Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- was first released by Lump of Sugar as an adult visual novel back in 2008. Approximately 17 years on, it’s been partially remastered and released as an all-ages title both on PC and Nintendo Switch as kawaiinium’s first release as a brand.
Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- was followed by a fandisc, sequel, and even an anime series, which is certainly a good sign. Between that and having enjoyed Lump of Sugar’s previously localized title, I decided to give it a try.
Together with Tayutai
Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- follows Yuri Mito, who at first seems to be a fairly average guy other than being the son of a Shrine’s priest and a little too obsessed with motorcycles. But soon enough, he finds himself wrapped up in an incident where more comes to light.
A relic is found nearby which turns out to be a cocoon where 15,000 types of spirit-like creatures called tayutai are sealed but are slowly leaking out. Kikuramikami no Hime, the powerful tayutai who sealed them, decides to reincarnate herself in a more human-like form to pursue her goal of coexistence between humans and tayutai.
An incident occurs and they all escape, including the ‘Three Mightiest’ who are known to be incredibly dangerous. This leaves Yuri, now revealed to have some power that works against tayutai, the reincarnation of Kikuramikami no Hime, and his friends to work together and not only protect the city but to pursue the goal of coexistence.
What makes life even more difficult is a variety of personal struggles. The reincarnation, now named Mashiro, suddenly claims she wants to be Yuri’s wife. They’re facing accusations about the incident by a young upper-class lady from the connected girls’ school. Both his childhood friend and adopted sister seem to be acting oddly too.
This starts an adventure with a good mix of action, comedy, and romance. The plot takes us through clashes with the ‘Three Mightiest’ with some great (if brief) action moments along the way, and plenty of amusing misunderstandings.
Personal Clashes
Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- is not a story where everyone always gets along nicely, even when they’re friends. Coexistence is a theme, so perhaps it’s appropriate that we see straight away that values differ and characters have differing thoughts on situations.
I thought this was used well for both humor and drama, as well as showing other sides to the characters. Mashiro is one of the earliest examples of this, where we see a very different attitude to how romance works. As well, she typically comes across as very sweet but can occasionally throw out some poisonous words, and we see how set in her ways she can be.
Ameri, the childhood friend, is perhaps the most serious case of this. She has a long past with Yuri, and while she comes across as irreverent, quick to snap, and more interested in fun than anything, there are a lot of feelings behind all of it to unpack. Her part of the story reinforces the idea of different opinions existing, which I did appreciate, but it’s one of my least favorite sections due to how Ameri treats certain characters in spite of the reasons behind her behavior.
Mifuyu, the upper-class young lady, clashes with others on the way to handle a certain incident. Exploring the reasons behind this is an interesting story and involves a level of ideals versus reality. She’s also slow to warm up to Yuri and has to keep her position in mind, which leads to its own conflicts.
Yumina, the adopted younger sister, is the exception to a point. Her story still involves conflict, but she’s kind and shy, not the type to be getting into arguments. Instead, there’s more of a focus on pursuing happiness. It was a nice message and had an ending that I didn’t expect but enjoyed.
Over and Over…
I enjoyed reading through Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- quite a lot at first. It has some exciting action, funny interactions, and some great character moments. Unfortunately, my enjoyment started going down after the first read, and this is due to how its structure works.
While heroine routes are accessed via choices as typical (see our guide/walkthrough for more on that), the vast majority of each heroine’s route is an almost exact copy of the other routes.
Each heroine has a section of the story that is tied to one of the ‘Three Mightiest’ and these appear in every route, just in a different order. So if you choose Ameri, her section will be first, then Yumina’s, then Mifuyu’s. In this example, the Ameri section is very slightly expanded to see things from her point of view as compared to viewing it via another heroine’s route. Outside of the selected heroine’s route, there are some differences between versions of the scenes, but a lot of them boil down to minor variations like adding in a line for the heroine here and there, which are often taken from another character.
It does insert a handful of heroine-specific scenes that develop the relationship, but the majority of the time is taken up by these repeated main sections. It also ends each route with a new section for each heroine, which focuses on the romance and wrapping up any issues.
