Title: はじめるセカイの理想論 -goodbye world index-
Developer: Whirlpool
Release Date: 22nd Feburary 2024
Age Rating: 18+
Length: ~20 Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
Our protagonist Onomiya Shin awakens with a flash of light to find himself in a strange space speaking to a being calling themselves God. They explain to Shin that their world is under attack from a mysterious enemy and so this God has summoned heroes from across various worlds to help fight them. Shin is one of these heroes and is promised the right to shape the world with their own ideals should they succeed in their mission. In order to help, all heroes are also granted a special power from God, Shin accepts these conditions and chooses “Doubt” – the ability to see through lies.
In his new home he finds himself living in a dorm with the four other heroes, who are all part of the Salvation Comittee at Kamui Academy. This new world is known for its fragility, represented as a daily “Apocolypse Index” – a number indicating just how likely the world will end that day.
Facing a deadly and unknown enemy, will this ragtag group manage to overcome their impending doom and lead themselves to a world of their ideals?
Thoughts
I don’t know about anyone else but I personally associate Whirlpool with more light-hearted and comedic games, which is what I initially assumed this game would be. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I have a bad tendency to buy games without too much research – I mainly base my decision to purchase on character designs/artwork, prior experience with a company and maybe a quick skim of the story. I also never play trials, but that’s probably a carry-over from my days playing console otome games because they rarely have them. So imagine my shock when this game was not the fluffy isekai romantic comedy I assumed!
Hajimeru Sekai no Risouron is in fact quite a plot-focused title. Having read the developer’s blogs after finishing it, they stated that they wanted to a create a game where “every route feels like a true route” and they honestly achieved this. All of the heroine routes are well-developed and tell very unique but interesting stories that were satisfying to read. As you may be able to tell by the title “Ideals” (理想) plays a heavy part in the story and this theme was interesting to explore down each of the heroine routes. It certainly helps that all four main heroines have really interesting backstories as well. There are some areas where you have to accept some slightly convenient resolutions but overall the plot of this game was surprisingly enjoyable. It would be hard for me to pick a single favourite route but I could maybe narrow it down to between Hellmilia and Tier.
Sadly though this game does have one quite noticable downside and it’s the fact that the common route is kind of a letdown. In a strange reverse of the classic moege, the common route is by far the weakest area of the game, having odd pacing and just generally being very hard to get into.
Luckily Hajiron does quickly improve once the heroine routes start. There are four main heroines plus two sub-heroines. Surprisingly for the “every heroine route is a true route” ethos, there is actually an official true route in this game. I won’t spoil it but it was satisfying in its own way and I thought it ended the game off nicely.
Hellmilia (or Hell for short)
Moving onto the heroines + their routes, and first up is Hell, a millenia-old Demon Lord from a fantasy world who’s ability allows her to summon her 12 brilliant disciples to fight alongside her. Her favourite is the Dragon King Eques, who appears as a small, if slightly cute, dragon. Despite all her confidence, she hates being with the group and can often be found skipping school, instead playing video games in her bedroom.
Hell is kind of hilarious with her tsuntsun antics and is one of the characters where the protagonist’s ability really makes it fun to interact with her. And then her backstory comes out of nowhere and hits you like a ton of bricks. Her route perhaps had the most convenient plot resolution but I’ll be damned if I didn’t still enjoy it nonetheless. Her epilogue was also ADORABLE.
Hinagiku
Hinagiku is a warrior from a supernatural world of monsters. She is the most heroic of the group, and frequently patrols the city to ensure nothing is amiss. Her ability “Oninaki Guren” manifests in the form of her talking sword which never leaves her side, and when the time to fight comes allows her to transform into her samurai appearance.
I initially assumed Hinagiku to be a basic “just” character but her route explored some really interesting themes, like what does it mean for a hero used only to battle to live in a world of peace after the conflict is finished. She does unfortunately have the least exciting ending but I still enjoyed the route.
Haruka
Haruka comes from the distant future, from a technologically advanced world that was reaching its end. She is very stoic, yet intelligent and tends to spend most of her time reading in the school’s library. She was also the first hero summoned to this world. When Haruka activates her ability “My Dear Phantasma” everything written in her notebook becomes reality for a short time. Yes this is kinda OP.
Haruka is one of the most interesting characters in the beginning because she never really lies, and yet somehow manages to give a slightly mysterious aura. Her route is a solid middle ground – it’s good, and I liked the ending, but it doesn’t live up to the heights of some of the others for me.
Tier
Tier is the final main heroine and is obsessed with love. She wants to understand love more and believes that it will save the world, which makes her more than a little interested in Shin. Her ability “Eternal Devotion” allows her to take the suffering, pain, and emotions of others and transfer them to herself.
Tier is fucking amazing. Like genuinely a top-tier heroine. The juxtaposition between the fact she claims to be a nun and yet wants to jump Shin every chance she gets is kind of hilarious, and add into it her naivety towards love and you get nothing but a memorable girl. She also has the most hilarious one-liners. Her route goes in a WILD direction and I was hooked. Was I tearful at the end? Yes and I enjoyed the whole thing.
Nozomi-sensei
There are two sub heroines – the group’s teacher Nozomi, and the villain of the game Yoru. These routes were short and were mainly for fanservice. I’m a little sad about this, especially for Yoru as there was a little bit of missed potential here but for what they were the routes were still okay.
There are like no side characters in Hajiron, with the exception of god – Kami-chan. They are kind of hilarious at times and fill various roles in the story, making them an interesting character in their own right. It would’ve been interesting to see a route for them but I guess that would be a bit weird.
As a protagonist Shin is also worth mentioning. Like the main heroines, he also has a pretty fleshed-out backstory that is slowly revealed throughout the game which makes him feel like more of a character as opposed to the dreaded self-insert type of protagonist. His ability that lets him see lies displays in the form of red text in-game.
Yoru – how can my villain be this cute??
The artwork for this game was done by Whirlpool’s regular artist Mikagami Mamizu and it looks pretty great imo. There’s a decent amount of CGs per heroine, especially when including the plentiful cute SD CGs by Milk Panda. My one teensy complaint would be that most of the heroines’ boobs look a little, uh, pointy in some sprites which was a bit off for me. Don’t ask how I noticed that/////
The sound department was also pretty strong. The BGM was overall pretty decent but the more memorable for me were the vocal tracks. The opening and 2 ending songs were all really good, but I mean what else do you expect from Whirlpool?
Voice acting was also pretty good. As a Kanako enjoyer I obviously appreciated her as Yoru, and I also really enjoyed Akino Hana as Tier, as well as Kusuhara Yui as Kami-chan. All heroines sounded nice though.
Final Thoughts
My Score: 8/10
Despite the slow start, Hajiron is a surprisingly good game with very distinct but equally enjoyble heroine routes that explore the theme of “Ideals”. Don’t be fooled by the cute artwork and heroines, this is not just another romantic comedy and actually has a good amount of thought and effort put into it.
If you can get past the dodgy common route then I would definitely recommend this title – it has a good story, memorable heroines, and nice artwork. What more do you really want?
This definitely has me side-eyeing the other Whirlpool games on my backlog, as there may be more to them than meets the eye. I don’t exactly know when I’ll have time to read it but “Pieces”in particular has moved more than a few places up my to-play list.
Thanks for reading!
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