Seduced in the Sleepless City

You just got a job at a women's magazine -- it's your dream. You are wet behind the ears. Your first big assignment has you at a posh party where you meet a plethora of attractive men (but of course) who are pretty much all...very full of themselves. You win a big contest (which is obviously totally a plant because one of the dudes literally hands you the winning ticket about a minute before the winner is announced...how the MC doesn't suspect something is really beyond me) and then get totally sloshed celebrating with all these hotties. You wake up the next morning in the hotel and one of them is there (did you do something? did you not do something? you have no idea because you are a terrible drunk). Then, you wind up being assigned to cover this hot dude for the magazine! What will you do?

(this was originally part of the massive Love 365 post, but I've split it off as I've done another route in it.)

Well, of course, we know what you're going to do, MC...you're going to fall in love, right? Of course you are. So, I'd looked this one up because it promised a Cinderella-esque story but I'd decided I wasn't going to pay for it as all of the guys (except maybe one--the oldest one that owns the hotel) seemed pretty asshole-esque or tricky. But it came around on a free route with Ryoichi, the hotshot author, so I played through. I often hate playing a route (or watching a movie) that includes an author because THEY NEVER GET IT RIGHT. Editors do NOT come to your house to babysit you or feed you. You cannot get away with acting like a total ass. You have little to no control over most things to do with timing or press or whatever. You can't just skip out on deadlines because you don't feel like it. Anyway, moving on. Sigh.

And yet, she falls in love with him...

So, Ryoichi is the standard jerk who puts you down but if you just have faith and lots of patience, you'll unlock his hidden side of caring, faith, and love. Except only sometimes and never in front of other people. GAH. I suspect it is one of my otome Achilles heels that I have a hard time rooting for MCs who let people walk all over them. On the plus side, he's handsome and there's some shmexiness. But I can't say I ever really liked him and I really wanted her to get a backbone. She wasn't as bad as some, but she's definitely low on the confidence scale.

I'm not sure if I'll play another route in this one or not. The peeks I took in the free chapters made me think she's pretty standardly too impressed with their muchness and richness and hotness.

EDIT: Another route came up free. Actually two: Mirai and Noel, but I only wound up doing Noel's (the poker faced, mostly quiet Formula One race car driver) as I ran out of time and Mirai (the young con man) seems like he'd be super slippery/tricky. I wasn't in the mood for his games. I don't trust him.

So, Noel.

The basic start of the story is the same. Noel is notoriously private and doesn't give interviews, but you are able to wrangle one somehow and your boss is pleased. It turns into an in-depth series and you basically are shadowing him until his next race.

Pros, especially as compared to Ryoichi: Noel's a pretty decent guy. He doesn't even take that long to open up to you. His standoffish demeanour falls away fairly quickly. The MC also isn't such a dead fish in this one; she manages to help Noel when rumours pop up in a rival rag. She's not useless. And the romance is more believable for all of these reasons. And his blushy face is adorable. Blonde isn't even remotely my type, but he's cute. And there's a nice scene where they wind up (through a highly contrived and unbelievable circumstance of his car breaking down and him not knowing what to do) staying at her parent's house)

Cons: The storyline holding the plot together didn't really make a huge amount of sense. See...he's supposed to be this uber successful racer, but he doesn't really like racing, he just does it because his father wants him to because his father's company sponsors him and that's the only reason he even got into it. Um...you don't just fall randomly into F1 racing and become a winning racer. The only plus for this is that there's a good scene where the MC accompanies Noel to meet his father and she totally goes off on the old man (who is a real piece of work). But, yeah, it doesn't really make much sense to me.

Overall, it was a good route. I definitely enjoyed it more than Ryoichi.