is a Japanese

adult An adult is an animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of the word means an animal reaching sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction. In the human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social an ...

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

developed by

Akabeisoft2 is a Japanese Eroge, adult visual novel producing company, emerged from the former doujin circle Akabei Soft. Some of Akabeisoft2's games have had consumer port releases. For example, 5pb. released ''W.L.O. Sekai Renai Kikō'' to the Xbox 360 an ...

and first released for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

as a DVD on May 29, 2008, in limited and regular editions. The

gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game. The term applies to both video games and Tabletop game, tabletop games. Gameplay is the connection between the player and the game, the player's overcoming of challenges, and t ...

follows an

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

branching plot line with multiple scenarios, and focuses on the appeal of the four female main characters. The title "''G Senjō no Maō"'' comes from

August Wilhelmj __NOTOC__ August Emil Daniel Ferdinand Wilhelmj ( ; 21 September 184522 January 1908) was a German violinist and teacher. Wilhelmj was born in Usingen and was considered a child prodigy; when Henriette Sontag heard him in 1852 at seven years ol ...

's "

Air on the G String "Air on the G String", also known as "Air for G String" and "Celebrated Air", is August Wilhelmj's 1871 arrangement of the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068. Contains several audio versions o ...

", an adaptation of J.S. Bach's original "

Air An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

", and Schubert's ''

Erlkönig "Erlkönig" is a German poetry, poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking, a king of the fairy, fairies. It was originally written by Goethe as part of a 1782 ''Singspiel' ...

'' known as ''Maō'' in Japan.

Gameplay

Much of the

in ''The Devil on G-String'' requires little interaction from the player, because the majority of the time is spent reading the text that appears on the game's screen. The text being displayed represents the thoughts of the characters or the dialogue between them. The player is occasionally presented with choices to determine the direction of the game. Depending on what is chosen, the plot may progress in a specific direction. There are four different routes in total.

Characters

The player assumes the role of , the protagonist of ''The Devil on G-String'' and adopted son of a powerful

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media (by request of the police) call them , while the yakuza call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ''yak ...

boss. Though he acts kind and understanding in most social situations, this persona is a pretense used to hide his work as a highly intelligent and ruthless businessman. As the president of one of his father Gonzō's corporations, Kyōsuke employs brutal—and often illegal—business tactics in order to pay off a massive debt accruing intense interest. This debt is held against him by his father and is supposedly partially representative of the costs of raising him, "down to the last sheet of toilet paper". Due to Gonzō's abusive "education" and the severity of Kyōsuke's debt, he views money as the means, end, and purpose of life. Kyōsuke also notably loves classical music. is an alias of the primary

antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist and is often depicted as a villain.Schubert's

lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

", but the game later adds multiple layers to this by including references to old

role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, eith ...

in which a Demon King is the primary antagonist and to codenames of the character's previous associates. is the main heroine of ''The Devil on G-String''. She can be considered a game-theoretical and observational genius as well as a musical prodigy, but her social skills are severely lacking, as evidenced by her awkwardly long, unkempt hair. Haru has a long history with "Maō" but is hesitant to discuss it with the rest of the game's cast. Other characters include: , a close friend of Kyōsuke who harbors a comedic dark side beneath his boy-next-door facade; , Kyōsuke's classmate and an obsessive diary keeper; , the only natural child of Kyōsuke's adoptive father and a world-class figure skater; , another of Kyōsuke's classmates and the daughter of their school's owner; and , Haru's close friend with a talent for criminal psychology and

negotiations Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more parties to resolve points of difference, gain an advantage for an individual or Collective bargaining, collective, or craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. The parties aspire to agree on m ...

