What do you think?
Obsessions of an Otome Gamer #1
Obsessions of an Otome Gamer: Elementary School Years
Mashiro was like every other elementary school student—until she stumbled upon a character from a music-themed otome game she was obsessed with in her former life! Now reincarnated into the game she spent her every waking hour playing, she has no idea how to avoid the twists and turns of certain character routes, including the bad endings! Getting a new lease on life, she decides to walk the path of a pianist and embrace this musical world to its fullest, but no matter where she turns, she just can’t seem to escape triggering events and getting involved with troublesome yet handsome characters! Does Mashiro have any choice in where her new life will take her? Or is she stuck with a horrifying ending manipulated by the original game world?
- GenresLight NovelRomanceManga
373 pages, Paperback
Published March 11, 2020
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 28, 2023
An eighteen-year-old girl has become obsessed with a janky otome video game* that requires a good amount of skill at music composition to win. While walking through town, she is distracted by an advertising poster for a remake of the game, and in her distraction meets with an accident that ends her life. She awakens, reincarnated into the world of Hear My Heart as the remake's heroine.
*dating sim for girls with multiple romanceable characters
So far, so predictable. But this isekai is somewhat unusual in having very little in the way of fantasy--or, at least none I can talk about without some spoilers--and being strongly focused on protagonist Mashiro's love of playing the piano. Mashiro practices for hours each day, and is genuinely upset when activities like school trips interfere with her piano time. She comes to her new life remembering her crush on one of the romanceable characters in Hear My Heart, but early on decides she would much prefer to "break the flags" (avoid making decisions that progress the game's romance/s) and pursue an ambition of becoming a professional pianist.
Of course, there are a number of supporting characters who come from Hear My Heart's story. There are the two major love interests, Kou and Sou, who both go to a private elementary school. Mashiro goes to a public school, so her encounters with the two boys come about by happenstance in town rather than as a natural consequence of school life. Kon is Kou's twin sister, who befriends Mashiro via their common piano teacher, and also becomes her rival at playing the piano. The cast is rounded out with a few of Mashiro's classmates, her parents and her sister Hanaka, and various other adults: Miss Ayumi the piano teacher, Kou and Kon's mothers (plural? yes!), Mashiro's teacher Mr. Kumaja, and Tobi the secret romanceable character, who Kon is pursuing for reasons of her own.
One thing that didn't come across very well for me, unfortunately, were Kou and Sou as romance characters. Mashiro was reincarnated at age 7, presumably so she could develop skill at the piano starting at an early age, and continuing over several years. That much is reasonable. But all of her interactions with the two boys involve a fair amount of courtship behavior and/or cheesy flirting, and I just did not buy it. Maybe things have changed since I was seven, but my peers, at least, didn't show the slightest interest in dating until puberty.
My broken suspension of disbelief made all the interactions between Mashiro, Kou and Sou feel artificial to me. On top of that, they kept meeting her by coincidence no matter where she was or what she was doing, making that aspect of the plotting feel contrived. At least by the end of this book, the characters are heading into middle school, so maybe in the next one the romantic interactions will be less off-putting for me.
There are a couple of elements that I really liked, though. Small-scale scenes like parties, class trips, meetings in the park, etc. were always immersive and enjoyable. I especially liked Mashiro's family. These scenes gave a grounded feeling to a story that often felt overblown or melodramatic due to its visual novel-like elements.
Love of music, piano in particular (unsurprisingly), suffuses the whole book. At times Mashiro wonders whether her being a reincarnated character affects her psychological make-up, giving her a motivation for playing piano that might have its origin outside of "herself." But she absolutely puts a lot of effort into music, effort that could well overcome a lack of native talent or genius. Each piece that Mashiro, Kon, and the boys play is described in ways that bring them to life. It's evident that a knowledge of, and love for, each piece motivated the scenes that feature them. Someone who never took music lessons might not enjoy this level of detail, but for me they brought back memories of my own piano lessons (which, unfortunately, were far more a matter of mechanics than affection, and which I quit once I went to college).
There's a suspense plot involving the isekai component of the story, which reminds me of both (stories that also originated in Japan). Unfortunately, at least so far, the scenes involving it have been somewhat heavy-handed and predictable.
