. Also, I just can't get this
one lonely, haunting line out of my head, where Makoto mentions that he just
keeps eating and eating as much as he can, but he keeps getting thinner and
can never get rid of his hunger.]
09/05/22: Diving Deep
Verdict: I got what they
were going for emotionally with this ending, even if it didn't
completely land for me. I think it would have been more effective if the
last 5 to 10 minutes were cut out.
After more than a month, I finally sat down to play sweet pool again. Makoto's ending had taken
a lot out of me emotionally, and the idea of playing four of Tetsuo's
endings in a row wasn't super engaging to me, so it took me a while to
get into the headspace to play again. But I decided it was time, so I loaded up the game and breezed through the early choices
one more time
so that I could get to the real last section of the main route.
After the incident
between Makoto and Youji in the chemistry lab, the rest of the main route is mostly about letting Youji
finally get some much-needed emotional closure. He visits his sister, Erika, in the hospital,
and has a really touching moment with her that's paired with some revelations about his past. He
has a discussion with Makoto about each party's failures in their friendship, and they vow to be better to
one another. There are also a few more moments between Youji and Tetsuo that allow the two to connect on a
slightly deeper level. Once all of this emotional growth is over, however, the plot comes back to rear its ugly head.
More information comes to light about the truth of what's happening inside Youji's body, as well as the
group of people who
know about his condition. Zenya's father, Kunihito, takes matters into his own hands as the day of an important
occult ritual fast approaches. Kunihito, Zenya, Youji, Tetsuo, and even Kitani are all wrapped up heavily in the
last confrontation in the main route, with Youji's fate teetering between multiple tragic endings.
[Spoilers for the 'Diving Deep' ending ahead. Highlight to read with caution.]
> [During the final confrontation, Tetsuo stabs Zenya in the stomach and flees the scene with Youji.
Kitani, searching for the Okinaga's ritual site, arrives too late to
save Zenya's life. He cradles Zenya in his arms as he dies, swearing
revenge on Youji and Tetsuo for ending his life.
Youji and Tetsuo escape the flesh encapsulating the school, ending up on
the rooftop together. They hold hands and have their first open
conversation in the entire game. Tetsuo admits that he was never really
interested in Youji as a person, only as a Female Host, and had staked
his claim on him for biological reasons - though over time he did start
to find Youji pleasant to be around. Youji, meanwhile, has been
struggling with the biological imperative to be near Tetsuo, but his
personal distaste for him. After learning more about Tetsuo's life,
however, Youji feels like he at least understands him a bit more. While
neither of the two actually love each other, they come to the conclusion
that being together is better than being alone in a world where they
don't fit in - and in a best case scenario, they might eventually learn
to have a real relationship.
Kitani tracks them to the rooftop, where he shoots Tetsuo. He intends to
kill both of them, but they manage to escape, fleeing to Youji's
apartment. Still surrounded by flesh coating the walls, the two lie in
bed together and contemplate what their relationship would have been
like if they were both human. Before they can get too far into the
melancholy thought, Kitani arrives once more, and finishes the job by
shooting and killing both of them.
A year later, Kitani - now alone after losing his family - reflects on
the events of that day while meeting with Kamiya. Kamiya collects the
remaining cult documents from Kitani and answers a few of his questions
regarding the cult, but refuses to tell him what the Inner Beings really
are. Kamiya takes his leave, and Kitani is left alone with his thoughts
at the bar.]
I think this route would have benefitted from ending right after the
rooftop scene. The second escape felt unnecessary, and didn't add much
to the emotional payoff anyway; they simply could have moved the 'what
if' question to the roof scene, and have >[Kitani's
attempt to kill both of them] work the first time. Especially
since I found the scene between Kitani and Zenya to be the most
impactful part of this ending, the rest of it seemed to drag on just
slightly too long.
While I still think Tetsuo is the least engaging of the main characters,
the decision that he and Youji come to in this ending felt correct and
thematically appropriate. The thing that I was most worried about
regarding Tetsuo was the idea that his and
Youji's relationship would be framed as 'true love', which I
think would have been really disrespectful, but I was glad to find that
this ending avoided that. It's not exactly that I disagree with the game
pairing them together, but I didn't want it to completely disregard all
of the bad things that happened along the way just for the sake of
having them be together.
This is the first of several Tetsuo endings, which I will probably get
through pretty soon. I saved a file at the end of the main route which
will make getting through the last few choices much faster.