Last Modified: March 25th, 2006
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Tea Society of a Witch is an interactive borderline-hentai game on DVD that was released on the 1st of July 2004 by the Hirameki International Group. It's name in it's original language of Japanese is Majyo no Ojya Kai. It runs to 240 minutes in total and is only available on DVD in Region 1 areas (which is only America and Canada). The DVD itself is interactive and will play very much like a video game, to continue onto the next portion of the story requires a special password that is granted to the player once they have completed each chapter, allowing them to progress. It will play on standard DVD players (along with PC, Mac, Xbox, PS2, Xbox360, PS3 and other DVD devices), instead of using a controller users are instead encouraged to use their remote control for the device they are viewing the game on to make their choices and progress through the game. Although the game contains no explicit hentai content, it is rated M for mature and only recommened for users over 17 due to the themes that run throughout and are romantically suggestive. The title has widespread availability online and is most commonly sold for around $29.95 and at most retailers it will be shipped with a unique and limited edition art book containing characters from the game.
In the very distant past, there existed a universe that mages (practitioners of magic) and humans lived together in harmony and get on well... however, due to the huge differences between their societies there was eventually problems that could not be overcome by either of the two species. The human race had always feared that the power that the mages had over them was always going to be used against them and so they hunted down the mages and attempted to make them extinct. In an act of desperation, the mages were forced to create their own world to live in away from the humans who were continually hunting them down. Due to this, the race of the mage dissapeared from the Earth and the two races never crossed paths again, until...
It is now a few centuries later and the mages are once again hopeful that the two races can live together as one in harmony and in the hope of finding a way that they can make peace with the humans they send out their young elite to be trained in the world of humans and to integrate. If these youngsters can find a way of communicating and connecting with the next generation on humans, then maybe they could gain more knowledge on how to resolve the situation. This year, three more young mages are heading onto earth. Two of them are top students and one is a miserable failure at everything, how will they fare in the world of the humans?
Rokusuke - The male lead in the game, the player of the game will assume the role of this character. He is your generic teenage boy who attends high school every day. He allows the failure of a mage named Nee to stay with him, and is constantly bemused by her strange antics.
Nee - The main female character in the story, she is a poor mage who stays with Rokusuke as she tries to integrate into the society of the human race. She is good natured and always tries her best, although she consistently fails. If the good ending is achieved by the player of the game, it is revealed that she actually is a princess.
Megumi - A typical childhood friend character, she has been with Rokusuke, the protagonist, since they were very young and depends on him to look out for her as she sleeps in a lot and would rather lay around at home that do anything else. Although when she is excited she is very energetic. She allows Ponica, one of the three witches in the story, to stay at her house.
Ponica - She is technically the best of the three witches and her skills at magic are very much advanced in comparison to the other two that have come to earth. She is very laid back but can also be serious which is why she has done so well in learning magic. Due to her childish looks, many people do not take her seriously, even though she is an adult.
Drill - A daddy's girl who has gotten everything that she has ever wanted in life, including her dog Poochie that she takes everywhere with her. She is good at using magic, although she frequently makes mistakes and takes it out on her companion Poochie, much to the latter's dislike.
Manamu - A classmate of both Megumi and Rokusuke, she is normally very shy and does not talk to people she does not know due to her being an introvert. She can often be found in the school library as she works in there and it is notable that she has a crush on Rokusuke, although she has never told.
Akiwo - The teacher of the three witches in the story, quite the oddity and she seems to suffer from schizoprenia and appears at random points during the game which only adds to the perception of the character as offhand and strange.
One of the first things you will notice when you put this game into your DVD player or console is just how 'moe' (cute) all of the characters featured in it are, the designers have put tremendous amounts of effort into producing a game that has character designs to make even the most hardcore of hentai and eroge fans enjoy the game, even though it contains no actual explicit sexual content, which is rare for a game in such a genre. We have to say that by overcoming this huge initial challenge and actually allowing their product to sell itself on it's merits without having to rely on the ecchi and full on sexual content that some other recently released games have, that the company who have produced this have made an awesome experience for the user, for the whole of the 240 minute run time of the DVD, and thanks to the options that you can take to change the game it has great replay value and it will surely take you much of a week constantly thinking about the game to get fully over it and understand all of the points of the plot and the full story behind each of the characters that are featured, especially Nee.
Another great point for the game is that the people given the job of translating it for the western marketplace have kept the original Japanese voice and soundtrack in and only added English subtitles, which does not detract from the original gameplay in any way, as usually these companies will have their own sound teams completely re-work the sound which means that all of the Japanese characters will speak English with an American accent which can be very offputting for fans of such games as they are expecting the original voices, of which much more effort would have gone into as the game would have had to get professional voice actors who have worked in Anime before to do them, so it's great that this game has stayed true to that and allowed fans to see exactly what the original game was like, even uncensoring any mosaics that appear.
We would say that for the price and the amount of gameplay you get out of this interactive DVD, it is one of the best eroge on the market right now if you don't mind the fact that it is missing hentai content. It has a great storyline and once you have played it through you will really find yourself relating to each of the characters understandding the story a lot more fully, which is always a great thing because in some games that are released now, it is really hard to keep up with what is going on and that is partly down to the fact that some translations simply don't give the right emotion or even are plain wrong which has infuriated users for years now, it is good to see that the western production company behind bringing this game to the USA and other parts of the western world has worked hard on it and produced a product that works in lots of different devices and appeals to lots of different users, this is a must have if you are a fan of manga, anime or hentai games in general.
Perhaps due to poor initial marketing, many fans who bought the translated version thought that it would be an anime DVD while not realising that it was a game, this was quickly changed and many places that sell it now inform users that it is less of a passive experience and that you have to interact and pick your own choices throughout.
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