Loopers - Mia was adorable, but the story felt way too short.

LOOPERS (ルーパーズ) is a mystery/science fiction visual novel developed by Key and released in 2021. It is a short-form visual novel that only lasts for about six hours in total and features a linear storyline without branching routes. At the time of its release, it was quite hyped due to the presence of Ryuukishi07 as the scenario writer.

The story follows Taira Akira, a high school student obsessed with a geohunting game app. For those who don't know, geohunting is a game where people hide "treasures" around the city and provide cryptic hints to challenge other players to find them and post proof of their findings. You can play as either the finder or the person placing the treasures.

During summer vacation, Taira and his friends are drawn into a mysterious situation where time loops a specific day without end. He only notices it now, but there are others who have been looping for an immense amount of time, trapped in a reality where they simply cannot move forward.

Together with his newfound allies, who call themselves "loopers," he tries to solve the mystery of this loop and return to reality. Essentially, it is Groundhog Day in anime form. Initially, the cast starts with excitement about the possibilities offered by the daily reset schedule, but this quickly changes as boredom and then despair begin to set in.

Consider, for example, the gym fanatic Kirishima Jou, who is completely stuck in his passion because the resets permanently invalidate any progress he makes at the gym. While you might try a lot of things at the beginning, the more time passes, the more you realize that being limited to a very short period of time is more of a prison than anything else.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the key points luring people to play the game was the presence of Ryuukishi07 as the writer. Admittedly, when I started, I felt that same sense of dread and mystery in the story. Hiruda Kiriko and Machimura Reona both quickly moved into territory reminiscent of Higurashi. I was extremely excited to learn more, and then chapter one ended. That was it. From that point on, it seemed like the writer completely changed and the story switched gears, becoming a typical Key visual novel.

It is not that Key visual novels are bad, but the gap between the first chapter and the rest of the story is so strikingly evident that it is hard to believe they are part of one cohesive story in the first place. To make matters worse, the limited size of the story combined with the relatively large number of characters (eight, including the protagonist) makes it hard to get attached to them. This, in turn, makes the emotional impact of the mystery's revelation a lot weaker.

The only heroine you really get to know well is Fujikawa Mia, due to her status as the main heroine and her importance to the central plot. Kiriko and Reona are important for the first chapter and a specific sub-story, but they feel more disconnected from the protagonist as they become their own separate entity.

Overall, I recommend LOOPERS. It is a short visual novel that won't take up too much of your time. The characters are interesting and the mystery behind the loop is well-crafted, but I don't think it is a particularly memorable series.