Okay, this entry is relatively short like the previous one that came before it if any of you have been reading my thoughts on all of these entries. As you know, this entry is one of the early ones before the Mad Genius of Kawagoe even became a thing. Although, you'll see some tropes that she used here in the others.

Our story begins with a menu title where a stone-like man screams while trapped in the ground. It looks like he's being buried alive and stuff - and there isn't much to look at but your standard RPG Maker stuff. As mentioned, this early in Kuniko Takahashi's career as the Mad Genius of Kawagoe we all know today.

The first scene opens up and we're given a pretty nice view of a river and a wooden log bridge, and there are two people standing on top of it because danger is not a real thing. What is danger is the fact that we're introduced to our main lead professing and confessing his life for the girl in front of his eyes. These two are Jacob and Emily respectively, and the both of them are using profile images that clearly do not fit the RPG Game Maker aesthetic. We won't be spending too much time seeing them together though, and... they're talking as if someone used a text-to-speech thing.

Wait a minute, they're speaking English!

A voice calls out and clearly is objecting to the idea of the union between the two of them. A man named Michael appears floating in midair near the river and declares himself a Ninja Master and that Emily is his. Then he promptly gives Jacob a Curb-Stomp Battle and pushes him away. Jacob is unable to save her and screams Emily's name in utter vain.

Jacob decides that he's gotta get some sort of power up in order to stand up against Michael to exact revenge and save Emily in the process. Conveniently, he goes to the local Samurai Master and honestly tells him he wants revenge on a Ninja and is taken under their wing. Of course, the Samurai Master's profile image looks like he shaved off his face or something, and that he looks like a Japanese Samurai.

As you know in media such as fiction, video games, and even manga is that Ninjas and Samurais have a thing going on between the two of them. Typically they're depicted as two different sides on the same coin with Ninjas being seen as a dishonorable occupation while Samurais are seen as the most honorable profession. The biggest issues that Samurais have with Ninjas is how they'll resort to doing anything non-confrontational such as stealth, poison, and straight up assassination. The problems with Samurais is how utterly moronic they can be when they deal with any problems that needs them to be confrontational, and being honorable no matter the situation and whatnot is a huge flaw that often gets abused to no end.

It's kind of like a rivalry thing, like.... Mario and Bowser.

Back on the thing, the Samurai Master "teaches" Jacob on how to use Fire Sword or Kaen Ken. So, Jacob is told to shoot him via the Enter key which is not how a Samurai is supposed to fight at all - also comes with a special playable voice line. The more he hits, the faster the Samurai Master paces back and forth until he finally just stops.

With some good hits in, the Samurai Master decides he'll teach another move. Dubbing it as Majin Koroshi Ken or Devil Killer Sword, and a voice objects to the name. The reason why they objected is because they assumed that it can kill Devils. RPGs tend to have both weapon and skill names that can kill a specific kind of enemy.

A Devil appears and turns Jacob's entire character arc into an Aborted Arc by killing the Samurai Master and Jacob himself, mocking the both of them for not speaking Japanese. To make it more aborted, Michael comes in while speaking Japanese and cloning himself... until he's burned to flesh. We're nearly five minutes in and everybody is already dead!

A complete party wipe out too!

The Devil's phone rings, and he answers the phone with his name which is Zawooga. Somehow and for some reason, the Bichman Corporation is about to absorb his boss's company via a hostile takeover. Zawooga comes back and is told that they made a very hefty offer of 60% of the company's shares.

Zawooga is tasked with assassinating the CEO of Bichman Corporation which is no easy task because said CEO is Emily. The two of them talk and we find out that Zawooga is in rather high position for the rather inventive QWERTY Software company. She proposes a deal and promises him that he'll become the CEO if he goes in and merks the current one. Remember that Emily was kidnapped by Michael whose entire subplot was turned into an Aborted Arc by Zawooga.

He goes back to the guy, and he starts spewing out alot of spat and whatnots about why Bichman is about to absorb QWERTY. Due to the old school running of business through management, the company is in a downturn. Zawooga promptly executes his company's CEO.

But then a dog walks in and calls themselves the biggest stockholder, b-because... we need a plot twist. Said dog says that uhhh.. the company and their employees are owned by the stockholders and thus have to listen to them. Then the story just ends with the work being nuked because the software the company was developing stopped the nukes from being fired or something.

Ss-so.... what happened now?!???

We get no Aseop, and the ending is just an Ass Pull with a Cruel Twist Ending. Oh, uhhh... okay.

Just as a reminder, this way early in the series way before Kuniko Takahashi was the Mad Genius of Kawagoe.

Alrighty, this entry's cast of characters is super duper ultra mega duper small and thus it'll be easy to write about them even though the screentime they all get is incredibly small. Also, there isn't much of a main character to really speak of due to how the plot just kind of goes nowhere once Jacob's entire character arc becomes an Aborted Arc.

