It appears that 2025 is the year where I will get my brain absolutely broken by visual novels. While it’s only March, I’ve already had one of the most mentally exhaustive games of my career directly after the undeniably worst excuse for a “novel” released on Steam. It goes to show how powerful and polarizing the genre is, and I am far from over with everything else that comes this year. Yet now I’m at another impossible crossroads where I have to measure the effects of censorship against the positive impact it has on storytelling. Where an eroge actually benefits, to positive acclaim, by having someone tell them to reign it in. I now stand up, proudly, and recommend a game to players under the strict requirement that they play it on the Nintendo Switch. I’m talking, somehow, about the cultural masterpiece of writing that is Trap Yuri Garden.

Ayanohara Academy is a private school whose location and student body are a carefully guarded secret. Set entirely for the affluent and often extended only to those who hail from influential and wealthy families, the student body is entirely made up of young men. For reasons that cannot be explained in any logical way, the inhabitants of this school participate, whole heartedly, in the practice of hyper feminizing themselves, growing out their hair, wearing girl’s uniforms, and speaking in higher, softer tones. These students become known as “traps” – a term that at least used be considered wildly offensive to transgendered people. Yet the denizens here, from faculty to the class president, use it proudly, and even posit that “trap” becomes the third sex. At this point I should remind everyone that this is a Japanese game, and things will only get weirder from here.

This is information imparted by a teacher. Which I guess makes it true. Somehow.

Our main character, Iori Kido, is the odd duck in that he has joined the school in spite of his humble beginnings. Riding on the will and testament from his late grandfather, Iori is only one of a handful of students who decline from dressing in women’s clothing. However, a rivalry with one very influential student leaves Iori with his back against the wall and only two choices: embrace the school’s dress code or face expulsion. Iori isn’t without his supporters and fans, including Reona, the only other student to regularly appear in male garb, and Mahiro, the younger sister of the head sorority on campus. So, with a bit of My Fair Lady combined with a somehow more offensive Tootsie, Iori makes a grand debut, wowing students everywhere, including the very girl who tried to get her expelled!

Let’s pause for a moment. Yuri implies it’s a homosexual love story between two women. Trap means they are, biologically, men who are putting on female garb and accouterments, and the word still feels very offensive to keep typing. So the two ideas are at odds with each other from the very beginning due to their definitions. However, the story magic of Yuri Trap Garden says that, as soon as a student of Ayanohara Academy makes the plunge into embracing the school’s tradition, the student changes, effectively transitioning from he to she. Pronouns in the game shift as soon as Iori goes full tilt, and the character herself comes to life. Much like how Ever 17 didn’t have a voice for Takeshi until you change perspectives, Iori goes from faceless, voiceless protagonist to a fully fledged heroine as soon as she dons the dress.

That…doesn’t…what? Alright, fine, let’s go with that, I guess this is how we’re moving forward.

If you take a moment and search Yuri Trap Garden, you’ll find the developers, No Strike, are especially well known for their series of eroge titles that feature adorable characters with dongs. It’s not exactly a genre that you’d find widespread across the classically family friendly Nintendo, though I suppose the number of games with the word “hentai” in the title on the eShop might belay that concept. In any case, Yuri Trap Garden is presented on the Switch with no choices that can be made, and absolutely no smut scenes, pixelated or otherwise. You do see some kisses, but those are static moments, and a couple of very close snuggling/cuddling that is frisky in nature but not offensive to the eyes. In short, you could argue that everything players expect from this sort of title have been removed, and No Strike still expects people to play it.

Now, let’s be clear that the port of Yuri Trap Garden is no half-hearted effort. While it installs rather large on the Nintendo Switch, it has been brought over with button control and touch screen alike to allow for multiple forms of interaction. The text is decently sized and doesn’t blur either in handheld mode or on the big screen. When you skip through older text (because you forgot to save like I did), it’s mostly smooth, though there’s some apparent stuttering when multiple characters are on screen at once. Lastly, the gallery does exist and gives you crisp, clean, textless photos of all special moments, though I must insist there aren’t any that are particularly salacious.

What, you’ve never brought a knife to the debutante ball for vaguely threatening and romantic reasons?

