I adore any work that tries to do something different with yuri, and visual novels are perhaps the medium pushing boundaries most when it comes to traditional yuri storytelling. I recently played such a visual novel, Mangagamer’s English adaptation of SukeraSparo’s The Expression Amrilato. The Expression Amrilato is an educational yuri game, focusing on teaching the player the international language of Esperanto, or Juliamo as it is known in the game’s world. The game was developed in collaboration with The Japanese Esperanto Institute and I was thoroughly excited to not only experience a cute yuri adventure but to learn something new!



The story begins when the protagonist, Rin, is transported to a mysterious parallel world. It is almost identical to her own with the only obvious differences being the language spoken and the eternally pink sky. Lost and scared, Rin frantically tries to figure out what is going on to no avail. Fortunately, she is saved by a younger girl, Ruka, who speaks a smattering of the Japanese familiar to Rin.

Soon Rin is registered as a vizitanto (the Esperanto term for visitor), a person who traveled to the world from another. Ruka, who again, is three years her junior, is established as her guardian, a dynamic Rin is somewhat embarrassed by. The two girls begin living together in Ruka’s apartment as Rin learns the basics of Juliamo. She is assisted in this endeavor by Ruka and the helpful, if somewhat mischievous, librarian, Rei.

These three women, Rin, Ruka, and Rei, are the main cast of the visual novel. By focusing on such a small cast SukeraSparo was able to give each of them a distinct personality, complexity, and intricate relationships with each other. As previously mentioned, Rei is mischievous and often pokes fun at Rin and Ruka. However, she is incredibly protective of both of them, giving advice and acting as a sort of parent to the two younger girls. This dichotomy of character works surprisingly well, especially later in the game as she reveals more about the world and her past.

Rei is excellent but the highlight of the game is Ruka and Rin. Rin is a superb protagonist. She often thinks and narrates inwardly, giving us insight into her feelings. She describes herself as pretty unremarkable but is determined to be good at one thing, learning Juliamo. She also constantly ponders and overthinks her relationship with Ruka, an incredibly complicated topic. Ruka, however, is much more quietly confident and reserve (as well as adorable). Although the younger girl is prone to pouting and frustration at Rin’s occasional stupidity. But, their relationship is the real highlight of the game.

Rin is “freeloading” off Ruka, and as Ruka is her guardian and teacher she is subservient. However, these tables are turned at times as Rin helps to teach Ruka more Japanese. Rin is also attracted to Ruka but she often blunders attempts to navigate or explain her feelings. The main boundary here is their language difference, which compels both Rin and the player to do their best learning Juliamo.

Rei acts as Rin’s primary resource for learning about the world she has wandered into. There is a surprising amount and world-building in The Expression Amrilato, particularly around the mechanics of how vizitanto come to the world and how governments support them. The established systems for how these vizitanto exist and assimilate, or not, into the world are fascinating and incredibly well thought out. This detailed setting creates an excellent framework for both the game’s education aspects and the core romance.

Overall, the romantic plot between Rin and Ruka is nothing new, it is the same “girl meets girl, girls likes girl, they get together” plot that has been told and retold countless times in the genre. This is not to say the romance is not enjoyable. Rin’s embarrassment and fumbling attempts to control her feelings for Ruka are simultaneously adorable and hilarious. The game has some fun with cliche moments like Rin falling into Ruka and them ending in a compromised position but also has some excellent human moments between the two, such as Ruka sleeping next to Rin to comfort her. The visual novel is decently tame with a little bit of suggestive description and one non-nude bathing scene early on. The lack of service feels appropriate and the characters are still able to hold their own romantic and sexual identities, a welcome accomplishment in the yuri genre which often spends too much time focusing on girls freaking out that they like other girls.

Choices exist in the game, primarily around using the Juliamo language. However, the romance and Rin’s fate ends in one of three ways, good, neutral, or bad, according to late game choices. I strongly disliked the choices as, for the most part, they have no clear indicator of where they are going, turning the story into guesswork, which was indeed my process to find all three endings, replaying the last section over and over again. Furthermore, on some routes, the choices that most players will want to make can lock them out of the best ending. I also was baffled by the choice to not have the player’s aptitude with Juliamo factor into the ending, as you can fail every quiz and get every dialogue option wrong and this will not affect the endings at all. Fortunately, the choices that do affect the ending are late in the game, so backtracking to find your desired outcome is possible.

