Hatoful Boyfriend



""Hatoful Boyfriend is a Japanese dating game for people who think that Japanese dating games are way too normal and logical.""

- Cracked.com's "The 6 Most Insane Video Games About Dating."

Hatoful Boyfriend (Japanese title はーとふる彼氏) is a game about a human hunter-gatherer girl (named by you, default Hiyoko Tousaka) who decides to go to a high school for birds, St. PigeoNation's Institute. There, she dates pigeons.

The official website is here, two download mirrors for the free version are here, and an English translation for the free version is available here.

A drama CD is currently in post-production, and the English version of the full game can be found here. Thank you for the redirect, moa810.

"Poster on the Let's Play thread: You are now realizing that without Anghel and Okosan, the joke characters,."
 * Absent-Minded Professor: The homeroom teacher, Kazuaki, falls asleep while teaching.
 * Abusive Parents: Sakuya's father, while not physically abusive, has incredibly racist views that he indoctrinated his son with and seems to care more about Sakuya's prospects as the future family heir than his own personal wishes, something confirmed in Sakuya's extended ending where . Not only that, but the Bad Boys Love route reveals that.
 * Affectionate Parody: Of the whole Dating Sim Visual Novel genre.
 * Author Appeal: Oko San is based on moa810's own pet bird.
 * Bad End: As usual for the genre if you don't go all the way with any romance.
 * Berserk Button: For Oko San, this is inferior pudding.
 * Big Damn Heroes: On the Bad Boys Love route,.
 * Bishonen: The ICPSS function renders every pigeon you encounter as a human the first time you see them, and they're all quite pretty. Except Oko San, who is rendered as a bird in a boy's school uniform.
 * Bland-Name Product: Calorie M**te
 * Keymania IIDX
 * Blood Knight: Sometimes the heroine expresses her barbaric heritage, for example, "I must return to my people with the spoils of war, lay my bloodied sword at the feet of my great king, and celebrate my conquest of all the lands from here to distant Macedonia."
 * Bookworm: Nageki.
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The various clubs at the school include the track team, the student council, and the birdwatching club...which, in a school for birds, basically amounts to voyeurism of (and by) school students.
 * Break the Cutie: Happens a lot in the Bad Boys Love route.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Kazuaki is a world-famous math genius... and a narcoleptic who falls asleep in the middle of talking.
 * The player character may also be one, since she's apparently already passed a year at one of the most demanding private high schools in the world, despite being a cave-dwelling barbarian, and sometimes protests things in rather erudite terminology for someone who couldn't finish her reading assignment.
 * But Thou Must!: If you join the student council then you are forced into the vice presidency. Fair enough: you're the only other person on it.
 * A creepy example occurs during Doctor Shuu's best ending in the full version: when he asks you if you love him after, your three choices all say "Yes."
 * It Gets Worse. He doesn't
 * Carnivore Confusion: A major plot point in certain storylines.
 * Cerebus Syndrome: Most of the game is rather silly and lighthearted. Then you get on the Bad Boys Love route in the full version...
 * Character Blog: Okosan has a tumblr.
 * Chivalrous Pervert: Yuuya, who amongst other things tells you that doves reach sexual maturity after only one year and interprets the act of looking at nest-building materials in a specific way.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Oko San and Higure Anghel.
 * Club Stub: The Student Council. If the heroine joins, there are two members. Otherwise, it's just Sakuya, who doesn't seem to be in touch with his class's opinions or even want to be there.
 * Contemporary Cavewoman: The heroine is a hunter-gatherer who lives in a cave.
 * Creepy Physical: The doctor, Iwamine Shuu, offers to give you some interesting drugs.
 * Cry for the Devil: appears to rocket-jump over the Moral Event Horizon in the Bad Boys Love route. Then he reveals that he's doing all of this because of . It doesn't excuse the horrific things he's done up to that point, but it does make one feel at least a twinge of pity for him.
 * Curse Cut Short: One of th Punkgeons does this.
