Birdie ~Bokura no Ren'ai Shinrigaku~ (Birdie ~Our Love Psychology~)

When the dance unit "Birdie" debuted three years ago, it became an instant success in the Japanese idol industry. With the bright and friendly Kazuya Nakajoh, the nihilistic Takashi Kanzawa, and the calm and intellectual You Onozuka, "Birdie" was quick to rise in popularity.

The three were recruited through audition with an agency that produces idol groups, led by a shrewed female president who sees to the development of her agency's talents by keeping them busy in a maelstrom of multimedia: song and dance performances, modeling, work in the "CM" magazine, hosting a variety quiz show, and drama performances, among others. The activity has certainly kept "Birdie" at the top of the idol entertainment world, and recently, You has attracted attention from the theatrical industry, as well.

"Birdie" is run by three managers that see to its success: Matoba, a veteran manager who is the head manager of the group, Masato, who works as producer, coordinator, and negotiator, and Sakagami, their assistant. Always looking for ways to keep the group on the leading edge, Masato arranges for a famous ballet dancer from New York, Tsubaki Kyouichi, to join the team as their new choreographer, a change which will result not only in changes for "Birdie," but also for the individuals in the unit as they become involved in Kyouichi's bad influences.

Nakajoh Kazuya

Age: 20
Height: 5'8''
Blood type: A
Zodiac sign: Capricorn
Hair: Dyed brown
Eyes: Brown

Kazuya is the "leader" among the three members of "Birdie." He is a very bright and energetic person who is very friendly. Though only about average in academics, with his energy and quick reflexes, he is very good at a variety of sports, which he takes pride in. His power and vigor is also known to give him a slight aggressive streak, causing him to get pushy or bossy at times.

However, behind his optimistic shell, Kazuya hides a deep loneliness within himself. Growing up without hardly seeing his parents who were two busy working since they needed two incomes to survive, Kazuya developed a strong desire for someone to be by his side and care about him. But because he fears finding someone and then losing their attentions, he always turns cowardly when it comes to love.

Kazuya is the type whose feelings show on his face immediately. He's of good physique and is tanned from time outdoors. He has a bad habit about being late, especially about getting up in the morning, causing Matoba to have to give him a few wake-up calls every morning.

Seiyuu: Itou Kentarou.

Kanzawa Takashi

Age: 23
Height: 5'9''
Blood type: B
Zodiac sign: Cancer
Hair: Dyed ash gray
Eyes: Blue-colored contacts

Takashi is the oldest among the members of "Birdie," even if he doesn't look like it. He is very eccentric and capricious with his actions, always acting on a whim. Sometimes he'll show up at work hours early, and other times be absurdly late. He's never predictable.

He has a face that he can easily imitate expressions and still look natural and non-conspicuous, making it perfect for photography work, but when he isn't in front of a camera, usually he takes on an expression of being indifferent about everything. He dislikes being concerned with others, and dislikes for any concern to show even more. He often slants his head downward when talking with others to try to give off an attitude of disinterest.

He suffers from insomnia, waking often during the night, and often he seems in a daze, his thoughts elsewhere. His words are often drawn out almost in a sing-song manner, occassionally feminine ways of speaking mixed into his words, and his tone portrays the boredom in his expressions. Takashi's trademark is the choker he always wears tight around his neck, but like his face and voice, this too seems to be hiding something buried within him.

Seiyuu: Nojima Hirofumi.

Onozuka You

Age: 20
Height: 5'7''
Blood type: AB
Zodiac sign: Aries
Hair: Black
Eyes: Gray

Though not the oldest physically, You is the most adult-like member in "Birdie." When he's working with the group, he always has a smile for the camera, his face exuding a cool beauty that easily causes others to swoon. But without the camera and the make-up, You's face is rather expressionless, and he is very untalkative.

Previously You did work in modeling under an excluse contract, but Masato convinced You to audition for "Birdie," but had to use heavy persuasion over his agency to let him go, something You was grateful for, and he found himself with feelings for Masato ever since, something he keeps well-hidden within himself.

