Kedamono (Kazoku) tachi no Sumu Ie de Review

Title: Kedamono (Kazoku) tachi no Sumu Ie de ~Daikirai na Saitei Kazoku to Kanojo to no Netorare Doukyo Seikatsu~
Original title: ケダモノ（家族）たちの住む家で～大嫌いな最低家族と彼女との寝取られ同居生活～
Alias: In the House of Despicable Family
Release date: 2014-05-02
English release date: 2016-06-01
Developer: Pin-Point
English publisher: NTRanon (as a fan-patch)

"Kedamono (Kazoku) tachi no Sumu Ie de" is probably the first purely netorare focused visual novel translated into English language. Of course, there have been a few netorare focused non-VNs translated recently (Minako and Netorare Imouto Misaki come to mind), and some VNs have NTR elements, but "Kedamono" is the first title available in the West to devote itself purely to this fetish.

I feel safe to reveal that I have three main fetishes - netorare, pregnancy and futanari/shemales. So, of course, my dream VN would feature the girl getting pregnant while being stolen from the protagonist by a futanari. Unfortunately, such a visual novel doesn't exist in English language, not counting "Plum Tea" into the equation. In that case I can get by with a second best thing - a game where the main heroine is turned into a slut and possibly impregnated by your rivals. That's exactly what I need to have a relaxing feel-good evening.

Respect for the man, who knows what he wants.

Sometimes (scratch that - most of the time) I think that people take netorare too seriously. Just go to Literotica and read the comments on the stories featuring cuckolding. Majority of those comments seems to come from haters, who have nothing better to do than read stories featuring a fetish they hate and then write vitriol fueled rants in the comment section. Those haters can be split into two main categories: a) wish all the worst to the characters of the story in question and express hope that they all die from multiple gunshot wounds / AIDS / etc.; b) wish all the worst to the author of the story in question and express hope that they die from multiple gunshot wounds / AIDS / etc. I have always though that common sense dictates not to subject yourself to something you hate on purpose (for example, I hate moeges and usually don't even acknowledge their existence), but I suppose common sense is a rare commodity where humans are concerned.

Anyway, just one more warning, before I'll start talking about the game itself. The patch for "Kedamono" has been released by an anonymous poster (later fan-dubbed "NTRanon") on some sort of image board in a very unpolished state. There is a metric ton of basic mistakes like missing words, missing spaces, repeated words and various grammar mistakes. Line breaks also do not always work correctly, and there is a single instance where the game crashes, unless you set the skip function to "skip all" and activate it just before the crash is supposed to happen. All in all, it looks more like a beta draft of a patch, rather than a proper full release. It's serviceable, but definitely not polished.

"Kedamono" is a rare VN that makes fellatio look very erotic.

"Kedamono" introduces us to one Asaoka Arata - a high school boy, whose one joy in life is his pure and kind girlfriend Hinomoto Koharu, whom he calls his angel. Arata does not get along with his own family at all. His father Genzou is a sly businessman, who doesn't appear to love him at all, and his half-brother Masaru, from a different mother, is an asshole, who used to bully him as a kid. Our luckless hero had also been traumatised by watching both his father and his brother having rough sex with his mother and treating her like a whore, when he was younger (currently his mother is already dead). Nevertheless, it's hard to understand Arata's hangup about that particular thing. He shouldn't have cared that his father enjoyed some rough sex with his mummy - after all, she enjoyed it too. He also shouldn't have been jealous of his brother getting some of that pussy too. It's obvious that his mother had a bright idea how to get along with her stepson better and implemented it. Seriously, if more stepmothers would be so understanding of the needs of their stepsons, families would be so much stronger. :-)

Getting back on track, our bundle of nerves is enjoying his carefree days with Koharu, when suddenly a disaster strikes - Koharu's house burns down. As she has no relatives, Genzou offers for her to stay in their family house, as there is plenty of room. You can reject this proposal, but in that case you'll get a bad ending, where she lives with Arata happily ever after, and we cannot have that. Of course you should accept! What could go wrong?

Damn, old man, what kind of medicine are you using?

Koharu is the primary protagonist of the story, as we spend much more time looking from her perspective, than from Arata's. She appears to be a kind and gentle girl, who is easily flustered when sexual matters are discussed, but don't be fooled - inside her hides a full fledged slut. When it comes to netorare stories, any two-bit writer can portray the female character suddenly starting to enjoy the sexual advances of another party, and her own humiliation. A really good writer will describe her starting to enjoy the humiliation of her significant other, too. Once Genzou gets his grubby hands on Koharu, she becomes a putty in his hands, but what really gets her engine revving is the act of cheating itself. It's quite obvious that Koharu is neither as kind or as gentle as we are led to believe. Genzou might have awakened her inner passions, but he definitely didn't cause them; our heroine must have had some dark desires to start with.

