Happy 10th Anniversary, Seduce Me!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! In case you don't know, today also marks the 10th anniversary since the release of Seduce Me, also known as Seduce Me the Otome. This beloved otome game follows a girl named Mika (name changeable) Anderson as she inherits her grandfather's mansion, encounters five brothers who all happen to be demons - incubi, to be more specific - and potentially falls in love with one of them. Since its release on February 14, 2015, it has gone on to generate a sequel game (called "Seduce Me 2: The Demon War"), multiple side story games, a couple of otome CDs, and even an entire dakimakura set.

Yes, I'm serious. You can buy them here.

I've been following Michaela Laws's work for a long time now, so it's needless to say that I've played this game and all of the games related to it in their entireties. In fact, I did a Let's Play of the original game several years ago! For that reason, I just wanted to make a dumb little blog post just to say a couple of things about it.

First of all, a confession: I actually auditioned for a fandub of this game before I ever even played it. I was going through a phase where I wanted to be a voice actress and was auditioning for everything I could on Behind the Voice Actors back when they did casting calls, and an audition for a Seduce Me fandub was one of the ones I did. (I auditioned for Mika, in case you were wondering.) Of course, I didn't get the part (I'm actually not sure if the fandub even happened, anyway), but you know what? Given the fact that I was only 15 at the time and Seduce Me is meant for those ages 16 and up, it's probably for the best.

Second, I've always said that Damien is best boy, and to some degree, I still stand by that. He's just so sweet and kind, and that scene in "Seduce Me 2: The Demon War" where he says stuff about Mika is so amazing while he's drunk.... Ah, he's too cute! I also love his side story, City Lights; even though I do have a problem with the kind of chronology it presents conflicting with the chronology in Seduce Me 2 (if what I'm saying even makes sense), it has such a romantic story to it that I can overlook it. However, I'll admit that my "best boy in Seduce Me" status has been a bit of a toss-up between Damien and James in recent years. I don't know if it's the glasses, as K claims, or if it's how much of a gentleman he is. For all I know, it could even be a reason as stupid as the fact that I played James's route first when I played the original game for the first time! Either way, although I've said that Damien is best boy, James does have a special place in my heart, which makes me feel bad for my indecision on which one is actually best boy. (My apologies to Erik, Sam, and Matthew fans, but my choice isn't between any of them.

Third, I'm glad that Michaela Laws was able to use what she learned from developing this game for the other games she was able to create. Granted, unless you count the CyYu dating sim from a while back, she hasn't really worked on any of her own visual novels for several years; she has been getting back into game development lately by developing a game called "Home on the Strange", but that's not a visual novel. Still, even though none of her other visual novels reached the amount of popularity that Seduce Me did, she was still able to create a few pretty good games, like Blind Love and Love and Romance - A Study of Intimacy. If it wasn't for Seduce Me, it's possible that those games wouldn't have been discovered and played by other people like me. Honestly, I'm not sure how else to put it.

Fourth.... sorry, but a Seduce Me 2 Let's Play isn't happening. I do think that it's a genuine improvement over the original Seduce Me - which is what a good sequel should be - but I haven't done a Let's Play in a long time, nor does the equipment I use to record things really work anymore. However, I may be willing to write a review of it as part of a review of "Seduce Me: The Complete Story", a game that compiles the original game, Seduce Me 2, and all of the episode series into one game. I think I still have a bundle it was a part of; I'll have to check for sure. If not, I may just buy it for my Switch and make my potential review from the Switch version! Who knows?

Wow, that was a whole lot of nothing to say about a 10-year-old otome game. It's been a long time since I've played it. Heck, Seduce Me wasn't even two years old when I started my Let's Play of it! However, I do have some fond memories from back when I played Seduce Me, so I just thought I'd make a dumb little blog post that was vaguely about Seduce Me.

So....yeah. Happy 10th anniversary to Seduce Me!

Oh, and also, Michaela Laws did a 10th anniversary celebration stream a couple of days ago. You can watch the VOD here, if you'd like!