Snow Sakura

File:Sakura Cover 2.jpg

Snow Sakura is a Visual Novel by Digital Objet, company behind Kana: Little Sister telling the story of young Yuuji Tajibana, who is forced to live with his uncle and Saki, his very wild cousin, after his parents left to work in Hawaii. Trying to come to terms with his new live in this snowy and cold world, he comes across a very illustrious group of girls and his new "best friend" Sumiyoshi and starts to find both happiness and love in this new place. This game is, a bit rare for modern eroge, a simple Slice of Life comedy, no deep conspiracies and no unnecessary Angst. It has been released in English by G-Collections in 2007 with the erotic scenes being uncensored.

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Tropes used in Snow Sakura include:

• Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: The boys wind up getting thrown under the bus a lot more often than the girls do. Usually because it's Saki throwing them.
• Accidental Kiss: Yuuji and Saki in the Misaki route.
  • It was only partially accidental on Saki's part since she admitted to prolonging the kiss because she wanted to.
• Adult Child: Misato Souya is pretty close, with generous helpings of The Ditz.
• Babies Ever After: Misaki's ending.
• Baka: Used mostly by Saki for both Yuuji and Sumiyoshi.
• Batman Gambit: In Saki's route. Yuuji's uncle and dad briefly team up in order to save Saki and Yuuji's love from school-enforced separation - by manipulating the circumstances of their relationship and playing on the guilt of the Vice Principal. It works.
• Berserk Button: Don't ever call Saki "titless".
• Book Dumb: Saki and Sumiyoshi.
• Big Fancy House: Rei's temple.
  • And Kozue's mansion. She has a home theater. IN HER BEDROOM.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Kozue reading your monologue and denying your thoughts of her being a lesbian. Yuuji has this ability as well.
  • Sumiyoshi takes this Up to Eleven during a rant on his part where he complains that as a Bromantic Foil, he doesn't even get his own ending.
  • Then Yuuji takes this Up to Eleven when you suggest he should smell Saki's panties. He resists that urge and comments on how he should stay away from YOU. You pervert.
• Bromantic Foil: Sumiyoshi. And he's none too pleased about it.
• Butt Monkey: Yuuji and Sumiyoshi both.
• Captain Ersatz: Kozue Hiyama comes off as an older Tomoyo Daidouji.
• Cherry Blossoms: Well, it's kind of in the title...
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Misaki.
  • Probably why she's considered a Creator's Pet.
• Christmas Cake: Misato Souya.
• Cool Big Sis: Rei.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Takeaki is generally sane enough to be a good dad and respected member of the community. But what else do you call a guy who decides out of the blue that he's going to be an English gentleman for the day?
• Comedic Sociopathy: Nobody seems to get what Yuuji has against his dad, even if they too see the videos he keeps sending Yuuji.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives:

Yuuji: I am not at liberty to be free to deny the fact that such a thing may or may not be true.

• Crazy Prepared: Kozue has way too much time on her hands.
  • Rei keeps a slipper in her uniform for no reason other than she may need it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Yuuji. Though, for all his muttering, he'll willingly join in the stupidity mambo now and then.
• The Ditz: Misaki, by her own admission, isn't very bright and is usually slow on the uptake in general. Her older sister Misato is even worse.
• Everything's Better with Chocolate: With the story passing Valentine's Day this becomes a part of it. Saki, as usual, takes it Up to Eleven.
• Fan Disservice: Three words: NAKED. UNCLE. TAKEAKI.
  • He even shouts that. IN ENGLISH.
  • Sharing the hot spring with Sumiyoshi might qualify, although he's shown as a Ken doll.
• Five-Man Band
  • The Hero: Yuuji
  • The Lancer: Sumiyoshi
  • The Big Guy: Saki
  • The Smart Guy: Rei
  • The Chick: Misaki
  • The Sixth Ranger: Kozue
• Giant Enemy Crab: A crab being cooked for dinner turns out to be a formidable foe.
• Gratuitous English: Both played straight and parodied with the English teacher forcing his students to talk in a completely fake accent.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Misaki's route becomes increasingly unpleasant to watch as she seems more and more determined to keep the PC to herself, even at the expense of alienating her oldest friends. It's probably the reason why most of the game's fandom dislike her. Hell, in this troper's opinion, this trait of hers makes her route much less fulfilling than the others (despite being the Visual Novel's cover girl).
• Hot-Blooded: Uncle Takeaki. If you're lucky, he may quiet down for a few seconds to dispense valuable advice, then go straight back to being emphatically manly.
• Hot for Student: Misato-sensei, if you go for her route.
• Hot Springs Episode: Quite a few, since both Yuuji's former-inn house and Rei's house have them.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Misaki and Kozue will give Yuuji one of these ultimatums in the other's routes.
• Informed Flaw: Saki is not flat-chested.
• Jerkass: Yuuji's dad. Saki's rambunctiousness can get out of hand as well.
  • The Vice Principal is more concerned about the school's image than his students' happiness, even if it means breaking up (or at least attempting to) a couple that is in love.
• Kissing Cousins: Saki's route.
• Lampshade Hanging: "This isn't one of this dating simulator games, you know?"
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: While watching a movie he starred in, Yuuji finds hearing his voice quite weird. So does the player - this is the only time his lines are actually voiced.
• Les Yay: No matter how pure Kozue insists she is.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Sumiyoshi.

