Overview
Cupid Parasite is a romantic comedy and fantasy otome game very loosely inspired by Greek and Roman mythology. The game stars the eponymous Cupid sneaking down from Celestia to prove to her parents, Mars and Venus, that humans don’t need gods’ constant guidance and interference. Cupid takes the name “Lynette Mirror” and studies romantic psychology to better understand humans and love! She ends up working at Cupid Corp, a match-making agency, as a Bridal Advisor based in the fictional Los York, USA. Like any good visual novel, things don’t go exactly as planned. This game was quite funny and lighthearted which was a great break from my usual otome offerings full of high stakes, life or death scenarios.
The love interests in this game are 5 disaster-men known as the “Parasite 5”, members of Cupid Corp trying to find love but having a myriad of issues. Each route has a best end, normal end, and one or two bad ends. Only the best and normal ends contain CGs, but I was surprised at the lack of a completion CG! The common route is fairly long but genuinely funny and enjoyable. Cupid Parasite is full of bright, technicolor art and a rockabilly style of music that sets it apart from other titles in this genre.
Let me introduce you to the Parasite 5, in the order I played their routes:
Ryuki F. Keisaiin: The Glamor Parasite
Ryuki is the youngest love interest at 19 years old, making me feel like an absolute grandma. As a fashion designer, he’s obsessed with looks and rates everyone on a scale from 1-100. He has synesthesia and assigns everyone a color, as well. Grandson of a famous fashion designer, he joined Cupid Corp at his sister’s suggestion to become a better designer. But none of the women our poor Cupid sets him up with live up to his standards!
“Monsieur Esse”: The Prestige Parasite
Monsieur Esse is a mysterious man unable to reveal himself due to his particular circumstances. Becoming and staying “SS”, the best of the best, in all aspects of his life is the most important thing to him. Owen Harriot, the secretary of Cupid Corp’s CEO Shelby Snail, participates in the match-making in his stead. This “elusive” man won’t meet any of his matches in person, and for some reason Mr. Snail always ends up around instead.
Gill Lovecraft: The Lovelorn Parasite
Poor Gill can’t forget his lost love, the one that got away. No other woman can compare in his mind or his heart! He joined Cupid Corp to try and forget her. Gill is dedicated and a perfect idea of a househusband. He is also a former university classmate and roommate of Lynette and her best friend, Claris Tia. Lynette believes Claris is his lost love and wants to either get them together or help Gill move on.
Raul Aconite: The Obsessed Parasite
Raul is a superstar “Sillywood” action star researching his next role! While he’s not really interested in getting married, his agent has told him he has to learn about love to really portray it on screen. A major issue in this plan is that he can’t stop yapping about mythology, to an off-putting degree. Even girls who are into mythology can’t stand how intense and obsessive he is, no matter how handsome and famous.
Allan Melville: The Thieving Parasite
Allan is only interested in women already in love. He prefers “sharing” to stealing, flirting with the wives and girlfriends of anyone he meets. Women who aren’t in love just don’t do it for him! He is the flirtatious proprietor of “Pillow Luxuria” where he promises to find the perfect pillow for his clients especially if they are already in love. He claims he joined Cupid Corp out of a genuine desire to get married, but his thieving ways cause nothing but trouble.
Secret Route: The Secret Parasite
There’s also a secret route! That’s all I’ll say here!
Please note this review won’t have guides! I used Otome Kitten’s guides for my own playthrough, so please check her out. Without further ado, let’s get deeper into it!
While major spoilers will be hidden, please continue at your own risk.
My Musings & Common Route
My very first impressions of this game were wow, it’s bright! The UI, the character’s signature colors, and the art is highly saturated. For some reason we tend to get mostly the more dour of otome titles localized in the west (not that I’m complaining) so booting up this game felt like staring into the sun for a little bit. A horn-honking sound effect signifies your selections in the menus, too. The soundtrack is even more unique for the fact that a lot of the character tracks feature samples of English language songs! It was honestly a little distracting for me in the beginning as I tried to make out the words of the song instead of focusing on reading.
But we are dropped into the role of Lynette Mirror, top Bridal Advisor at Cupid Corp in Los York. As the name implies, “Los York” is a fictional city based on a mix Los Angeles and New York City. Think the big city along with Hollywood all together. Los York isn’t the only legally distinct name in the game, either. Sillywood is their version of Hollywood, and other famous people and places are referenced by slight changes throughout the story. This really amused me but I wonder if there is actually any legal reason for not using the real names!
