Sweet Pool
"It's not romance, it's not even love. It's something much much deeper..."
The third Boys Love Game by Nitro+CHIRAL of Togainu no Chi fame, Sweet Pool begins with the return of Sakiyama Youji to his Catholic High School after a long absence due to illness. Suddenly he finds his life changing in unbelievable ways as his fate becomes entangled with his stoic classmate Shironuma Tetsuo, eccentric upper-classman Okinaga Zenya and friend Mita Makoto.
Sounds like your typical school boys love setting right? Except that this being a Nitro+ production means that the story is also infused with horror of the most potent kind. Filled to the brim with Primal Fear and Body Horror, all weighted with a brilliantly creepy soundtrack, this is definitely not a game for the faint-hearted.
The manga adaptation was licensed in English by SuBLime and published on July 2012.
Tropes used in Sweet Pool include:
- A Date with Rosie Palms: Youji, several times. It makes bad things happen
- As the Good Book Says...: The game starts with God's command for humans to multiply from the Old Testament
- Babies Ever After: Youji and Tetsuo's true ending. Part Bittersweet Ending, part Fridge Horror considering the premise.
- Big Eater: Makoto
- Blond Guys Are Evil: Played straight with Zenya, possibly subverted with Tetsuo
- Body Horror: Constantly, to the point that this is more of a horror game than a romance game.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: The BGM manages to make afterschool clean up sound like a murder scene.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Zenya
- Death by Sex/ Death by Childbirth: A literal example in Youji's and Tetsuo's true end.
- Eye Scream: There's a reason why Zenya's right eye is always covered by an eyepatch.
- Face of a Thug: Kitani.
- Fate Worse Than Death: In Zenya's ending Youji gets captured and raped by Zenya. Timeskip a few weeks or months and Youji is still imprisoned in a dark room, treated as a sex pet, vomiting up almost everything he eats and wondering when he will die. Oh, and when he's finally too tired? Zenya plans to stuff him so that he'll stay by his side forever. Nitro+ doesn't do half-assed bad ends.
- Forgets to Eat: Youji, though it's almost an active choice.
- Gen Urobuchi: Only in a consultant role, though the influence is clear...
- Gorn
- Homosexual Reproduction: The parasites only choose human males for reproduction, as women's womb is an obstacle for them since intestines are their habitat. The baby is "born" from both partners. Don't ask.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Apart from Hikaru Midorikawa as Zenya, all the voice actors uses pseudonyms. But you might still recognize Wataru Hatano as Youji, Daisuke Kishio as Makoto and Koji Yusa as Kamiya, their teacher.
- If It's You It's Okay: Youji feels this way towards Tetsuo
- Ill boy: Youji, to the point that he had to stay behind a year.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Youji
- Keet: Makoto is usually cheerful and friendly. Usually.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Or pheromones in Makoto's case.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Any animal that eats the "seed meat" born from the parasites explodes into this.
- Mind Fuck: Oh so much.
- Mister Seahorse: One of the first sign that Youji isn't completely normal is when he keeps giving birth to small living lumps of flesh.
- Mood Whiplash: Not in the game but after finishing any one of the depressing and usually downright scary endings the website containing the Dev team's production notes is unlocked and amongst them, horrors of horrors, is a chibi picture of all the characters relaxing around a kotatsu, including Onnushi-sama [1] in a Santa suit.. Finishing all the endings will grant you a CG of the cast engaging in a pillow fight.
- Multiple Endings: Notable for there being no happy ones
- Only Sane Man: Kitani in the Okinaga household.
- Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Youji literally oozes blood whenever Tetsuo is concerned.
- Parasites made them do it: Kinda justified since the parasites are the damned souls from places like Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Parental Abandonment: Youji's parents were killed in a car accident when he was young.
- Playing the Player: See Sadistic Choice below.
- Promotion to Parent: Youji's sister
- Primal Fear: Of the bloody, squicky kind
- Rape as Drama
- Sadistic Choice: Since this game has no happy endings every single choice you make basically just decides how Youji will meet his end.
- Scare Chord: Occasionally.
- Sleep Cute: Tetsuo
- Smells Sexy: Played completely straight since Youji, Tetsuo and Zenya all release pheromones.
- Squick: Comes with the territory.
- Stalker with a Crush: Makoto
- Stalker with a Test Tube: Kamiya and co. ships Tetsuo/Youji, for nefarious purposes.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Youji and Tetsuo
- The Stoic: Tetsuo's expression never changes. Youji himself to a lesser extent
- Utsuge: The game is infamous for its dark-as-hell and sometimes downright depressing atmosphere, resulting in it being a major Tear Jerker for some players.
- Visual Novel
- Womb Level: The whole game is basically one since the interface has conspicuous amount of pulsating veins, along with distinctly organic sounding sfx.
- Yakuza: Zenya's dad was a former Yakuza boss and his underling Kitani was one as well.
- Yandere: Makoto becomes one out a jealousy. He goes as far as threatening Youji with a knife, and in one ending rapes and cannibalizes him.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Every time Youji and Tetsuo's relationship takes a step forward, expect the plot to come in and kick everyone in the stomach.
- Younger Than They Look: Tetsuo is a year younger than Youji but manages to hide his age and work part-time as a bartender. In addition, due to the art style, everyone looks like they are in the 20s.
- ↑ basically a giant slab of living meat covered in pulsating veins
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