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Jane: Today I’m trying out a new review format. My friend Bishounen-P—whom you may know as the developer of Strawberry Daiquiri—and I both read Nurse Love Addiction recently, and we found that it gave us a lot to discuss. So we’ll be presenting both of our thoughts about it to you in this collaborative review.

Nurse Love Addiction tells the story of Asuka, a slacker who ends up going to nursing school in lieu of any other life goals after finding a note she wrote as a child saying she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. Her sister, Nao, enrols in the same program, and Asuka soon finds herself torn between feelings for Nao, their teacher, and two mysterious students in their class.

Bishounen-P: Before we get into the details of it, I’d like to just say that I absolutely adore the art in this game. It’s definitely the first thing that drew me into the game, so I’ll be adding a lot of screenshots from it as well.

If you’re interested in playing NLA, I’d personally recommend going Kaede -> Sakuya -> Itsuki -> Nao, but you can also switch the last two and still be OK. It’s up to you.

J: It’s unfortunately difficult to talk much about NLA without spoilers, but we both enjoyed reading it, and you might like it too if you’re a fan of Kogado Studio’s other VNs like Symphonic Rain.

BP: It’s definitely one of the most unique yuri VNs I’ve ever played, and had a unique twist on the typical incest route. If you’re looking for more interesting yuri VNs, I’d personally recommend Fatal Twelve. For a classic but beautiful incest story (that isn’t yuri) I’d recommend Kana ~Imouto~.

Before we get into the spoilers, however, I’ll go ahead and say right off that bat that I absolutely recommend NLA. It’s a fun ride, and also scratches that yuri sweetness itch when you want it to.

Beyond this point, there will be major spoilers for all of Nurse Love Addiction.

Kaede Route

BP: When I first started this VN, I was immediately drawn to Kaede. I thought she was absolutely gorgeous, and I was very fascinated by the idea of a teacher route and what might happen in this route, especially once I realized there was more to this story than what first originally meets the eye.

J: How did you feel about how the route handled the issue of teacher/student romance? I’m always hoping to see more stories explore the complexities of how the power dynamics inherent in dating an authority figure can raise questions about the student’s ability to truly consent to the relationship. I’m not sure if NLA really dealt with that, apart from some mentions of it being a “forbidden relationship” they have to keep secret.

BP: I agree they could have handled that better. While I did appreciate the little quips about them hiding it from others, Asuka and Kaede needing to keep their professional lives separate from their romantic one, and eventually coming out about it to Kaede’s superior, it didn’t delve much more into it beyond that. Perhaps it was because the two of them are adults, and they had already worked on making a concentrated effort towards keeping it low-key and separated from school.

BP: I agree they could have handled that better. While I did appreciate the little quips about them hiding it from others, Asuka and Kaede needing to keep their professional lives separate from their romantic one, and eventually coming out about it to Kaede’s superior, it didn’t delve much more into it beyond that. Perhaps it was because the two of them are adults, and they had already worked on making a concentrated effort towards keeping it low-key and separated from school.

BP: Along with that, I wanted to mention their relationship itself, removed from the taboo aspect. To me, it felt like the two of them really loved each other. It always made me smile when they would catch each others’ eyes and just smile and think the other’s name. To me, that aspect made it feel more “real.” And then, when Nao and Sakuya confront Asuka and start telling her that she “didn’t really love Kaede,” it completely caught me off guard. Even now, I still think that they were just envious that Asuka picked someone who was completely irrelevant to the other three women.

J: Yeah, I think you’re right about that. Asuka should learn not to take relationship advice from people who are clearly also in love with her! I liked that in the good ending, if you communicate more with Kaede about the letter and admit to the mistake of stealing it, Asuka’s fears about Kaede still being in love with her ex-girlfriend turn out to be totally unfounded. It’s such a cute scene when Kaede thanks her for helping her get back in touch with the ex, and Asuka assumes that means she’s getting dumped, and then Kaede goes on to explain that it was just nice to have a chat with her after so long and that she still loves Asuka.

BP: In the bad end, Asuka betrays Kaede’s trust and ends up in an adulterous relationship with her. Along with what you said, I think the only reason Kaede went back to her ex in that ending is because of the lack of honesty and communication on that side. Regardless, it was a sweet route overall.

Now, let’s move onto the stranger routes.

Sakuya Route

BP: Going straight into this route, it throws everything you knew about this story out the window when Asuka gets stabbed. I was blown away. Who stabbed Asuka? Why? What’s going on with Itsuki and Sakuya? And then you overhear Nao saying that she should have killed someone. How did you feel when the VN took a sudden change of tone?

J: I actually messed up and got the bad ending, which involves the stabbing part as well, before getting Kaede’s route like I had intended to do first. I was so confused.