Lynette is the real-deal Cupid, a god from Celestia. She takes us through how she got where she is today, and we are introduced to other gods in Celestia along with both their Greek and Roman names. These include Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Minerva. Cupid feels too much pressure from Mars to match more and more couples as marriage rates are plummeting on earth. Minerva, goddess of wisdom, is obsessed with the human realm and encourages Cupid to sneak down to Earth and prove to her dad that humans can match-make and fall in love without divine intervention! She does just this, gets her degree in romantic psychology, and lands a job at Cupid Corp. Once she gets her big promotion as a human, Mars will have to recognize humans’ own accomplishments. The problem is to get this promotion she has to deal with the Parasite 5: Five attractive men and members of Cupid Corp who all other Bridal Advisors have abandoned. And boy they are a mess. Lynette is better than me, determined to help them mend the errors of their ways in love and life.
She has her goddamn work cut out for her. Each one of these men were an endearing mess. I felt most attracted to Gill at first, enjoying the lovesickness and attention. I immediately liked Claris Tia, Lynette’s roommate and best friend as well. Getting to know each LI was a lot of fun even if they made me audibly mutter “Jesus Christ” to myself with their antics. She really tries, too, giving seminars, constant advice, and providing the best possible matches for each Parasite. To promote Cupid Corp, the Parasite 5 and Lynette get roped into a reality show called “Parasite House” where viewers can watch her struggle to help these men! Some revelations we find out very early on are that Gill Lovecraft is in love with Lynette and has been for many years (duh), Monsieur Esse is Shelby Snail (also duh), and Allan Melville is actually some kind of incubus (ok this one surprised me).
I know that this style of “reality” TV is common in Japan, but I really couldn’t care less about Bomber Chorizo’s commentary when the show was filming. I never got the point of live commentary/reactions on TV shows. Lynette takes each man out on a practice date though you’ll only see one of the dates per playthrough. It’s a genuinely funny and fast-paced common route. As someone who prefers common routes to be pretty short, I never felt like it was dragged out or frustrated by the lack of progress.
You know what I really liked? The character sprites have nipples. Nipples! On an anime man! I didn’t know we could do that but man I was glad to see them. So glad in fact, I underlined it in my notes twice. So the artist and the art gets a million points from me just from that fact, even if sometimes I felt like the character proportions in CGs were a bit off.
Parasite House ends in a literal dick-measuring contest and with each Parasite seemingly still stuck in their ways. They all quit Cupid Corp at the end of the common route, which was also very funny to me. What’s a Cupid to do? Here’s where we branch into the story for each LI!
Ryuki F. Keisaiin: The Glamor Parasite
Love Type: Eros
I went into this route with low expectations. Eros is a type of love focused on aesthetics and looks which feels incredibly shallow and callous to me, and for a fashion designer Ryuki’s fit was wack and he had a fuck-ass haircut (see Finis and Saint-Germain from Code:Realize for more examples of fuck-ass haircuts). Ryuki is also very young as I noted earlier, which is the opposite of my taste in anime men. All of these things considered, I was very pleasantly surprised. The age, fit, and hair didn’t matter to me because I really liked him! He also had alternative sprites with different hair and outfits to shake things up. He’s harsh with his comments about others’ appearances, yes, but you find it’s really not out of malice. Even though he rates everyone from a scale of 1-100 based on looks (not even being able to recognize those of a lower rank as human…) he also truly believes anyone can rise in the ranks by taking proper care of themselves. Mentioned above, Ryuki has synesthesia which contributes to his design talents. He tends to rattle off the HMTL number of whatever color he “sees” people as when he meets them, along with their score. Their romance progressed in a very natural way and nothing felt convoluted or forced. Ryuki experiences a lot of personal growth that endeared me to him!
Spoilers for Ryuki’s Route
Ryuki’s conflict revolves around living up to the Keisaiin name brand run by his grandmother, a strict and talented designer in her own right. He spends most of his time finding inspiration for new designs, fabricating prototypes, and running his own boutique. Owen Harriot, Shelby Snail’s secretary, also plays a larger role in this route! He was a very pleasant side character.
Ryuki and Lynette meet up a few times while Ryuki is attempting to design women’s athletic wear. He enlists Lynette to model and really listens to her feedback and finds himself considering new perspectives on his designs. I marked down “Damn Lynette your titties” for the workout CG, so his design was doing something right. As Lynette matches up Owen with another Cupid Corp member, a woman named Melanie that Ryuki gives fashion advice to, they get to know each other more deeply. We learn about his strict upbringing and training along with the Keisaiin commandments he was raised to follow. His Grandmother never accepted anything but the best from him, which he never seemed to reach. The Keisaiin brand is also exclusively a menswear line, and Ryuki loves to design women’s clothing. As Ryuki falls in love with Lynette, the “color” he sees around her changes. Having never even considered love before, he thought he was ill and dying and ended up worrying so much he did make himself sick! Poor thing worked himself up so badly he was unable to leave the house, causing Lynette to basically break into his house to check on him.