You is smart and enjoys thinking logically, and often he employs simple, logistical thinking toward his co-workers. He is very introspective, and is constantly feeling intense ups and downs within himself, but since he does not want his private feelings to be made public to others, they fall behind his expressionless face and cool words. He also hides his feelings through acting: when he enters a role, he gives intense expressions that leave a lasting impression, and because of such, You has started to catch the eye of the drama industry.

Short and slim, You gives a very delicate impression. Truly an introvert, when he is away from work he enjoys spending time on his personal computer surfing the internet, reading online newspaper articles, or researching information. He also enjoys reading books in his quiet time. When lost in thought, he has a habit of rubbing his fingers between his eyes.

Seiyuu: Majima Ryou.

Tsubaki Kyouichi

Age: 27
Height: 6'0''
Hair: Black
Eyes: Gray

Kyouichi is a ballet dancer who is recruited as a choreographer for "Birdie." Though he originally started his ballet dancing in Japan, he moved to America where he continued with his ballet and also branched out into work on Broadway in New York. After sealing a deal with Masato, Kyouichi returns to Japan and joins the staff of "Birdie."

Behind youthful good looks and personal charm, Kyouichi gives off the perfect public image. But behind the scenes, he's a brute man who takes a hobby in interfering with people and their affairs, getting amusement in watching them get hurt. He loves sex, but only in an epicurean manner; he enjoys the simple pleasure but has no interest in deeper feelings. He enjoys using sexual relations in his games to cause problems for others, never stopped by petty things such as guilt or regret. He takes what he wants when he wants, and the more others seem to suffer from it, the more amusement he receives.

Seiyuu: Ichijou Kazuya.

Matoba Hisashi

Age: 42
Hair: Black
Eyes: Gray

Matoba is the head manager of "Birdie." He first entered the industry ten years ago as a graphic designer, but came to be in management when his friend took over as current president of the agency and changed his position. Though he leads the management for the entire group, on an individual basis he is responsible over Kazuya.

When he isn't working, Matoba enjoys drinking, but he is not the top for noisy drinking; he likes a nice calming drink of alcohol. He will also smoke cigarettes on occassion, but doesn't inhale the smoke.

He gives an overall feeling as an "uncle" over the boys, making slight jokes and acting friendly towards them. He takes special concern in Kazuya, since he is responsible for him, calling him up to force him out of bed so he won't be late or taking the time to show an interest in his problems.

Seiyuu: Bifu Hitoshi.

Hiiragi Masato

Age: 28
Blood type: AB
Zodiac sign: Aries
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown

Hiiragi is another manager of "Birdie," though he does have to report under Matoba. He works as producer, coordinator, and negotiator of the group. On an individual basis, he is the charge of Takashi. He keeps contact with Takashi efficient to his job, though Takashi dislikes being bothered, keeping their relationship nothing more than strictly business-like.

Hiiragi's main line of work was originally in New York. When the "Birdie" project first started, he returned to Japan to get the project underway, but then was asked to work further in the management of the group, and was transferred back formally, though he often still makes many business trips for the agency to New York. He knew Kyouichi from his past time in New York, where they became casual sex friends. Now with Kyouichi being transferred in to be staff for "Birdie," Hiiragi has decided to leave those dealings in the past and there will be no more sexual play. But perhaps this is because Hiiragi is trying to look out for the better interests of You, who he'd felt fondness for ever since persuading him to the group...

Seiyuu: Masutani Yasunori.

Sakagami Ryouta

Age: 25
Hair: Dyed reddish-brown
Eyes: Brown

Sakagami is also in the management of "Birdie," but he is young and still new to management, and therefore is working as Matoba's assistant to gain experience. He is good with computers, and does a lot of the computer work and takes care of the peripheral equipment for the group.

He is You's charge, and since they share an interest in websurfing, they have a small friendship unrelated to work, and Sakagami tries to be helpful for You.

Seiyuu: Suzuki Chihiro.

