Say It In Red

Girl.
Did you see that thread? The one from the journalist who caught a ghost in their car? Oh shit was that fake??? omfg no whaaaaaat? Damn I really thought that was real... because like, you know... if ghosts don't exist, then how are you texting me back all these years after you died?

This month, Runa and Sara seek out urban myths and bring each case to its inevitable dissolution in Urban Myth Dissolution Center (2025). The game opens strong with pixelated, highly dithered graphics of famous UFO and sasquatch photographs while asking the question, much as the old Animal Planet series Lost Tapes, 'Do these urban legends walk among us?' We follow Azami Fukurai, a college student who sees strange and unnerving red ghosts around her wherever she goes. Seeking a cure to her affliction, she responds to a flyer for the Urban Myth Dissolution Center - an occult organization that promises to uncover the truth behind any supernatural or paranormal happening. There, she meets center director Ayumu Meguriya, who greets her from his wheelchair while a terrifying red specter hovers in the air behind him. After a brief introduction to the game's mechanics by way of identifying and then dissolving the urban myth of The Chair That Kills You, Azami finds herself coerced into working for the UMDC as an investigator. By wearing a special pair of glasses, she's able to focus her power of Clairvoyance and witness the traces of people and events that linger in a space. Together with her investigation partner, Jasmine, Azami must work for the center until she can repay the director for breaking his cursed chair and uncover the truth behind the urban myths she encounters.
Unrelated but, do you ever make a really nice soup and adjust the flavors so precisely, only to decide at the end to pour a bottle of bleach in for its bracing tartness? 
As always, if you enjoy our podcast please give us a rating and write a review wherever you listen, and if you'd like to hear even more Say it in Red, you can find our rich backlog of bonus episodes on patreon at patreon.com/sayitinred! Check it out now to hear our recent episode on volumes 5 and 6 of the Umineko stage plays! You could also go a bit further back to hear the episode in which Runa attempts to summarize the Baihe novel, Jing Wei Qing Shang, for Sara's amusement, and stay tuned for our upcoming bonus episode on the Umineko stage play's volume 7 performance.

Dear Listeners, 
With the news of Bioware's closure earlier this week, we wanted to release this bonus episode, originally recorded in December of 2024, in which Sara tells Runa about her experience with DA: Veilguard and both hosts talk about the impact the Dragon Age games have had on them throughout their lives. While Bioware's games were often flawed, they also connected us and sparked incredible conversations about the potential of games as narratives. As the branching narratives and deep explorations of squadmate character arcs influenced game design on a broad scale, these individual games and romance routes provided a space for players to explore their own queerness and gender. As such, please accept this small token of our appreciation and affection for a studio whose work shaped the landscape of our youth and continues to inspire us still.
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From December 2024:
In one of our timeliest bonus episodes yet, this month Sara tells Runa all about Dragon Age: Veilguard and the two of them reflect and reminisce on their history with the Dragon Age series. From its awkward early days to its experimental swings (and sometimes misses), now to its latest iteration, Sara explores the things that make Dragon Age compelling, the narrative stumbling blocks that keep coming back, and what she got out of her Veilguard experience. 
For those following along,
Here is the article Sara mentions about Alistair and the experience of modding Dragon Age: Origins to enable gay romance: https://kotaku.com/dragon-age-origins-is-the-first-game-about-gay-marriag-5602427
And here is the video we watched on air, if you'd like to watch along: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw4RdsGoGlg&t=276s

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This month, Sara and Runa discuss the stylish, melancholic, and captivating tale of Russian teens in an isolated city in Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It (2025). We follow Asya Shubina, a withdrawn and isolated girl in the strange, isolated town of Vorkuta-5 as her mind wanders to the subject of The World. The world is so cute, because it would give even a moment of consideration to insignificant gnats like humans, and so cute to contain such multitudes each day! Asya's school life is largely rudimentary, apart from the momentary bursts of hope and joy that accompany the rare appearance of Ira. Ira is a delinquent, though, a girl who hardly ever comes to school and even when she does, she skips half of her classes to smoke in the bathroom. She also threw a chair at Vadim, the boy who always bullies Asya (though Asya insists he's just doing his part to remind her of the social order of things). When Ira is declared missing, however, Asya begins to wonder - Should she tell the teachers about what she saw? That she met Ira and might have been the last person to see her? Ah, but what if that's an insignificant detail that would only trouble the teachers and would in fact cause nothing but inconvenience for everyone? so then COUNTERPOINT! What if this information is exactly the detail that would help save Ira from a terrible fate? Doesn't that oblige her to reveal this information? And so, having successfully argued against herself, Asya heads to the staff room, and there she meets Marina.
Please join us as we follow Asya on her quest to increase her own signal strength, growing powerful enough to send a message of pure love to the world that can pierce the atmosphere and resonate throughout the cosmos.
 As always, if you enjoy our podcast please give us a rating and write a review wherever you listen, and if you'd like to hear even more Say it in Red, you can find our rich backlog of bonus episodes on patreon at patreon.com/sayitinred! Check it out now to hear our recent episode in which Runa attempts to summarize the Baihe novel, Jing Wei Qing Shang, for Sara's amusement. You could also go a bit further back to hear the episode in whichSara tells Runa all about the lads of LADS (Love and Deepspace), and stay tuned for our upcoming bonus episode on the Umineko Stage Plays!