The character designs and artwork are by Naruse Chisato, and she does a fantastic job. Each of the major characters looks are distinctive, with differing heights, body types, fashion sense, and proportions. I particularly enjoyed the varying outfits on Ruka and her facial expressions (especially when pouting). However, the characters often have a stiff cardboard feel to them, as they have very few poses and clash somewhat against the depth of the backgrounds. Additionally, some of the expressions, particularly on Rei, appear warped and unnatural.

The backgrounds and CG artwork, the latter of which are plentiful, are wonderful. They have a soft pastel look without ever being washed out, and the characters here appear much more at home in their environments and more animated, with cutouts frequently appearing in CGs to show action. Different art assets used in the educational scenes such as flashcards or writing on a chalkboard are excellent editions. Unfortunately, as the story takes place primarily in Ruka’s apartment and the library, the player will quickly become bored by these backgrounds and long for a change of scenery.

The voice talent matches the artwork in its high quality. This is particularly important in this game, as listening to language pronunciation is vital. The actresses easily switch between Esperanto and Japanese in a natural-sounding way. Great praise must be given to voice actresses for Rin and Ruka, Nagatsuma Juri and Uchida Shuu respectively, who convincingly stuttering and struggling over the languages their characters are learning while still being comprehensible.

Sadly, I found the soundtrack to be severely lacking. The game opens with an intro song, accompanied by animation, which was nice for a listen or two but I quickly grew tired of it. This is the most praise I have to offer the music. Most of the tracks are boring at best and at worst grate on the ears with discordant and irritating sounds. If I had not been playing the game to review it I would have disabled music after the first hour.

Finally, I cannot conclude my review of The Expression Amrilato without talking about the educational aspects and value of the game. For those of you who may not have known or have forgotten, when I am not writting about gay anime I am a teacher and spend a great deal of time studying pedagogy. Educational software can be an amazing tool for teaching, as it offers three key benefits, feedback, increased engagement, and interactivity. Using these criteria and just some of the knowledge I have gained from spending my entire life in school, although not always as a student, I examined how The Expression Amrilato teaches Esperanto.

The language is primarily taught through quiz-based learning. There are seven lessons which build on each other and the player then answers questions on. I was surprised by the variety in these quizzes, as they are not always just spouting the vocabulary word to name an object but can involve sentence and grammatical construction as well. Some of them are quite creative, such as when learning the parts of the body the player clicks on Ruka to identify the word she gives. These quizzes can be accessed independently after playing through them via the main menu and there is a Juliamo dictionary, although this is unlocked much later in the game than I would have liked.

Outside of the quizzes, new vocabulary and grammatical rules are often given and old ones reviewed, which appear as little pop-in at the side of the screen that gives pronunciation and spelling. Some gameplay sections of the visual novel have Rin complete actions that review previous lessons, such as going out shopping and needing to name the foods she buys. I enjoyed these sections in particular, as they felt more compelling to me than the quizzes ever did.

Given the criteria for education software, The Expression Amrilato does an okay but not amazing job. It does offer instant feedback, telling the player if they got a question wrong and giving them the correct answer, and has limited interactivity. However, on this front, I cannot help but wonder if the medium is holding the game back. The player never has many complicated choices or questions, and cannot write in answers or construct sentences. Instead, the quizzes and story sections are limited almost exclusively to multiple-choice selection. Engagement is probably where the game shines most, as it has a deep story and amazing art to compliment the learning.

The Expression Amrilato is a unique and enjoyable experience. The story has surprising depth, although it did little to break out of genre tropes. The game’s artwork is stupendous, giving both quality designs and backgrounds and a plethora of great CGs. The yuri romance is reliably cute and serves as a fun framework for learning Esperanto. While not pedagogically perfect, you will get out of the game what you put into it and, with a bit of work, you should walk away with some basics of the language and a big smile from those animated lesbians.

Ratings:

Story – 7

Characters – 8

Art – 9

Voice – 7

Music – 2

Education – 5

LGBTQ – 5

Lewdness – 2

Final – 7

Review copy provided by MangaGamer

You can purchase The Expression Amrilato from Steam, Mangagamer’s website, and other digital storefronts.

Mangagamer is offering free review copies to any and all educational institutes that endorse Esperanto learning.