You have our initial protagonist of the story, Jacob who looks like a guy from some sort of show from the ABC Network. Jacob professes his love for Emily - and it would've been a perfect ending if Michael had not descended from the skies to kidnap and swoop Emily in front of his very eyes. Michael shows him how powerless he is against a Ninja Master, he vows revenge against him and seeks power so he can save Emily and defeat Michael.

Jacob is weirdly enough a Spotlight-Stealing Squad-like protagonist because of how much time is spent on his story and character arc despite it becoming relatively an Aborted Arc. Since most of the narrative is spent building him up, he gets the most characterization or rather a straightened example of it. He's a Romantic False Lead and Decoy Protagonist mixed in one, and he goes through a tame Hero's Journey... if he wasn't killed off two-thirds of the way. Although, it wouldn't be interesting if he actually lived and completed his character arc.

Onto Samurai Master who is the secondary main character due to how much screentime he eats up just like Jacob. Samurai Master finds himself taking a revenge-stricken Jacob under his wing, willingly teaching him the arts of a Samurai after finding out that he wants to kill a Ninja.

He serves as the mentor to Jacob, helping him power up so he can face Michael. While he does help him out, that's as far as it goes as his teachings turn into a Chekhov's Gun and Chekhov's Skill as it summons the real main character of the narrative.

We have the main character of the story, Zawooga the Majin who swoops into the narrative super duper late like two-thirds of it late and steals the remainder of the runtime from Jacob, the Samurai Master, and Michael. Zawooga the Majin descends from the depths of his office to confront the name of a skill that a local Samurai Master has named and called out, sentencing him to death since the skill was supposedly touted as a bane to his kind. He murders the Samurai Master and Jacob in cold blood, and kills Micahel as a casualty.

If you think Jacob was taking too much screentime in this entry, you'll have to understand that getting turned into a Decoy Protagonist is even worse. Zawooga is basically a Knight of Cerebus and usurps the position of main character and protagonist from Jacob pretty hard. His introduction brings in a new plot out of nowhere as per tradition or before Aborted Arcs were even a thing, and literally near the last few minutes.

He doesn't really have much of a thing going on after turning Jacob's entire character arc into an Aborted Arc, but his plotline between Bichman and QWERTY recontextualizes Emily's entire character. But basically his own plotline is to resolve a conflict between corporations for... whatever reason.

And... you have the final character being written in here. Emily is one of the most important characters in the narrative for whatever insane reason that may be. Emily found herself accepting the love of her life, but she was suddenly kidnapped by a Ninja. But then through her connections, she somehow escapes and is the CEO of the Bichman Corporation that is happening to enact a hostile takeover of QWERTY Software.

Just like Zawooga, Emily is a Knight of Cerebus whose character changes the entire narrative... through an Ass Pull because nothing was built up on who she really is. Evil All Along and a uhh... Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is in play, and uhhh... she is just a last minute villain if you can call her one. I mean, her first minute in the narrative is being the Love Interest to Jacob and his motivation to seek power.

You then have the CEOs of both QWERTY and Bichman, and the uhhh... Dog Stockholder. They all function as part of the Knight of Cerebus trope, and to bring about a Cruel Twist Ending via The Reveal. You can only do so much when you have like... two minutes of screentime left for three new characters.

The narrative is simplistic in nature, and thus easy to get into and follow with a small cast of characters to work with. While the narrative is easy to get into, the structure of it has a couple of issues that work in later entries that do not really work here that well.

The Ass Pull and Knight of Cerebus tropes conflict with each other because the amount of time spent on Jacob and Samurai Master robs proper build up and development for both Zawooga and Emily. This leaves them barely enough time to have established characters as the last minute plotline is shoehorned in almost like an afterthought. We go from a typical revenge story to a corporate takeover plot at the drop of a hat.

Although, the usage of these tropes that worked in the other entries so well because the run time is a lot longer than this entry. While we do get Ass Pulls and sudden plot changes, they're developed enough for them to be both fresh and interesting.

It's pretty jarring when you only have seven minutes and pull the rug nearly five minutes in. Kind of reminds me of the last few episodes of Aldnoah Zero, the writers spent their entire time building up a Love Triangle between Inaho, Slaine, and Asseylum for like nearly twenty two episodes out of twenty four. Then they just kind of bring in a guy to wedge in who Asseylum hooks up in the second to last episode who barely gets any characterization and development as a character. Snubbing Inaho and Slaine's romantic subplot out of nowhere because of plot or something, it's just... yeah.

Slaine gets jailed for life and is purposely written as dead, and Inaho is okay with the sudden changes because it's a political marriage. It just hurts to see all of their struggles evaporate out of nowhere.

Oh man, I wrote so much for this entry but forgive me on that. I am probably being subjective, and that's also because I've been exposed to the newer entries first and thus exposed to the different writing quality.

If you've read my thoughts on the other entries, you will know that I enjoyed the Deconstructive aspects of certain entries - despite the fact that this entire series is supposed to be a giant Meme.

I would suggest anyone to watch this if you want to know how Kuniko Takahashi was before she found her footing and cemented her place in the world. This entry is just not my cup of tea though.