Plot

''The Devil on G-Strings story revolves around Kyōsuke Azai, the adopted son of , a yakuza leader. Kyōsuke works under Gonzō in order to pay off the sum total of a loan taken out by his biological father and the costs of raising Kyōsuke himself under Gonzō's wing. He eventually hopes to reunite with his mother, from whom he was separated many years earlier. At the beginning of the game, a girl named Haru Usami transfers into Kyōsuke's school and introduces herself as "a hero". She initially ignores Kyōsuke, but soon asks him if he knows a person named "Maō". Kyōsuke replies to the peculiar question in the negative, but later that evening, receives a bizarre email from a "Maō". Due to his possible connection to yakuza turf wars, Gonzō instructs Kyōsuke to find and capture the enigmatic figure. The game's expository first chapter ends with "Maō" directly challenging Haru to discover his identity. The second chapter of the game, "Kidnapping Spree", centers on the struggles of the Miwa family to keep their family's orchard, despite both Kyōsuke and "Maō" independently working with a developer who wishes to buy the land. When "Maō" kidnaps the youngest child of the Miwa family and asks for an exorbitant sum as ransom, Kyōsuke helps the eldest, his classmate Tsubaki, obtain the necessary funds via a yakuza loan. Depending on the player's choices, the Miwa family can be saved (granting an ending showing Tsubaki and Kyōsuke cohabitating years later) or forced to accept the developer's offer in order to repay their debt. In all scenarios, "Maō's" demands are met despite the best efforts of the protagonists and Tsubaki's brother is returned safely. It is first strongly suggested in this chapter that "Maō" may in fact be an alter ego of Kyōsuke: his psychiatrist is shown to be acutely interested in memory lapses that coincide with severe headaches and, for the player, with "Maō's" activity. The third chapter of the game, "The Mephistopheles Murders", sees "Maō" take on an accomplice in order to kill people involved with Kanon Azai's skating career. He poses as a radical nationalist to gain the trust of his similarly idealistic accomplice; Haru, Kyōsuke, and Haru's friend Yuki work to save Kanon and her chance at an Olympic quota. After capturing and interrogating the accomplice, the protagonists follow his information into a trap: the entire plot was actually a diversion. "Maō's" actual target was Gonzō, whose enemies he had been arming in order to draw his target out personally. Gonzō had considered this possibility and evades the car bombing which was meant to kill him. It is possible for the player to follow an alternate path in this chapter which sees Kanon and Kyōsuke build a romantic relationship, and portrays her figure skating career in a more detailed manner. In the fourth chapter, "Blind Spot in Negotiations", one of Kyōsuke's classmates takes Mizuha Shiratori and a teacher hostage on the school grounds after hours. Depending on the player's choices, this can be resolved quickly and segue into a romantic subchapter involving Mizuha, or can become a drawn-out affair which eventually leads to "Maō's" final plan. In the latter case, Kyōsuke and his fellow yakuza surround the school while Yuki Tokita, with her extensive knowledge of the criminal mind, negotiates with the captor. Surprisingly, the hostage scenario ends with the revelation that Yuki had enabled the captor to escape at the very beginning of negotiations, and was herself the mastermind behind the event in an attempt to financially ruin Mizuha's father. Furthermore, Yuki is revealed to be Mizuha's neglected half-sister, illuminating her motive. A second, farcical hostage situation occurs when Yuki appears to take Mizuha captive for the second time, but she has no intent to harm her captive. The situation is resolved just as news reaches Kyōsuke that his mother had been killed by a drunk driver. Shortly thereafter, "Maō" succeeds in killing Gonzō, who had apparently to the player discovered that "Maō" was indeed Kyōsuke. Though by all prior indications "Maō" had been a dissociated identity of the protagonist, the fifth chapter, "G Senjō no Maō", reveals it to be Kyōsuke's supposedly dead older brother Kyōhei. he bears a grudge against Haru and Gonzō because Haru's father, a con artist and civil engineer, took advantage of the death of Kyōsuke's little sister to manipulate his family into accepting Haru's father's enormous gambling debt. Ultimately, Kyōsuke's father murdered Haru's father in revenge, and awaits execution. Similarly, Haru's mother was killed by "Maō" years later; thus orphaned, the familial hatred became mutual in a sense. The title of the game is revealed to be taken from a recurring hallucination associated with

post traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster, traffic collision, ...