Sumiyoshi: (abruptly) "Totally uncensored nude big-breasted blonde girls rubbing sun oil on each other." Yuuji: "You know, sometimes I wonder why I even hang out with you."

• Love Dodecahedron
• Love Triangle: Between Misaki, Yuuji, and Kozue in Kozue's route.
  • A short one between Misaki, Yuuji, and Saki in Misaki's route.
• Mahjong: Rei loves Mahjong. Having some knowledge on the subject (or just a guide) is actually required to get her ending.
• Luck-Based Mission: Rei's Mahjong quiz is one if you don't have knowledge of Mahjong or aren't using a guide.
• Meganekko: Rei.
• Megaton Punch: Saki dispenses these liberally, especially to Sumiyoshi.
• New Transfer Student: Yuuji.
• No Accounting for Taste: The protagonist's parents are a pretty uncouth sort, and they don't seem to be paying so much attention to each other in Hawaii as to the sexy locals. But hey, maybe that's their kink.
• Noodle Incident: When everyone gets drunk, Yuuji has to fend them off. When Yuuji gets drunk . . . well, no one wants to tell him what he did.
  • There's a later incident, too, when Mr. Kataoka goes to visit a bedridden Sumiyoshi. The only sounds heard are Sumi's screaming and Kataoka's calls of "OH YES, OH YES, I'M COMING". And then Sumiyoshi stopped going to class for a while.
• The Ojou: Kozue Hiyama.
• Operation Blank:

Kozue: "The name of the plan is "Force the Half-Hearted Lovers to go on a Date"." Rei: "That's not a very creative name." Kozue: "I don't care if you like the name or not."

• Ordinary High School Student: Yuuji, our main character.
• Parental Abandonment: Played for laughs.
• Pettanko: A good way to get your ass kicked by Saki is to tease her about her bust size; though oddly, she's no smaller than some of the other female characters. In fact, Misato and Kozue seem smaller, but aren't insecure about it.
  • Perhaps this is why Saki gets teased about it while Misato and Kozue don't?
• Porn Stash: Yuuji has one, but Sumiyoshi treats his like a hobby. Saki teases them about it (and secretly keeps a collection of her own).
• Rape as Drama: The first ero-scene between Yuuji and Kozue comes uncomfortably close to this.
  • Then the next H-scene takes the same event and turns it into Black Comedy Rape when she goes to show him a video and instead accidentally puts in the one of them doing it.
• Running Gag: As long as Yuuji lives with Saki and Takeaki he's never going to wake up peacefully, unless the Rule of Funny says it's time to turn the tables. And then he'll go back to waking up with elbow drops and practical jokes.
  • Another running gag is Yuuji's dad's ability to predict exactly how his son reacts to his videos and making preemptive arrangements.
• Seinen: Yes, despite it being a light-hearted comedy, each ending holds such scenes.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: Kozue appears to be this at first, but that is partly due to her inferiority complex to her "Love Interest".
• Shout-Out: Ditzy teacher Misato-sensei lecturing in the wrong classroom, along with others.
  • Takeaki wonders aloud if Yuuji goes to school with twelve adoring sisters, or has an alien teacher who always talks about priority.
• Ship Tease: In Kozue's route, even Saki has to admit Sumiyoshi said something impressive. While blushing furiously.
• Slice of Life
• Smoking Is Cool: Rei. At least, that's how it comes across to Yuuji. She herself begs to differ.
• Snow Means Love: Seeing as the game plays in the snowy winter of Hokkaido, this comes logically.
• Stalking Is Love: Kozue goes to some pretty extreme measures to photograph or film Misaki (and Yuuji if he starts dating her).
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: This game is virtually to Digital Objet what Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is to Gainax.
• True Companions: The game's a bit unusual - instead of the love interests being, for the most part, strangers to one another, all the girls (and Sumiyoshi) are already pretty close-knit friends.
• Tsundere: Saki Tachibana.
• Unstoppable Rage: Saki has this one after being filed as the Titless Twintail Monster and mocked relentlessly for it.
• Visual Novel
• Women Drivers: Misato-sensei is not the best of drivers. Likely a side effect of being The Ditz.
  • This exchange, late in Misaki's route:

Rei: (after stepping out of Misato-sensei's car) "We should have died three times there..." Kozue: "No, four times..." Yuuji: "I had no idea cars could go sideways like that..."

• Wrestler in All of Us: Saki uses quite an impressive amount of wrestling moves on our poor main character - the German Suplex along with her favourite, the Elbow Drop.
  • It apparently runs in the family, as Saki's dad Takeaki says he fell in love with her mom "the very moment she locked me in her triangle chokehold."
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Misaki Souya.