I'm definitely interested in seeing where this story goes next. I'd be just fine if it kept in a similar mold of friendly scenes between the characters, Mashiro's progress as a pianist, and continued development of the mystery behind Mashiro's presence in Hear My Heart, and how the other characters might connect to it. I'm torn for a rating on this one--it's above average for a light novel (at least as far as I've read, which isn't a whole lot), and if we had half-stars, this would easily get a 3 1/2. It's enjoyable, and the musical aspects definitely made it stand out. But it also had a number of weak points, and didn't sink its hooks into me very far, so I round its rating down to 3.
*dating sim for girls with multiple romanceable characters
So far, so predictable. But this isekai is somewhat unusual in having very little in the way of fantasy--or, at least none I can talk about without some spoilers--and being strongly focused on protagonist Mashiro's love of playing the piano. Mashiro practices for hours each day, and is genuinely upset when activities like school trips interfere with her piano time. She comes to her new life remembering her crush on one of the romanceable characters in Hear My Heart, but early on decides she would much prefer to "break the flags" (avoid making decisions that progress the game's romance/s) and pursue an ambition of becoming a professional pianist.
Of course, there are a number of supporting characters who come from Hear My Heart's story. There are the two major love interests, Kou and Sou, who both go to a private elementary school. Mashiro goes to a public school, so her encounters with the two boys come about by happenstance in town rather than as a natural consequence of school life. Kon is Kou's twin sister, who befriends Mashiro via their common piano teacher, and also becomes her rival at playing the piano. The cast is rounded out with a few of Mashiro's classmates, her parents and her sister Hanaka, and various other adults: Miss Ayumi the piano teacher, Kou and Kon's mothers (plural? yes!), Mashiro's teacher Mr. Kumaja, and Tobi the secret romanceable character, who Kon is pursuing for reasons of her own.
One thing that didn't come across very well for me, unfortunately, were Kou and Sou as romance characters. Mashiro was reincarnated at age 7, presumably so she could develop skill at the piano starting at an early age, and continuing over several years. That much is reasonable. But all of her interactions with the two boys involve a fair amount of courtship behavior and/or cheesy flirting, and I just did not buy it. Maybe things have changed since I was seven, but my peers, at least, didn't show the slightest interest in dating until puberty.
My broken suspension of disbelief made all the interactions between Mashiro, Kou and Sou feel artificial to me. On top of that, they kept meeting her by coincidence no matter where she was or what she was doing, making that aspect of the plotting feel contrived. At least by the end of this book, the characters are heading into middle school, so maybe in the next one the romantic interactions will be less off-putting for me.
There are a couple of elements that I really liked, though. Small-scale scenes like parties, class trips, meetings in the park, etc. were always immersive and enjoyable. I especially liked Mashiro's family. These scenes gave a grounded feeling to a story that often felt overblown or melodramatic due to its visual novel-like elements.
Love of music, piano in particular (unsurprisingly), suffuses the whole book. At times Mashiro wonders whether her being a reincarnated character affects her psychological make-up, giving her a motivation for playing piano that might have its origin outside of "herself." But she absolutely puts a lot of effort into music, effort that could well overcome a lack of native talent or genius. Each piece that Mashiro, Kon, and the boys play is described in ways that bring them to life. It's evident that a knowledge of, and love for, each piece motivated the scenes that feature them. Someone who never took music lessons might not enjoy this level of detail, but for me they brought back memories of my own piano lessons (which, unfortunately, were far more a matter of mechanics than affection, and which I quit once I went to college).
There's a suspense plot involving the isekai component of the story, which reminds me of both (stories that also originated in Japan). Unfortunately, at least so far, the scenes involving it have been somewhat heavy-handed and predictable.
I'm definitely interested in seeing where this story goes next. I'd be just fine if it kept in a similar mold of friendly scenes between the characters, Mashiro's progress as a pianist, and continued development of the mystery behind Mashiro's presence in Hear My Heart, and how the other characters might connect to it. I'm torn for a rating on this one--it's above average for a light novel (at least as far as I've read, which isn't a whole lot), and if we had half-stars, this would easily get a 3 1/2. It's enjoyable, and the musical aspects definitely made it stand out. But it also had a number of weak points, and didn't sink its hooks into me very far, so I round its rating down to 3.
January 13, 2022
It’s a piece, not a song. Other than that and the Big Bad being completely gross/skeevy, this was cute. Also a lot of the music stuff I completely skipped over. I know some about Classical music from TwoSet Violin, but a lot of the music in this went over my head. Shout out to TwoSet, LING LING 40 HOURS!
4, I hope this doesn’t go badly, stars.