It's a beautiful day to go diving through the ocean. Come with me, embrace the salt air and the sea breeze before we plunge beneath the waves! Yes! Taste it... the thrill of adventure! The romance of the waves! The thrill of scraping an abalone free from the rocks with only a small knife and your bare hands! Experience the majesty and wonder of the pelagic world! Meet a specter in your ghostly image and experience the Memory of your own imminent death! Truly, this is the peak of summer.
This month, Sara and Runa discuss PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid's Curse (2026), released earlier this year in February as the follow-up to previous Say it in Red Subject, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. Like its predecessor, The Mermaid's Curse uses a 360 degree camera to great effect and nicely utilizes the three-dimensional space around the player as you explore its world. We begin this horror mystery visual novel with a diving mini-game, and a dangerously enjoyable one at that, as we meet our protagonist - Yuza Minakuchi. Yuza has returned to the fictional island of Kameshima, off the coast of Ise, after a long absence away on the mainland. Five years ago, his parents died and he nearly drowned in a terrible accident out at sea. He was saved, or at least so he claims, by a Mermaid, and now he's enlisted the help of his best friend Azami to find a Mermaid no matter what. Meanwhile, a pair of investigators working with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in the Paranormal Affairs division arrives in the region to quell an ancient curse, right after they solve the mystery behind a string of mysterious skeletons that have washed up from the sea floor. At the same time, a fantasy author from abroad has enlisted the help of his distant relative, a young psychic, to search for clues about mermaids and the secrets of immortality on Kameshima. Their paths all tangle together around one strange girl, Sato, who arrived on Kameshima some months ago and seems to have an odd connection to Mermaids, the Curse of Raging Waves, and perhaps even the Tale of the Heike.
A warning for listeners: While you don't need to listen to our previous Paranormasight episode to follow along here, we will drop a few spoilers for the first game throughout our discussion. Please be advised and plan accordingly.
As always, if you enjoy our podcast please give us a rating and write a review wherever you listen, and if you'd like to hear even more Say it in Red, you can find our rich backlog of bonus episodes on patreon at patreon.com/sayitinred! Check it out now to hear our recent episode in which Sara tells Runa all about the lads of LADS (Love and Deepspace), or go back a bit further to hear Runa tell Sara about storytelling in trading card games like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Magic the Gathering!

Oh Sweetie, did you have a nightmare?
Don't worry, your family is here for you. Now, just tell me everything that happened... everything you thought, everything you felt...
Hmmm, yes I see. I see...
Sweetheart, it seems that you're trapped in a time loop. Yes, I'm quite shocked as well but if you've been reliving the same day over and over, what other explanation is there? If you want to escape, you'll have to find out what's keeping you here. In fact, I've got an idea... Yes, I think this is exactly what will help you. It's time for you to grow out of this little homosexual phase of yours and think about contributing to the birth rate, darling.
This month, Sara and Runa read through Black Lily's Tale (2023), a yuri visual novel about putting gay teens through literal nightmare scenarios in order to "correct" their homosexual tendencies. It's at times horrifying and often salient in its political commentary, and though romance isn't its core focus Black Lily's Tale grounds itself in the real social forces of homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality that weigh on Japanese youth. Set in a near future timeline after a new pandemic devastated the younger generations of Japan, we quickly see the shadow of nationalist anxieties fall over our cast. In particular, the persistent fears of declining birth rates are already at critical mass in Black Lily's Tale and almost immediately, we find examples of all the new social programs aggressively promoting Marriage and Procreation.
We spend most of our time following Hana, a high school senior who is just weeks away from graduation, and her closest friends Itsuki and Aoi. While they've successfully completed their college entrance exams, Itsuki wants to make sure they all make the most out of their high school life. So, in between mandatory classes on the benefits of heterosexual marriage, the girls write out flash cards filled with things they want to do before they graduate – usually silly things like visiting pop-up shops or watching cheap shark horror movies. All of that changes when Itsuki falls into the street and gets killed by a speeding truck... and then Hana wakes up to find herself back in the previous day. Stuck in a seemingly endless loop, Hana struggles to figure out what could possibly save Itsuki from death and allow her to escape this endless nightmare. All the while, Hana's father and the nurse at her school are acting very strangely, and all of these dreams seem to suggest that Itsuki would be happier if she were dating a boy...
As always, if you enjoy our show please consider writing us a review on your podcast platform of choice! You can always support us directly on Patreon at patreon.com/sayitinred where you will get access to all of our bonus episodes past and present, including our most recent bonus episode in which Sara and Runa talk about their experience at Anime Conventions!