stemming from the moment of Haru's mother's murder: whenever she attempts to play her mother's violin, she sees a demon creep up the instrument's G string. It is revealed that Haru and Kyōsuke met briefly and connected as children. Later in the chapter, Kyōhei initiates an elaborate scheme that drives the entire downtown area into chaos. Kyōhei informs the police that he will demand his army of trained mercenaries and rebellious youths to stand down pending the release of several criminals, including his father. At the end of the event, as Kyōsuke escapes the area, Kyōhei calls him and fakes an emotional suicide. The ruse is quickly discovered and the police engage in a shootout with Kyōhei, apparently ending in his death. In the epilogue, Kyōhei is revealed to have faked his death yet again, and pays Haru a visit at Kyōsuke's home. After a struggle and a chase, Haru nearly murders an unarmed Kyōhei out of rage; Kyōsuke takes the shot instead, in a selfless attempt to spare her from the guilt. When the police question him, rather than attempt to generate sympathy by painting the victim as a brutal killer, Kyōsuke attempts to enrage the investigators with a confession of cruel intent in order to blind them to the facts implicating Haru. He successfully eliminates her association with the crime, but is sentenced to eight years in prison. At his release, he is met by Haru and her daughter, who is revealed to be nearly eight and thus Kyōsuke's. At first, he regrets siring a child who will live with the stigma of a criminal father (like himself, his brother, and Haru), but he is soon overcome by the love in his daughter's eyes, and finally lets go of the past to live for the future.

Development

''The Devil on G-String'' is Akabeisoft2's ninth game in three years, and the second of four games released in 2008 alone. The project is notable as having very few people credited for having taken a part in the creation of the game. Planning for the project and the scenario were headed by Loose Boy. Art direction and character design were done by Alpha.

Release history

Before ''The Devil on G-String''s initial release, two free

game demo A game demo is a trial version of a video game that is limited to a certain time period or a point in progress. A game demo comes in forms such as shareware, demo discs, downloadable software, and tech demos. Distribution In the early 1990s, ...

s became available for download at Akabeisoft2's official website. In the demos, the player is introduced to the main characters in the game that is typical of the

found in a

which includes times during gameplay where the player is given several choices to make in order to further the plot in a specific direction. The full game was first released on May 29, 2008, in limited and regular editions playable as a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

on a

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

PC. The limited edition contained an art collection from Akabeisoft2's previous titles ''

Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shōjo ''Sharin no Kuni: The Girl Among the Sunflowers'' is a visual novel video game, developed by Akabeisoft2 for Microsoft Windows in November 2005 in Japan; it was later released by 5pb. for Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 in Japan, ...

'', that game's fan disc ''Sharin no Kuni, Yūkyū no Shōnenshōjo'', and ''Sono Yokogao o Mitsumeteshimau: A Profile Kanzenban'', a desk calendar, and a demo of '' Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity'' from Akabeisoft2's sister brand Lump of Sugar released two months after ''The Devil on G-String''. An all-ages English version of ''The Devil on G-String'' published by

Sekai Project Sekai Project is an American video game publisher. They are best known for licensing and translating Japanese visual novels into English, but they have also published manga and other non-visual novel video games. History Sekai Project originat ...

was released on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

on November 5, 2015.