Once he realized he was in love with her I was surprised at how steadfast he was. He knew what he wanted to do and who he wanted to be with, and he went for it. He confessed quickly and straightforwardly. It made me giddy! At the very end, Ryuki designs a wedding dress for Lynette to wear to promote Cupid Corp but his Grandmother has come to town with a perfect match for Ryuki, a 100 on the looks scale. In the best end, Lynette and Ryuki affirm their feelings for each other and confront her. Ryuki says she’s not a perfect 100 on the Keisaiin scale, but she’s the cutest, most attractive woman in the world to him. Grandma loves the dress he designed for Lynette, stating what his designs were always missing was love.
The fantasy aspect is almost completely non-existent here. Cupid never uses her bow nor does Ryuki find out her identity. On a funny note, Venus, Cupid’s mother, was the perfectly beautiful woman Grandma Keisaiin wanted to set up Ryuki with. They promise to get married, and make out on the couch. I love a good make out CG. We even got a little tongue in there.
In the normal end, Ryuki doesn’t have the strength to confront his Grandmother but continues to design and live together with Lynette. As you may or may not know, if the bad end doesn’t have a CG I ain’t putting myself through that.
I was stunned, and still kind of am, and how much I liked Ryuki. Maybe it was refreshing to have such a relatively grounded story? Perhaps I cannot resist the siren call of a really weird haircut. The progression of their relationship and Ryuki’s realization of his feelings really touched me! I wasn’t even bothered at how young he was at the end, and his desire to be seen as mature and confident for Lynette was surprisingly attractive.
Shelby Snail: The Prestige Parasite
Love Type: Pragma
Listen if you didn’t figure out that Monsieur Esse was Shelby Snail immediately I can’t really help you. These men are color-coded for your convenience! Anyway, this was my most anticipated route. I love old men. No, he’s not even really old. He’s 32. But I’m taking what I can get! We learn extremely early on that Shelby is not married and has been masquerading as a devoted husband for a decade to keep up appearances for his business. That’s why he had to join the Parasite 5 anonymously, because how can an unmarried man run a match-making company? Shelby’s (which I previously believed was only a girl’s name) love type is Pragma, meaning he’s focused on status and climbing the ranks. He’s dressed in a slick suit and has a cold demeanor that cracked deliciously during his route. This one got steamy and had a lot of kiss-kiss CGs for me to delight in.
Spoilers for Shelby Route
Shelby enlists Lynette to pretend to be his wife to satisfy the curiosity of his business partners and rivals. Right out of a fanfiction, we have the fake-married trope here in the flesh with a quite believable set up. Lynette loves Cupid Corp, loves match-making, and is ready to do whatever it takes to help the company!
Things got pretty sexual pretty quickly. Shelby is very aware of the power imbalance with having one of his employees pretend to be his wife and draws up a contract they both agree to. He knows Lynette is a beautiful young woman and is very aware of her. What amused me is how business-focused Lynette was at first. Even while mimicking sex acts with their shadows to fool someone snooping around outside, she’s all business. She was going to make this the most believable pantomime, shadow puppet married-couple sex ever! Poor Shelby seemed like his blood-pressure was going up, though. He was super cute when he was flustered! As it turns out, a rival match-making company really is trying to prove Mr. Snail is unmarried to try and ruin Cupid Corp, going as far as spying on him at home.
Shelby and Lynette really bonded over their work. They are passionate, driven, and devoted to making Cupid Corp successful. They come up with new plans, navigate tough challenges and even corporate sabotage together. Shelby likes her almost immediately, finding himself wishing she was really his wife and loving her company. He went from living alone, eating only energy jelly snacks and sleeping 4 hours a night to cooking and eating homemade meals and actually allowing himself to rest.
But how did he become so obsessed with prestige and being the best at everything, to the point of neglecting himself and believing his only worth is in his status? Honestly, his reasoning made sense but felt kind of flimsy. With the initials “SS” everyone noticed when he got full marks on tests at school and praised him. For those not in the know, “SS” is often the highest score you can get in many kinds of Japanese games. Unfortunately, another student joined the class and knocked him off the top of the ranks. This caused him to spiral, eventually leading to the man we know today. I dunno, it didn’t seem like a good enough reason to be like that to me. Either way, both troubles are resolved pretty quickly. He comes clean to the press about not being married to protect Lynette as the rival company was about to reveal his secret. He meets up with an old classmate, learns that the boy who took his top spot in school didn’t really do much in life, and how silly his classmates felt making fun of Shelby.
But now with the contract over, it’s time for Lynette to leave and married life to end. Lynette at this point is really in love with him. Both of them think the other is only doing it for work, causing a misunderstanding plotline that I couldn’t get through fast enough. Shelby sees Lynette enjoying a celebration dinner with Gill and convinces himself it was only a job for her. Luckily, it was in fact over quickly when Lynette gets drunk on chocolate confesses to Shelby, and they make out on the couch. There might be a trend here.
