Just a few days ago, as I was looking through the internet checking the translation statuses of some yuri visual novels, I came across a title that I have never read before.

Lonely Yuri is a title that tells you its genre without even having to go through the description to find out. I was more than surprised that I have never heard of this before, especially when there is an English translated version out there. As you can see, this title is still very unknown, which is why I hope my review will get some of you to look it up.

The visual novel was developed by Yuro no Hitsuji and released on June 19th, 2012. It received an English translation just a few month after its release. Click here, to get redirected to the developer’s homepage.

First with a kiss… the girl is etched in the protagonist’s mind.

It was first year in high school. The budding of summer. Fusa Konno met a shut-in girl named Seri. Persecuted by her yearning eyes, her heart gradually opened… Awkwardly, the two girls gave each other a hug, joined hands, and looked into their eyes. They learned a comfort of being with and touching someone they love, and wanted to know more about each other… (Source: Yuro no Hitsuji)

This story starts with Fusa, a first-year high school girl requested by her teacher to deliver a few handouts to one of her classmates, and a girl named Seri, who has yet to come to school. After school, when she gets to Seri’s home, Fusa is asked to wait for her in the living room. While doing so, she falls asleep, only to be awoken by a sweet kiss on the lips.

This story is really light, but the fact that the playtime is roughly about two hours doesn’t really allow it to go any deeper to begin with. Yet, within the two hours that you’ll need to spend to play this game, the story feels really natural, and the development of the relationship between the two girls doesn’t feel as rushed as I expected it to be in the beginning. In the end, what we get here is a cute but predominantly bittersweet love story between two girls that slowly learn how wonderful togetherness can be.

I knew from the beginning that I couldn’t expect much from such a short game, but I was rather surprised at the amount of artwork, and of course, the quality of said art. While we have quite a few event CGs, all of them look rather simple, but oh so cute. There hasn’t been one that didn’t receive an “aww” from me when first seeing it.

The character design is also very well done, in my opinion. The only thing that I didn’t like was probably the backgrounds. It looks like they took a photo and used some filters to make it look blurry, which in my opinion doesn’t really go well with drawn characters, so I think it makes them stand out unnaturally.

First of all, I have to mention that there is no voice acting involved, which is totally fine for such a short visual novel, even though I would have loved to have heard what they were saying, rather than only read it. In Lonely Yuri, there is not much music used. We only have some sound effects, like bickering rain and some piano music.

I think that the decisive factor that drives the atmosphere in this visual novel is definitely the music, or in particular, the piano music. I can’t even describe how strange the atmosphere sometimes felt due to the usage of the music. Even in situations in which the two girls had a light conversation or even laughed together, the music gave a very odd touch to those scenes, adding a bittersweet tone to basically the whole game.

The focus is set fully on the growing relationship of the two girls.

I think you can’t really compare this visual novel to other yuri titles like Sono Hanabira or Katahane, because this game is different from those on so many levels. And even though the quality of this game is definitely not as high as the quality of the aforementioned visual novels, the overall enjoyment is just as high as in all the other games.

On a side note, I’d really like to raise the popularity of Lonely Yuri, since it’s a very nice visual novel, and on top of that, a pure yuri title as well. So if you have the time, please check it out~