 * Damning With Faint Praise: In the first scene with Ryouta, he offers to make breakfast for our heroine. Her answer? "Maybe I'll take you up on that, if starvation looms!" Ryouta's cooking is maybe preferable to starvation? Gee, thanks for that vote of confidence...
 * Which is odd, because she says that Ryouta's cooking is delicious if she talks to him during the class hike. Maybe it was just her typical Large Ham way of speaking?
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Sakuya, if you focus on him.
 * Dub Induced Plot Hole: In the English translation of the demo, . This became a bit awkward when the full game version came out and revealed that . Fortunately, this was corrected in the separate English translation for the full game.
 * Dumb Muscle: You start with 1 wisdom, 800 vitality, and 5 charisma, and you do not get more than about 35 to 40 possible points of stat increase throughout the game.
 * However, if you attend math class on all the elective days, you end up top of the class.
 * Dysfunction Junction: Played for Laughs or Drama, depending on the route.
 * Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Yuuya is the main guy who does this, but Sakuya is also French-blooded.
 * Evil Laugh: Doctor Shuu does this a lot.
 * Extranormal Institute: St. Pigeonation's.
 * Fire-Forged Friends: Ryouta and Sakuya on the Bad Boys Love route.
 * Foreign Queasine: "Excuse me! One half-dead fried rice, please!"
 * Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Doctor Iwamine Shuu
 * Gamer Chick: Hiyoko enjoys going to the arcade.
 * Genre Shift: If you take the Bad Boys Love route, the game shifts from a humorous pigeon dating sim to a . Anghel's route also unexpectedly turns into a battle RPG close to the end.
 * Fridge Brilliance: It does finally explain why, compared to your Wisdom and Charisma, your Vitality score is so humongous: in this battle it doubles as your Hit Points!
 * GIS Syndrome: Subverted. Stock photos are used for the bird characters and the loading screens, but they are properly cited in the credits.
 * Hold Your Hippogriffs: "Everybirdie", "Nobirdie", "Anybirdie".
 * Hot-Blooded: The heroine: "MY HUNTER-GATHERER BLOOD BOILS! AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
 * 100% Completion: Getting at least one ending for each bird unlocks the Bad Boys Love route, and completing that in turn gives you a "thank you" picture after the credits a full set of documents in the Library. Getting all of the endings for each bird unlocks a post-BBL epilogue, the last Gallery image, and a Library item with a bonus scene.
 * Idle Rich: If you join the student council, you can bully Sakuya into helping clean the office at the end of the semester, which ends with you having to teach him how because he's never done his own housework before.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: The birds have no problem with eating poultry.
 * Interspecies Romance: The basis of the game!
 * : Happens in Bad Boys Love, and is a huge Crowning Moment of Awesome for almost everybirdy involved.
 * Killed Off for Real: on the Bad Boys Love route.
 * Although if you get the full ending, you find that
 * Let's Get Dangerous: Let's just say that it's a very good thing that Oko San and Anghel weren't shooed out in the Bad Boys Love route.
 * Hot-Blooded: The heroine: "MY HUNTER-GATHERER BLOOD BOILS! AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
 * 100% Completion: Getting at least one ending for each bird unlocks the Bad Boys Love route, and completing that in turn gives you a "thank you" picture after the credits a full set of documents in the Library. Getting all of the endings for each bird unlocks a post-BBL epilogue, the last Gallery image, and a Library item with a bonus scene.
 * Idle Rich: If you join the student council, you can bully Sakuya into helping clean the office at the end of the semester, which ends with you having to teach him how because he's never done his own housework before.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: The birds have no problem with eating poultry.
 * Interspecies Romance: The basis of the game!
 * : Happens in Bad Boys Love, and is a huge Crowning Moment of Awesome for almost everybirdy involved.
 * Killed Off for Real: on the Bad Boys Love route.
 * Although if you get the full ending, you find that
 * Let's Get Dangerous: Let's just say that it's a very good thing that Oko San and Anghel weren't shooed out in the Bad Boys Love route.
 * Although if you get the full ending, you find that
 * Let's Get Dangerous: Let's just say that it's a very good thing that Oko San and Anghel weren't shooed out in the Bad Boys Love route.


