Bae in Review: Kageyuki Shiraishi, Collar x Malice

[not_krys]

To be quite honest, I’m still kind of in shock from this route. Like, I’m still trying to piece together what the hell happened.

Shiraishi is one of those baes that's locked until you play at least one route (unlike Yanagi, whose locked until you finish with everyone else before moving onto his route), but, with the way things progressed, in my case, I think he may have been better off locked until you finish the other three available routes (kind of like in Nameless, where three routes have to be cleared until you can move until the next one, but isn't the final, final route option. As such, Shiraishi was my third route of Collar x Malice, Sasazuka being my last before Yanagi was unlocked, and... looking back, I kinda wish that order was reverse.

This is the last warning before we go into spoiler territory. I’m not giving anymore further warnings.

Spoilers below the cut!!

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If I could find a way that summarized Shiraishi, it's like if you took a lot of elements that are messed up and just... meshed them together into a blender, you got yourself a pretty messed up cat lover profiler.

Internal mole in the police department? Check.

An unhealthy amount of apathy towards social cues or desire to correct incorrect assumptions about himself or the ones he cares about? Check.

Grooming from childhood to be basically a killing machine that gives absolute obedience under his master's command? ...Wait, what?

How about keeping his new love underground for about a year while she's in a coma, and then wakes up only to have amnesia? ...Wait, seriously?

Here's one for ya: how about once she wakes up in her amnesiac state, he still keeps her underground while she recovers, only to have plans to drop her off at Yanagi's office on Christmas where he finally tells her the whole truth before he gives himself over to the police?

....?

And she recovers from her amnesia at that exact moment and cries and tells him how much she loves and that she'll wait however long it takes for him to get out of prison?

....?!?

Keep in mind this is all the normal progression of his route and his 'Good Ending'?

?!?!?!?!?

Shiraishi, in quite a few senses, is a complete hot mess.

From the first moment of meeting him, he's incredibly good at his job, reading people and making accurate guesses about them, but he mainly uses his gained knowledge to tease and get under people's skin, his much harried assistant Mukai being a frequent target.

He's also an oddity amongst the Shinjuku police force, and amongst regular humans as well. He is the target of a small group in his workforce's hate meetings, where they all meet up just to trash talk about him in private. He even shows up to one such meeting.

It doesn't bother him in the slightest that a group of his coworkers (even his own assistant) are trash talking him behind his back. Even seems to actively encourage it. Not even a sense of remorse that the people he usually sees on a regular basis hate him.

You know, for a person who's entire job is basically studying human behaviors, he's pretty shit at seeing the things that would be normally troubling for the average human, nor does anything to change that behavior around him.

This doesn't change much once he gets his eyes on Ichika. He gets under her skin as she tries to make progress in the X-Day crimes. There's a back and forth between the two, Shiraishi pushing and teasing her buttons, pulling back before she gets too frustrated with him, only to start the process over again.

The only thing that gets to him, however, is when Ichika treats him as an actual human being. Like, negative behavior, he understands perfectly, but positive behavior, like talking through problems logically, people making him food, showing some basic human decency? It baffles him. Like, he's so sly and manipulative to the people around him, why would anyone like him?

The back and forth continues from there, Shirashi forming such a strong attachment that the inevitable reveal towards the end of the route makes it kind of heartbreaking.

Shiraishi had been playing us all along.

Well... sort of.

He was basically brainwashed from childhood to be the perfect obedient child soldier.

I mean, it explains his behavior, but if the route had stopped at 'True Love Conquers All', I might have felt more lenient towards him.

However...

Shiraishi’s ending is like some of Dandelion’s endings. A Dandelion ending, referring to Cheritz's 'Dandelion: Wishes Brought to You' where it’s technically a happy ending, but there’s some element of it that makes it into a bittersweet one, whether the ending involves separation, amnesia, or major issues left unresolved.

(These are all good endings, btw. In Dandelion, no one gets a happy ending. No one.)

This is all thanks to a Trigger Mode Success.

When Shiraishi realizes his true feelings for Ichika, he disobeys Zero for the first time in his life, in order to save hers.