Another complaint I often hear regarding NTR stories, is how unrealistic the scenarios are. This is a laughable one. Most NTR stories, "Kedamono" included, are pure stroke stories. They are there to titillate us with a certain fetish, where we get off on that delicious feeling of seeing the protagonist's significant other being turned into a dirty slut. How exactly the writer got to that point is not as important as everything that follows. "Kedamono" employs the excuse of Genzou filming himself forcing a kiss on Koharu and then blackmailing her. Stupid, I know. Any girl with half a brain would have told her boyfriend everything and left the house faster than you can say "Mach 1". However, that would have resulted in a very short game, so who cares about the stupid premise.

What happens behind the doors stays behind the doors.

As a nukige, "Kedamono" is as good, as hot are the sex scenes it contains, and I'm happy to say they are very good. The game is quite short with only three endings, with one of them being a bad end with no pussy received. During its short length we are introduced to quite a variety of fetishes and kinks. If I have one thing to say, it's that Genzou really loves his cosplay sex - most of the sex scenes with him have Koharu dressed in various inappropriate, or rather, very appropriate, clothes. Of course, there is a usual maid uniform, which is a staple in all nukiges, however, there are also more exotic apparels: a cowgirl costume, a pig girl costume and even an American flag costume!

Sex itself is a usual kind of fare: mostly vaginal and oral intercourses. There is some anal, but it's included in an almost throwaway fashion, and surprisingly there is no mammary intercourse. Seriously, Koharu has enormous gazongas for such a small girl and it feels like a shame that the only attention they get comes from mouths and fingers. Natheless, all the H-scenes are incredibly sexy with the factor of discretion adding another layer of raciness. There are also a few well made scenes, where Arata is shown mooning about his lover while happily thinking about her, when suddenly the next shot shows us Genzou balls-deep in Koharu, and makes it clear that she definitely isn't thinking about her boyfriend at all. Wicked :-)

A truly patriotic loincloth.

Koharu is a very vocal girl, and while I usually do not really like such nightingales, in this case I found her performance attractive. Voice actress Himari does a decent job as Koharu, even though she sometimes tends to overact her moaning, which starts to sound almost like barking. Some games tend to have background noises during the intercourse, but "Kedamono" goes a step further and includes moaning as a background noise. I was ambivalent about this feature, as it can be a bit distracting, but in the end, I didn't hate it.

Graphically, both the CGs and the sprites look great, but I was much less pleased with the backgrounds. They are drawn in a completely different style and I felt that they clashed with the look of the sprites. Anyhow, the backgrounds are not that important, because CGs are the meat and bread of this VN, and the artist really did his best regarding them.

Koharu knows what being a woman is all about.

Obviously, not everything is gold and glitter regarding "Kedamono". I felt a bit disappointed by the route structure and the endings. Namely, the vast majority of the scenes center around Koharu and Genzou, with his son Masaru only appearing in a few of them, to the point that I felt his character was underused. Moreover, I was dissatisfied with the ending you receive following the route purely focused on Genzou. The route constantly teases us with the possibility of Koharu getting pregnant, but in the end not only that doesn't happen, but the open ended finale leaves a lot to be desired and raises some unanswered questions. The harem route is marginally better, with a much more satisfying conclusion, however I still feel like something's missing. I think I simply wished to experience the epilogue through Koharu's eyes - Arata's viewpoint was lacking in something fundamental.

After all that has happened I find it quite hard to sympathise with Arata - he should have at least thanked his family for their hard work. I mean, his father took it upon himself to teach his girlfriend very important lessons in keeping a man satisfied and his brother gave Koharu fashion advice. Shouldn't have Arata been happy that his girlfriend came out of her shell and started wearing sexy clothes, instead of those hideous sweaters she wore before? What an ungrateful bastard!

Ain't you taking the "faceless protagonist" thing too far?

To sum up, "Kedamono" is a well made, if a bit short NTR title with hot H-scenes and a slutty heroine after my own heart. And with a recent release of Taimanin Yukikaze and Netorare Imouto Misaki, I have some more netorare titles to play in the near future.

As a finishing touch I should probably mention that the game has a 2 episode H-OVA adaptation, but you might as well forget that it exists. The OVA has the fugliest art I have ever seen in any eroge adaptation. Period. Not only that, but the whole staging is so over the top that it ruins any possible eroticism... that is if the art didn't kill your boner before that. I couldn't even finish watching the first episode and I have quite a lot of toleration for bulshit. Remember that "Tsukihime" meme? Yeah, the one that says: "There is no Kedamono anime". No? Oh, well. Peace and out.

Links of Interest

Visual Novel Database
Official Japanese site
Buy a digital version of the game on: DLsite.
Download the English patch.
MyAnimeList page for the OVA adaptation

Final verdict: 84 %