Towa
SPOILERS FOR SLOW DAMAGE

I love Towa and relate to him a lot. He isn't the best to relate to but I found a lot of joy, facsination, comfort, and honestly disgust for this game which turned into its own hyperfixation on Towa specifically, but also this game and it's characters as a whole. This game got me through a hard time in my life and I still love it to this day. From Slow Damages charcters to its plot to the wonderful music it's just such an experience to play and I never thought a yaoi visual novel from nitro-chrial could hit me this hard. Thus the shrine is born. I will be adding my thoughts on plot and characters here along with images I find on pinterest for some visual affect lol. I will be marking which charcters I talk about. Obviously I have to talk about Towa first. He was probably my favorite out of all the charcters and the one I related to the most in many ways. His trauma, his attitude towards himself and others, his habits and feelings towards life as a whole. Now days I feel better but the ways I felt connected to him were so strong that it really made the games experience a whole other feeling. Towa is very uncaring about what happens to him which is clear but makes the bad endings so much harder to play through. He loves smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and oil paintings. He's not looking for love but goes out as the artist Euphoria, looking for people with strong desires so he can fulfill them and paint them afterwards. He lives the upstairs of a medical building run by Taku where he works. He works with Rei as well. This is where we start and where we begin to get to know him. I wont be doing a plot recap, I will be sharing my thoughts and feelings about the game as a whole. Sorry if my writing isn't the best I am not an english major lol.

Ikuina

Ikuina is obsessive to put it shortly. I found him to be quite strange and interetsing at first. He would hide his own feelings until they burst out of him. He is very well versed in flowers and used them in his artwork. Overall I liked him and his storyline. It was a great way to get introduced to the mechanics of the game while learning about Rei and Taku here and there. I like that he is also an artist and admires Towas work as Euphoria which made for an interesting fan to artist dynamic. When i was first playing I thought he would make a good love interest but shortly discovered that was just the first act of the game. I think Ikuina is too fragile to be with Towa if that makes sense. His desires to see inside of someone, to cut and be cut, lasted a short time only, where in the regular route he tries to forget about Towa. I think Ikuina's artwork is good. The piece that stands out in my mind the most is definitely the strawberry with the deep cut into it. The thoughtful use of flowers and flower language I also found quite fun to this section of the game. The Euphoria scene can be quite a lot but is also a very fitting open to the game.

Asakura

I will go in the order of how I played the game first so next was Askaura. I really disliked him throughout this section of the game and it was honeslty hard to get through because I was convinced he was a pedophile and did not want to play through that. He ended up not hurting any children thankfully but his desire for an angel of his own was quite itriguing. His game play was difficult for me at first, I wasn't sure how to gauge his reactions and I ended up with bad endings a lot. I think having a mislead on what his charcter is was good even if it threw me off, It made you judge his charcter and his place dealing with kids in a hospital and outside of it. The Euphoria ending was great, Asakura being completely absorbed in making Towa his own personal angel and having everything ready for it was very interesting. I also think that having Taku have a past relationship with Asakura made for an good dynamic on who you should trust in the moment. Is Taku really as bad as Asakura says? Surely his Taku is much better in Towa's eyes than what he is being told. In the end, Taku is once again the one to save Towa after his euphoria episode with Asakura. This is also the moment where when sewing Towa back up, Taku puts a webtag in him to keep tabs on him and keep him from leaving Shinkoumi.

Taku

Taku is probably my least favorite main love interest but i've played his route many times now. He's better than Asakura's and Kirihara's routes, but in terms of main love interests I really can't love Taku. Taku is overbearing and controling throughout this route. It's obvious he cares for Towa and is worried about him, but there are better ways to go about it. He keeps things hidden and refuses to admit his involvment with drugs and Toono until Towa has to get drugged and eventually kidnapped to find the truth. Taku is hard to work with in my opinion. I did enjoy his route overall though. I've played it more than the other ones surprisingly. I think Taku's ideas about sex and love are valid but I find it weird that he tries to change Towa. Obviously I want the best for Towa, but that's not Taku. Near the end of the route he is incredibly indecisive about what he should do, finsihing the drug and escaping with Towa or standing up to Toono. I think the answer should be clear but he wants to keep Towa safe. It doesn't really work out no matter what he does. He has this idea of "If i can't have you no one can" and tries to kill Towa (I don't think he could even do that) which I found to be kind of interesting and even a hot moment from him but it just felt kind of out of place for him to be honest. The good ending is a little unsatisfying for me but the madness ending was so disturbing. For someone playing for the first time it was so hard to watch Towa become someone unrecognizable and dependant on drugs. His spiral into it and his inital fight against it made it hard to play through. I think the ending fits Takus route in a very fitting way. He is completely controlling Towa and has full reign over his emotional and physical state. Taku isn't the best love interest but is interetsing and fun to play through for sure.

Kirihara

To be honest Kirihara's route was forgetable to me. It could be because I only played it twice but I also only played Rei's route twice and that was way more memorable. He has this whole nice guy persona then reveals that he is actually desperate for pain and causing pain. I don't really have a lot to say about him. I think he is a good opener to Rei's route because he is very different but also similar in some ways to Rei. They are both have nice exteriors and are violent, however the way they go about things is very different. Kirihara is purposely hiding his identity from everyone while Rei is genuine about who he is to others.