4, I hope this doesn’t go badly, stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 21, 2018
I love music, especial classic music. I really like Otome Games. That's why I chose this light novel. And it was not what I expected it to be...
I really appreciate that the protagonist Mashiro isn't trying to pursue one of the routes with either Sou or Kou but instead tries doing her own thing. It's so nice to see how passionate she is about the music, the piano. The whole writing got me into hearing more of classical music again - while reading, I listened to the music pieces (which were stated) through CD or Youtube.
And while looking like a happy-go-lucky novel... It is not! And that's what I probably like the most about it. That dark mystery-feel is what held me captive and I read the second half of the book in one day. Only to cry at the end... because it ended! I want the next volume! I need it! :D
Thank you, Natsu and Shoyu, for this treasure of a Light Novel! And thank you, Cross Infinite World, for licensing and publishing it in english! You are all great people!
I really appreciate that the protagonist Mashiro isn't trying to pursue one of the routes with either Sou or Kou but instead tries doing her own thing. It's so nice to see how passionate she is about the music, the piano. The whole writing got me into hearing more of classical music again - while reading, I listened to the music pieces (which were stated) through CD or Youtube.
And while looking like a happy-go-lucky novel... It is not! And that's what I probably like the most about it. That dark mystery-feel is what held me captive and I read the second half of the book in one day. Only to cry at the end... because it ended! I want the next volume! I need it! :D
Thank you, Natsu and Shoyu, for this treasure of a Light Novel! And thank you, Cross Infinite World, for licensing and publishing it in english! You are all great people!
March 21, 2018
I've been waiting forever for someone to license a light novel about otome games and Obsessions of an Otome Gamer doesn't disappoint! The story avoids being full of cliches and has a strong cast that keeps you interested despite their young age. One of the best things about the reincarnation genre is seeing the characters age, and I was pleasantly surprised by how the characters grow both in age and personality. There's a very strong focus on the classical music element, more so than you might expect for a novel about being reincarnated into an otome game, but it's very well written and makes you want to look up every song they play!
Both of the heroes, Sou and Kou, are appealing in their own way and I'm very curious to see how their individual volumes will play out in the future. Mashiro is a surprisingly strong and passionate heroine, which I guess should be expected from a title like Obsessions! But part of me thinks the word obsessions plays into her music as much as her otome gaming. One thing I really wasn't expecting was the female side character, Kon. She's probably the most interesting and explored female side character I've read in a light novel before.
Obsessions of an Otome Gamer explores a lot of topics from game obsessions to death to being passionate about becoming a professional musician. I highly recommend the story to anyone looking for a good love triangle romance, a good music story, and/or a story about being sucked into a video game!
Both of the heroes, Sou and Kou, are appealing in their own way and I'm very curious to see how their individual volumes will play out in the future. Mashiro is a surprisingly strong and passionate heroine, which I guess should be expected from a title like Obsessions! But part of me thinks the word obsessions plays into her music as much as her otome gaming. One thing I really wasn't expecting was the female side character, Kon. She's probably the most interesting and explored female side character I've read in a light novel before.
Obsessions of an Otome Gamer explores a lot of topics from game obsessions to death to being passionate about becoming a professional musician. I highly recommend the story to anyone looking for a good love triangle romance, a good music story, and/or a story about being sucked into a video game!
April 23, 2020
Despite falling head over heels for Kou, a character from otome game Hear My Heart, Rika has never gotten a good ending. Her real-life doesn’t go any better considering she falls and presumably dies after falling into a manhole.
That is, until second grader Mashiro realizes she is — or rather, was — Rika, and that now she’s in the world of Hear My Heart as the remake’s heroine.
Suddenly, professing her love to a fictional character doesn’t seem so crazy.
As you may be able to gleam from this volume’s subtitle, the story here covers from when Mashiro is in second grade until she’s ready to start middle school. If you’re worried this light novel is too kiddish — or, on the other hand, are looking forward to a sweet little coming-of-age tale — let me assure you Mashiro is very conscious that she’s really 18. Although moments make her blush and internally squeal, she insists she has no interest in falling in love until she’s back to her original age.
Of course, that’s a little difficult considering she’s in a game world where romance is a key point.
Mashiro first gets her memory back after meeting a crying Sou, Hear My Heart‘s other hero. She then realizes Kou is probably around too, and so she starts playing the piano in order to meet him. Well, Mashiro gets two shocks shortly thereafter: haughty, prideful types aren’t that great when you actually have to deal with them, and she’s not the only girl who has found herself in this game world.
