Sakura Cupid is the latest romantic lewd visual novel released by Gamuzumi from Winged Cloud and another in the Sakura series. The novel is a light-hearted story featuring mainly a trio of likeable characters. While the story is pretty light it does deal with some heavier topics under the cute anime waifu surfaces.
Lilim is a lazy cupid who was exiled from Heaven for failing to do her duties. While most cupids would be ashamed of such a punishment, Lilim is overjoyed. Finally, she has enough time to indulge in her hobbies (comics and TV). Lilim however, makes a human girl fall in love with her when she shoots a ‘love bullet’ in an attempt to swindle a free cup of coffee. The cute waitress in question, Mitsuki, becomes infatuated with Lilim.
Now, Lilim’s stuck living with Mitsuki until the effects of the ‘love bullet’ wears off – and on top of that, she’s being hunted by her childhood friend, Serra, who’s determined to bring her back to Heaven. What’s a cute cupid to do?!
Most of the time when you think of a cupid you picture that cute, chubby, winged cherub shooting arrows into people so that they can fall in love. It’s something that is a staple and part of the iconography of Valentine’s Day in general. For the most part they are a means to an end in romantic literature and are not so much the focus of the story.
Here however in Sakura Cupid not only does a cupid take centre stage in the story, but this cupid is also an outcast. I would say that she’s like a fallen angel if the story didn’t clearly call out that a cupid is not quite an angel and are lesser beings. Though the protagonist Lilim was cast out of heaven for her lazy behaviour, so she is definitely a heavenly outcast.
Lilim makes the most of her situation and continues to try and fulfil her cupid duties, despite her banishment. She lives among the humans and actually seems to enjoy bringing together couples – helping them to confess their true feelings and find love.
In an interesting turn Lilim doesn’t use the traditional ‘bow and arrow’ combination to pierce the hearts of her targets. In this case she has dispensed with these tools and instead uses ‘love guns’ to bring love to her targets. In the opening shot of the game we actually get to see this cupid using a sniper rifle.
I’ll admit that it was actually a bit jarring to see this, as is seeing Lilim use a pistol love gun in another scene. I suppose this is to further call out her as a bit of a heavenly outlaw.
Thematically the story is a lot about feeling like an outcast and finding your place in the world. In addition to our protagonist, Lilim’s love interest Mitsuki also plays into this theme. She works alone, lives alone, and feels like an outcast in her own space. The same goes for another blue-haired heavenly body that comes down to Earth to bring Lilim back to Heaven.
As with the majority of Winged Cloud visual novels, the music in this game is very peppy and energetic. The music really gets into your head and helps push the story alone. Each character tends to have their own piece in the soundtrack, which plays and calls out when they’re the focus of a scene. Pair this with the beautiful characters and environments and Sakura Cupid is another enjoyable read.
Once again there is some branching storyline in Sakura Cupid. The choices that you make through the game, while sometimes being inconsequential, occasionally have a big impact on the direction of the story. They could lead you to unlocking different character galleries or coming to the end of the story early. I made one wrong choice and, despite unlocking quite a spicy piece of art, resulted in the story coming to a surprising end. I was about to be disappointed in the shortness of the story when I went back, made a difference choice, and proceeded to continue in the story for a long while.
Sakura Cupid isn’t the meatiest of visual novels and certainly isn’t one of the lewdest, but it was an enjoyable read. I hope that Gamuzumi continues releasing more visual novels in the Sakura series in the future.
