I'm Oh, So Busy...: A Week with Yoshimi

My honest reaction after settling into this one was: this is not a game that wants anything from you. No choices, no branching routes, no fail states. You read, you listen, and you either click with Yoshimi Adelina Hertz or you don't. That's the whole proposition, and for a very specific kind of reader, it's enough. The Berry Guild built this as a kinetic visual novel across seven chapters, clocking in somewhere between two and a half and four hours depending on your reading pace. Yoshimi has just moved from a small Iowa life to Boston, ferret Cinnamon Bun in tow, and the story tracks a single week of that adjustment. Getting used to a new gym, navigating an app that rhymes with Hinder, baking cupcakes at odd hours because comfort is comfort. None of it is high-stakes. The thing that quietly elevates the story above mundane diary territory is Yoshimi's job: she works as a telecommunicator, fielding calls from people in genuine crisis. Financial ruin, past trauma, mental health pressure. Those scenes shift the register entirely, and the full voice cast (ten actors spread across the supporting roles and callers) makes the emotional weight land with more force than the text alone would. The contrast between Yoshimi's chaotic twentysomething life and the gravity of those calls is where the dark comedy tag actually earns itself. Visually, the production sits in an interesting middle space. Backgrounds are rendered in 3D with a colorful, almost illustrated quality across nineteen urban and domestic settings. The sprite work, on the other hand, is where the craft shows most: over 320 individual expressions and outfits across the seven chapters give Yoshimi a physical vocabulary that keeps the kinetic read from feeling static. The thirteen illustrated cutscenes punctuate the bigger emotional beats well. The lo-fi soundtrack is the real standout for me. Eighteen tracks from producers including furino, idealism, and CRAETION do something rare: they don't just background-score the reading, they set a specific mood that feels authored rather than assembled. An exclusive piece from Axian was made specifically for this novel, and that kind of intentionality in sound design is exactly what separates handcrafted indie VNs from the template releases. Honesty requires noting the rough edges. Some of the UI behavior has been reported as glitchy in ways that can interrupt a session, though the developer has pushed multiple patch updates since launch addressing audio fade issues, achievement bugs, and text errors. The ending has confused a fair number of readers, arriving with some new information that the earlier chapters don't quite prepare you for. For a linear, no-choice read, that ambiguity feels less like earned mystery and more like a seam. The tonal pitch on the comedy side also swings unevenly: some of it lands sharp, some of it overstays. If you are not the kind of reader who finds value in a character spending real time on cupcakes and internal monologue, this will read as thin. Who is this for? Readers who have a soft spot for slice-of-life VNs, who don't need agency to feel invested, and who respond to a carefully curated soundtrack as much as to plot. If you cleared something like A Little Lily Princess or Va-11 Hall-A and wanted something messier and more grounded, Yoshimi's week is worth the afternoon. Go in with calibrated expectations: this is a first release from an indie creator who cares genuinely, and that care is visible throughout even where the execution wobbles.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

Be the first to comment on I'm Oh, So Busy...: A Week with Yoshimi.