Strawberry Vinegar

Two femme looking people standing in an deserted row of food stalls. Dialogue reads 'So, I'm her precious Rie now. When did that happen?'.
Strangely enough, the fact that the story was about a demon child who went to Japan to eat all of their delicious food (that she obtained by threatening to reap their souls) was not what bothered me about this story.

No, what got to me was that the protagonist and the girl that was clearly her love interest were both nine years old, so somehow the romantic elements felt a little… off? I’m sure that at nine I was talking about love and relationships and all those good things, but the way it was treated in the first half of this story didn’t set well with me. It all felt a little mature and kind of inappropriate. As the story went on, the handling of it did get better, and by the end it was actually pretty cute, but there were still some issues. There was also a lot of reliance on somewhat problematic relationship tropes commonly found in anime, so the relationship between the girl’s parents is also borderline abusive.

You should play this if…

You want a visual novel about two girls whose friendship turns into more, and you appreciate those common Japanese relationship tropes. Plus there are some really great lines of dialogue to be found and the protagonist is very insightful for a nine year old. Maybe unrealistically so, but… it’s still good stuff.