It wraps up quickly from here with a lot happening in a short amount of time. Turns out Mars, Cupid’s dad, started the rival company to try and make Cupid come back home. He manipulated Owen into helping him and being his mole on the inside of Cupid Corp. Lynette and Shelby get kidnapped by him. We get some fantasy aspects here with Lynette using her Cupid’s bow to get out of sticky situations. Shelby even frees them from their kidnappers in a hilarious moment where he perfectly shoots the weapon out of Owen’s hand, proclaiming he’s “All SS.” Even in marksmanship!
The best end involves Mars accepting Cupid as Lynette and walking her down the aisle as she marries Shelby. Awww!!! The normal end has them opening up a branch office for Cupid Corp together.
Another super solid route. It had a great mix of romance, comedy, and sexiness. While it didn’t amaze me, I still had a lot of fun! I would’ve liked him older, though. Please? Maybe a wrinkle? He’s really not old enough for that, though. There were a lot of fun tropes here and I feel like they fell in love really naturally over the course of the story, bonding over shared passions.
Gill Lovecraft: The Lovelorn Parasite
Love Type: Agape
Gill endeared himself to me a lot in the common route. His devotion and puppy love was adorable, even if Lynette being so oblivious was extremely frustrating. Gill was roommates with Claris and Lynette all throughout college and knows them both really well. I really enjoyed how much of Claris we got in this route, I think she’s a great friend. Every otome game has at least one female friend with a sprite and Claris had a ton of personality and a great style. But this is about Gill! Lynette thinks his lost love is Claris, Claris knows the truth and thinks they’re both being kind of complete idiots (rightfully so). Agape is definitely the type of love that I find myself most attracted to and relate the most to, but honestly… This route was kind of annoying. I enjoyed seeing more of Gill’s strengths and hobbies, but there were constant flashbacks to college. I wanted to see them now, not in the past!
Spoilers for Gill’s Route
Lynette falls into the sexy baby trope at first, as when she first came down to the earth she needed to be taught about every part of being a human. Gill assumed that she was some kind of rich spoiled girl and kindly guided her into acting like a regular person. I loved the cute sprites of them in college! But as I mentioned earlier, there were constant flashbacks which became a bit of a drag to read through. We learn Gill tried to confess by leaving a note in Lynette’s textbook, but through some borrowing of said textbook the note ended up in Claris’s bag. Gill also acts weird whenever Claris is home for a night and eats breakfast with them, leading Lynette to believe that’s who he is in love with. Again, this was genuinely annoying. Lynette shows her skills as Cupid for everyone else but herself. I suppose it was supposed to be funny, but it missed the mark for me.
We learn later that Gill always ends up having sex dreams about Lynette when Claris sleeps at home, leading to him acting weird the next morning at breakfast. This is when I started making some connections between Claris and Allan, away from just their hair color. It’s also revealed that Gill is the heir of a giant car manufacturing company and loves cars! I liked seeing him having a hobby outside of cooking and cleaning for Lynette. He gets a job as a writer for a car-focused magazine, ends up living with Lynette again, and they play house for a while. Lynette realizes how great Gill is, not only as someone to take care of her but as a human! We meet Gill’s brother and help him out with his issues in love, too.
Finally, they confess to each other fairly quickly once Lynette realizes her own feelings, consummate their relationship, and bask in the afterglow. Hurray!
Except Lynette, the very next morning, reads a text from one of Gill’s coworkers detailing a slanderous article about her and Cupid Corp. How could he?! Is he writing this article? We should talk to him about it once he wakes up.
Or… she can run away back to Celestia in tears and not speak a word to Gill about it. Sigh. I thought we were better than this, Lynette. It feels like a bit of an overreaction to run to another plane of existence without speaking to him first!
Gill, of course, is horrified and looks everywhere for her. They finally got together after Gill was in love with her for a decade! I did enjoy this part of his determination to never let her go again. The story goes full throttle into fantasy at this point. Claris gives weird hints about her identity and drops it on Gill that Lynette is a real goddess, and gives him Cupid’s divine artifact: The Cupid’s Bow. She said it’ll take him to where Lynette is, if he believes her. Gill doesn’t have time to question her; he has to get his girlfriend back! This final act was fast paced, a little silly, but a lot of fun. It made me feel better about the route as a whole, as well.
Gill uses his knowledge of cars and mechanics to build his dream car powered by the Cupid’s Bow, an almost limitless energy source. Once it’s finished, the car can fly. And it flies right up to Celestia. He basically crashed the car into Celestia, and is here to get Lynette back at all costs! He is determined! Nothing will stop him! Well, Mars, the god of war who wants Cupid to stay in Celestia might try. Not to worry, the car is a transformer. It’s a pink transformer car named Bumblepig. It has a snout and everything. It can also talk. Let the battle begin!