The latter aspect is what really sets Obsessions of an Otome Gamer apart from many other isekai stories. Mashiro has no idea why she’s in Hear My Heart, but Kon, the original game’s heroine and Kou’s sister, knows a lot about the game and their situation. She assists Mashiro as much as she can, but she is unable to reveal everything. The light novel drops hints about Kon’s past before confirming it to readers just before the end, and I kind of wish the revelation was either held off or less blatant. There are still many questions of how both girls ended up in this world in the first place though, and when combined with the elementary school setting, the light novel has a surprising freshness.
However, Kou and Sou are still at the center of the story. Over the years, they become even more transparent about their interest in Mashiro: Kou realizes Mashiro is not after his family’s fame and fortune, and Sou sees her as one of the few people who truly care about him. Since they are so young, the two are presumably not as edgy as their high school incarnations in Hear My Heart, but I still found Mashiro’s sudden turnabout regarding Kou strange and unnecessarily makes it more of a generic “I hated him at first” shoujo story. This is especially true as Sou is presented as the sweet, kind, almost-always-loses Love Triangle Option #2. It’s awkward for Mashiro as well as readers to see young boys pull off the typical “look only at me” fanservice, but at least Mashiro’s memories of being Rika slowly ebb out.
- Krystallina
That is, until second grader Mashiro realizes she is — or rather, was — Rika, and that now she’s in the world of Hear My Heart as the remake’s heroine.
Suddenly, professing her love to a fictional character doesn’t seem so crazy.
As you may be able to gleam from this volume’s subtitle, the story here covers from when Mashiro is in second grade until she’s ready to start middle school. If you’re worried this light novel is too kiddish — or, on the other hand, are looking forward to a sweet little coming-of-age tale — let me assure you Mashiro is very conscious that she’s really 18. Although moments make her blush and internally squeal, she insists she has no interest in falling in love until she’s back to her original age.
Of course, that’s a little difficult considering she’s in a game world where romance is a key point.
Mashiro first gets her memory back after meeting a crying Sou, Hear My Heart‘s other hero. She then realizes Kou is probably around too, and so she starts playing the piano in order to meet him. Well, Mashiro gets two shocks shortly thereafter: haughty, prideful types aren’t that great when you actually have to deal with them, and she’s not the only girl who has found herself in this game world.
The latter aspect is what really sets Obsessions of an Otome Gamer apart from many other isekai stories. Mashiro has no idea why she’s in Hear My Heart, but Kon, the original game’s heroine and Kou’s sister, knows a lot about the game and their situation. She assists Mashiro as much as she can, but she is unable to reveal everything. The light novel drops hints about Kon’s past before confirming it to readers just before the end, and I kind of wish the revelation was either held off or less blatant. There are still many questions of how both girls ended up in this world in the first place though, and when combined with the elementary school setting, the light novel has a surprising freshness.
However, Kou and Sou are still at the center of the story. Over the years, they become even more transparent about their interest in Mashiro: Kou realizes Mashiro is not after his family’s fame and fortune, and Sou sees her as one of the few people who truly care about him. Since they are so young, the two are presumably not as edgy as their high school incarnations in Hear My Heart, but I still found Mashiro’s sudden turnabout regarding Kou strange and unnecessarily makes it more of a generic “I hated him at first” shoujo story. This is especially true as Sou is presented as the sweet, kind, almost-always-loses Love Triangle Option #2. It’s awkward for Mashiro as well as readers to see young boys pull off the typical “look only at me” fanservice, but at least Mashiro’s memories of being Rika slowly ebb out.
- Krystallina
March 16, 2018
I started this book in the early afternoon and finished it pretty much seven hours later (and the only reason it took this long was because I was at work when I started reading). I came in expecting a light-hearted, somewhat self-indulgent romp in the otome tensei genre, but this is a lot more tightly plotted and slow burn-y than I expected. Darker, too. (To be fair, this is true of all the CrossInfiniteWorld works that I’ve read so far - they’ve been somewhat dark slow burns that have completely thrown me off guard.) Surprisingly, the otome setting - a music school - is used to good effect by the author and it’s such fun to see what works Mashiro gets to learn as she gets older.
I really look forward to reading volume 2, and hope it comes soon!
I really look forward to reading volume 2, and hope it comes soon!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 12, 2021
Interesting, darker than I expected, and avoids some of the more common otome tropes / cliches that I absolutely hate (such as OG heroine is a villainess, girl on girl hate, etc).
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews