Obvious spoilers for Box of Blessings, 1st Scenario, and whatever else I accidentally decide to spoil while overflowing with emotions
I feel like I've learned more insights about the development of this game playing this dogshit travesty of a route than I have watching the BTS documentary. Ukyo Kodachi, cursed be his bloodline, was very obviously given a list of plot beats, reveals to be included, endings, character summaries and the overall story of the route, and decided to go about it in a way unseen by me prior in this game - like a fucking bulldozer plowing through, not caring about such minor things as "prose" or "character interaction".
Leaving aside the obvious things like every single character besides Gaku and Shouma being turned into mankurtized homunculus versions of themselves, things just Happen in this route.
Gaku gets ownzoned for suggesting bringing swimsuits in one route, but when it's time for an utterly pointless hot springs scene in another they suddenly materialize. I suppose the roguelike procedurally generated room behind the wooden door locked with a key found in about 3 phrases of dialogue from discovering the door also triggers a D4, re-rolling everyone's inventories.
Setting-shattering reveals go completely undiscussed, and the writer himself seems to have no clue what they are, having posted what amounts to barely stylized cliffnotes in a Resident Evil note lying on the floor.
Gaku and Shouma unconvincingly traumadump vaguely in Takumi's direction twice, and on the third interaction suddenly have a major personal breakthrough without his involvement. Kako does so somehow even less convincingly, because, for some reason, the writer decided that it's her who needs more character traits separate from Ima and not the other way around.
Dahl'xia and Eito become the dedicated Vaguepost Kings of this route, running laps around Clair Obscur's writing by not ever explaining what the fuck all the Fawkes Fallout 3 ending destiny bullshit is about, even on a branch where it's painfully obvious to everyone except the remedial class.
The whole route ad nauseam talks about Call of Duty-esque "this is war, we have to do war shit, war changes people", while, for the most part, leaving the characters utterly ambivalent to the fact they're genociding a planet. By far the most spiritually Israeli route, where the conflict is deemed as a natural part and consequence of the humanity clashing with Futurans, where every obvious war crime and cruelty is excused with the same old "THIS IS WAR".
Oh, speaking of repetition, one of the small mercies this route provides is that with the sheer amount of completely recycled dialogue you can skip a solid 80% of any given branch without missing out on a single unique line. Take notes, kids, this is how you do non-linear branching narrative while missing every single deadline and not giving a single fuck.
The most hilariously abysmal part of it all are, without a doubt, the endings - Shouma's Two State Solution and Eito's Masterful Gambit in particular.
Shouma heroically sacrifices himself to block V'ehxness' attack, gives a dying speech, and Takumi kills V'ehxness immediately. Where are the corpse drones? At the point I was playing the route I didn't even bat an eye - Ukyo Kodachi, cursed be his bloodline, clearly knows not a single fucking thing about the setting of his "story". The funniest part comes afterwards, where it does A FLASHFORWARD TO DECADES IN THE FUTURE, where they... honour Shouma's dying wish by not opening the Boxes and instead deathwarring whatever the fuck is left of the Futuran armies for 50 years until a very reluctant ceasefire is signed. This is seen as a better alternative to both firing the missiles (which get the most token of mentions, I assume because an intern at Too Kyo noticed and desperately plugged the obvious glaring narrative hole) and achieving peace through magical boxes. The Ghost Baby is nowhere to be seen.
Eito's Masterful Gambit is as follows - steal all the boxes on day 99, leave with them, taunt the group about having all the time in the world to open them. Do you see the obvious issue here?
Genuinely, sincerely, to everyone who ever said that this route would have been decent if they cut down all the exploration missions, what the fuck were you on about? I'm playing this in 2026, long after a patch made the gruelling exploration missions skippable, and it's still worse than even the Comedy mackerel route. I love that this route exists in the way it does, because the barebones, mostly non-existent writing gives a fascinating insight in what the directing of the routes consisted of, and the implication here is that Ukyo Kodachi, cursed be his bloodline, not even quarter-assed his assignment, and, judging by the fact none of the voice actors clearly were allowed to do second takes on their at times abysmal performances, missed every single deadline set. In a just world this hackjob would have him blacklisted from ever getting contract work again.