Sanada Yukikage (CV: Toriumi Kousuke) is the teacher of their class who’s very strict but deep down a really caring teacher. He’s obviously the main route cause it’s locked until you completed every other route.
Sanada tells Kaede to prove her worth basically but his training is harsh and he’ll be extra hard on her. He tests her by getting her to gather info from everyone. He didn’t really have high expectations for her at first but after seeing how determined and hard-working she was, he realized she was different.
One day while Kaede is looking for the dojo she stumbles upon jealous bitches who start bullying her. And because of a mistake that they all blame her for, Sanada decides to give her special lessons with him for 3 months. Sanada punishes them with detention but they’re satisfied with Kaede’s “punishment” cause apparently they’ve heard rumors that Sanada’s special classes are hell. In truth, he only gave her these special one-on-one classes to get her away from all the bullying. During one of their private lessons, Sanada helps Kaede and when he gets close she gets red and of course “oh you have a fever, perhaps??” and of course that triggers her meromero jutsu. After that whole scene of flirty sensei, Sanada decides to start training her so she won’t use her meromero jutsu so often.
Next day Kaede finds Sanada speaking with his groupie about how there may be Tokugawa among the Kouga ninja. It’s then she tells him about her dream to become part of the Sanada corps. She wants to protect those close to her because of the incident when bandits killed her parents when she was young. That’s when she mentions a certain ninja helped her (its obviously Sanada and im sure he realizes too) and that made her want to become a ninja.
During their training Sanada basically interrogates the principal for attacking the Kouga Ninja and trying to conceal the fact that Tokugawa have invaded the academy. Of course he denies any involvement with the Tokugawa. Anyways after he leaves they all praise Kaede for being able to deceive them during their practice. It’s really cause of Sanada’s practice she’d gotten so good. And so Sanada gives her results of the practice later on. She thanks him for all his help and he gets real personal and says he’ll teach her whatever she wants (even if u wanna make love) and since he’s real close she gets nervous and her meromero jutsu activates. After that jazz he apologizes but Kaede tells him it’s okay and he shouldn’t be so flustered over it cause she’s just his student after all. He then mutters “yeah that’s how it should be” and of course he acts like nothing was said.
The next day everyone has sparing during class and Kaede fights really well against both Sasuke and Kuroudo. They’re all impressed and apparently it’s cause of these really great private lessons she’s getting from Sanada-sensei. But Kaede doesn’t want to burden Sanada forever with training even after their 3-month period, so everyone else suggests to help her out as well. This makes Sanada a bit jealous and everyone realizes this and calling out how he’s been giving Kaede a lot of special treatment lately. Everyone starts going on about how he’s usually pretty scary but really sweet to Kaede and she tells him that she likes that scary, strict side of him. Sanada gets all adorable and embarrassed by it of course.
One day Kaede goes to practice alone cause the jealous bitches obviously won’t train with her. During which she finds Sanada secretly speaking with Daisuke. He basically tells him to back off (yo this shit is mine jk) from Kaede. He doesn’t want him flirting with her and it’s his job to protect her. He goes on to mention she’s a genjutsu user so the Tokugawa are after her blood. This is why he needs to pay extra attention to her. So of course, a misunderstanding occurs, and this leads Kaede to believe that Sanada only ever gave her special treatment because of her blood and not for herself or as a student.
The next day the principal disguises himself as Sanada in order to steal blood of Kaede. Thankfully, Sanada comes to help her and he runs off without them being able to see who he really is. After he leaves Sanada heals Kaede but gets really mad at her for not seeing through his disguise. Although he’s more upset that she couldn’t recognize the real him. Although apparently she did notice he was acting strange but thought he was mad at her or that she was a nuisance in regards to what she heard him tell Daisuke. She feels like he only paid attention to her because she was an obligation and nothing more. He tells her that she wasn’t just an obligation but hesitates to say anymore. Either way he doesn’t think she should blame herself entirely. He gets pretty close to her and she activates her meromero jutsu. Thankfully he was able to avoid it though. And so they practice together so she can’t supress her meromero jutsu. He feels like he’s in the wrong for being a bad teacher but of course, Kaede disagrees and believes he’s really kind. Sanada then covers her mouth and tells her to not say any more.
