(Beware of spoilers down below!)
Since I first saw him in the prologue, I was very interested in Toa. He seemed super adorable, as well as an actually relatable character, for me at least. It was a slight disappointment to learn that his route was locked at first, but luckily you only have to play only one happy ending beforehand to get it. The only reason I didn't move straight to Toa after finishing Isora's route was because I wanted to leave the best until last.
The plot of Toa's route doesn't really have much to do with the main plot. Ichiko doesn't really do much at all to find her brother in this one, and the cat mask murderer person doesn't play that much of a part at the end.
Like it's always been so far, this route started with the town festival. Also like always, we find out a bit more of Toa's tragic backstory. I'm just going to write it all down here.
The same as probably every other love interest in this game, Toa was born in Okunezato. He lived with his grandparents in their hot springs hotel, which eventually had to close due to the town's tourism district losing its business, which I think was the Murakumo family's fault. Toa was bullied in the local school, but luckily he got to leave Okunezato at fourteen. And why did he move? I'll go onto that later.
Most of the stuff early on in the route is a blur to me, it's just Ichiko hanging out with Toa and stuff. Then the route took a turn in a direct that nobody would've ever expected (unless you were like me and saw a very slight spoiler online that made me guess that something like this was coming) - Ichiko catches Toa without his glasses on and discovers his secret identity! No, he's not the murderer, he's an idol.
You see, in the common route they mentioned that this idol called A-TO was going to hold a concert in Okunezato's middle school. I was wondering when we were going to see this so-called idol, since everybody loves idol characters (well I do at least), and it would be a good idea for the game to capitalise on that and at least show him in the game, maybe making him dateable. And here he is. I don't know why, but Toa's sprite when he's in idol mode looks really odd to me.
(I think there was foreshadowing for Toa's idolness somewhere else in the game, where he accidentally drops a ticket to his concert and Ichiko finds it)
You may be like me, wondering how someone who's supposed to be shy and awkward can be a world famous superstar. Luckily, there's an explanation for this. When Toa takes his glasses off, he can't see properly. That means that he can't see other people's facial reactions and is thus confident enough to sing and dance and all that. But if he can't see properly, wouldn't he fall off the stage when performing??? Maybe he wears really weak contact lenses or something. I don't know how glasses work.
When Toa's in idol mode, he acts like a completely different person. For some reason, nobody in the hotel or the town seems to use their brains and figure out that the cute glasses guy staying in the hotel is actually A-TO. Really, the both of them don't look that different, do they? They still have the same hair colour and everything. Well, I suppose idols change their hair so often, so it's understandable, maybe.
I had originally expected this route to be some kind of awkward but cute love story with a bit of the game's main mystery thrown in there, like maybe Toa would learn how to become more confident with Ichiko or something. Early on in the route, he mentioned how he was unable to swim, so I was thinking that maybe he would be forced to in the final scene in order to save Ichiko from the cat mask murderer. But nope, it just turns into some kind of forbidden idol love story instead, and I'm completely fine with that. (Still though, I would've been alright if Toa hadn't turned out to have this celebrity alter-ego)
One day, outside Okunezato's creepy tunnel, Toa talks about this song he wrote, called "LOVESICK". Apparently, the lyrics are about his first love. After the first two routes, I think we can all tell who his first love is. (It is confirmed that later on that yes, he did meet Ichiko a few times twelve years ago, and yes, he has for some reason been in love with her since then.) Toa then confesses that he is in love with Ichiko, but she doesn't know how to react.
Toa starts inviting Ichiko out to concert practice sessions, and this attracts the attention of his annoying manager, Gamaki. I think she appeared in the other two routes briefly, too. She's a horrible woman, she does care about A-TO, in her own sort of way. She is super rude to Ichiko, and tells her to stay away from Toa because she doesn't belong with him. She also says that A-TO is a womaniser. What a nice thing to say about the person who keeps you employed!
This, of course, gets to our heroine's head, and she confronts Toa and tells him that they can't be together, but in a sort of mean way. He asks her what's wrong, but OF COURSE she doesn't tell anything so that the writers can create more drama. I can sort of understand why Ichiko pushes him away, but I think that she should've at least told him what his stupid manager said.
Luckily, Toa's smart enough to figure out what's going on, and he tells Gamaki off himself. He then forces her to accept their relationship, and she does, sort of... She tells him that she still has to put his fans above Ichiko, which is sort of... off, I think. I dunno how the celebrity world works, but shouldn't you put your family and friends above your fans and your job?
Toa and Ichiko meet up by the tunnel again, but then something super interesting happens. They get attacked by Okunezato's "Vigilance Committee", and they check Toa's back for purple spots, this is to make sure he's not someone who's come back from the dead to murder people. They mentioned something about this in the common route, but of course it went completely over my head.
Sosuke comes and somehow tells the Vigilance Committee to let them go. Hmm... I dunno why they listened to his command. I'm a bit curious about Sosuke now. He tells Toa that he can't possibly be a undead murderer person, because he's seen him in the bath, and his back is perfect and definitely not purple spotted.
Later on, the token meeting with the cat murderer person happens. Yasu comes to save them, completely ruining my theory that he was the murderer. They can't both be in the same place at the same time, unless there's some kind of magic going on behind the scenes.
Toa gets a scratch on his face, so this causes his concert to be cancelled. Surely they don't have some kind of makeup to cover that up? It's not that hard to cover up a simple scratch, is it?
Then, the kiss scene between him and Ichiko happens. The voice acting in this scene was really hot. At the very end, before our heroine has to return home, there's another one. This time Toa's back to his usual self, instead of in idol mode. I'm glad about that, because I would've been sad if we only got a kiss CG with him as a celebrity.
Then the route ends, and you'll never guess what the ending song is!! They actually made LOVESICK into an actual song, with Toa's voice actor singing it. I was honestly thinking whilst playing how cool it would be to hear it as a real song, but brushed it off because I thought it would never happen. Honestly, it's actually a bit of a banger. I think I might shove it into one of my YouTube playlists. Click here if you want to hear it. (Warning: there is no guarantee that this YouTube link will work in a few years time.) I'll have to track down a CD of it somewhere, I'm sure you can buy it somewhere.
I bloody loved this route. I don't care if it was different from what I expected. It was awesome. I love Toa so much, I just wished that I could've seen more of him as his normal self instead just in idol mode all the time, but oh well. This route is probably going to be something I'll want to play again once I'm done with this game and everything in my backlog.
I just wish there was a fandisc or drama CD somewhere where I can see an after story or something.
Now, please excuse me while I play LOVESICK on repeat for hours.
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