Rintaro Kira (CV: Hosoya Yoshimasa) is the calm, cool, and collected guy of the group. Hinako’s childhood friend. She didn’t remember him at first but he lived at the orphanage with her. He lives separately from his parents and works a part-time job at a cafe as a waiter.
After an arm wrestling match, the 3 of them go up on the rooftop to eat lunch. They try to invite Rintarou but he’s already eaten so he’s all “nah”. After that Rintarou invites Hinako to visit the cafe he works at whenever she’s free. Hinako decides to visit the orphanage she went to in order to jog her memory about Rintarou (and figure out why he considers her a savior to him). The facilitator there tells her a bit about Rintarou when he was known as Fuji. He was 9 when he was brought to the orphanage because he had abusive parents. He was pretty distant to everyone but Hinako opened his heart. So even though Hinako wants to talk to him and find out more, she can’t cause she still needs to keep her identity a secret. But Rintarou realizes she’s been stalking him and he finally asks what’s up.
She tells him that she’s anxious about what he said about “this girl” he used to know and wonders why he didn’t try to find her. But he says he couldn’t. He then tells her that he met her at the orphanage and stayed 6 months before returning to his family. He had an apathetic mother and an abusive father who’d beat him. Soon his mother remarried to another abusive guy who’d do the same to him. So he moved out on his own and got a job to make a living for himself. He promised that girl he’d become happy, but couldn’t keep that promise. He didn’t want her to see him in that state or cry over what had happened to him. But Hinako manages to convince him that he is happy now so this makes him realize he wants to find her. But this creates a new problem because he’s now looking to find her so she has to make sure her identity isn’t revealed.
So she wakes up early to visit her orphanage caretaker. She tells him that if Rintarou visits, she wants him to not reveal anything about her. He says he will but asks if she’s really okay with it. In truth she wants to talk with him but for now she has reasons for why she can’t at the moment. Rintarou then comes by to ask him about Hinako while she hides in another room. He tells him that he can’t reveal for privacy reasons, but promises to let him know if he comes in contact with her. So because of this, Rintarou is depressed over it when he comes back to school.
Soon he stops coming to school for a week and this gets Hinako worried. She finds out from Yuuta he’s sick so she goes to visit him at home. He invites her inside and they have tea together while she insists that he let her worry about him and at least say something if he’s sick lol. He’s then about to leave to go to work and there’s an insistent ring on the doorbell. When they answer it, they’re greeted by Rintarou’s stepbrother named Nozomi. He tells him “that woman” aka Rintarou’s mom ran away again and figured she may come to Rintarou’s place since Rintarou is her son. Rintarou tells him she’s his mother too cause he lives with her so it’s not his problem tbh. Nozomi yells at him to not put all the responsibility on him and Rintarou simply tells him he’s not and that she’ll return sooner or later anyway. Apparently this happens frequently when his mom gets in fights with his step-dad. She leaves the house but also ends up coming back.
So Hinako gets Rintarou’s contact info and messages him through text as herself. That way she can keep in in touch as Hinako without revealing her identity or where she is. This obviously makes Rintarou a lot happier since he’s finally in contact with her. He tells Hinako the next day that he got in contact with her and is in a much better mood at school. Yuuta then plans a surprise birthday party for Rintarou at Hinako’s place. When he arrives everyone wishes him a happy birthday. Hinako decides to send him a text as herself and wish him a happy birthday, which makes Rintarou extremely happy. He’s so happy that he texts her he wants to see her. So Hinako decides to lie and say she lives in Hokkaido.
((Rintarou’s brother looks like Aoba from Dramatical Murder you can’t deny))
One night Hinako runs into Nozomi getting beaten by some guys. Hinako decides to help kick their asses much to his reluctance. He realizes she’s pretty strong for looking so weak lol. Rintarou gets worried about Nozomi because of what happened and takes a day off from school to visit. This gets Hinako worried cause he didn’t come to school so she goes to his place to see what’s up. Hinako realizes that he really is worried about his little bro despite saying he’s thrown his family away when he moved out. Unfortunately, his stepdad is still an abusive asshole but knows not to lay a finger on Rintarou or he’d beat his ass. Anyway, she stays over for dinner and apparently Rintarou’s a great cook and doesn’t like buying precooked things at the supermarket cause it’s expensive (well at least he’s frugal).
On Hinako and Rintarou’s way back from Christmas shopping, they find Nozomi who wants Hinako to come help him beat up some guys. When she does, he wonders how she got to be so strong and wants to be that strong too for the sake of defending himself against his abusive dad. She tells him it was because she wanted to get strong foe the sake of protecting and he thinks that’s a load of balogny. So she invites him to have dinner with her and Rintarou at his place much to his reluctance lol. So Nozomi acts completely tsun while stuffing down the food Rintarou made. Unfortunately, when it slipped out that Hinako is “Onigashima Hikaru” he gets mad and says he won’t accept help from a rival since he’ll be entering a high school that rivals Shishiku. So he rages and leaves.
After that, Hinako and Rintarou wash dishes together and he mentions how its nostalgic washing dishes with her cause he used to do the same with his childhood friend. She then asks if he’s still in contact with her through email and says he is. Unfortunately, she slips up and says “sucks you can’t see her cause she’s in Hokkaido!” but of course, she as “Hikaru” wouldn’t know that cause Rintarou never told her. So they fight one more time and she finally reveals the truth that she’s Hinako. Rather than be mad though, he immediately hugs her and says he’s really glad that she’s Hinako. He tells her she no longer needs to fight or become stronger cause he’s here to protect her. But she says she’s strong enough and finally explains her situation to him and he promises not to tell anyone.
