The Devil on G-String



""Come, lovely child! Oh come thou with me! For many a game I will play there with thee!""

A Visual Novel / H-game from the creators of Sharin no Kuni. It is also known by its Japanese title "G Senjō no Maō". Contrary to what one may think, the G-String in the title refers to August Wilhelmj's "Air on the G-String", an adaptation of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air". The "Devil" or "Maou" refers to Franz Schubert's lied of Goethe's ballad "Der Erlkoenig".

Azai Kyousuke is the son of an infamous Yakuza tyrant in the underworld. By day, he is an Ordinary High School Student who lives like a mildly eccentric playboy, but at night, he is a ruthless financing tyrant working under his father's underworld business.

Things take on a bit of a turn when a girl named Usami Haru transfers into his school - a Strange Girl with an impossibly long, tangled head of hair who happens to take an interest in Kyousuke. Almost immediately after Haru appears, an international mafia overlord who calls himself "Maou" also arrives in the city, and is set on crushing Haru and everyone else who is connected to her. Haru, meanwhile, is determined to defeat this mysterious figure and inevitably wraps Kyousuke and his friends into the situation.

Maou then starts up a deadly game of hide-and-seek against Haru and her friends, raising the stakes involved for the protagonists with each move that he makes. Kyousuke and Haru are forced to race against time before each of Maou's criminal plans are set into action.