 * Let's Play: Angie Gallant's legendary let's play of the free demo version might just be the reason you're here right now. She has now done a follow up for the full game.
 * Logging Onto the Fourth Wall: Yuuya suggests you check out the blog of Brian the Pigeon.
 * Mad Scientist: Doctor Shuu wants to feed steroids into Oko San just to see how his body will react to them.
 * Madness Mantra: Near the end of the BBL route:


 * Mayfly-December Romance: Yep, this game acknowledges the difference between human and bird lifespans.
 * Medium Awareness: "What's the number in the top-left-hand corner say?"
 * Meido: Ryouta dresses up as this, and you can join him.
 * The Merch: There are already plans for tote bags, pins, St. PigeoNation ID cards and more. Various styles of St. Pigeonation bags, shirts, cups and even a thong with Yuuya on it can be found at the Cafepress store
 * Misplaced Wildlife: Justified: the setting is a prestigious high school for sapient birds, and attracts students and faculty from all over the world. The heroine is still surprised to encounter a mourning dove in Japan.
 * Mood Whiplash: The endings of Ryouta and Nageki's routes can come as quite a shock if you've grown used to the game's silly and comedic tone. The Bad Boys Love route in the full version, even more so.
 * Multiple Endings: Typical for the genre.
 * Nightmare Fetishist: You are this if you pursue Doctor Shuu. He even calls you out on it.
 * Norio Wakamoto: In the drama CD, pudding-obsessed Oko San is voiced by Norio Wakamoto. This finally fulfills his wish to be a bird.
 * "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: The official website has many of these.
 * People trying to get others to play this game typically have to use lots of these too, as most rational people's initial reaction to hearing about it is something along the lines of "Wait, something like this actually exists?!?"
 * Notice This: On the Bad Boys Love route, several plot-important phrases are highlighted yellow.
 * Official Couple: It's not definite, but Ryouta seems to be the most canon love interest for Hiyoko as he's the one who in the good ending to the Bad Boys Love route, the last route you can unlock.
 * Omniscient Council of Vagueness:
 * Overly Narrow Superlative: The English download site for the game describes it as "the world's greatest pigeon dating sim".
 * Phenotype Stereotype: The ordinary guy is a rock dove, fan-tails tend to be full of themselves, the mourning dove is introverted, etc. Fan-artists also do a bit of this by portraying Hiyoko as short-haired, often blonde.
 * The Power of Love:
 * Precision F-Strike: If you tell Doctor Shuu that Yuuya is lying, Shuu thanks you before kicking you out of the infirmary, saying that he needs to discuss this with Yuuya ... alone. Yuuya's reaction: "...Shit."
 * The Promise: The Bad Boys Love route is jumpstarted by one.
 * Pun-Based Title: The title is a mix of hato, the Japanese word for pigeon/dove, and "heartful". The paid version of the game is subtitled "-Hurtful Complete Edition-" as well.
 * Punch Clock Villain:
 * Punny Name: The (quail) teacher and (partridge) doctor have surnames punning on the Japanese for "quail" and "partridge". The library freshman's personal name is based on "nagekibato", the Japanese word for "mourning dove".
 * Relationship Values: As usual for the genre, although they are not shown to the player.
 * Removed From the Picture: If Hiyoko is on 's route, she finds a photo dropped by him that has the photographed bird almost completely marked out.
 * Which, in the Bad Boy's Love route, we learn was probably a photo of
 * Royal Brat: Shirogane Sakuya.
 * RPG Elements: Played for Laughs as they are not very important: "Hiyoko levelled up! Wisdom increased by 5!"
 * They become a bit more important in the full version where you need to boost the appropriate stats to get the best endings for Doctor Shuu, Sakuya, and Oko San. Additionally, Anghel's route features a turn-based RPG battle and while it's mainly used for parody, it is possible to lose it and get a bad ending if you botch it.
 * Save Game Limits: The Bad Boys Love route, in contrast with the main Otome route where you could save any time you wanted, lets you save only at certain points in the story.
 * Serious Business: For Oko San, it is pudding.
 * Shout-Out: "Oko San used WING ATTACK! It's super effective!" And this is only the first of several such references when Oko San is involved.
 * Brian the Pigeon won multiple Pulitzer Prizes.
 * The Bad End if you don't go all the way with any romance has a very specific grim reaper screen!! It also has double exclamation marks!! Like all over the place!! And one of the inventory items is a Nintendo 3DS amongst other things!!