They briefly escape from Zero, but he catches up to them, trying to take over Shiraishi again. Ichika isn’t having any of this, and shoots Zero killing him in the process.

But..

With the remainder of his strength, Zero activated the poison in Ichika’s collar.

I had terrible flashbacks to Okazaki’s route, but held out on hope. His route ended in a fake out. He was trying to keep Ichika alive while she said quote unquote ‘dying words’ to him, while he refused to give up on her and everything was okay in the end. That ending we still got a happy ending despite nearly giving me a heart attack before said good ending.

Not so with Shiraishi.

This one milked every tear out of me it possibly could. Not only with the possibility of Ichika being dead again, but then she was in a coma for months after getting the antidote.

The reason that she was in a coma was because Shiraishi couldn’t reveal himself to the public because he’s a wanted criminal for being a part of Adonis, and revealing himself would separate him from Ichika and that was something that he couldn’t handle. Not at that time, anyway.

But that’s not the worst part of it.

After waiting for months for her to wake up, when she finally does, she doesn’t remember anything.

Anything.

Not him or what had happened all those months ago with Adonis and the collar.

The credits roll on this mark while I scream in frustration and agony.

Talk about a stab through the heart, game.

Still, despite this setback, he continues to stay with her while she recovers, keeping her hidden until she was well enough to function without him.

Here’s the real kicker.

He had plans to leave her in Yanagi’s care once she is well enough on her own and Shiraishi was going to turn himself in to atone for his crimes. He takes her to the Christmas party they had been planning the year before, before all the shit went down. She has a few things in the party trigger her memory, but the biggest trigger was Shiraishi telling her the whole truth, about him being a criminal and that now he was going to atone for his sins. Ichika recovers her memories in that moment, they cry and kiss in the sunset and that’s the end of the route.

Now that I've got a chance to breathe and time to process things, I think I can reasonably say I'm not the biggest fan of Shiraishi. Like, I can understand where the hype for him comes from, but it's not exactly my cup of tea. I feel like it was too many things piled on top of one each, especially towards the end, and that, if a few of those elements were taken away, I could have appreciated him more. He basically wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was working with the enemy and his eccentricities come off a little strong to make a believable character. Have a little foresight and discretion, Mr Profiler!
 

PROS AND CONS
PRO: He’s an animal lover, particularly towards cats.
CON: He will stop and try to play with every cat. He even has dates that solely consists of playing with cats. (may or may not be a con, but I’m not judging).

PRO: He doesn’t give two shits about what people think or say about him.
CON: He probably should give at least a little bit of a shit of what people say about him, especially when people start coalitions whose sole purpose of existing is to bash him.

PRO: He’s not picky when it comes to food. He’ll try just about anything.
CON: He’ll also steal your food, even the stuff you’ve already taken a bite out of. That's gross, man.

PRO: He’s pretty open about sharing his house with his partner, even letting you use his shower and clothes.
CON: He’ll watch you when you sleep if he’s able. Also, be wary if you’re short, as he is really tall, so his clothes probably won’t fit you, like at all.

PRO: He’s honest with what he’s feeling, and will tell it like it is.
CON: Sometimes the things he says can have the wrong meaning taken from it, especially if it can be taken in a sexual connotation. He won’t correct people if they get the wrong impression either.

PRO: He will do anything for you if you become one of his special people.
CON: Carl, he kills people!

Bae Rating: 6/10

Shiraishi was a surprise, through and through. He was as unpredictable as his route, keeping me guessing every step of the way, but not necessarily in a good way. Though I liked some of the character dynamics between him and Ichika, I was more worried about what was gonna come my way next to pile on top of this steaming pile of what the actual fuck. Really, this route's saving grace was some meme worthy moments from Shiraishi and if the ending wasn't the clusterfuck it was, he might have scored higher.

If anyone has a special request for a bae for me to review, the full list of the most current list of games and routes I’ve completed thus far, plus also who I’m currently pursuing for that game is listed on my profile page here!

Have a good day, lovelies, and remember to touch all the butts.