Birdie, like most boy's love games, advances in a visual novel format, but with a slightly different setup -- rather than focusing on one main character and following a linear storyline from their perspective, Birdie uses a multiple character viewpoint system, in which you can change from day to day the viewpoint from which you view the story. This is an interesting concept, since there is no set main character and you have the freedom to view the story from the perspective of all the characters involved.

In terms of playability, the feel is still very much that of a standard visual novel -- just instead of chosing between only textual options, you are making choices as to which character to view the story from each day, and based on which viewpoints you watch, the story unfolds differently.

At the beginning of every day, all the characters who have a possible viewpoint on that day are displayed, and clicking on a character will show the events of that day from their perspective. Sometimes by picking different characters you will see two different sides of the same event, or other times a totally different event may occur based on the character who is selected, which in turn may effect how the events play out in the future. Sometimes within a viewpoint you will also get standard text options for responses or actions, which is turn can also affect future viewpoints and events. Along the way you collect CG events within the story, and based on the influences to the story made by which character viewpoints have been watched, the story concludes at a multitude of different endings. The game offers many playability highpoints, such as scene skipping for any scenes already viewed, 200 save slots, CG gallery, and a replay scene gallery.

The nature of this multiple viewpoint setup can be seen as both good and bad: Good in that you get to see much more of the story and characters by being able to see it from different perspectives, and that you can control the direction of events based on the characters you focus on, but bad in that this literally makes there so many possible different "combinations" that trying to discover just the right one to lead to a specific ending would be nearly impossible. The use of a capture guide is going to be a necessity for CG and ending capture -- otherwise you'd likely just be floundering through viewpoint to viewpoint without making any progress.

But breaking down and having to turn to a capture guide to navigate through the viewpoints is a worthy sacrifice, for the multiple viewpoint system allows for a much more diverse story and varied character interaction. With no fixed main character, tons of couplings and endings among the different members of the cast exist, giving the player a large variety of CGs to collect and scenerios to play.

As far as technical issues, I found no problems playing Birdie on a Windows XP machine with the default non-unicode language set to Japanese language.

AGTH Compatibility - Birdie is completely compatible with Anime Games Text Hooker. Add the /ns parameter to capture all texts in a single thread. Set game text speed to maximum for best efficiency.

Birdie Capture Guide - A capture guide in English made by myself for getting all the CGs in the game.

Birdie Version 1.02 Patch [319 KB] - An update patch for the game.

Birdie Full CG Capture Save File - A save file that unlocks all the CGs in the game.

I originally decided to play this game when a viewer of my site said they would like to see the game added to the Database, and I can see why it would be requested: Birdie has a reasonable cast and story and a wonderful assortment of pairings, endings, and CGs, thanks to the multiple viewpoint selection system. It also is extremely hard to see all those pairings, endings, and CGs... thanks to the multiple viewpoint selection system. Ah, the double-edged sword of playability. As I was playing through to full CG capture and hit the snags of frusteration myself, I can see why others would feel that way about this otherwise quite enjoyable game.

As stated before, the playability of Birdie is such that you to see each day from the viewpoint of the character of your choice, and therefore there isn't one linear story line focused around a single main character. For me, this is one of the best aspects of this game. Over and over I play games where the story is focused around a single protagonist, and you can get endings with that protagonist and the rest of the supporting cast, but that's it. What if you want to see an ending of two of the supporting characters together instead? Or what if you wish one of the supporting characters were the main character instead? These were things that would always play at my mind when playing these kind of games. And then Birdie comes along and solves such questions by instigating this multiple viewpoint system, where different characters can become the focus, and there are tons of different couplings between the different cast members. And not only are there lots of different couplings, but different situations and endings among the couplings (for example, the same two characters may have true love on one story path, friendship on another, or rape on even another), and there are tons of CGs of lovely, varied yaoi smut to illustrate all these different couplings and situations.

