Enzai

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"For those of you who ever wanted to know what it's like to go to prison and get gang-raped your first night in, Enzai is your game."

A sadistic Visual Novel Boys Love Game. The story revolves around Guys, a young boy in 19th-century France, who is unjustly accused of murder by a corrupt detective named Guildias. Guys is then thrown into prison and forced to suffer through a world of brutality while attempting to prove his innocence -- which is easier said than done, as there are two separate overlapping conspiracies keeping him in prison.

Widely known as the first BL Game to be translated into English, and infamous for its Shotacon content and high level of Squick.

A two-part OVA was produced.

Tropes used in Enzai include:
  • A Date with Rosie Palms: During Lusca's route. He and Guys mutually masturbate to each other. Twice.
    • Also during Shion's route, Durer forces Shion to masturbate in front of him and Guys, who is spying through the door, begins masturbating as well in response to Shion. He is then caught by Durer.
  • The Anime of the Game: a two-episode OVA which went with Lusca's ending but hinted at some of the elements found in other storylines.
  • Anachronism Stew: Comes in form of a vibrating, black rubber dildo.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Guys and Jose.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Evan
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Guildias and Durer are prime examples.
  • Breakfast Club: An alcoholic lawyer, a nosy journalist, a nutcase, a sadistic rapist, a man in serious need of therapy and a fourteen year old boy unite to bring the trio of big bads to justice and get out of jail? More or less.
  • Cast Full of Pretty Boys: It is a prison, so the lack of women's justified.
  • Clear My Name: The series premises. (It's called Falsely Accused for a reason.)
  • Contrived Coincidence: Jose knowing Jared, thus, providing Guys with a vital piece of evidence
  • Crapsack World: Justified, prisons aren't shining beacons of hospitality, especially not in 19th century France.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Guys, Io, and Vallewida are voiced by women.
  • Cute Little Fangs: Most of Belbet's sprites are drawn with them.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Shion and probably Io. You could even include Guildias
  • Dead Little Sister: Evan's little brother and most of the people Shion has ever met.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Jose is a violent sadist who was sent to prison for raping a nun and repeatedly does the same thing to Guys.
  • Defective Detective: Guildias is violent, delusional, and a mentally ill pedophile.
  • Despair Event Horizon: The most depressing of all the bad endings is probably the one where Guys overhears Vallewida and Evan talking about the conspiracy to keep certain troublesome prisoners locked up and let Durer abuse them until they die. Guys concludes that his attempts to prove his innocence are futile, and resigns himself to a long, drawn-out, painful death at Durer's hands.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: All of the good scenarios. Unfortunately it suffers from Ass Pull especially with Shion's ending.
  • Empty Shell: Vallewida in his ghost mode.
  • Engrish: The French intro in the OVA is comically poor. There's Gratuitous German too, despite the game being set in France. The characters' names are semi-realistic though, compared to many other Japanese works.
  • Eyes of Gold: Guys has these.
  • Gambit Pileup: Bollanet, Durer and Guildias collaborate, but they have entirely different plans that are glorious exposed through the different endings. We have electoral fraud, smuggling, purchase of promotion, murder, and framing of innocents. Trying to figure out this mess requires a walkthrough, patience, and all the endings.
  • Gonk: Bollanet, Durer's father. EWW ew ew ew ew NO.
  • Gratuitous Rape
  • Guide Dang It: Most of the choices are very arbitrary and don't seem character-driven, so it's very easy to get one of the many bad endings.
    • The worst is getting Evan's ending, which requires making a choice that leads straight to a bad ending on any other path so unless you happen to be going after him your first time through you probably automatically make the other choice.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Durer's ending in which Guys resigns himself to being Durer's "pet" for the rest of his life.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Guildias.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Jose is voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi.
  • It's All My Fault: Shion, Belbet and Lusca.
  • It's a Wonderful Failure: Choose the wrong path...it ain't pretty.
  • Jerkass: Jose, and Guard A.
  • MacGuffin: The one small document that gives proof of Bollanet's crimes.
  • Multiple Endings: Eleven of them, including several different "good" endings, where Guys uncovers the conspiracy and is set free, and several "bad" endings where Guys is either shot trying to escape, dies in prison, or resigns himself to life as the warden's slave.
  • My Greatest Failure: Lusca, having not been able to prove Evan's innocence.
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Belbet by the end of the game, specially when giving out the clues about Jake's death, which was easily the scariest scene of Enzai.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Vallewida arguably suffers the most of all the characters and is one of the nicest. Plus he was imprisoned because of his good deeds or his attempting to do what was right.
  • Older Than They Look: Guys is 14 (18 if you're playing the US release), but could easily pass for 10-12. Yes, you have permission to do a Vomit Discretion Shot.
  • Plot With Porn: Amidst all the Shotacon, rape and Squick, the storyline is actually quite intriguing.
  • Prison Rape: An incredibly frightening amount, all shown in graphic detail. What did you expect?
  • Punch Clock Villain: Guard B seems to be a genuinely decent guy who Guys will mention multiple times looks the other way on minor infractions (such as the prisoners chatting with each other while working) that would get them beaten by anyone else working at the prison. He just happens to be working somewhere that's otherwise staffed by complete monsters.
  • Rape Is Love: Surprisingly, mostly averted, since the rapists in question aren't interested in love; however, in several story branches Guys is brutally raped by Jose.
    • Evan's route also comes off as this, though it is far gentler than Jose's.
  • Sadistic Choice: To drink the wine, or not to drink it? Either way, you're going to get a bad ending.
  • Shotacon: Somewhat papered over in the US release as Guys' age at the beginning is stated to be 18 (he's 14 in the original, though several years pass in the course of the game).
  • Scarpia Ultimatum: Jose offers Guys Jared's diary, a vital piece of evidence, only in exchange for sex.
  • Secret Character: Shion, obtainable by getting the default "good" ending, where you don't end up romantically linked to any of the characters.
  • Shrinking Violet: Io.
  • Split Personality: Vallewida.
  • Sugar and Ice Personality: Lusca eventually becomes this, especially on his route.
  • Sweet Tooth: Belbet's chocolate addiction.
  • The Alcoholic: Lusca
  • There Are No Therapists: Realistic in this case -- it's not like 19th-century French prisons were known for the quality of their pastoral care -- but despite the lack of professional help, in one story branch Vallewida figures out on his own that his passive, unresisting "ghost mode" is a trauma-induced defence mechanism to enable him to cope with the awful things that have happened to him.
  • Those Two Guys: Guards A and B.
  • Tsundere: Jose and Guys.
  • Translation Convention: The characters are assumed to speak French.
  • Yaoi Guys Jose and Io, although the later's consent is dubious at best.