He doesn’t believe he’s kind, but wants to be for her. It’s then Kaede’s meromero jutsu activates and he starts gushing out more sweet words while his hand is over her mouth. After all that, he tells her that if he ever touches her or says something strange, it’s only because of the affects of her meromero jutsu. So he’ll be sure to take his distance from now on. This of course leaves them both bitter. And Sanada thinks to himself “nope I can’t have these feelings for her, and I gotta keep it all a secret even if I lose her trust”. So Sanada stopped giving her private lessons and one day Sasuke saw Kaede looking kind of sad so he offered to train her in his stead. He noticed that she looked lonely and could tell something happened between her and Sanada and thinks she should try and settle it between the two of them.
And the next day there’s a summer festival and Sanada invites Kaede to go with him. They ride a boat together and Kaede feels like the elegant clothes don’t suit her and he should’ve brought a more adult woman to something like this but he tells her there’s no one else he would’ve want to bring than her. They’re no longer “teacher” and “student” and he wants to be able to do as he pleases without having to worry about that. It’s then she activates her meromero jutsu after getting nervous about what he said, and Sanada is unaffected because he licks her blood. He explains to her he knew the entire time that he could stop her meromero jutsu by licking her blood. Right now they’re outside the academy so aren’t student and teacher. And he didn’t want that time to be interrupted with her jutsu. But at school it was apparently an excuse to be able to touch her and he could just blame it all on the meromero jutsu. His thoughts or touch now are all of his own will and not because she’s a student. He even says, “I want to make you mine. I want you all for myself.” And drops a “just kidding” at the end. They enjoy a nice firework show and after it’s over, Kaede starts feeling sad that they have to go back to being “teacher” and “student” when they go home. He asks her what’s wrong but she hides it and says she wants to train.
After they train, Sanada suddenly confesses that he loves her. Kaede is shocked and just before she confess that she loves him too, he tells her that he was just kidding and it was part of their training (jeez, that’s harsh). He apologizes and says he’ll never say that again. He then goes on with the teacher/student banter and “oh your feelings aren’t what you think they are” and “you shouldn’t let adults words easily sway you.” He apologizes and they return home after he tells her he knows she’ll find happiness.
The next day there’s Tokugawa intruders where Sanada is so Kaede rushes to go help him. Sanada gets mad at first since she came in knowing it’d be dangerous but she tells him that she was really worried about him. Anyway to cut it short, the Tokugawa are attacking and things are looking so hot. And that’s why he needs to go to Osaka castle to fend them off. He knows it’s dangerous but he wants to make sure to protect Kaede. Once he leaves Kaede tidy’s up a bit and finds a hidden room with lots of scrolls and books. She then discovers documents about her and her family. After noticing a connection between her and Sanada she starts to wonder if he was actually the one who saved her years ago. She wants to confront Sanada about it, but unfortunately he still hasn’t returned even after a couple of days later.
So one day Kaede finds all the students and teachers zombie-fied. They keep repeating that she takes a test and so she goes by herself to find out who’s controlling everyone. She fights off a whole bunch of a ninja (in a very badass manner I may add) and even interrogates one of them to tell them where their boss is. And so she finally finds the boss in charge aka the principal of the ninja academy. He immediately attacks her and she wonders if he’s being controlled as well. Though he quickly disregards that fact and begins to explain that he’s the chief of the Tokugawa and he merely invited her into the Academy to use her. The creation of the academy was all part of his evil plan to make an army of ninja puppets. So the academy was to become a Tokugawa base so he could create powerful ninja puppets to defeat the Sanada corps. But that’s only the beginning cause apparently he wants the Tokugawa to seize control of Japan entirely. So Kaede’s like “no way I’m letting that happen” and charges at him. She actually does catch him for a moment but he’s able to escape once he activates the forbidden jutsu. He wants to use her blood in order to make her his (blood bitch) slave basically. She was initially supposed to be taken 10 years ago but the Sanada corps interfered. So basically her clan were essentially pawns for the Tokugawa. This pisses of Kaede but she can’t do anything and before he can kill her, Sasuke arrives just in time to save her. He fends him off for a bit but gets overwhelmed all too soon. Thankfully though Sanada comes to save the day!