A New Release for 2025
This is the first time that Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- has been released internationally and is kawaiinium’s first release as a brand, though Abracadabra Inc (the localization firm) and Frontier Works Inc (the developer) have both been involved in visual novel releases before. As such, release quality and decisions made are of interest.
Firstly, it’s worth noting that Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- includes English, Japanese, and Chinese languages. While I can’t comment too much on accuracy, there are at least occasional issues.
A handful of phrases were presumably copied and placed erroneously, as phrases like ‘What limit’ and ‘Coming’ popped up in places that didn’t make sense. Going back to the repeated scene issue above, there were also instances where a line was seemingly copied from another variation of a scene. Occasional typos, line break problems, and similar issues occurred too.
Still, it reads well for the most part. This refers to version 1.00, so hopefully a future patch will address these issues.
Honorifics are retained in the English version. I was pleased to see this, as while I don’t mind if it’s kept simple, there’s always the worry that terms like ‘onii-chan’ are replaced with unusual names.
In terms of more general changes, outside of the graphics, the user interface is more or less the same as the original 2008 version of Tayutama. This means there is a ‘return to previous choice’ button, but unfortunately not a ‘go to next choice’ button. There are also no Steam achievements or other extras included, which is a pity.
All-Ages Changes
As mentioned, the 2025 release of Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- is an all-ages release, which is no surprise since it’s releasing on Nintendo Switch as well as PC. How this is handled is always a concern, so I booted up my copy of the original Tayutama (2008) and checked it out as I played the new one.
Tayutama (2025) has some scenes that end rather suddenly, to the point of occasionally being jarring. At times, it was implied things happened off-screen. For the most part, this is just how it’s written and there was no missing content in most of the instances that I checked.
With that said, there were some cases where it was missing content. For example, Mashiro loses much of her power at one point and becomes smaller. In the 2025 version, she’s suddenly bigger in the next scene. What happened in the 2006 version was a H-scene with a smaller Mashiro where she regained her power. It’s not particularly surprising that this was cut and even the implication wasn’t kept in considering that she appears to be very young at this time. There are other instances where even some conversations around H-scenes are removed and it feels like too much was cut back. While I understand cuts are necessary, it’s a pity that this isn’t a more elaborate re-release where replacement scenes are included to connect these.
Fortunately, the central plot-related moments are kept in. A couple of CGs are heavily covered with white and black ‘fog’, but the events still happen. It’s also not hidden that sex does happen off-screen and it even includes one scene that I was surprised made it into the 12+ rating shown on the Japanese eShop.
Partially Remastered
Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- has been partially remastered, with the original 4:3 aspect ratio CGs and backgrounds cropped to 16:9 and upscaled. These do look good for the most part, though a charm point of her character design (the animal ears) is cut off-screen due to this on occasion, which is minorly disappointing.
The user interface doesn’t help here by cutting off even more of the screen, as there’s a top bar that repeats the buttons on the bottom bar. Luckily this can be slid to the side and mostly removed.
Some of the action CGs are particularly striking and others are used well to highlight emotional moments. Animated overlays are occasionally used to add some movement to create more excitement in training and action scenes too. Cut-in CGs also slide on screen quickly which works well to make scenes feel more dynamic.
Aside from one side character (Takayama), I felt like all the character’s voices suited them and the performances sounded good.
Verdict
Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity- is a story worth experiencing and has some great moments. Unfortunately, its structure makes experiencing all of its routes less than ideal, and it would have benefitted from a more comprehensive re-release. Still, I certainly enjoyed my first read quite a lot, and the new scenes in subsequent routes were ones I enjoyed.
TATUYAMA -KISS ON MY DEITY- IS RECOMMENDED
Guide: Click Here
Want to check out more visual novels? Why not check out our review of Angelic☆Chaos RE-BOOT!? We have also covered a wide variety of visual novels both original to English and localized from Japanese, which you can check out here.
Many thanks go to kawaiinium for a PC review code for this title.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
