Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome

I have a two-step process to confirm if Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome is the right otome for you.

First, I must inform you the game contains body negativity and name-calling. The heroine is called sow, pig, etc., as Saito tries to goad her into dieting. He also calls her a bitch a few times. She refers to herself as “slant-eyed” on multiple occasions. If you can tolerate this, go to the next step.

Now, I will need you to view the following image, which contains shameless nudity. Please be advised this image may be disturbing to more sensitive viewers.

Still game? Okay, let’s get to it. FLML is best described as an irreverent parody that occasionally breaks the fourth wall. It has two main routes and a third unlockable 3P route. The heroine, Ema, is a tall recluse who wants to eat pizza and be left alone, but when she crosses paths with two handsome guys, one who claims she is his “muse” and is obsessed with designing clothes for her, and another who demands that she let him be her producer, she can’t get a moment of peace. They won’t leave her alone until she agrees to be their model, and then the real torture starts as they whip her into shape and force her to wear embarrassing clothing.

I’m a fast reader and the first playthrough took about 5 hours at my usual reading speed. The script is funny and I laughed quite a bit. The VAs are great but it’s Japanese-only dialogue. The art is pretty meh. A significant portion of the game is the common route, which limits replayability (using skip I was able to play through the two remaining routes in about 2 hours). I wish there was more route-specific content. Each guy gets two epilogues at least.

I enjoyed the bad endings (started angling for those on purpose early-on), the localization is excellent and the VAs are fun. While Ema is a different type of otome heroine, a lot of otome/Romance tropes are in evidence. We still have situations where Ema is being carried/dragged around, sometimes literally, by the LIs. Her autonomy is limited. The LIs routinely discuss her as if she’s not standing right there with them. A fair bit of gender essentialism. You know the drill. The 3P is a het no-one-is-really-happy setup (I guess it’s a menage, IDK what the terminology is).

The h-patch is available on MangaGamer for free and there’s a Steam guide on how to install it. You have to have a MG account to download it. Originally I passed on the patch so whenever I reached a sex scene it simply faded to black. This was fine, but could be a little disorienting at times because the MC would say something like, “And then he asked me to do something I never thought I’d do!” And it jumps to the next scene and I’m like–wait, wait–wait, what did you guys do? I installed the h-patch but found the scenes kind of hilarious/squicky. Definitely YMMV on the h scenes, you can totally play without or can disable them from the main menu once the patch is installed.

One of the guys is supposed to be the “sadist” and the other the “masochist”. The masochist has a scene I enjoyed way more than I should have, where the heroine uses him for a step for step aerobics, but after dangling that tantalizing bit the route never really went where I hoped it would. Overall I think I liked Saito’s route best, it was funniest and I’m a sucker for short-guy tall-girl, but I played the censored version of the route so I can’t comment on the h scenes. I will probably do another reading-speed playthrough at some point to snag the few endings I missed. It’s not perfect, or even really for me, but I definitely enjoyed it and would be happy to play more games like this.