The whole avoidance of one main character who gets all the love is a wonderful high point of this game to me. I like variation, so lots of different pairings and situations for the pairings was right up my ally. It also has superb artwork, featuring a nice collection of varied yaoi CGs, and quality voice acting, particularly on the behalf of You: I realize that little seiyuu always get underlooked, but Majima Ryou, in my opinion, is certainly the show-stealer here. He just portrayed the character so well, and when it came to the yaoi scenes, my goodness could that boy put on a show. I've never heard more impressive moaning yet. *gives Majima Ryou a "Moaner of the Year" award*

The problem with the multiple character viewpoint selection system is that it creates so many different opportunities, that finding just the right combinations to get all these pairings, CG events, and endings is very difficult. Trying to blindly chance through, you'd likely only get the default ending, and pick up maybe just a few CGs each time on the way. The only way to really enjoy what the game has to offer is by using a capture guide. This is truly just one of those games where the frusteration level would run too high without the help of one. I spent a good month or so putting together my capture guide, so I hope that it will help others get past that playability roadblock to enjoy the game. And if it doesn't help, I have linked four other Japanese guides in the links for reference as well.

The game has another feature that definitely gave it Mastress Alita Suck-Up Value: 200 save slots. This makes keeping lots of saves as you work through different paths on a capture guide possible, which is a huge help and convenience. That way you can load directly to a certain day and try a different character's viewpoints if needed, or you can save at the ending and watch it from the different views available. The game also has a nice CG gallery that even keeps track of the percentage of CGs you've unlocked so far and a database of scenes that can be replayed, both very nice features.

As for the low points, one is that replaying to get all the CGs is quite a lengthy process, and the play gets pretty repetitious. Fortuntely, a skip function is available, but it can only be used to skip over scenes you have already seen -- you can't fast-foward over new material. The story and characters also weren't anything spectacular, but they weren't bad, either; they just felt a bit average. Another minor annoyance I had with the game was the way the text is displayed full-screen over the background: ya, I'm old-fashioned, I like the standard dialogue-box-at-the-bottom-of-the-screen. But again, the text can easily be removed from the screen to see the CGs, and a CG gallery is available, so it isn't that big of a deal.

In conclusion, I'd highly recommend Birdie to anyone who is looking for some deviation from the standard style of having one main character dominating the story, because here there isn't a main character, so there is a great variety of pairings, events, and endings. Those that play boy's love games primarily for the lemon factor should be pleased by the quality of both the art and voice acting in the sex scenes, and again, in the variety of characters and situations depicted in the CGs. But be willing to buck up and use a capture guide, because you /will/ need it if you plan to get all the CGs and endings; otherwise you'll only run into frusteration and miss what good this game has to offer.

Ein's Official Birdie ~Bokura no Ren'ai Shinrigaku~ Site (Japanese) - The company's site with information on the game.

Achou no Suteki na Chi Heya (Japanese) - Personal website of Kai Asou, the artist of Birdie.

May-Be Web (Japanese) - Personal website of Studio May-Be, the scenerio writer of Birdie.

Ein Fan's Ring (Japanese) - A Japanese webring to sites for Ein's games.

Akaebaku's Birdie Capture Guide (Japanese) - A CG and ending capture guide for Birdie.

HalfAdder's Birdie Capture Guide (Japanese) - A CG and ending capture guide for Birdie.

Kanat's Birdie Capture Guide (Japanese) - A CG and ending capture guide for Birdie. My personal favorite of the Birdie capture guides I used.

Kouryakuno Yakata's Birdie Capture Guide (Japanese) - A CG and ending capture guide for Birdie.

PC Yaoi Games' Birdie Review (English) - Some information and character images to Birdie.

Kuroro's Birdie Capture Guide (English) - A partial capture guide to Birdie by Kuroro.

Disclaimer: All written text and capture guides © Boys' Love Games Headquarters. All pictures and downloads are copyright of their respective companies and artists and are for promotional use only. I am in no way claiming the art as my own, nor am I trying to infringe upon the company's rights. I am trying to promote these games by allowing a foreign audience to see some artwork from the game.