"Kyousuke: "I realize it's difficult for you womenfolk to understand this, but the ecstasy of release after forcibly building that gripping tension of unnecessary restraint... it's breathtaking.""
 * Abhorrent Admirer: Despite it just becoming more and more clear over time that Usami is the main heroine, Kyousuke is repulsed by the idea of having her affections and does his best to deny acknowledging them.
 * Aborted Arc: If you take Tsubaki or Mizuha's paths, the entire story around Maou is straight up abandoned.
 * It should be noted that, unlike many examples of this trope, the abortion, at the very least in the Tsubaki route is fully acknowledged by Haru saying to leave the Maou issue to her during the final scene in the school, followed by a few lines in the final scene reminiscing about how she was only there for 3 months and left.
 * It persists for a little bit if you take Kanon's route, given the nature of the story.
 * Adorkable: Haru has her moments.
 * So does Mizuha for that matter.
 * A God Am I: Played for Laughs by Kyousuke. When he does adopt his God persona expect some scheme to get petty revenge for something that doesn't even call for it in the first place. Then expect Eiichi to screw it up by doing one little thing that gives Haru an opening to play detective.
 * All Girls Want Bad Boys: It's at least one of the factors Kyousuke has going for him.
 * Especially on Mizuha's path.
 * Always Murder: In the second arc, a costume designer was killed and Maou claims credit. The police are only investigating it as an accident.
 * Ambiguous Situation:
 * Animal Motifs: Gonzou is likened to a lion, the king of beasts, which contrasts Maou as the king of devils.
 * Arms Dealer: The Devil supplies weapons to children and Gonzou's rival Yakuza.
 * Asshole Victim:
 * Audio Erotica: Kyousuke's voice apparently gets deeper when he drops his casual persona. Mizuha thinks it's hot.
 * Awesomeness By Analysis: Usami will often predict Maou's schemes with just as much as checking out the envelope of a letter. Interestingly enough, most of the time these are all Gambits made to confuse her..
 * Badass: Gonzou. He basically just pops up and oozes manliness and restrained violence before disappearing again throughout the story.
 * Battle Amongst the Flames:
 * Berserk Button: Hurting Kyousuke's love for classical music in one way or another. It's played for laughs though.
 * Best Served Cold:
 * Big Bad: The Devil.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Chapter 5 is officially kicked off with
 * Lampshaded almost immediately afterwards by both . He remarks to himself that he's arrived just in the nick of time, and she literally calls him her hero.
 * Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Haru and Kyousuke often get into these. Eiichi too (as a boke of course).
 * Kyousuke plays the boke for Eiichi once, but all he can think of as a tsukkomi is a repeated WEAK! that gets dragged out longer and longer.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: Usami notes at one point that Kanon looks almost nothing like Gonzou, but she's cute because the character designers designed them all to be that way. Kyousuke interrupts her and they return to the real subject. Though considering it's Usami, she might have just wanted to be silly.
 * Break the Cutie: Kyousuke does this to Tsubaki and Mizuha in their respective bad ends.
 * Broken Bird: Kyousuke is a rare male example, albeit a mild one. In her respective path
 * Bromantic Foil: Eiichi is pissed to realize when playing an eroge that he is one.
 * Bus Full of Innocents: More like a full of innocents.
 * But Not Too Foreign: Yuki, 1/4 American.
 * : The Devil
 * The Casanova: Kyousuke nurtures this reputation along.
 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * Chick Magnet: Kyousuke's rather popular. Even possible lesbian Yuki shows interest, noting it's weird for her to be attracted to a guy.
 * Children Are Innocent: The Devil claims that this is why they are easy to manipulate. Kyousuke's psychiatrist also claims this is why children can tenderly take care of a stray followed by shoving a firecracker down a frog's throat: They haven't learned that it's wrong yet.
 * Hiroaki, Tsubaki's kid brother, is an example of this. It was his unwavering innocence that.
 * Class Representative: Tsubaki.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Haru. She's actually very observant and intelligent.
 * Kanon lives on her own little planet where skating is pretty much the only thing worth doing.
 * Subverted in that she is aware of her family's business and her father will throw both her and her mother away if Kanon were to lose her fame.
 * Cool Big Sis: Yuki to Haru, though despite initial appearances she actually isn't older.
 * Color-Coded for Your Convenience: You can change the color of the text for each of the main characters on the config menu.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Director Shiratori, aka Mizuha's father.
 * Also, Director Someya, CEO of the Sannou Corporation.
 * The Corruption: The Devil to Tsubaki, as well as many children in the city.
 * Corrupt the Cutie: Tsubaki.
 * Darkest Hour:
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Kanon breaks Kyousuke's music CD. For his revenge, he gets a schoolwide athletic event that Kanon had been looking forward to for a long time postponed until a date she won't be able to attend it. He seems to enjoy going overboard in petty revenge.
 * Distant Finale:
 * Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Kyousuke tells Tsubaki particularly harshly this in her good ending path, after she finds something he'd rather she didn't. And after that comes a just-barely averted Disproportionate Retribution.
 * Double Entendre:
 * Darkest Hour:
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Kanon breaks Kyousuke's music CD. For his revenge, he gets a schoolwide athletic event that Kanon had been looking forward to for a long time postponed until a date she won't be able to attend it. He seems to enjoy going overboard in petty revenge.
 * Distant Finale:
 * Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Kyousuke tells Tsubaki particularly harshly this in her good ending path, after she finds something he'd rather she didn't. And after that comes a just-barely averted Disproportionate Retribution.
 * Double Entendre:
 * Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Kyousuke tells Tsubaki particularly harshly this in her good ending path, after she finds something he'd rather she didn't. And after that comes a just-barely averted Disproportionate Retribution.
 * Double Entendre:

"Eiichi: "Reality my ass. Didn't you get the memo? The world we live in is a virtual reality. Everything is just a computer simulation." Kyousuke: "Right...so, you're saying that someone is out there right now on the other side, watching our conversation?" Eiichi: "Yeah. though I wish they'd hurry up and patch us. Someone needs to make a mod where I'm six feet tall."
 * He's talking about how he's holding back on listening to the CD he bought yesterday.
 * Dying Moment of Awesome:
 * Dysfunction Junction: Apart from Tsubaki, everyone comes from a messed up situation. On the other hand, Yuki warns not to even begin comparing her situation to Kyousuke's if she wants him to take any interest in her at all.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: Most of the routes.
 * Establishing Character Moment:
 * For Kyousuke, his reacting with suspicion when Tsubaki visits her in the morning, followed by revealing he only barely remembers who she is despite being in the same class for three years. After this he instantly switches into an attitude where he's outwardly kind but inwardly snarky, thus highlighting the dual nature of his existence.
 * Tsubaki's occurs immediately after, where she does not mind the fact that Kyousuke says outright that he doesn't really remember her and instead continues to crush on him.
 * Eiichi's very first scene where he acts really nice in front of Tsubaki and then acts as though he's some badass you need to watch out for.
 * For Usami, the battle of wits over proving that Kyousuke locked the gym storage and stalled a school events showing she's both an excellent detective and also really silly.
 * Gonzou's is Kyousuke walking into a meeting with him while some guy who annoyed him bleeds to death on the table. You do not screw with Gonzou.
 * Maou's is a brief discussion with Someya and a young adviser. After some initial conversation about what people should do in order to ensure victory, Maou and the adviser begin one of Maou's characteristic games, but set up in a way that only an idiot could lose to him. Which was the whole point, as Maou reaches out and breaks the adviser's finger to make the point to Someya that the willingness to do anything nets victory, and to make the point to the audience that Maou is calm, collected, vicious and does not play by the rules.
 * Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Averted. There's a pretty clear stated attitude that only small fry loser bad guys have standards. You're either a good person or a bad one. Or a failure.
 * Evil Debt Collector: Gonzou and Kyousuke.
 * Turned around in a strange manner when
 * Evil Versus Evil: Neither Azai nor Maou is exactly a super awesome human being.
 * Explicit Content: Being a H-game, this is to be expected.
 * The track that plays during the h-scenes is a rendition of Handel's aria "Lascia ch'io pianga". The lyrics are kind of related to the plot.
 * Eyes Never Lie: In the sound drama,
 * Faking the Dead: When the bus he is riding is shot by the police and explodes, - identified by his pistol - emerges and burns to death. It turns out that he shot the engine, gave the bus driver his pistol and escaped.
 * is a favorite of this. He also is believed to be dead after surviving a terrorist's bomb.
 * After making a phone call to Kyousuke about how he has nothing more to live for, he sets off a bomb in the center of the city, presumably killing himself. It turns out that he lied, but Haru calls him out on it.
 * Fake-Out Make-Out:
 * Fan Translation: The TLWiki translation group released a full English patch on December 25 2010.
 * Four-Temperament Ensemble: The girls are a picture-perfect example: Tsubaki is phlegmatic, Kanon is sanguine, Mizuha is melancholic, and Haru is choleric.
 * Freudian Excuse: Maou gets one, which is However, it's acknowledged that by this point he's crossed the series internal Moral Event Horizon.
 * Friend to All Children: According to the Devil, children are not familiar with impure motives and thus are easily manipulated. He recruits children to commit crimes regularly.
 * The Gadfly: Yuki is way far on the troll side of the spectrum.
 * Graceful Loser:.
 * Heavy Sleeper: Yuki
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hidden Villain: Nobody knows who the Devil is until The Reveal.
 * Hyper Awareness: Haru manages this on a normal basis but it's specially noticeable when she manages to make analysis of the situation while
 * Hypocrite:
 * I Will Protect Her:
 * Incorruptible Pure Pureness:
 * In-Series Nickname: Haru's self given 'Hero'.
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: Practically all of the background music used is a variant of famous classical music pieces, ranging from Bach to Wagner to Grieg.
 * Kids Are Cruel: Exploited by Maou -- his mafia consists of children because it's easier to manipulate them into doing evil because they haven't learned that it's wrong yet.
 * Last-Name Basis: Justified on
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: So bad you can practically hear it groan.
 * Last-Name Basis: Justified on
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: So bad you can practically hear it groan.

