Shounentachi no Byoutou (Boys' Hospital Ward)

Ayase Reiji, used to be his high school's soccer champ. However, he made the choice to give up soccer when he went into his sophomore year of university. On the day he finally comes to terms with himself over his reasons for quitting the sport and decides that he should pursue it again, he gets in an accident on his motorbike.

The accident was bad, and Reiji was rushed to an urgent operation, and was fortunate enough to come through the operation all right. However, he will still have to spend a while in the hospital recuperating from his injuries, with the knowledge that now that he had finally decided to return to soccer, his life as a soccer player is now over.

Now Reiji passes his days in recuperation at the hospital, meeting five other boys that are in the same hospital ward, each with their own troubles. Can perhaps Reiji build up a relationship with one of these boys, and begin a new take on life?

Ayase Reiji - Reiji is the main character of the story, a sophomore in a prestigious private university who was an esteemed soccer player in highschool. He was injured in a traffic accident and is now rehabilitating in the hospital, upset that his life as a soccer player is over. He also mourns for his brother Kazuya, who shared his dreams of soccer, and blames himself for his brother's death.

Yabashi Shingo - Shingo is a trouble-making boy who is a bit haughty and quick to mouth off, but underneath he has a very strong, unyielding spirit. He was raised by strict parents, but failed his exams to a private school on purpose to revolt. He is Reiji's neighbor, and comes to visit Reiji in his sickroom often, to receive tutoring from him, even though oftentimes he doesn't need it.

Azawa Akira - Akira is a very serious, courteous boy, who has a strong sense of obligation. He is the student chairman and also manages the drama club of his school, writing the script for the school play for the cultural festival. He visits his mother in the hospital's mental ward often, where she is staying from going mad over the death of Akira's father. He has a strong sense of responsibility, since he takes care of his younger siblings due to the absense of their parents.

Karasaki Keisuke - Keisuke is a bright and energetic boy who is part of the soccer club at his school. Even though he is small in stature, he is one of the central players on his team. He injured his leg in the last semi-final game for his area, and goes to the hospital regularly for orthopedic work so that he can play again. Reiji helps to teach him soccer techniques on their visits.

Hira Haruka - Haruka was born with a weak body, and has to stay in the hospital regularly because of this. He is a bright and intelligent boy, and enjoys reading lots of books, mainly because he has nothing else to do in all his time spent in a sickroom. He yearns to know more about the outside world, feeling stuck behind the white hospital walls. He's from a rich family, but his parents never have the time to visit him, instead sending him gifts, but he longs to have someone around to talk to, and Reiji fills in this role.

Seta Kaoru - Kaoru is a mysterious boy who appears at night in Reiji's room, mistaking him for someone called "Junichiro," and asking him to visit him in the old abandoned C Ward of the hospital. Nobody knows much about him, or why he is there.

Mitsui Takuya - Dr. Mitsui is the head of the pediactrics division at the hospital. He is an elite doctor who's grandfather is a chairman on the Board of Directors for the hospital. Although he has many women admirers due to his appearance and status, he treats them very coldly; he seems to have more of a liking for the young boys he sees in the hospital ward.

Katada Shuuzou - Shuuzou is the doctor who takes care of Reiji, and is the orthopediacs division manager. He is very clear-cut in his views when it comes to work.

Ishiyama Emi - Emi is a good-natured nurse, who is liked by all the patients. She is a bit scatterbrained and can forget things, but is kind and likable none-the-less. She is very into fortune-telling and gossip.

Shounentachi no Byoutou plays in the typical style of boys' love games, where you make different selections, "choose your own adventure" style, which lead to different outcomes.

You start out in your hospital room, and the game takes place for the two weeks you are in the hospital. Each day you get a choice of different locations that you can visit, and some locations only become available if you meet certain people. You can choose to stay in your room, go to the nurse's station (where you can save or load your game), visit the waiting room, go to the roof, go outside, go to the hall outside your room, visit Haruka's room, or visit the C ward. You get to visit two locations a day. When you visit different locations, you meet different people. Usually a certain character will frequent a certain location. Picking the correct options from the dialogue when you meet them determines if you advance your relationship, gaining CGs of that character, and leading to their ending.