Mars is touched by Gill’s determination and dramatic romantic flair, as was I. He succeeds, takes Lynette back home, and in the best ending you get probably my favorite wedding CG. One detail I am obsessed with is how Lynette’s wedding dress is different for every LI! Gill becomes CEO of the car company and leads it into greatness. Also the car itself becomes Cupid. And Allan got sucked into the car. Did I mention that? In the normal end, Gill stays a writer with Lynette supporting him.
I think Gill is the least-liked LI in this game, and I get it. The flashbacks and misunderstandings were annoying, but I liked his yearning and dedication. While he’s low on the list, the silliness of the fantastical final act was enjoyable! I felt like it needed some epic power ballad like Meatloaf’s “Anything for Love” in the background to really seal the deal. I was really happy for Gill’s long lost love to finally be realized!
Raul Aconite: The Obsessed Parasite
Love Type: Ludus
The first thing I noticed about this route was that I really didn’t like the “ludus” type of love. Most notably, the lack of commitment. But I know this is an otome game, and they would end up together. In this route, Raul’s agent signs Lynette on as his “love coach” to help him with his role in a romantic film. Raul, having never experienced love, was having a lot of trouble playing it believably. It’s established in the common route that Raul’s acting skills come from his drawing on his own personal experience which mostly involves casual sex and bizarre adventures with his treasure hunting presents. Raul has no luck in love because he just wants to talk about mythology! He loves discussing theories and his own experiences. He also believes Neptune saved him from food poisoning from eating oysters. But his own commission statue of Neptune sure looks like Minerva! I had high hopes for this route, knowing it was one of the more popular ones!
Spoilers for Raul’s Route
Whew they slept together fast! Raul takes Lynette to a celebrity club where he’s propositioned by a few beautiful actresses. He has a lot of casual relationships with these women, and Lynette is convinced this isn’t the right way to go about love. Raul is unconvinced, and seduces her that night. Lynette has some complicated feelings about this, but thoroughly enjoyed it, causing more complicated feelings. One thing I do like is that she’s not guilty and this isn’t portrayed as a morally bad thing. She also accompanies him to his Mythology Society meetings, throwing it into chaos as she talks about real Celestia even if they don’t know it. Raul gets jealous of all this attention on her even if he doesn’t know the name of the feeling, which I loved. We get a few steamy make out CGs here.
Lynette is still trying to set up Raul with actual love, but all three dates are unsuccessful. During filming, they realize Raul is being stalked by one of the ladies he went on a date with. She attempts to attack Raul and Lynette, forcing Lynette to use her Cupid’s Bow and a Leaden Arrow to sever her obsession with Raul.
Raul, of course, immediately notices that she’s Cupid. If anyone was going to figure it out, it’d be the parasite obsessed with mythology! Lynette is surprised that he really doesn’t treat her much differently, just asks more questions. They discuss the reality of Celestia and the gods together at Raul’s house, but Lynette won’t stay the night with him again. Raul is super depressed about this, not knowing why he’s so sad that one person won’t sleep with him when he has the opportunity to call up many other women. Poor thing is in love! Not that he knows it, though. He was super dependent on her staying with him, talking to him, and just existing in the same space together. It was super cute and I really felt his emotions. Lynette is trying to hold strong as a professional love advisor and not fall in love with him. It’s not working.
During a break in filming, Raul and the Mythology Society are invited to Greece to help excavate some newly discovered ruins. It’s said that they might even have a door to Celestia inside! Let’s go!!
The story takes a hard right into a fantastical Indiana Jones movie around this point. At the ruins, Lynette and Raul end up trapped in some of the underground chambers. Remember how Raul’s parents were treasure hunters? Well, he has a lot of experience in survival scenarios. Thank god. They explore together, with Raul theorizing who these ruins were built for and why. A magical car rolls up. Yes, really. They go on a Disneyland Dark-Ride experience through the ruins, clinging onto each other as it lurches to new parts of the ruins. Then a manticore appears, a divine beast that wants to eat them. Raul sheds his clothing and wrestles it using his Pankration skills! I could feel them growing closer and Lynette being hyper aware of him even through the silliness.
The light hearted and more silly story felt like a shock at times but I never hated it. It moved the story along in a super fun way and we got some great character moments. They also snuggle up together in one sleeping bag for “warmth” which is just a fun trope. The fantasy really ramps up for each route! They make it out of the ruins just as they were about to collapse, rescued by an unseen force. Hooray!
