Just Run

A few years ago, I got a game from my best friend on my birthday. She and I had common ground about the genre of this game; we loved manga and anime. I was so excited to see the game, hearing about it from my friend and how awesome it was. It was a Japanese game entitled “Tada Jikkō”, some Japanese junk I didn’t understand. It was a PSP game, and I placed it in my PSP and started it up. The intro song was really good, and the style was similar to the best game I ever played on the PSP; Corpse Party, a horror game.

When the game started up, I was given a choice between three people; two girls, and one guy. I chose the guy instantly, because my friend spoiled both of the female paths for me. Besides, he was cute, with curly black hair and cyan eyes. He reminded me of Shig and Ohkawa from the Corpse Party games I played. His name was Ryou, also giving me flashbacks to the ghost children in Corpse Party; Ryou was the male one. After I chose Ryou as my playable character, a cute cutscene played. It was Ryou talking to a girl, named Ichigo. Ryou and the girl were friends, according to the scene. Then, gameplay began. Sort of. I realized this was a dating simulator, based around a high school, which I didn’t mind that much.

After ten minutes of play, several female characters and one male were introduced. I was interested in a girl name Hikari’s path. She had pale brown hair and hazel eyes, and was the “small” girl of the dating sim. She had scars on her arms that she hid, but Ryou saw a glimpse of then, helping her pick up books. After a while, Hikari started to be more kind to Ryou, having been harsh with him at first. Ryou seemed to like her more and more, and so did I. She was definitely the right choice for me.

Gameplay continued on, and it got to an adorable cutscene in which Ryou and Hikari take a walk in the park together. It was raining and the two of them shared an umbrella. A picture of Ryou standing close to Hikari from behind them revealed more scars on Hikari’s neck. Not only did I notice them, but Ryou did too, and he asked. Hikari went ballistic on him. “Don’t ever ask about my scars again!” she screamed. Ryou was utterly shocked by her reaction, but nodded.

Gameplay was normal there on, until Ryou and his friend, Kaito, were talking. Ryou mentioned Hikari’s scars and Kaito just shook his head. “I told you man, the girls around here have dark pasts.” Kaito said. Then the scene ended. Fairly short, I thought. The next day in the game, Ryou was walking to school when he was pulled into the alleyway by some mysterious figure. It was Hikari. Of course, I thought. “You told someone, didn’t you!?” she demanded, and a choice popped up. I could either say “No, I’d never do that to you” or “Yes, I did, I’m sorry”. I didn’t really have a reason to lie to Hikari, so I chose the second. But then a message popped up: “You cannot use this option”. I groaned and clicked on the first choice.

Hikari glared at Ryou and screamed “LIAR!!” And suddenly, the brown haired girl pulled out a knife, caked already with blood. Great, I chose the emo cutter of the girls, I thought. Ryou backed up into the wall. He kept repeating “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”, but Hikari didn’t care much for his apology. She just stabbed Ryou, again and again. Even as she was doing this, Ryou continued to apologize, not showing any signs of pain as blood ran down his body from his chest, his stomach, his arms, his face. Tears welled up in his eyes. And the worst part is, this was fully animated, in great detail. I could see his intestinal track from the gashes in his stomach. Hikari just laughed, and kept stabbing Ryou. Then a message popped up saying “You should have run. You just should have run.", which was being read in Japanese in Hikari’s voice. Even to this day, I have nightmares about Hikari. I searched for this game, to write the producers a nasty letter, but my search yielded no results. Why did my friend, of all people, have this game? Why!?