There are two endings for each boy, and one bad ending for three of the five boys, and a total of 50 CGs to collect. Since the game only plays for 14 days, it is very quick, so it isn't hard to replay in order to snag all the CGs. The CGs that you have won are displayed in an album from the main screen, but be forewarned: they are not displayed at their full size of 640x480 like they are when you receive them during gameplay.

While it sounds rather simple to get an ending, be aware that if you can't read Japanese, it is easier said than done. I found it impossible to win a boy without the aid of a capture guide, which I buckled into finding after not winning anyone several times in a row. However, with the capture guide provided in the Downloads section below, it shouldn't be difficult to snag all the CGs and endings.

As far as technical issues, I had no problems running the game using Windows XP with the language set to Japanese.

AGTH Compatibility - Shounen-tachi no Byoutou is NOT compatible with Anime Games Text Hooker. However, Shounen-tachi no Byoutou Full Voice Version is compatible.

Shounentachi no Byoutou Capture Guide - A capture guide in English made by myself for getting all the CGs and endings in the game.

Shounentachi no Byoutou Full CG Capture Save File - A save file that unlocks all the CGs in the game.

Shounentachi no Byoutou is one of those games that has a big-name artist but very little else going for it. It has great CG art by mangaka Gokurakuin Sakurako, but leaves a lot to be desired in both content and gameplay. It's very much a "quick play for pretty pictures" kind of game.

Shounentachi no Byoutou has very nice CG artwork, and has 50 total images to collect, a fair amount for a game its size. But while the CGs are nice, the way the game displays them is not: they are only in 640x480 resolution, while the game runs at 800x600, so the rest of the space is just filled with a black background, and there is no option to completely take all the boxes off the pictures. If you use the "Pause" feature on the game, this will take off most of the boxes, but will still leave a small "Play" button in the lower right corner. While this probably won't bother most people, for a CG-collecting fanatic like myself, who likes to screencap the CGs from games and then save them, this is extremely annoying. I had to manually remove the "Play" button from each CG on Photoshop, which was very annoying, to get a clean CG for my collection. Even the CG Gallery option does not fix this problem, for while it lets you view CGs you've already won, it displays them at an even smaller size, with "Next" and "Back" buttons slightly overlapping the bottom corners of the pictures.

The game is also lacking in plotline, rather short, and doesn't offer a lot in the cast of characters. There are only five winnable characters in the game, two of which have shouta appearances, so if you aren't a fan of shouta yaoi, then you'll probably want to steer clear (however, if you enjoy shouta yaoi, you'll probably want to check this game out, as it has some nice shouta yaoi scenes). The gameplay is also a bit difficult for someone who can't read Japanese; while navigating the options of places to go is easy to get down, picking the right combination of options to get a character's ending is not, and I found I was unable to do so without the aid of a capture guide. The fact that saving is such a pain (you have to go to the nurse's station and chose from the options there if you want to save your game, and you only get three save slots) makes the old "reload and try a different option" not a valid gameplay option for those that are like me and can't read Japanese. One other annoyance is that the background music is terrible: I had to shut it off to not go insane.

With the aid of a capture guide so you don't go out of your mind, Shounentachi no Byoutou does have that nice art, but you probably won't find much else of interest here. If you are a fan of boys' love games, it's probably worth a look, but don't expect much. Shouta fans will most probably want to have a look, since two of the five winnable characters are shouta. A voice version of the game is in the works, and perhaps the full-voice version of Shounentachi no Byoutou will offer a bit more, so you may want to pass this up for the time being and check it out when the voice version is released.

Singing Canary's Official Shounentachi no Byoutou Site (Japanese) - The company's site with information on the game.

Melti Girl (Japanese) - Personal website of Gokurakuin Sakurako, artist of Shounentachi no Byoutou.

Lovely Boys in Hospital (Japanese) - A site on Shounentachi no Byoutou that has story information, character information, and capture information on how to win all the boys.

PC Yaoi Games' Shounentachi no Byoutou Review (English) - Some information and character images to Shounentachi no Byoutou.

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.