 * "Nepotism, ho!"
 * OreHato: My Little Nicobar Can't Be This Cute
 * The heroine can suggest a novel version of Night on the Galactic Railroad to Nageki, who replies that he's already read it.
 * Our heroine's in despair! Events that happen when she's late leaving school one day (in the full version) have left her in despair!
 * In bright red text:
 * If you choose to side with Ryouta in the cafeteria, your rage inspires Okosan to flee like a rabbit from a catapult.
 * Alternately, siding with Okosan will get you calling him San of the Forest.
 * This troper can't quite shake off the feeling that the choice of wishes at Tanabata Festival (Take Over the World, rule the world from shadows, and become a famous artist) is a shout-out to Adolf Hitler's biography.
 * Slasher Smile: Doctor Shuu's human portrait.
 * Spider Sense: Hunter-Gatherer Instincts.
 * Star-Crossed Lovers: Anghel claims that Hiyoko and himself were this in a past life. A more straight example would be.
 * Take Over the World: Two of the things you can wish for at the Tanabata Festival: Take Over the World by force, or rule it from the shadows? (The third option is to be a world-famous artist.)
 * When the heroine shows up on the wrong day for class, if you choose to return home, she tells Kazuaki: "I must return to my people with the spoils of war, lay my bloodied sword at the feet of my great king, and celebrate my conquest of all the lands from here to distant Macedonia."
 * Talking Animal / Civilized Animal: The birds are not actually wearing anything, as their appearances are taken from real photos, but they do go through all the trappings of civilization.
 * Except for the student festival in fall, when your class does a Maid Cafe and Ryota briefly appears with a maid outfit drawn over his photo. This leads to the usual fanart of everybirdie crossdressing as maids, even those in other classes and the staff.
 * And Oko San's ICPSS portrait, while all other characters are rendered as Bishounen, is a bird in a school uniform.
 * In the full version, you can see the other classmates dressed up as maids for the Maid Cafe, and Ryouta fills in as a Miko at the local shrine for New Year's.
 * Tanabata: You get to see the wishes of the birds you're the closest to and make a wish yourself to Take Over the World, gain the Mad Love of a Fallen Angel, or become an artist.
 * Teacher-Student Romance: Going with the genre, Kazuaki is an option.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: For Oko San, it is pudding.
 * When Sakuya asks the player what she loves, she answers "udon." Though she also can't sit still in class unless she's had some red meat, as she tells Ryouta in the first cutscene.
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Ryouta is this if you don't go with him.
 * Uptown Boy: Sakuya.
 * Victorious Childhood Friend: Ryouta can be this if you focus on him.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: You will always see Ryouta in a maid's uniform for the Maid Cafe, and if you follow him down his arc you'll find he also works at a transvestite cafe... and goes by the name "Coolene". Of course, he's working there so he can support his mother, but you can ask him to leave.
 * Widget Series: The premise of the game is considered to be very far outside the mainstream box.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: For Oko San, it is pudding.
 * When Sakuya asks the player what she loves, she answers "udon." Though she also can't sit still in class unless she's had some red meat, as she tells Ryouta in the first cutscene.
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Ryouta is this if you don't go with him.
 * Uptown Boy: Sakuya.
 * Victorious Childhood Friend: Ryouta can be this if you focus on him.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: You will always see Ryouta in a maid's uniform for the Maid Cafe, and if you follow him down his arc you'll find he also works at a transvestite cafe... and goes by the name "Coolene". Of course, he's working there so he can support his mother, but you can ask him to leave.
 * Widget Series: The premise of the game is considered to be very far outside the mainstream box.
 * Victorious Childhood Friend: Ryouta can be this if you focus on him.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: You will always see Ryouta in a maid's uniform for the Maid Cafe, and if you follow him down his arc you'll find he also works at a transvestite cafe... and goes by the name "Coolene". Of course, he's working there so he can support his mother, but you can ask him to leave.
 * Widget Series: The premise of the game is considered to be very far outside the mainstream box.