Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo – The Sunflower Girls of the Wheel Country

Summer comes, it gets hotter, it rains a bit, the fields are lush, the wind carries in the scent of greenery, I have a friend like Ken-chan with me... Nothing changes, but I'm happy with the way things are.

Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo is an eroge without branched out routes. Made by AKABEiSOFT2 as well, It is the predecessor of G-Senjou no Maou.

The title itself pretty much is just means that country has a lot of sunflowers. The part about wheels probably has something to do with their…well Country’s system. The setting of this visual novel is in a World where ours does not exist. Just like fictional worlds are fiction to us, Japan(which is mentioned a lot as a country inside a novel which the character reads) is fictional in Sharin no Kuni. In this society, punishment by law is based upon deterrence and criminals are assigned various “obligations” fitting for their crimes.

In this story, you play as a man named ‘Morita Kenichi aspiring to become a Special High Class Individual, so you came to this city to take your final exam for it. The man supervising you is a well known Special High class Individual called Houzuki Masaomi. A very scary old man that guy is. A Special High Class Individual is someone who has absolute power over criminals. But well what was displayed pretty much shows them having power over all common people as well. They usually are exceptions to rules and laws as well.

Right at the beginning you will find out that this country is actually where you were born and lived in before you went out to become a Special High Class Individual. And apparently your childhood friends have become criminals while you were away. So what’s up here? Obviously you will be assigned to rehabilitate them as your final exam!

tl;dr Setting= You came to a the city which you were born with a superior officer to take a test to become an officer.

Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo is a story about the relationship between Society and her people. About how people who can’t meet up to the expectations of Society are tossed aside. Yet even as I say this, the examples displayed in this Visual Novel are slightly too extreme compared to ours(at least it is for me) so take it with a grain of salt. Slightly similar to G-Senjou no Maou which moves the story like a train that has several stops which you can get off at to move to a specific route, Sharin no Kuni moves on from a heroine to the next as the story progresses but does not have personal routes for the heroines. The story will progress in a straight line no matter what choices you make till the end. The only thing that will change are the H scenes you get and the epilogue(yes there is one for each heroine). And so without further ado, let’s introduce the characters of this tale.

(Note: Due to people complaining about me stealing their joys of unlocking the CGs by themselves, I will only use the sketches that appear in between chapters. And of course that means only images of the heroines.)

First off Hinata Natsumi, the True Heroine.

Slapped onto with an obligation she does not deserve, your childhood friend Natsumi has developed an extreme fear/phobia of contact with the opposite gender. Constantly passing into the world of fantasy in her daydreams, this might or might not have to do with escaping the harsh reality she lives in. What could have happened to the energetic girl of your memories while you were away? Silently suffering within herself, the sunflower girl continues waiting for her Ken to return and save her.

Followed by Mitsuhiro Sachi

A hyperactive girl that seems cheerful at first glance. Has an ambition to be an artist but does not have the will to do so. Often lazy to do anything at all, she earns her living by dealing with stocks(I think). When asked about her lifestyle, she complains that she is forced to live like this due to the lack of time. An obligation of restricted time, what would this girl do when a time comes upon that she needs more time than she currently has to protect what’s important to her? Also one of your childhood friends.

And not really lastly Oone Touka

The child who is obliged to be a child. The child who the parent of her parent.
Touka is the only heroine that you did not know as a child. Easily embarrassed, she is quick to anger by teasing. Does not like you very much, she constantly sprout vicious words at you.Likes many things that teenagers would like in our world.
But as usual behind the childlike personality, lies a great suffering too much for a child to handle.
Living a life directed for her because she is a child, will she finally graduate from childhood?

And finally scores!

EDIT: Ehh..there isn’t much point in splitting up the scorings so I’ll just give an overall score.

Overall score: 7.5/10

The story is split into segments, with each chapter focusing on individual girls and their specific obligations.
While the ending and back story isn’t something I would call absolutely brilliant, the stories on each individual girl are really good.
Each chapter is based on/comes with a famous quote or something. A semi realistic setup with no true evil,  Sharin no kuni, Himawari no Shoujo is definitely worthed giving a try if you generally like fiction or find G-Senjou no Maou a good read.
The sounds of this Eroge doesn’t have anything extraordinary for me to point out. In fact it’s pretty just decent enough to accompany various scenes in the VN.
Graphics are just well..Decent at it’s best. Details are there in the picture yes but they just aren’t great. But it’s nothing really to complain about so that’s that.

Enjoyment score: 9/10
Freely given out scores are a dozen a dime, so don’t take this too seriously kay? I tend to enjoy most things hence there really isn’t much point in trusting my enjoyment score.(Or so I hear from my friends that my tastes suck but that might just be them)
Actually if I think on this track, even my critic scoring above might be bias from being affected by my own tastes and become clouded judgment!

If so, why did I even bother scoring it- wait there really isn’t a point in having this part being here anyway is there…moving on.

Last but not least for those that like this VN and would like to read more on it, Sharin no Kuni, Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo.

People's paths through life are ultimately connected in the form of a ring.

But even though I call it a sequel, it is really just a fan disc. Of everything inside Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo, there is more or less only one readable story.
The plot of the readable story though I can say for sure is excellent and a must read after you finish Himawari no Shoujo. As for the rest of it, well…forget it. Just mainly lots of extra H scenes depicted in short pulled out of nowhere what happens after the end of Himawari no Shoujo scenarios. Even the translators at TLWiki can’t be bothered to translate anything after that readable story so good luck finding a full English patch.(I have the full English patch with me though. So if you really can’t find it online and must have it, seek me out. Or rather just leave a comment asking for it.)
Though there is a small chunk of stuff and an omake about dear Eri that you might want to read so get the full English patch if you can find it.
^Don’t worry about who Eri is. Read about five minutes into Himawari no Shoujo and you’ll know almost everything there is to know about her in the original.

And with this I will now end this pointlessly long review/recommendation/whateveryoucallitbecauseIdon’treallyactuallyknowwhatthisisanymore.jpg

~Till the end of my laziness will we meet again~

Actually you know what? I know how annoying it is to wait for something when you want it right away so I’m just going to upload it just in case someone can’t find it on the net.(It’s not like anyone would want to talk to this author of this wall of text anyway right..?)
Link’s here<< And yes I am Akita Reiko. I just happen to like names so I use many of them.