Signs of life in games of death

Put it on my tombstone: I swear I had a good reason for playing that video game. 

Gaming is not a hobby I share with many people in my offline life, and among the friends that do, my tastes are rangy and offbeat enough that I don't have much overlap with any one person. It's fine! Fun, even. But it does mean I have a lot of explaining to do, should my partner, blessedly unaware of concepts like "materia" or "the la-li-lu-le-lo," decide to walk in the room at an inopportune time.

Playing The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy would be one such time. A garish, abrasive thing, Hundred Line doesn’t just expect you to be familiar with games of its type, but actively works to repel you if you are not. It's about a bunch of teenagers that are abducted and coerced into waging a hundred-day war against mysterious "invaders", with powers they unlock by plunging a magic blade into their chest. It is full of dirty jokes and obnoxious tropes and embarrassing, sexual-sounding gesticulations that accompany every other line (I have fielded several complaints about this part specifically). There are 100 endings in the game; I don't expect to see them all. 

I asked a friend if he knew anything about Hundred Line, and after a quick Google he very politely asked (I’m paraphrasing) what the fuck it is I see in this game. I understand why he would feel that way; the game is a bundle of dire content warnings wrapped in an assortment of thinly-veiled kinks. The Hundred Line does not set itself up for success, as far as first impressions go. Yet I trust it implicitly, because I have developed a nigh-parasocial interest in Kazutaka Kodaka, co-director and primary writer of The Hundred Line, and a designer who has upended my whole idea of what makes a game worthwhile.