I did sort of get the idea that things were going to get weird early on though, just because of the way I had heard people talk about this VN. It seems like it’s fairly common for VNs to set you up to think it will be cute slice-of-life romance at first, and then suddenly throw in a bunch of dark twists and catch you off guard. So when people recommend a VN to you but they’re kind of vague about why they like it and say things like, “just play it, trust me,” you can tell it’s going to be one of those. And while some of those can definitely be well done, I think a lot of the time what people like about it is just how much it surprised them. Whereas if you go into it having read a few like that, and you know it’s sort of an established trope of the medium, it has a lot less impact.

NLA is absolutely fun to read because of what a wild ride it is, but at times I suspected that the writer’s intention was to continually ramp up the twists and the violence in order to make people say, “Wow, I can’t believe I thought this was just a cute yuri VN,” and then recommend it to their friends for the shock value rather than for the story.

BP: The difference of opinion in this part is part of why I wanted to do this in the first place! So, I had known that you thought of it that way, so I was sorta keeping an eye out for tricks the VN might be playing on me. Throughout all of the common route, I had a feeling that something was off. I knew there was more than meets the eye (thanks to Itsuki for the tip: “It’s not what it seems” right off the bat.) After playing Kaede’s route, and going into this one, though, I think I sorta get it now.

BP: The difference of opinion in this part is part of why I wanted to do this in the first place! So, I had known that you thought of it that way, so I was sorta keeping an eye out for tricks the VN might be playing on me. Throughout all of the common route, I had a feeling that something was off. I knew there was more than meets the eye (thanks to Itsuki for the tip: “It’s not what it seems” right off the bat.) After playing Kaede’s route, and going into this one, though, I think I sorta get it now.

BP: The way I see it is… The reason nothing weird happens in Kaede’s route is because she is completely separated from the “true story” behind Asuka and her past. Kaede’s route is the “ignorant” route, where Asuka just goes on and becomes a nurse. But once you move past that, into the relationships with the other girls… Itsuki tells her “you probably don’t want to know this” and she was right, because Asuka regretted it. Maybe more here later

The only person I felt like was “making fun of” Asuka for forgetting was Sakuya’s twin sister, Kyoko. But again, that was mostly just her being low-key yangire. And I’m not even going to get started on how much I tend to hate “secret twin” twists!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that to me it ALWAYS felt like there was something they weren’t telling me, and that I’d find out later.

J: I guess part of the reason the twists felt kind of forced to me is that there are just so many in Sakuya’s route, a lot of which are kind of cliché, and they come in such quick succession. In what I think must be less than two hours of reading, you find out that you have amnesia and forgot your childhood friends, plus you also have a forgotten marriage promise with one of those childhood friends, who also has a secret twin who died, except now she has a split personality and thinks she’s the dead twin sometimes, except maybe she literally does have the dead twin’s soul inside her also. It’s just twist overload. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to read. I also really liked the sheer insanity of both endings—a bad one in which you marry a corpse, and then a “good” one in which your dead girlfriend is reincarnated as your daughter and tries to seduce you. But even that pales in comparison to some of the disturbing content in the other routes, which we’ll discuss next.

Itsuki Route

BP: Okay, let’s just address the elephant in the room. In Itsuki’s bad end, Asuka literally eats her dead body so she can see Itsuki’s ghost.

J: Or possibly because she’s just insane and the ghost isn’t even real, yes. I think that has to be my favourite bad ending, and it’s the reason I might actually recommend Itsuki’s route as last instead of Nao’s—because then that’s the final escalation of how dark and bizarre this VN gets. I like how the way it’s written is kind of subtle, so it takes you a while to pick up on exactly what’s going on. It’s really effective horror.

BP: I agree. I didn’t realize what was going on until Nao talked to her sister, and Asuka said she only saw Itsuki while she was eating. At that point I was like… “This is actually really terrifying, huh?”

Along with that, I appreciate how much of a mysterious character Itsuki is throughout the entire thing. During the common route, Asuka keeps overhearing Itsuki having these bizarre and cryptic conversations on the phone. Itsuki then confronts her, and says she’s going to take her to this “lab” which will “change her life forever.” I thought at the time, “wow this is escalating really quickly!” But it turned out to be the hub for her doujin group. But that didn’t answer all the questions that came from the previous conversations! I think it was at that point when I realized there was more to NLA than I thought.

 BP: Besides that, though, I will say that my favorite scene in Itsuki’s route (aside from the bad end) is when Asuka confronts Itsuki and figures out exactly what’s going on in her mind. And I love the way Itsuki resolves that argument, by kissing Asuka and then telling her “it wasn’t a real kiss” and just walks out. It was a good way to get Asuka to shut up without getting violent, and it still left a real sting in her heart.

