Death Burial -II-: A Short Yuri Novel

My thoughts after finishing this one (I've only experienced the previous work in its voice drama form) As the name suggests, this is the second installment, and character names from the previous work come up here and there. The game does give a light introduction to them, but I think it's better to play (or listen to) the previous work first. The opening isn't as bleak/decadent as the previous work's; thanks to the friends and the interactions surrounding a certain incident in the first half, the atmosphere wasn't as oppressive. That said, there are suspicious developments scattered throughout... The latter half becomes a relentless torrent of sudden, rapid-fire developments. It ties up the scenario nicely while skillfully collecting the foreshadowing, but the ending will likely divide opinions (well, that was true of the previous work too). Recommended for those who enjoy dark, depressing developments. P.S. Kaede-chan is such a healing presence.

Even though the voice drama version of the previous work left me in despair, here I am reaching for the sequel... But personally, I feel 2 is a bit more approachable than the previous work. Maybe it's because this time there are more friends deeply connected to the protagonist, and it starts off feeling like you're chasing the mysteries left behind by the first work? But of course, death gets properly buried there, and by the end of chapter 1 a new sense of unease has already reared its head...! And then when I saw the subtitle for chapter 3 ("Breaking"), I was like, wait, isn't that the title of the image song album...? I was progressing at a pace of one chapter a day, but chapters 4, 5, and the epilogue hit with such an overwhelming torrent of developments that I ended up blowing through them all in one sitting. Since I'd played the previous work, my bad feelings ended up hitting the mark exactly... Even as I was thinking "please, don't let it turn out that way!!", it magnificently betrayed my hopes... (rough...) And about that "approachable" thing I mentioned earlier—how do I put it, it's like diving into despair from a higher platform than the previous work, so the damage ended up being even bigger... And the shock when the truth came out...! (Though, I do wonder who leaked the matter about the forty-nine to the newspaper club...?) And then in the epilogue, they ended up holding hands back... I felt like, in the end, they couldn't help but cling to the life they once tried to throw away... Still, who on earth is Rindou-senpai...? I really hope it gets properly revealed in part 3. (As of writing this review, I haven't played 3 yet.)