Related media

Two

drama CDs Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

set in ''The Devil on G-String'' universe were released in 2009, the first on January 9 and the second on June 26. Fourteen episodes of an

Internet radio Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...

show to promote the drama CDs titled was distributed on the visual novel's official website between November 7, 2008, and May 8, 2009. The show was hosted by Rino Kawashima and Mahiru Kaneda, the voices of Haru and Eiichi in the visual novel, respectively. The show also featured four other voice actors from the game and drama CDs as guests: Sumire Murasakibana (voice of Tsubaki), Hokuto Minami (voice of Yuki), Satoshi Tsuruoka (voice of Ryūhei Oda (drama CD-only character)), and

Jun Fukuyama is a Japanese voice actor and singer. He played Lelouch Lamperouge in '' Code Geass'', Yukio Okumura in Blue Exorcist, Koro-sensei in '' Assassination Classroom'', Ichimatsu in '' Osomatsu-san'', Yuta Togashi in '' Love, Chunibyo & Other Delu ...

(voice of Maō, Kyōhei in the drama CDs).

Ichijinsha is a Japanese publishing company focused on manga-related publication, including magazines and books. The company was first established in August 1992 as a limited company under the name Studio DNA whose main purpose was to edit shōnen manga ...

released a

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

titled ''G Senjō no Maō Comic Anthology'' on September 25, 2008, under their DNA Media Comics

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

. Ichijinsha also released a fan book titled ''G Senjō no Maō Visual Fan Book'' on July 14, 2009.

Music

Most of the game's soundtrack is made up of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

renditions,

arranged In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestratio ...

by Tiko-μ. In order to enhance this aspect of the game and spread an appreciation for the works the soundtrack is based on, the game includes a feature to show the current soundtrack playing alongside its original classical piece (when applicable). The visual novel has three main theme songs, one opening theme, one insert song played near the end of the game, and one ending theme. The opening theme, "Answer", is sung by

Rekka Katakiri is a female Japanese singer under the self-published label Closed/Underground. She has released several songs that have served as theme songs for anime shows, including ''Higurashi When They Cry'', '' My Wife is the Student Council President'', ...

, written by Kanoko, and composed by

Junpei Fujita is a Japanese arranger and composer, and a founding member of Elements Garden. His work includes composition and arrangement of some tracks of singles and albums of Nana Mizuki including albums ''Hybrid Universe'', ''Ultimate Diamond'' and ''Impac ...

. The insert song, "Close Your Eyes", is sung by

Ayane Ayane (/aˈjaˌnɛ/) is the romanization of a feminine Japanese given name. Literally translated it means "colorful sound" (彩音 or 綺音). *, Japanese singer-songwriter *, Japanese television personality *, Japanese badminton player. *, Japan ...

, and is written and composed by Chiyomaru Shikura. The ending song, , is performed by Barbarian On The Grove featuring

Chata is a Japanese singer who has performed theme songs for video games and anime series. She has also participated in various dōjin music circles. Her own private circle is called ''Usagi Kinoko''. History Chata began dabbling in music in 1998. ...

and is written and arranged by Bassy. The two theme songs were included on the

compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one Performing arts#Performers, performer or by several performers. If the recordings are from ...

''The Best Game Vocals of Akabeisoft2'' released on February 23, 2007 featuring theme songs from several games by Akabeisoft2. The game's original soundtrack was released by 5pb. on April 24, 2009 in a three-disc set.

Reception

From mid-March to mid-April 2008, about two months before ''The Devil on G-Strings release, the game ranked second in national PC game pre-orders in Japan. The limited edition of ''The Devil on G-String'' ranked second in terms of national sales of PC games in Japan in May 2008, and the regular edition ranked twenty-sixth for the same month. The limited edition ranked again for June 2008 at 23rd-highest selling in Japan. ''The Devil on G-String'' ranked first for the month of May 2008, in terms of sales at Getchu.com. The game ranked again at sixteen the following month in the same ranking. For the first half of 2008, ''The Devil on G-String'' ranked third best in sales at Getchu.com. The game received first prize at the Bishōjo Game Awards for 2008.

References

External links

Akabeisoft2's official ''The Devil on G-String'' website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Devil on G-String, The 2008 video games Bishōjo games Eroge Japan-exclusive video games Romance video games Sekai Project games Single-player video games Video games about the Yakuza Video games developed in Japan Visual novels Windows games Windows-only games