J: The whole plotline with Itsuki’s doujin group is really interesting. I like the part where you eventually get to play Itsuki’s unfinished video game, and it gives you a lot of insight into her character and motivations. Since I spend so much time analyzing media, both for work and as a hobby, it’s exciting for me when characters IN that media ALSO start analyzing media and it’s important to the plot.

The main thing I wanted to discuss about Itsuki is how she’s the one who ends up infodumping most of the story’s twists at you, like when you meet up with her in the karaoke booth and she shows you the video and just directly tells you all about the past you forgot. I thought that part might have been a lot stronger if Asuka started gradually having flashbacks and recovering her memories, rather than having someone just tell her about it. But it is also kind of an interesting way to deal with an amnesiac protagonist character—to have her struggle to reconcile who she is now with who other people tell her she was in a past she still can’t remember. What do you think?

BP: I had a little bit of an issue with it at first, but I feel better about it after playing Nao’s route. As such, this is a good opportunity to segue into the discussion of Nao’s route!

Nao Route

BP: So, while I will admit I didn’t expect nor want any weird supernatural/sci-fi stuff to happen, I’m not TOO bothered by it. Nao erasing Asuka’s memories over the years explains why she has weird dreams about the past, along with her not really remembering anything that Itsuki tells her while also feeling like the stuff she says is “right.” I have a lot of bizarre ideas from time-to-time, and I’ve always wanted to see a different take on the classic amnesiac protagonist. I guess the trope of slowly remembering things over time exists for a reason, but I personally appreciated this unusual approach.

Now, to discuss the sister route. As veteran VN readers, we’ve seen incest routes time and time again, typically culminating in “but we’re not REAL siblings because we’re not blood-related!” At the end of this route, when Nao called that out, I was very pleased by Asuka’s subversion of the trope by kissing her with her bloody mouth and going “Well, now we are!”

J: Yeah, I think I would have rather had the information about Asuka’s past shown to me than to just have it all filled in as exposition, but you’re right that it’s a unique approach to that trope.

I agree, that part of the route is a good commentary on the way incest routes are often handled. I think the common strategy of having them not be biological siblings is pretty silly, since even though it might make some readers feel like it’s a little less gross, they still grew up as siblings and that’s still the defining element of their relationship. So it’s an interesting moment when Asuka also declares that that doesn’t make a difference in her own way. Also, that comes off the heels of another one of the most disturbing moments in the story, when Asuka swallows Nao’s vomit out of her mouth in order to get the effects of the potion Nao has been drinking. That was disgusting.

BP: Oh, no! I was hoping you weren’t going to mention that part! I was taken out of the moment in that part. Like, I get it, Asuka, you would do anything for Nao. You were trying to save her life. It was certainly a good way to shock both Nao and the reader.

BP: I also found Nao’s bad end pretty disturbing. I’m not typically bothered by depictions of BDSM although I’m not into it myself, but the idea of Asuka choking Nao (for hours!) until she passes out (for more hours!) was REALLY scary to me. Asuka can be a really terrifying person sometimes.

J: Yeah, that was clearly not a healthy relationship. This VN doesn’t pull any punches with its bad endings.

Now that we’ve discussed all of the individual routes, let’s address the unique setting this VN seems to have—one in which it gradually becomes clear that no men seem to exist in the world at all.

BP: Yes! I noticed it early on when Itsuki was being vague about the gender of Sakuya’s parents, but I was willing to shrug it off as a coincidence. From then on, there were more clues. In Sakuya’s good end, Kyoko and Asuka have the reborn baby of Sakuya, and there is no indication of the child being born from sperm donation or adoption. Along with the scene at the beach in Itsuki’s route when Asuka is getting hit on by a bunch of random girls. Even in a yuri VN with no male characters, it is atypical for there to never be any mention of men, along with even the creepy characters hitting on the MC also being female.

J: I had to look this up to be sure, but there’s actually one part in the VN where the class is studying “pregnancy through IPS cells,” a kind of stem cell that people are still doing a lot of research on. So I think the implication with that is that they’ve developed a way to have children without men contributing DNA. This obviously raises a bunch of questions about whether there were ever any men in this society. If there were, where did they go? Did they just die off when women no longer needed them for reproduction? Or did the women actively eliminate them?

BP: I just love how subtle it is. There’s always a sense that there is something more to the story. You can say the same thing about their society that you can say about the VN itself:

Jane: Thanks for reading our review of Nurse Love Addiction! I hope to have a chance to write some more collaborative reviews soon. And if you’re interested in seeing more of Bishounen-P’s work, you can follow her on twitter.

BP: Thanks again for doing this collaborative review with me! To the readers, keep an eye out for more BP&J Discuss in the future!