They’re not in Celestia. Minerva rescued them, how nice! Except.. It’s not. Minerva knew that if Cupid falls in love, she loses her divine powers, her Cupid’s Bow and becomes fully human. Lynette realizes her feelings for Raul, and Minerva takes the bow. It was her plan all along to get the Cupid’s Bow from her. She was the one who saved Raul, not Neptune, because his soul is the reincarnation of her lost love, Alexander the Great. She uses the bow on him, and Alexander is awakened! Cupid also learns that being Cupid is a “title” and there have been many other Cupids before her, explaining a lot of the stories about Cupids falling in love in the past.
This, like, actually upset me. I really wanted Cupid to have someone who supported her and took care of her, but Minerva was just using her to get Alexander back. Alexander is also terrible, causing a bunch of natural disasters and trying to make everyone worship him. This is over just about as soon as it started. Lynette makes a grand speech about her love for Raul, and he takes control of his body. Minerva is taken to Celestial jail, and Raul finishes up his movie, acting beautifully because now he knows what love really is! It was incredibly sweet how he assures her she loves her as a human, not as Cupid.
In the best end, Lynette ends up a Sillywood actress herself. This felt kind of insane to me, but all of the best ends are kind of intense. In the normal end, they write books about mythology and their own theories, now the leaders of the Mythology Society.
Raul’s route is locked until you complete at least one other route, but I really agree with recommended route orders to save him for second to last. There’s a surprising amount of lore drops here! He’s popular for a reason, being attractive, charismatic, and having just a really fun route. Watching him go from a playboy to jealous and confused was delicious. I think he’s a contender for my favorite route even if the last act was pretty silly. It was a good silly!
Allan Melville: The Thieving Parasite
Love Type: Mania
These write-ups are getting longer and longer for every LI, and this will continue. Strap in for the longest yet, this route has a lot of important stuff to talk about!! I have almost 3 pages of notes for Allan’s route! This route is unlocked after completing the previous four. All we really know about Allan at first is that he’s an incubus, and he’s after the Cupid’s Bow. I also can’t stand his outfit and his thieving, but his route quickly discusses the latter at least! Allan is really conflicted when it comes to getting close to Lynette, but just can’t help himself when he’s close to her. He’s seductive on auto-pilot, I think. A large number of Cupid Corp members have quit, citing that their dreams are better than any actual relationship could be. Lynette thinks Allan is behind this!
Spoilers for Allan’s Route
Lynette goes to Pillow Luxuria and catches Allan in the act of putting a woman to sleep, entering her dreams and um… “eating” them. He has sex with women in their dreams for sustenance, and apparently women who are already in love have the most delicious dreams. This is why he loves flirting with taken women so much! At least in the dreams he looks like the person they love…
Anyway, Lynette sees all this, and thinks Allan must be a god, and reveals that she is Cupid. He’s not interested in hiding his identity as an incubus and explains himself to her. I started to theorize he’s a fallen angel around this point, mostly from his own internal monologue about his sins and how Lynette can’t get close to him. He’s really conflicted here, obviously wanting to be with her but something is holding him back.
Lynette tries to shoot him with her bow, but ends up pricking herself with the arrow, quickly hopelessly in love with Allan. Cupid and Psyche, anyone? Her love was pretty superficial at first, but having come from the bow it did make sense. Allan agrees to be her boyfriend for 30 days, the length of time that the Cupid’s Bow affects someone. He will also only feed on her dreams, if you catch my drift. Lynette is also having quick recollections of some crystal beach when she’s with Allan, but is unable to really make sense of these memories. They go out together pretty blissfully at first! Allan is really a great boyfriend and Lynette is thrilled. He does, however, always seem to keep her at arms length and won’t kiss her in real life, only in her dreams. Allan is going through it, though. Every time we see his perspective he’s really broken up about something. He also mentions that a god’s dreams are the most delicious, but he’s worried something bad will happen.
Allan can’t control himself anymore and they do end up kissing and having sex in the real world instead of a dream, but pretty soon after Lynette falls ill. Allan talks to Claris, confirming my suspicions that she’s a succubus and has known Allan for a very long time. Allan avoids Lynette and tries to push her towards Gill, giving some vague answer that it “can’t be him”, implying that she can’t be in love with him. Allan’s demonic power was infecting her or draining her, causing her illness.
I started to think about the “Thieving Parasite” persona that Allan cultivated in the common route. It’s pretty much nonexistent here, he lives purely for Lynette and to be with her. This isn’t ever really explained but I kind of rationalized that he had to eat dreams as an incubus, so why not eat delicious dreams of women in love? It had the added benefit of keeping Lynette from falling for him (at first) and being sinful enough for him to rise in the demonic ranks. I do love how devoted he is, so I was willing to forgive this oversight.
Lynette won’t stay away from Allan and they have a date on the beach to mark the 30 days are up for the Cupid’s Bow effect. It doesn’t wear off, signally that Lynette has really fallen in love with him. The bad thing is that she is literally dying, and her soul will disappear forever. Sharing a last kiss, Allan stabs and kills her on the beach.