No Strike may have led with this game on the Switch for two reasons. First, the animation. While the game isn’t fully animated, a majority of the dialogue (which is superbly voiced) is accompanied by some fluid and fantastic movement from the characters speaking. Lip sync, blinking and some really refined facial changes that conveyed leagues of emotion and meaning. It brought me back to my time with Tokyo Chronos and the delightful styling that was created in the VR-port of that world. Trap Yuri Garden manages to evoke similar feelings but without the need to constantly keep adjusting the camera to keep characters in focus, and also with the added benefit of having some really adorable characters to watch deliver some of the most out of pocket lines I could have imagined.

Which brings me to my second point: Trap Yuri Garden is a good story. I’m not joking or saying this for shock value, I got invested in this world. The dialogue flows so naturally and smoothly, and the different forms of engagement, the discussion of the hierarchy of the school and the way that everything is said so matter-of-factly without any hangups on sexuality or the influence of the outside world was crazy refreshing. This was clearly developed as a fetish-style game, but, once you strip away the trappings (sorry) of a sexually driven endgame you land, instead, on something that was in the same vein as Cruel Intentions. There’s so much backbiting and planning over something very simple, and the development of the romantic attachments was endearing. Yes, it’s the classic enemies to lovers trope, but tropes exist for a reason, and that reason is it works.

Mahiro is the best secondary character ever: absolute wingman, no filter, and might actually be a girl.

You’ve only got a handful of characters throughout, but they each serve an important function in making the story cohesive and enjoyable. Everyone knows their role within the landscape of Ayanohara Academy and they play it with aplomb and finesse. There’s a teacher who clearly is underqualified to do her job, but continues to act as a comic foil. There’s the conniving sorority leader who seems to keep switching alliances if only to make things complicated. Mahiro is through and through an awesome supporter and even has some of the best one-liners both in terms of speaking a bit off the cuff and reminding everyone of the reality of the situation (namely, everyone is actually a dude). It waffles between sincerity and absurdity, but it never leans too far to take you out of the flow and that’s what makes it work, for the full duration.

Now, before you rush out to buy some things, let’s clear up a few points that did make it under the censor. There are aspects of this game that didn’t make me thrilled. For one, this very anime centric game also decides to lean into the weirdness of incestuous monikers and titles. I was never thrilled with men getting a kick out of their girlfriend/female friends calling them big brother, so it wasn’t my favorite that, more than once, people were getting wildly flustered by gaining the nickname big sister. I could go ahead and copy and paste my dissertation on why Japan has normalized different degrees of incest, but this isn’t the time or the place (the correct answer is Waffle House in Raleigh, NC at 2 AM). Just know that it happens, it specifically happens to the main character, and it’s freaking weird.

It’s a moment where I want to hit my Switch with a rolled up newspaper.

Additionally, there is a cliffhanger ending to Trap Yuri Garden, which might be one of the big reasons that we’re getting a Switch release. I personally enjoy my stories being wrapped up in neat little packages (poor choice of words) and having the conclusion be final, if not always happy. It feels a little smug on the part of No Strike to be aware they’ve concocted a winning formula and want to tantalize players into getting a taste before begging for more. Once I hit the ending, I realized the whole journey was fully kinetic and I never got to make a single choice about my wardrobe, dialogue or otherwise, and it was a little disarming. I prefer to have a bit more interaction with my games, otherwise I really am just reading, and I can do that without needing to hold my Switch for four full hours.

Having said that…I’m here for it. I’m seriously invested in the story of Trap Yuri Garden and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. It’s gorgeously animated, it’s really well written, it’s funny, romantic and sexy, and it’s just one long, confusing version of She’s All That. The voice actresses are impeccable, the pacing is magnificent and there’s nothing about it that is too charged or perverse. Sure, maybe people get a bit too into eating sometimes, and there’s a weird thing with a foot that you’ve probably seen in the screenshots, but that’s as far as it goes. In the end, it’s a romantic and bizarre tale that kept me locked in from start to finish. Now for the hardest part: recommending it to others and hoping I either don’t need to explain the title or that I can explain it before they cut me out of their lives.

Trap Yuri Garden is available now on Steam, GOG, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Trap Yuri Garden was provided by the publisher.