You’ve taken part in the grand soiree, and now you’re after the real prize.
It may have become apparent to you that while you can effectively complete Tokimeki Memorial by simply making it to the end of high school by any means necessary, you haven’t truly beaten it unless you’ve successfully won over one of its girls, and you furthermore have not achieved its most difficult victory without seeing the ending with central character Shiori Fujisaki.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s quite fine either way. You obviously don’t need to get that ending to enjoy the game to its fullest, as your choice of girl is a matter of personal taste. You’re not a lesser player for not having done it. However, for those who prefer Shiori, or simply wish to rise to the challenge, read on.
It’s true that Shiori is the most difficult girl to pursue. You can go into the game with a reasonably thorough understanding of its mechanics and quirks and still fail. Such was my experience on my first playthrough. Unfortunately, even if you read through the game’s wonderful instruction manual, have some prior familiarity with the game from a spectator’s point of view, and generally just have a good head on your shoulders, it’s highly likely that you will overlook something in a blind run. However, this doesn’t mean you’re overmatched. I was able to retool my approach and achieve her ending on my second run, and I think anyone can get there without a high degree of metagaming or other abuse.
As such, this article is geared toward those who have already completed the game at least once. Furthermore, this approach is intended for those who still wish to do most of the work under their own power without knowing things like every single best dialogue option or exactly which date spots will trigger unique events. These principles helped me to succeed without reloading saves very often (about two or three times to my recollection) and without much poring-over of technical guides at all. I do recommend staggering your save files to at least one extra slot and alternating between them, especially if you’re about a third of the way in and are reasonably happy with your progress.
Let’s first talk about the required statistics you’ll need by endgame. This is only about as nitty-gritty as I want to get, but it’s important. By and large, I believe this is the toughest aspect to balance, as while you require everything in abundance for Shiori, stats are also what cause new girls to come out of the woodwork. Furthermore, if you don’t understand some of the finer points of the system, you may find it difficult to even elevate your numbers to begin with. Here were my endgame stats in my Shiori run:
My stats here are each about 7–15 points above what are commonly accepted to be her benchmarks, with the exception of athleticism (運動) because I needed to exercise quite a bit to get my determination (根性) up to par in the last couple months. It’s common to end up with a monster stat and a dwarfed 根性 value like this, so don’t feel like you’re necessarily doing anything wrong if you also end up with crooked values. Also, don’t spend too much time thinking about the fact that I made my nickname “BBPM.” To make sure you reach these levels by the end of the game, you must keep a few things in mind:
- You can take advantage of the club system to give yourself a “custom” sort of activity for stats you consider to be a problem.
Identify a stat that gives you trouble and try to find a club that makes things easier, hopefully while helping out in another area. As you can see, I joined the fine arts club, which was actually Ayako’s club. You can do some math to manipulate the birthday system and put Shiori in whatever club you want, but know that it’s not strictly necessary, especially if you know Shiori’s preferences well enough already. - Sundays (日) and odd holidays give you the biggest and most drawback-free boosts out of anything.
These are also the only times when you are able both to make phone calls and schedule dates, so surely you see the issue here. Make sure to make time for both, as you can’t hit all Shiori’s targets without using some off days for personal improvement. Keep in mind that you’re going to need more Sundays for phone calls later on in the game and try to take advantage of the stat boosts early on. But know that this attracts more girls earlier on. - You will want to 休養 (rest) more than anything else, both to make sure you have a respectable 体調 value by endgame and to make sure some other unique problems don’t arise.
I have not experimented thoroughly with the effects of high and low values of 体調 on stat-building, but a minor amount of empirical evidence seems to suggest that letting your physical health stay on the low side hurts your gains. I assume the same would be true of having a high stress value. One thing I do know for sure is that keeping your 体調 high ensures that you start with a high HP value in the random battles you can encounter in places like the class trip and date spots. These aren’t mandatory to beat, but they’re fun and assumedly net you some sort of date bonus if you do. I’m also fairly sure that having more 体調 acts as a buffer in case your club-mate accidentally gives you food poisoning. - I’m reasonably confident you have some wiggle room in regard to benchmarks, but don’t push it.
In a different playthrough, I won Nozomi with numbers that seemed woefully inadequate given what other people have said her benchmarks are. Shiori may not be as forgiving, or things like university may influence different girls in this way. So just know that it’s not necessary a death knell if you are a bit short on something, but don’t seek to take advantage of it. - Make sure you keep up with general academics consistently throughout the game.
You can neglect some stats until the end, but it’d be best to make sure you’re always keeping the study-related stats reasonably high throughout the game, as this allows you to climb the academic ladder throughout the years and thus be able to get into a first-rate university at the end. I’m not absolutely certain whether you need to do this progressively throughout the game or whether you can beef up right near the end, but I have strong feelings that it’s the former.
