Towa is the protagonist of Nitro+Chiral’s 2021 BLVN Slow Damage. When he isn’t working part-time as a receptionist in his friend’s clinic or downing lukewarm alcohol from one of the bottles strewn about his floor, he’s an artist who goes by the name “euphoria”, painting his model’s deepest desires. Why don’t you go and meet him yourself?
In late 2023 or thereabouts, I was scrolling through my Tumblr dashboard when I saw an announcement for the Towa Blood Transfusion figure. In Kamikaze Girls, Momoko says that when she saw a Baby the Stars Shine Bright dress for the first time, her old self was instantly shot dead and she was born anew. I now understand what she went through, because that's what happened to me when I saw the art that now illustrates this page. Those scars. The blood. The hair which I mistook for silver-colored. I wanted to reach my hands through the screen. I wouldn't call it falling in love, but it's certainly one of the loveliest things I've ever seen.
I didn't know much (if anything) about BL before then, but I never felt like I was missing out on something—until I met Towa.
Now it's been two years, I've played all of the main 5 Nitro+Chiral VNs (and contrary to what you might expect, Slow Damage was actually my third) and discovered the pleasures of fujoing out, all thanks to the path this one image set me on.
Towa is a character who kept constantly surprising me. It feels like he(and by extension, the whole VN) was designed in a lab to drive me insane in particular. Throughout the game I just kept falling, and falling—and in the end, I wanted to reach my hands through the screen just as much. I hope I remain entranced by him for years to come (and that I'm able to get my hands on this figure, someday…)