Well it’s not just Sanada but everyone comes to help fight him. It’s just like the canon-ish route to have everyone help fight lol. Anyway, Sanada is pretty pissed that he hurt Kaede and starts to attack him. Unfortunately for the principal, Sanada already took care of business and caught the rest of his followers. It was thanks to Gairaya (who was on the Tokugawa side) he was able to read his scheme. He ended up betraying him cause he didn’t want to hurt any more people or be part of any revenge plan any longer. Principal gets really fucking pissed and starts throwing out different kinds of jutsu. Thankfully Sanada pulls out some cool shit and defeats him. He then goes on listing his crimes or his warrant for his arrest. He tries to escape but Kaede uses her own hairpin as a shuriken and throws it at him LOL.
Kaede starts to feel bad and thinks this whole situation was her fault. But Sanada tells her that it’s not true at all and she saved many lives by fighting to protect everyone. Anyway, Sanada’s subordinates arrive and Garaiya is arrested along with the principal. Though Garaiya will eventually become a student again and wants to atone for his crimes. They then all find out that Sanada is actually the leader of the Sanada corps and more important than just a teacher (as if that wasn’t obvious lol).
So Kaede passes her exam with a perfect score and Sanada is the new principal of the school. He then tells her the 100 year tale of Kirihime. She’s a descendent of Kirihime (hence her foggy jutsu) and the Tokugawa used her blood to win many battles in war. That was until she was rescued by Yukimura Sanada. Though Kirihime went missing and they searched for her for a long time. It’s when they found her she was pregnant with a Tokugawa child. She didn’t believe she was qualified for him anymore and went to die somewhere or something idk. So the Sanada family protected all Kirihime descendent in secret. And so he pretty much knew all along.
His first mission was to protect her and her family but unfortunately only arrived in time to save Kaede. He feels awful for not being able to protect her family too and apologizes. Though she’s not mad at all and in fact, wanted to thank him all this time for what he did. She knows it was his duty and he’s like “FUCK MY DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS” and hugs her. It was his duty years ago but now his feelings are different. And he protected her because he loves her and protects her of his own will now. He goes on to express his feels and how he’s not lying anymore like he did before. So he kisses her and has her drink his blood to seal the meromero jutsu of hers. They then finally make out and I guess that’s that.
In the epilogue Sanada invites Kaede to the Summer Festival again. Kaede is part of the Sanada corps now and a few years had already passed. He tells her that they’re not student and teacher no more and he’s gonna have to make love to her cause they have all the free time in the world for it now lol.
Thoughts: Okay I initially intended to finish this route long ago but after I moved I had no time to tbh. Anyway, I’m not gonna lie, his route was good but probably my least favorite. And not because I disliked him, but because idk it was probably the least interesting?? I mean you find most about Kaede and kind of Sanada through the other routes and once you get to Sanada actual route you kinda just feel like it was all pretty obvious to begin with tbh. I think the best part of this route for me was when everyone came to help Kaede and fight the big bad boss together. PLUS KAEDE WAS REALLY BADASS IN THIS ROUTE. I mean she can kick ass if she wants to. Sure she didn’t really defeat the Principal but she sure as hell did an awesome finishing blow w/ her hairpin, haha.
In regards to Sanada’s romance though, it felt very lacking and the teacher/student aspect can get kind of annoying for me. This is coming from someone who rooted for Miyamura in Hirunaka no Ryuusei. Teacher x Student is a dry cliche for me that happens in shoujos/otoge and I really just can’t get into tbh. AND THE MEROMERO SCENEs WERENT NEARLY AS GOOD IMO. He already knew about her whole ordeal and he didnt get nearly as flustered as the rest of the characters. I guess I’m pointing out all the flaws here but Toriumi’s voice did make up for a lot of it. I just had to imagine him as Saitou Hajime and then he was the hottest babe in the world. Well he did have some cute moments but overall I’d say my order of faves was Sasuke > Kuroudo > Garaiya > Yuri > Daisuke > Sanada. Sasuke, Kuroudo, & Garaiya were all .。*((*U∀U*艸))゜+。to me. As for the Vita version, when I get the chance to buy the game I’ll probably review the new characters. I know they’re not nearly as good as the originals though so who knows when I’ll play. I’m broke right now so I have no choice to just play the otome I have atm LOL.
Anyway if you haven’t played this game I totally recommend it. The characters are so moe and adorable I love them all. Go for the Vita version of course though cause that has all the routes + more. I just had the PSP version first so, yeah.
Otome Adventures 