A few things are cleared up: Allan’s original plan was for Cupid to fall in love with a human, freeing her from Celestia and the fate of other cupids. Allan learned as a Greater Demon that gods who aren’t a part of the Dii Consentes (the 12 big gods) have finite power and will disappear once it’s used up. An issue with this plan is how in love Lynette fell with Allan and how much he loves her in return, constantly drawn to him by memories of their shared past. So it’s time for Plan B: Kill Lynette, steal her soul, and implant it into another human so she can live a normal human life.
Then, 20 years have passed. Lynette is living as a regular human, going to college to get a degree in Romantic Psychology again. She has a regular human family this time, and doesn’t remember anything about Allan or the gods. Claris is still watching over her at Allan’s request, and her classmates are Raul and Gill’s relatives. One thing that made me really sad was hearing about how Gill in this timeline kind of went nuts after Lynette disappeared. Allan is quietly watching over her the whole time, as her soul is still immensely powerful and delicious to all kinds of demons. I don’t love how he was watching over her from basically birth, honestly. But Allan is the Mania love type, which is intense and irrational.
After saving her from demons on a school trip to Greece, Lynette meets Allan again. He’s going by the name “Guilty” here. They hang out together and she is drawn to him in a way she can’t explain, and Allan can’t tell her no. Inevitably, she remembers everything, and her Cupid’s Bow flies back to her. The Dii Consentes take her back to Celestia having been looking for Cupid this entire time. They’re confronted about the lesser gods being used up, which Minerva flippantly denies but Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are visibly upset about. Lynette tries to escape again, but this time entering Heaven, the realm of angels.
Her memories flood back to her. Allan and Cupid were once two angels and two halves of the same angelic soul. They couldn’t speak, but shared their every thought and feeling, which created an incredibly deep bond. But one day Jupiter and Mercury came, turning her into Cupid. As soon as she stepped into Celestia, she forgot all about being an angel. Allan defies the gods and ends up falling from heaven to become a demon. He tries to get Cupid back many times but each unsuccessful, eventually becoming a Greater Demon in the hopes of finding a way to destroy Celestia, leading him to learn about the lesser god’s fates. This is when his plan turned to making her human.
Cupid, now knowing the truth, runs away from Celestia again to find Allan, and flies them both back into Heaven to see it for the last time, and then they fall from grace together. The best end has Lynette turn into a demon alongside Allan, where they run Pillow Luxuria together. It’s implied she’s some kind of match making demon not unlike Cupid, and they get engaged on the beach.
In the normal end, we rewind all the way back to Allan being “Guilty.” This time, she doesn’t remember him but falls in love with him as the demon “Guilty.” Allan lives by her side as her demon boyfriend.
There was one bad end with a CG here! In this bad end, Lynette becomes an incubus herself and feeds on couples’ dreams with Allan. They mention it’s like a foursome every time. Yay? Honestly, I wanted them to both become human in at least one of the endings, and I don’t love time skips.
This route is a lot. It has a lot. I know for a fact I glossed over some plot points but this is already way too long! It is a good route for sure, but the lore dump was kind of overwhelming. Allan is a great boyfriend, though, even with the Thieving Parasite persona. His devotion to Cupid for hundreds (if not thousands) of years was so lovely. It feels like such a far cry from Ryuki’s route where the biggest issue with Ryuki wanting to design women’s clothing and not living up to his Grandmother’s expectations! It feels like because I wrote so much about him, he must be my favorite, but I don’t know if I can give him that title. I like it more in hindsight than I did while playing it, if that makes any sense.
Secret Route: The Secret Parasite
Spoilers for Secret Route
Peter Flage/Jupiter: The Sensitive Parasite
Love Type: Storge
This is all one big spoiler but I honestly don’t have as much to say about this route compared to Allan’s route. I kind of figured Jupiter/Peter was the secret route because he had a sprite but not a big role in any of the other LI’s stories. This is a complete alternate scenario where Cupid is being sent down to earth to study humans and their love types at the request of Jupiter instead of sneaking down there herself. Jupiter, the god of the gods, obviously has a soft spot for her.
Cupid goes down to study at Los York University ending up in the same classes as Claris and Gill again. She has to learn about all the types of love like collecting the Chaos Emeralds. Secretly, Jupiter sent her to earth because something in Celestia is after her and she needs to be hidden. Not one to let her go alone, he disguises himself as Peter Flage and inserts himself into her life. One side character I didn’t mention until now is Chii, a little flying divine beast that hangs out around Lynette from time to time in the other routes. This is also Jupiter, unbeknownst to Lynette.
