Earlier this year, I was deep in Birushana hellhole. Then I randomly thought, wouldn’t it be fun ask my friends to rank all the characters? A mutual on Reddit actually gave me this idea. I also see it around on TikTok, and it’s always fun to watch. Fortunately my best friends were also down for it.
If you want to check out my review of Birushana, you can find it here. This post is a bit random – a the by-product of my Birushana obsession if you will, but I hope you will still enjoy!
Before I share what they said, first let me introduce you guys to my best friends and their experiences with otome games.
Brief introductions of my friends
1. Nab
Office lady, a Vocaloid fan and singer, and an ex J-pop fan. Loves anything Japan-related, occasionally watches anime and appreciates 2D men. Has played Amnesia forever ago.
2. Faj
A mum of soon to be two boys! Plays League of Legends and other similar games. Active in gaming servers. Occasionally watches anime and appreciates 2D men. Has a vague idea of what otome game involves.
3. Ika
Office lady. Very little to no knowledge of animanga, otome games and all the sorts. An ex K-poper, a big K-drama fan and is a #BrightWin stan. Reads webtoons (Manhwas) but is currently busy figuring out her love life.
4. Lola
Office lady. Not big on animanga or anything 2D but watches Attack on Titan (and is a Levi simp, I mean who isn’t?!). Zero experience with otome games.
That’s my besties in a nutshell. As you can tell, most of them aren’t too familiar with otome games.
Their Birushana character rankings
I really want to do this again because their responses were hilarious!
Tadanobu is cute for sure, but I was not expecting him to be rated #1!
And what is Tsugunobu doing down there?! He is too precious to be rated last 😭
I want to apologise for the excessive ‘HAHAHHAA’s. I mean, I was genuinely laughing…but reading back, I should have controlled myself a bit since I knew I was going to post this somewhere. ლ(ﾟдﾟლ)
And to be fair, Nab wasn’t entirely wrong about Tadanobu – he is a bit of a flirt, but he is also very silly and a bit of a..dunce, for a lack of better word!
I cackled so hard at the #tadanobusupremacy that was happening, frankly I didn’t see it coming. LOL.
And Faj clearly had some wild imagination about Shungen for some reason?! To me, he is the most baby faced, and Takatsuna as well.
Pretty sure most of us can relate to what Faj was saying there. The more unreachable, the more attractive. And most of these men would have no route. (╯°□°)╯( ┻━┻
Honestly Faj kept calling me out (LOL). It’s true that I am always somewhat attracted to the mysterious type. I think my brain thinks it’s some kind of fun challenge to “unpack” them. That’s probably why I also tend to like kuuderes.
And Shungen, a freak in bed?! I definitely want to see. (*´∀`*) I really think she is on to something here because Shungen’s side story in the bonus artbook (which came with IFI’s Limited Edition version) was actually quite spicy!
Ok a little translation, at the beginning Ika apologised and said she had just finished eating and watching. After the line where she said “they all look similar” (￢з￢) she said ‘sabar lah’ which means ‘be patient please’. FYI this is Bahasa Indonesia. (ᵔ.ᵔ)
AND HEY THEY DON’T ALL LOOK THE SAME OK.
What Ika said about Tomomori’s feature is absolutely spot on imo!
Faj seemed to like Benkei (her top 3) and Nab was meh about Benkei. Any Benkei fans here? Personally just like Ika, I am not a big fan of his aesthetics. My sense from being on the internet for too many hours, reading Birushana related fan posts, is that his strong features cater to a very specific group of fans.
I’m sure we all appreciate the diversity in the character designs in many otome games these days, so there is something for everyone. (*´∀`*)
FYI ‘bingung’ means ‘confused’. My friends and I are all third culture kids, and we often mix English and our native language in our daily conversations. They kept leaping out of character even though I told them to speak English. (*´∀`*)
And finally, Lola’s ratings!
My girl knows what’s up! I too love Yoritomo. Honestly her descriptions are so funny. “We can be friends” and “why are you winking at me” had me rolling (LOL).
I think it’s only fair that I also give my rankings (purely based on visuals). Mine are as follows:
- Yoritomo – so effin’ sexy
- Tomomori – so effin’ sexy part 2
- Noritsune – cute and hot
- Tsugunobu – dainty and beautiful
- Tadanobu – would sell his body to protect me
- Benkei – strong features not for me
- Shigehira – cute and demonic
- Shungen – too baby faced
- Takatsuna – too smiley
Alright, that’s it for this silly post. I don’t think this type of post will happen too often, but I hope everyone found this somewhat entertaining. Thanks for reading. ✿
This is such a cute post. I hope you post more like this in the future if you can. I like to talk about otome with my male friends and they are always surprised at how wild some plots in otome are. One male friend of mine is convinced that the only correct way to play Cafe Enchante is to not play at all to spare many people significant pain and suffering (as in, the protagonist should never open the cafe). That same friend also called Hana Awase “Yugioh but with Hanafuda” It’s certainly funny seeing responses from non-otome players!