"Usami Haru: Didn't I just say that you should call me Usami Bin Laden?"
 * See also This Is the Part Where.
 * Like a Weasel: Eiichi agrees with Yuki no matter what she says her favorite animal is. First cats, then dogs and a clear indication he's okay with continually switching his favorite. Kyousuke mentally notes that his favorite kind of animal is actually reptiles.
 * Likes Older Women: Eiichi. Apparently it's not so much an age thing as not like immature girls, meaning he still likes the more adult seeming Yuki and has a high opinion of Tsubaki.
 * Like Reality Unless Noted: Leads to a subversion of Did Not Do the Research. The story claims that no woman figure skater has ever done a quad jump, but then notes after the epilogue that it happened in 2002 and that in their world this simply didn't happen.
 * Manipulative Bastard: The Devil manipulates children to work for him.
 * Meaningful Name: Haru's stagename, Haruna, contains the Kanji for spring. To quote from the final lines of the ending,
 * The Medic: Tsubaki is nicknamed this by Haru, because she's "soothing".
 * Money to Throw Away: The Devil throws away a large sum of money to create a crowd, allowing him to escape.
 * Mook Face Turn: Hashimoto is implied to have done this at the end, when he encourages the children working for the Devil to give up and
 * My Beloved Smother: Ikuko. Overlaps with Stage Mom.
 * New Transfer Student: Yuki and Usami.
 * No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
 * No Route For The Wicked:
 * This does not stop the game from having one CG of her laying in bed that lets you catch a peek at her breasts.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Nearly everyone has a different side to them that only comes out in their chosen arena.
 * Oblivious to Love: Normally, Kyousuke is okay about this. He picks up on Tsubaki quickly enough and Kanon eventually despite apparently not interacting with her much. And he's actually going out of his way to ignore the possibility of Usami. But Mizuha in her route? For some things there is just no excuse.
 * Official Couple: While you can techically end with any of the four girls, everyone would agree that Haru is the one who shine the most throughout the story.
 * Older Than They Look:
 * Omniglot: As a mere student, Maou was already fluent in six different languages: Japanese, English, German, French, Arabic and Spanish.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall - Done throughout the game, especially during Haru's nonsensical rants. The most notable of which occurs at the end of chapter 3 when she states that if this were a bishoujo game, a choice window would pop up right now for Kyousuke.
 * Police Are Useless: Averted. The police is shown to be quite capable, but being a quasi-member of the Yakuza, Kyosuke doesn't rely on the police even when the case calls for it.
 * The Power of Love: Love is a good thing, but can twist and lessen people into mere shadows of themselves. Nearly as strong of a theme as revenge.
 * Pragmatic Villainy: A few examples. First, and therefore doesn't mind  because  would just involve the police, who would hunt him even more seriously than they had  The truth is actually slightly more complicated, but it's an invocation. A second example is Usami's analysis of Azai Gonzou. First she says that he's a wild beast, but one who restrains himself. She corrects this to restraining himself until there's something worth getting violent over.
 * Pride: The Devil looks down on the heroes, and takes unnecessary risks during his plans just to test their abilities. Most of the time, he gets away with it.
 * Rant-Inducing Slight: In Kanon's route after a great deal of stress on her part due to her selfish and slightly unhinged mother
 * Rapunzel Hair: Haru's defining physical characteristic is the absurd length of her hair, described as reaching her knees. Even the bangs are long enough to cover almost her entire face. Everyone else has much more reasonable hair and she admits in passing that it takes her forever to keep it clean. It is outright stated that she grew her hair out so long because
 * Reality Retcon: At the end of Kanon's route, the very last line that appears on the screen is a disclaimer on a black background, saying that the quad jump that  had actually been done in 2002 by someone, unlike what the game had implied. It was also revealed that Kanon's revealing skating outfit would have gotten a penalty to her score, and that the depiction of figure skating was merely a projection of it into the world of G-Senjou no Maou.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: While his eyes almost certainly aren't really red, whenever Maou is depicted they always appear this way. And if you're not taking warning at Maou, he has some nice advice for you.
 * Red Herring:
 * The Resenter:
 * The Reveal: The Devil
 * Revenge Before Reason: A major theme of the game. The story more or less flat out states people need to move on from the past, but the cast in general seems really bad at it.
 * Schrödinger's Gun:
 * In Kanon's route though, it's implied
 * Selective Obliviousness:
 * Serious Business: Kyousuke's approach to classical music. He also tends to go overboard in his revenge plots, though it's subverted in that it really is just a game to him.
 * Sherlock Scan: Haru.
 * Shipper on Deck: Yuki pushes Mizuha towards Kyousuke mercilessly.
 * Shout-Out: On Haru's introduction
 * Shipper on Deck: Yuki pushes Mizuha towards Kyousuke mercilessly.
 * Shout-Out: On Haru's introduction

"Usami Haru: And what if the criminal is a piccolo player? Then would it be ‘Piccoloist Usami’? I mean we're already talking about someone who did bad things and got arrested... adding Piccolo to their name is just overkill?"
 * And also how she discuss her name

"Usami Haru: This your only excuse? In that case, go finish him now, Fr*eza-san
 * This exchange between Kyousuke and Usami in

Azai Kyousuke: First you talk down to Holmes, now you command Fr*eza?"