Now, let’s talk about the game’s other girls and the obstacles they present in a Shiori run, starting with the ones you will absolutely not be able to avoid:
- Yumi Saotome (早乙女優美)
She will appear at the beginning of the second school year, no exceptions. She is fairly easy to read and manage, but also very persistent and quick to turn on you if you spurn her. Her 💣 can go off quickly if left unattended. Note that you do not need to use a phone call to Yoshio to be able to call Yumi once she’s introduced. - Megumi Mikihara (美樹原愛)
She will appear at some point in any Shiori run that’s going reasonably well; the only question is when. You can delay her somewhat by not getting into the second Christmas party. She is not overly difficult to manage either, though she has a couple interesting wrinkles. Not typically an aggressive 💣 thrower. - Yuko Asahina (朝日奈夕子)
She is not strictly unavoidable, but you will probably not be able to avoid her because general knowledge (雑学) is the one stat you can’t help but raise. The good news is that she’s even easier to manage than Yumi and slightly less persistent, but you still shouldn’t underestimate her 💣 potential. - Mio Kisaragi (如月未緒), Yuina Himoo (紐緒結奈), and Ayako Katagiri (片桐彩子)
As the academics, you will probably end up with at least one of them in the mix, if not all three. Mio and Ayako are fairly easy to read and slow to 💣 (Ayako seems to do it a bit more readily), while Yuina is more of a wild card. Her personality is much more idiosyncratic, and she can be tough to schedule dates with. Try to put off her entry into the game as long as possible. - Yukari Koshiki (古式ゆかり), Nozomi Kiyokawa (清川望), and Saki Nijino (虹野沙希)
The athletically oriented girls are, in my opinion, easier to avoid because there’s no pressing need for the stats they require. If you trigger any of them, it’ll probably be Yukari because she partially works off the appearance (容姿) stat, which you might want to keep fairly high if you intend on getting into the Christmas parties. They are not terribly problematic, though they can be persistent, and Nozomi is somewhat atypical. - Mira Kagami (鏡魅羅)
If you run into her, you boosted your appearance (容姿) far too highly and quickly. You can keep it relatively high without ever running into her.
I was able to win Shiori while juggling seven other girls (Yumi, Megumi, Yuko, Mio, Yuina, Ayako, and Yukari), but it gets dicey at that stage. Don’t neglect your long-term stat-boosting, but don’t trigger too many girls too early on by boosting one stat up to a level where it causes one girl to appear, then immediately moving on to another stat that’s going to make another girl come out of hiding. Note that spending enough time using a club action will eventually trigger that club’s girl no matter what, even if you spend some time letting your stats drop back down a bit between sessions.
As far as how you manage them month-to-month is concerned, I would say that it’s easier and simpler to give at least somewhat positive responses to pretty much every girl who asks and possibly tank them at the end rather than to hot-and-cold them. If they want you walk home with you, let it happen. If they ask you out, say yes unless you have something you absolutely need to schedule as soon as possible for a more pressing reason. If you’re out on a date with one of them, don’t be a jerk—try to give what you think is the neutral or positive response, though bear in mind that there are a couple girls who are turned off by yes-men. When you need to schedule dates with girls other than Shiori, try to choose date spots that seem to have no relation to that particular girl, positive or negative. This usually results in a greater abundance of available neutral responses. Having to build them up and break them down constantly rather than just dealing with slight changes every so often is not only less stressful, it will also make you feel less like a psychopath.
The game gives you more freebies than you might think. Always bear in mind that having a 💣 go off is unequivocally worse than missing a single random romantic opportunity with your target girl. Bombs are deadly on their own and quickly turn into compound issues. With that said, such freebies can occasionally be used on other girls as stopgaps without ruining your run. It’s not the end of the world if a girl you’re not interested in shows up on the school trip or strongarms you into a date at a bad time. I even gave a bad response or two to Shiori during my successful run. Just keep it to a minimum and roll with the small failures as you secure the long game.
One thing: I’m not sure whether qualifying for Shiori at the game’s end makes her override other girls who are also sitting at the highest affection state, so if it’s around February of 1998 and you have a chance to take any other girls down a peg, I would consider going for it at that point just to be safe. They can still conjure bombs at that point, but they probably won’t go off in time.
With all that said, we can talk about Shiori more in a vacuum and how to make sure she reaches the highest affection stage by the end of the game:
- You’ll want to get out of her initial “meh” stage as quickly as possible so that she’ll start walking home with you.
Shiori is the one of the only girls who will consistently decline to be walked home from the outset, which is a problem, because walking home with girls is a valuable free action that gives easy points and delays bombs. The best way to get out of this zone is to hound her with date offers to the concert hall from the outset of the game, as it hosts her favorite kind of music (classical) at the very beginning. This is especially important with Shiori because you will run into her more often outside of school than any other girl, even though Yumi makes up a lot of ground quickly… - She can still 💣 even though you’re childhood friends.
You cannot neglect her simply because you feel like you’re well on track with her. She can and will go off, though not particularly aggressively or quickly. - There is never a reason not to give her the most positive answers to everything.
