Seduce Me with Incubi, Trigger Warnings, and Contradictions

A few days ago, I stumbled across Seduce Me the Otome on Steam. The game is free on Steam, and is described as “A romantic comedy visual novel centered around a girl named Mika Anderson, who gets entangled in the affairs of incubi.” I was curious and the game was free, so I gave it a shot. Mika is the female protagonist, and the game came with a lot of trigger warnings, specifically warnings about “abuse, implied rape, and suicide.” Obviously, in a game about incubi, I expected to run into themes of implied rape, as incubi are demons looking to have sexual intercourse with humans. But even with the warning, this game still made me a bit uncomfortable. Some minor spoilers follow, but not too many because I was only able to play this game for about an hour and a half before the plot holes and contradictions got to be too much for me.

The game starts with the death of Mika’s grandfather, and through that we begin to see the beginnings of the abusive relationship Mika has with her father, who seems inexplicably jealous of his father. When his father leaves everything to Mika, Mika’s father shifts some of that jealousy to her, and we get hints of an ongoing family drama, but it’s clear Mika is unaware of the specifics. Her father very quickly wants her to move into her grandfather’s house (even though she’s still in high school!) to live alone. Once she moves in, she finds five (five!) injured incubi living there, ready to take advantage of her (and also help her, I guess) and offers them refuge in her home. In this set up, Mika of course has to deal with the implied(?) rape. Her lack of consent in the early scenes made me uncomfortable, but I guess that’s what the trigger warning was for. Evidently, this game is targeted at women, and I can see that. As I was playing, the game seemed similar to the themes that showed up in 50 Shades of Grey.

I quickly realized that I am not the audience for this game, but I was somewhat interested in Mika as a female protagonist. I found her character so confusing, and it was hard to really get a handle on whether or not she was strong. She seemed willing to stand up to her father when necessary (sometimes the game makes the player make the choice), and, as the player, you have some control of how she reacts to the implied rape and scenes with obvious lack of consent. In one early scene, the game let me choose between dismissing the act and punching the incubus in question. (I punched him, but I didn’t feel really great about that, either). And, later, when the bad guys show up, you can choose to have her stand and fight, among other options. I choose to have her stand up to the enemy, and at first she does, placing herself between the “bad” incubi and her incubi “friends.” But, even as she does this, her incubi friends still feel like they need to come to her rescue.

And, overall, that’s why I had to stop playing: the contradictions. On one hand Mika is presented as a character who can be strong and in control (if you/she choose), but on the other hand, even if you choose to be strong, she ends up weak. And, there are so many stereotypes. The incubi are constantly calling her “beautiful” or “lovely” and giving her various other cringe worthy compliments. When she’s at school with her friends, they run into the typical “mean” girls, and they refer to themselves as things like, “ditzy blonde.” I appreciate that this game is trying to give Mika some control, but the execution was disappointing. I think in some ways that’s probably due to the formula/theme of the game: it’s hard to imagine a strong, female protagonist who is in control, when the whole point is her interaction with these incubi. Seduce Me the Otome is a free game, and parts of it are actually well done. I like the voice acting and sound, but I just couldn’t get past the weird plot holes and contradictions.