Cosplay Love! Enchanted Princess

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

Cosplay Love is a Visual Novel released in 2022 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. Taking place in a contemporary setting, this game follows the perspective of Munetora, a young man who is an anime enthusiast, particularly for the in-universe science fiction series Time’s Aegis. Munetora’s interest extends beyond being a fan though, as he works as an accessories designer creating products based off of anime, with a specific focus on Time’s Aegis. Unfortunately for Munetora, he’s been in something of a creative slump lately, and has taken to visiting conventions and looking over cosplayers’ work to try to get inspiration.

It is during this that Munetora encounters Mizuki Chiyo, a young woman cosplaying as the heroine from the aforementioned series. While she’s extremely attractive, Munetora is particularly taken with the level of detail Mizuki puts into her costume work, and when Munetora can’t help but gush about this and muse on how he would improve upon her work, Mizuki tracks him down to try to strike up a friendship with the guy, recognizing their shared passion for the anime series. Doing so, Munetora comes to discover that Mizuki comes from a wealthy family that would disapprove of their daughter dressing in the revealing cosplay outfits she wears, and the two agree to work together to prove the merit of Mizuki’s passion and fuel Munetora’s renewed creativity.

Okay, I’ll say right now… it’s an absolutely absurd plot. Oh no, how will a beautiful woman with ample breasts and a passion for dressing in skimpy outfits ever manage to find a friend who enjoys the popular anime she likes and wants to hang out with her? It’s clearly a contrived situation invented for the sake of male fantasy. I’m not certain, but I believe that other versions of this game take it a step further to full “H-game” territory, with scenes involving outright nudity, though that content doesn’t seem to be present in the Nintendo Switch version of the game (despite the nudity warning of the ESRB age rating). However, even if this version is censored or has more questionable scenes removed, it’s definitely not shy about showing plenty of Mizuki’s skin, and this combined with the absurd situation makes it one of those games you wouldn’t feel comfortable playing while other people are watching.

Yet, despite all of that, it actually… kinda’ works? It really helps that Mizuki is absolutely charming, and her passion for the fictional anime series and her sheltered upbringing make her both adorably geeky and at the same time lonely in a way that makes it easy to sympathize with her. And likewise, Munetora’s detail-focused fixation on cosplay accessories helps to give him a little personality beyond the stock archetype of “oblivious loser guy who finds himself suddenly close to an incredibly attractive girl but he’s so nervous and self-conscious about it that he becomes a nervous wreck when the situation contrives to put the two in compromising intimate contact, even though she doesn’t mind”. Well… to be fair, Munetora is like that a lot of the time, but he’s not just that.

It also helps that this game’s anime-style character art for Mizuki is gorgeous. The game has both static scenes depicting a moment in the story, as well as more dynamic moments where a 2D graphic of Mizuki is animated fairly well using squash and stretch (complete with a generous amount of boob bounce). This is all in front of decent 2D backgrounds. That said, I do feel that the game feels like it has tunnel vision as Mizuki is almost exclusively the only character you see for the entire game, apart from a few brief static scenes involving a faceless Munetora.

The game’s anime-style soundtrack works well enough though it’s a bit forgettable. However, Mizuki is fully-voiced in Japanese, and even though I don’t speak the language I feel like the voice actress does an excellent job conveying the emotion of the scenes she’s in. That said… again, tunnel vision – none of the other characters are voiced here, not even Munetora.

In the end, I think all of your worst assumptions about this game are probably true – this is clear pandering to a male audience to feed them a fantasy about getting close to an attractive woman who shares their interests. However, at the same time, I have to credit it for making that woman absolutely lovely in every respect, from her writing to her voice acting to her gorgeous artwork. I think one of this game’s flaws is how much it focuses on Mizuki to the exclusion of all else, but at least in its efforts to do so it has made her a character well worth focusing on. If you don’t mind a pandering male fantasy (albeit one that doesn’t go full-on into porn game territory), this is a surprisingly good Visual Novel in that vein.

tl;dr – Cosplay Love! is a Visual Novel about a male cosplay enthusiast who forms an unexpected friendship with an attractive female cosplayer. This game is clearly aiming for pandering male fantasy (although it stops just short of being a porn game), but despite this it does a wonderful job making said female cosplayer a compelling character. The result is a Visual Novel that may be a guilty pleasure, but it’s one that’s surprisingly compelling despite itself.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}