Peter also has what is the worst haircut I’ve seen on an otome game LI yet. I cannot stand it. He’s great looking as Jupiter, but Peter has the fuck-ass haircut to rule them all.
Man I felt really bad for Allan and Gill in this route. Sure, Allan is happy as long as she’s safe, but she was his literal other half! And Gill… he’s just so lovesick even now.
Well Allan ends up a professor at the university, tries to push Lynette towards one of the other LIs to fall in love with, but Lynette starts an internship with Peter at Cupid Corp instead. Old habits die hard, even in an alternate universe. Jupiter is dealing with a lot, watching out for Cupid and searching for the goddess Juno who has disappeared. There’s also something going on in the underworld. Poor guy is stressed, jumpy, and always finding danger. This is how Peter Flage becomes known as the “Sensitive Parasite.”
At a match-making party, Cupid uses her Leaden Arrow and then tries to use her Golden Arrow to make a match but ends up hitting Peter/Jupiter/Chii instead. This is when she learned that Peter and Chii are one in the same, but she assumes he’s one of Jupiter’s divine beasts that he sent to watch over her. And now he’s in love with her for 30 days. I love romance and kiss-kiss so his puppy love was really endearing, along with Lynette’s embarrassment that the cute little divine beast she’s been cuddling every night is actually a man. She also took him as Chii into the bathtub with her before, but he’s a gentleman who covered his eyes the whole time. Peter/Jupiter tends to huff out “Chii…” in his incredibly manly voice when he’s stressed out, too.
Allan finds out Peter is a divine beast (but doesn’t know he’s Jupiter) and agrees to help him protect Cupid because that’s still his main goal and purpose in life. Peter explains that’s something after her but he doesn’t know what. We get some cute moments between Peter and Lynette as they navigate human love for the first time. Jupiter has never experienced anything other than familial love, or “Storge”, before, but he is enjoying it.
Back at Cupid Corp, Lynette is assigned the Parasite 5, now 6, with Peter added to the mix. We have a rehash of Parasite House from the common route and enjoy some of their character moments.
If you’re unfamiliar with mythology, let me give you a little recap of the origins. Cronus was a titan and had a bunch of kids but ate them because he didn’t want them to surpass him, as prophesied. His wife really wanted him to stop doing this, so she tricked him into eating a stone instead of devouring Jupiter, who then went to earth, got really strong, and rescued his siblings from Cronus’s stomach, killed his mean dad and now we have the Dii Consentes and Jupiter is the god of gods.
In Cupid Parasite, we learn this isn’t the whole truth. It wasn’t a “stone” in this version, just Zeus, Jupiter’s twin brother. He was actually a part of the Dii Consentes but was too power hungry and wanted to control humans, so the other gods locked him away in the underworld. Do you know who Zeus’s wife is? Juno/Hera. She decided she missed him too much and decided to break him out. That’s who is after Cupid and all of the other gods. Once he’s out, he kills Juno and descends upon earth to subjugate humans.
Peter takes Cupid back to Celestia where she learns he’s actually Jupiter. His keen sense of danger and sensitivity comes from having always been on guard from almost being eaten as a baby and his evil twin.
So how do we stop Zeus? With the power of love! Each Parasite 6 member uses their love type to break Zeus’s control over humans and they basically power up Cupid’s Bow with all the types of love, shoot him with it, and he is imprisoned again.
There’s only one end to this route, with our Cupid becoming Juno, the goddess of marriage, and marrying Jupiter. They rule over heaven and earth together kindly and lovingly, and vow to change Celestia for the better.
It was fine. I wasn’t expecting this route to be full length, and I was kind of over it by the middle. Peter had some romantic and sexy moments but I never really understood why Jupiter was so obsessed with Cupid (even if he didn’t realize it) for so long, even when she was an angel. Having a completely alternate universe was also a weird choice for me. It felt like even more lore dumped on my head for a completely different story. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t leave me with any lasting feelings other than “ok then.” Again, I also think her becoming human for experiencing true human love is much more romantic than staying a god so the ending fell flat for me.
Conclusion
This has gone on way longer than I expected. I really wanted to get all of the plot points out and my thoughts on them for each route, and if you actually read everything I’m impressed. Cupid Parasite is a great otome game. It’s stylish, bright, original, and localized really well. I think I finally have a lighthearted otome game that I can recommend to people! I’m not sure if it’s rocketed up to the top of my list of favorites, but it’s definitely one I recommend with my full endorsement. As for my favorite LI… I’m somewhere between Ryuki and Raul. I’m always looking for love that grows naturally and develops over the course of the story and I think those two routes did it best. Listen, I’m really surprised about Ryuki as well, but his route had me thinking about him for a while afterwards. I’m excited to see how everyone’s married life is in the fandisc!
What do you think? Was this article ridiculous? Did I miss something important? Am I wrong? Let me know!
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