"Eiichi: There's more to you than meets the eye, Kyousuke. Kyousuke: I'm not a Transformer."
 * During the at the school.

"Kyousuke: A fiend. I am a fiend. I don't even feel guilty about using a girl who trust me so completely."
 * Skinship Grope: Haru claims she has such large sweater puppies because of Yuki's constant massages.
 * Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness: The Devil succeeds regularly, and accomplishes secondary objectives even when he doesn't.
 * Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: The Devil's penultimate plan is to
 * Smarter Than You Look:
 * Snow Means Death/Love: Snow is a constant framing device for the narrative.
 * Sorry I Left the BGM On: When Kyosuke demands to hear Wagner in Mizuha's chapter, he gets "Ride of the Valkyries" when he's playing God for his club activities immediately after. Turns out the BGM is actually from his CD.
 * Split Personality: Kyousuke is implied to be the Devil, for various reasons.
 * His goals (such as evicting Tsubaki's family) tend to be accomplished as a result of the Devil's schemes.
 * He has terrible headaches, which suddenly cut to the Devil's narration.
 * He can never be found when the Devil is on the field.
 * Stage Mom: Ikuko.
 * Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Haru is occasionally mistaken for one.
 * : The Devil
 * Student Council President: Tsubaki, though it's only mentioned in passing and plays even less of a role than her being the class rep. Which basically amounts to an excuse for her to wake Kyousuke up at the beginning of the story despite barely knowing him and serving to show one of the ways she's kind and responsible.
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: With more than a trace of tsundere thrown in.
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: With more than a trace of tsundere thrown in.

"Usami Haru: If this were a bishoujo game, a choice window would pop up here."
 * Usami also answers early on that she has someone she likes, then backpedals and says that of course she doesn't like anyone. Especially not Kyousuke. Oddly enough, no one challenges this.
 * Suspiciously Vague Age: Subverted very late in the game. Eiichi quite clearly notes that Kyousuke has just turned 20 So in this case it's not that they avoid mentioning that the characters are underage, it's that they aren't underage at all due to the school they go to.
 * Taking the Bullet:
 * Or was he? Its never stated outright what he was truly doing when this happened and its so out of character for him that
 * Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Haru and Yuki.
 * Tempting Fate: On two instances.
 * “Not even some poorly translated porno game would have such a convenient plot development.”
 * “...Hopefully Wagner will fare better than Bach did...”
 * This Is the Part Where: Haru is very good at these.

"Kyousuke: I waited for class to end as I pretended to listen to Eiichi."
 * Ironically, it doesn't.
 * "You're not planning to pull a 'I waited for class to end as I listened to Eiichi' in your inner monologue, then skip past the whole scene, are you?"

"Eiichi: Keep your mouth shut, you're breaking intellectual property laws here!"
 * Tsundere: Mizuha Shiratori is tsundere towards Kyousuke and Kyousuke's internal monologue is tsundere towards just about every other character.
 * Utsuge: The ending cements this.
 * Villain Protagonist: When you think about it, Kyousuke can't really be considered to be a good guy so much as less of a bad guy in an evil versus evil situation. Lying, extortion, manipulation and more. While he's essentially a decent person the story makes a point of painting him as rather ambiguously gray And the yakuza he represents is actually a particularly vicious group with no concern for honor.
 * It can be argued that Maou is a 2nd protagonist. The player often takes the role of him and he even use the pronoun "I" when narrating, much in the same way that would be used for the protagonists in the these kind of games.
 * Wham Ending: After the credits,
 * Wouldn't Hurt a Child:
 * Yakuza: Gonzou and his minions.
 * You Killed My Mother: Haru's primary motivation for stopping the Devil.
 * You Wanna Get Sued?: