Magical Nut Ikuno isn’t quite what it looks like, but still very much what it seems like.
“Are you interested in games with sexual elements?”
There’s a lot to be said for being upfront in your advertising, so kudos to Tokyo-based video game developer Qureate for promptly asking you that question on the top page of the official website for their upcoming title Magical Nut Ikuno. And as further evidence of how open they are about the pervasiveness of those elements, the response button for “No” is also marked “leave.”
▼ If you were thinking the game was going to be about that Initial D-esque AE86 Trueno cruising in the background, Qureate is quick to disavow you of that notion.
Despite that forthrightness, though, Magical Nut Ikuno’s costume design is actually pretty tame by anime-style standards. It’s especially chaste in terms of upper-body coverage, with the heroines’ magical girl outfits showing absolutely no cleavage whatsoever.
“What are you talking about? There’s a huge boob-window cutaway in that girl’s top!” you might be saying after taking a quick glance (or a long one — hey, no judging) at the above artwork. But aside from a bit of breast showing under the shoulder, there’s no chest exposure at all going on here, and what you’re really looking at is squirrels.
Naturally, there’s a perfectly logical explanation for this. One day, college students Ikuno and Anami meet a pair of squirrel-like fairies named Sen and Rizu.
And at some point, the girls fall on top of the critters, causing them to become fused to their shirts.
▼ It’s a situation we’ve all been in, right?
It turns out that Sen and Rizu are beings called Crysnut Spirits, who’ve come to our world to thwart the ambitions of the evil empress Hamester. Together, Ikuno, Anami, Sen, and Rizu must gather the Crysnuts that have been scattered around their town, keeping the sources of magical energy out of the hands of Hamester’s minions. And as the heroines gather the nuts…
…Sen and Rizu stuff them into their cheeks for safekeeping…
…with accompanying appropriate changes to the in-game graphics.
In terms of active gameplay, Magical Nut Ikuno looks to be a Pac-man-like maze game, with traps and enemies to avoid and power-up items such as health-replenishing “nut soda” and an invincibility-granting hamster wheel. In addition to the avatar you control, there’s also an additional animated depiction of the character you’re playing as taking up a pretty large amount of real estate on the right side of the screen, though it’s doubtful that the intended audience will be complaining too much about the cluttered user interface.
And while it may be tempting to crack jokes such as how the goal isn’t “Go for the high score!” but “Go for the big boobs!”, on the game’s official website Qureate solemnly reminds us:
“Don’t get it mixed up…! Their chests aren’t getting bigger, their cheeks are just puffing up!”
As a further tongue-in-cheek concession to modesty, the game contains a “sensitive mode” which players can toggle on or off to add a beam-of-light censor bar to certain illustrations, with Qureate explaining the option’s inclusion with “This will help avoid social media account bans… Maybe.”
▼ An example of sensitive mode
All of this makes Magical Nut Ikuno the biggest development in the field of cheeky boob-related fashion since these optical illusion T-shirts. The game, with included English-language options, is scheduled for release on May 22 for Nintendo Switch and Steam, but preorders are open now with a 10-percent discount currently available for the Switch version.
Related: Magial Nut Ikuno for Switch, Steam
Source: Qureate via Dengeki Online via Jin
Images: Qureate
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