Happy Live, Show Up! Clarice and Roo Route - Surprisingly Roo was quite good...

I just completed Clarice and Roo's personal routes, and I'm still very conflicted about this visual novel because it keeps jumping between interesting developments and general boredom, to the point that I'm not sure if the developers had a clear vision or if they simply picked the heroines' traits and went from there.

Clarice's route was the absolute worst; it resulted in multiple hours of her spreading drama and sadness while thinking that the MC was clearly into Roo and not her. This affected her dancing and put her career in jeopardy, at least until the declaration comes and she's suddenly happy and nice.

In this CG Roo looks way younger than she did in other CGs, but I like her all the same. It's hard not to feel joy watching her face.

The imbalance between the young face from Roo and the adult looking body is striking. I don't dislike it, just a bit confused maybe?

The trauma itself wasn't really touched upon and just played in the background of all the pointless drama surrounding Roo and herself. I'm confused about what they wanted to do here because it was hard to even focus on the heroine, whom I liked quite a lot in the common route.

Roo's route had some good points, and I generally liked it more, but it still had quite a few defects. The premise is that Roo doesn't really understand what being a lover means, and once she's faced with her relationship with Akito, she panics and becomes the complete opposite of who she was. Shy, embarrassed, and so on.

I've started to like watching Roo juggle with the balls, it's relaxing in a way?

Design wise I still think Clarice was the best heroine in the story, but her story was terrible. What a shame really

It is revealed that she doesn't know her real parents and was adopted by a family. Her name comes from the fact that she was sort of feral originally, and the only distinguishable word she knew was "Roo." Eventually, her new parents managed to make her speak, but she ended up hurt when she saw them clearly happier once their real child was born.

This could have sparked some actually interesting development regarding her family, but it went nowhere and instead focused on the effects of her dating Akito. Mostly, she loses her ability to perform, which, thanks to the help of Akito, is recovered, leading to the happy end. Again, it wasn't bad, but it could have been much more.

Clarice also had some of the best costumes, not an hard feat considering some of the other heroines costumes were quite weird.

Clarice has that 'at home' feel compared to the other heroines that all have a quirk or two. Felt the most naturally girlfriend material.

So far, I'd rate the routes as follows: Pechka > Roo > Karentia > Clarice. Honestly, it hurts to write that because I still like Clarice the most as a character, but her route was just the absolute worst. I wonder if that changes in the fandisk, but I guess that's something for when I decide to go through it.

Next, it's finally time for Sofia's route and the special route that unlocks afterward, which apparently will focus on the mysterious girl. One part of me thinks these might be the "good" routes as they are about the main heroine and the secret heroine, but another, more skeptical part of me thinks nothing will really change. I guess we'll know in a few days...