Taichi Kiriyama & Codepink – CG Excellence

Ever heard of キリヤマ太一/Taichi Kiriyama? I hadn’t either, even being a fan of the three eroge to which he has lent his superb art direction. He deserves an introduction, and the reader also deserves an introduction to his (rather explicit) art.

Sexfriend (SEXFRIEND〜セックスフレンド〜) is the first of these games; it has also been adapted into an anime. The story and setting are straightforward high school antics – it is the art and vocal performance by the excellent seiyuu ダイナマイト☆亜美/Dynamite Ami which set it apart. Not hard to recommend.

Maid in Heaven (MAID iN HEAVEN SuperS) is the second; story is pretty vapid childhood friend becomes your obedient maid type pulp. Art and voicing are however excellent, and the actual game itself is moderately entertaining, featuring the dynamics of stamina and arousal, with successfully upping the ante on Nagisa resulting in more scenes and tastes. Ami makes a welcome reappearance. If it were not for the art, it would be one for maid fans only, I think.

Sweet Home (Sweet Home 〜Hなお姉さんは好きですか？〜) is undoubtedly the most accomplished of Codepink & Kiriyama’s games. A veritable harem of different girls with interesting personalities and different looks is available, and the game has good replayability with plenty of choices. Excellent art and voicing, along with a reasonable story and writing (not that the writing in the others is actually bad – just the stories aren’t very inspiring), make for a game which is easy to recommend.

It seems even the most obscure of mangaka can expect more individual publicity and credit than the staff involved in creating the art at the core of these games. Presumably, this is related to the amount of team effort which goes into such software, but even so, when was the last time the editors and assistants who work with mangaka featured prominently in the credits of such?

For whatever reasons, it is the identity of the studio, in this case Stoneheads labels CODEPINK and PIL, not the artist which takes precedence in the world of Japanese adult games, even when art direction is mainly the work of a single person.