So the two of them decide to visit their old orphanage and meet their caretaker for a Christmas party. After that he gives her a bracelet as a Christmas gift and they talk about being at the orphanage. Apparently Hinako opened Rintarou’s eyes when someone teased him and he almost beat the shit out of them. He realized he didn’t want to be like his father who was violent and wanted to fight to protect someone like her instead. During new years, Rintaro is a bit disappointed she came to the shrine dressed as a boy lol. Either way, it got so busy they held hands and Rintaro ended up bringing her close to him in order to protect her from the crowd lmao.
When they get back to school though Rintaro is noticeably jealous and overprotective when Hinako is around Totomaru or the other guys. He tells her he can’t accept her being at that school and that she should just live with him if there’s no other way. She can’t accept that and runs off upset. Rintarou then realizes he doesn’t like being called “oniichan” anymore cause he doesn’t want to be her brother figure. This starts some drama between the two of them for a bit but they finally manage to settle it (with Rintarou realizing he’s in love with Hinako but isn’t ready to tell her yet).
So on Valentines day, they find out from Nozomi that Rintarou’s mom owes a debt from the Yakuza since she borrowed money and put it under their dad’s name before disappearing. So now his dad is in deep shit and can’t pay the money he owes so he forced Nozomi to help them. Rintarou says fuck that shit no kid should pay for their parent’s debts so he suggests he files for bankruptcy. Unfortunately, when Nozomi goes home to tell his dad, the yakuza won’t be having that. So in order to save his own ass, Nozomi’s dad beats the shit out of him and tells him he’ll continue to work for the yakuza to pay his owes. He even tells the yakuza he’ll quit going to school as well. (his dad is a such a piece of shit I can’t even).
So Hikaru and Sakaguchi do some digging on Rintaro’s family and are able to find out where his mom is. This causes a whole argument with Hinako and Hikaru but she makes sure to let Rintarou know. Not that he gives two shits anyway cause his mom got into this in the first place by owing so many debts. Either way, Hinako tries to convince him he should help his family. But he’s all “I got you and not as a little sister” so we all know what that means. Hinako says she needs some time to think things over and leaves. Meanwhile, Nozomi is told by the yakuza to bring “Onigashima Hikaru” to them to use as a hostage for ransom money. Otherwise they’ll kill his dad (ok but if I were him I’d let them).
So Nozomi lures Hinako out to try and capture her but the yakuza guys come and take the job over cause they knew he probably wouldn’t be able to. Hikaru and Rintaro then come up with a plan to distract the yakuza with Hikaru since he looks just like Hinako. Nozomi manages to help her escape before running into their dad. Nozomi helps her though and his dad gets pissed saying Hinako is their money who’ll save his ass. Rintaro then kicks the shit out of him and tells him to pay his own debts instead of involving his family. He runs away and Rintaro tells Nozomi he’s sorry for running away and leaving him alone.
After that, Nozomi moves in with Rintarou and his moves to the countryside somewhere. Rintaro finally confesses his feelings to Hinako and she of course tells him she likes him too. Hikaru decides to test Rintaro for revenge and dresses up as himself and Hinako dresses up with her uniform. He immediately sees through it though and Hikaru runs off raging. Rintaro then kisses Hinako saying she looks cute and that he loves her and wants to stay by her side forever.
Friendship Route
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Rintaro doesn’t find out Hinako’s identity after losing another fight with her. This makes him pretty depressed and Hinako herself can’t even bring herself to email him because she feels bad for lying to him. So the guys decide to try and cheer him up by forcing him to hang out with them on Christmas. In the meantime, Nozomi is still getting into fights and when Hinako and Rintaro try to help him, he lashes out at them. So now there’s drama and misunderstandings of Rintaro being a weak ass who gave up on the top fighter title. So fights break out with everyone. Finally, Nozomi decides to spill out all his feels to Rintaro and he finally notices him (since he was so tsun about liking his brother). He tells him why he’s working with the yakuza and Rintaro suggests he claims bankruptcy.
So Yuuta challenges Hinako to fight him but it was really set up so Yuuta could fight Rintaro. He ends up winning and it settles the whole top fighter drama. So after that, they go to Nozomi’s place and witness his dad being an asshole so tell him to stfu and to stop hurting his son. So Nozomi moves in with Rintaro. He sends a long message to Hinako about how he wants to thank her for teaching him to protect rather than use violence. And in order to teach this to his brother, he got him a bracelet (omfg). So in his letter he bids farewell to Hinako and decides to finally move on from his past.
Thoughts: I LOVE RINTARO OMFG PRECIOUS BBY. Idk, I ended up liking him the best for reasons other than him being voiced by Hosoyan. It’s weird though cause I don’t usually end up liking the childhood friends. Rintarou was really cute though, and I feel bad for him because he had bad enough luck to have two abusive dads. The friendship end seemed more like a bad end imo. I mean, it’s basically Rintaro moving on from Hinako even though he obviously still likes her and SHE’S RIGHT NEXT TO HIM UGh. I love the characters in this game a lot but my biggest gripe is the CGs. There’s not a enough used for romance scenes but then again, there’s not as much romance as there could be (I guess cause it’s more fighting and them not knowing she’s a girl so it makes sense). I reeeeally wanted more romance scenes between these two. Cause Rintarou is an adorable bf. PLS GIVE ME A FD I WILL BE ECSTATIC.
Otome Adventures 