This pretty much goes for any girl you’re trying to win over, but it’s worth stating. Remember that the girls you pursue—including Shiori—will eventually start asking you on dates themselves, and you’ll want to always say yes to these, especially since they will often ask you to date spots where they’re going to trigger a unique event. - If you’re not feeling confident, you can play with the birthday system (and probably blood type) to give yourself more of an edge.
You can trigger some additional unique events with Shiori if you give her and yourself the same birthday and have it fall on a holiday in some year, and there is probably some similar gameplay element associated with blood types (which is treated sort of like astrological signs in Japanese culture), though I’ve not heard of anything like that. I find this kind of a hassle, and didn’t need it in my playthrough. It may be helpful, however, to place her birthday strategically in a spot where you might need a relatively easy affection boost/bomb delayer during the year, which can substitute for a date in a pinch (I find gift-giving pretty intuitive). Just remember that her birthday also determines her club, in case you’re trying to plan that as well. - You can consider Shiori to be something of a middle-ground compared to other girls in terms of how dialogue options affect her mood, generally speaking.
Her Yoshio bio should give you most of what you need to figure out her disposition and tastes, but pay attention to the subtler details of her personality. She is intelligent, but can still be sweet-talked much of the time. She is cultured, but can appreciate life’s simpler delights. She is something of a free-thinker, but may still have stereotypically narrow opinions. She can enjoy a smattering of the more off-kilter activities, though not too wild, by and large.
I hope these tips allow for a relatively informed attempt at Shiori that doesn’t interfere too heavily with player agency. Keep in mind that a lot of this is based on empirical study of my own and may not be unfailingly accurate from a technical standpoint. This game—like many Japanese games—has numerous elements of random chance and quasi-gambling. It’s possible that some parts of my own playthrough cannot be reliably replicated, so keep your eyes open for patterns that other players (myself included) might have missed. Most importantly, have fun, and don’t agonize too heavily over every last decision.
End Cutscene (Spoilers)
If you’ve successfully won Shiori’s heart by the end of the game, congratulations. If you aren’t able to hear what she’s saying (via a voice-acted version of the game), or it goes by too quickly for your comprehension level, I’ve transcribed and translated the scene as I did with the opening cutscene. As with that translation, know that this one is not always literal:
「し、詩織…。
“Sh, Shiori…”
「ごめんなさい。こんな所に呼び出したりして。今日、あなたにどうしても言いたいことがあって…。
“I’m very sorry, to call you to a place like this. There was something I just had to say to you, today…”
「言いたいことって、何？
“What is it?”
「私ね、今まで男の子と付き合ったことがないの…。でも、興味がなかった訳じゃないのよ。私だって、男の子と付き合ってみたかったし、ラブレターだって何通も貰ったこともあるわ。でも、どうしても付き合う気になれなかったの。
“I’ve never really gone steady with a boy, to this point in my life… I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t interested in the idea. I know people probably think one thing, with the boys I hang out with, the love letters I get. But, none of them were quite what I was looking for.”
「ど、どうして？
“W, why not?”
「あなたが…。あなたがそばにいてくれたから…。今まで、あなたの事を、ただの幼馴染みだと思ってた…。ううん、きっとあなたに、私の本心を悟られるのが怖くて、そう思い込んでいたのかもしれない。でも、卒業する今…、離れ離れになるかもしれない、今になってやっと、この気持ちに気づいたの…。恥ずかしくて、逃げたい気分だけど、もう、ただの幼馴染みじゃ嫌…。一人の女の子として、私だけを見つめてほしいから、勇気を出して言います…。好きです…。世界中の誰よりもあなたが、好きです…。
“It’s… you. It’s because I realized… I had you, by my side, all along. Until now, I’d only thought of you as my childhood friend. I was wrong… it was always you, I just may have been afraid to realize my true feelings, somehow. But now that graduation is here, I feel like maybe I can step back a little, and see it more clearly… I feel ashamed, and want to just run away, but I don’t want to just be ‘childhood friends’ anymore. So I’ve called upon the courage, to stand before you now, and hope that you might see me not as that girl, but… me, who I am now… I love you… more than anyone else, in the whole world…”
「実を言うと…。俺も詩織のことが…。
“When you say that… I feel the same way, Shiori…”
「あ、あれ…？嬉しいはずなのに涙が出てきちゃった。本当に本当に、信じていいのね。
“R, really…? I should be happy… why am I crying? Can my eyes not believe what I’ve just heard?”
「もちろんだよ。好きだよ、詩織。
“Believe it. I love you, Shiori.”
「嬉しい…。いつまでも私のことを、離さないでね…。
“I’m so happy… please, don’t ever let me go…”
(Technically, when she says the part I translated as “I’ve called upon the courage,” she’s speaking in the present tense. However, I was very pleased with the callback to a certain part on New Year’s Day 1998 where Shiori can tell you she prayed for courage if you’re on track to win her heart, which players might not necessarily see.)
Dinklations 