Mr. Saitou

Steam game poster

**Mr. Saitou** is a 2023 Japanese-American adventure game developed by Laura Shigihara under Morizora Studios, using the RPG Maker XP program. A follow-up of *Rakuen*, the game follows the titular salaryman, in a brink of endless overtime and social isolation, who ended up hospitalized and wakes up in the magical world, becoming himself a llamaworm.

Unlike her debut, **Mr. Saitou** is a short game took over two hours to play.

## Gameplay

*Mr. Saitou* is a story-focused adventure game, with the player controls Mr. Saitou. Like *Rakuen*, it doesn't feature combat system, instead focusing on exploration and dialogue. There are also some simple arcade and puzzle challenges that add more variety to the gameplay.

## Plot

Set in the same world as her game debut, it tells the story of the titular salaryman, an overworked middle-aged Japanese salaryman suffering due to constant overtime and social isolation. One day, he gets into an accident, being hospitalized in serious condition. He meets Brandon, a boy who likes to draw a species called Llamaworms and also makes friendship bracelets. He promptly names the Llamaworm he has drawn Saitou, then draws more, naming them all Saitou, apart from the one wider than the others, which named "Widetou".

After Brandon leaves, Mr. Saitou loses consciousness and wakes up in a meeting room surrounded by co-workers and his boss with a presentation to give. Also, he and everyone else is now a Llamaworm, realized that the real world was transformed into a strange magical land imagined by Brandon. After Saitou is out of bed, he collects seven metrics for his boss before turning in these metrics and going to an after-work drinks gathering despite very much not wanting to.

The next day, Mr. Saitou wakes up to find a strange flower bud, realized the bud is Brandon, in his apartment, informs him about Minimori, as well as their larger versions Megamori and Gigamori, are gormless-looking birds that plop down wherever they like eating worms, as just for example is him. Mr. Saitou is deathly afraid of them, but Brandon helps him out to get rid of the Minimori for Saitou. Brandon is on a mission to find the Flooded Gemstone Caverns near where Mr. Saitou lives. Seeing as Mr. Saitou has already slept in and missed his presentation; he offers to help Brandon enter the caverns.

To reach the caverns, they have to help Archaeolotou to enter the final gate at the center as a quest, only must to build his Minimori café and explores the caverns with Brandon, where they can solve strange puzzles, governed by gigantic and seemingly sentient calculators on the walls of some caverns involving Sphinx of Math, and must find varying sizes of Minimori in the networks of caves, then bring them back out to sit on their corresponding stones for Archaeolotou. They encountered a friendly foot, granted permission for them to enter the Kinoko Matsuri Club by dressed up as Lil Budz. As they entered the club, it was shown inside the club is actually a concert.

After all the quest solved, the final gate is finally open, and which finds out a large room full of beautiful crystals filled inside. Brandon informs one of the people he met at his grandmother's work was the elderly Mr. Sasaki, said that he only regrets he ever had was he never biked Lumen Rock Canyon, only something special find at night where the stones turn brightly. After that, they returned home by train station.

He wakes up in a real world without Brandon, Saitou informs to doctors that he stands too close to the tracks as a train approaches the station led his accident. As Saitou nearly leaves the hospital, the doctor said that one of the patients was Brandon took him all afternoon to make it and leaves with Brandon's drawing he dreamt for Saitou. The game ends as the post-credit art shown Saitou and Brandon eating biscuits together.

## Development

Following *Rakuen*'s success, Shigihara eventually developed a "follow-up" game shared with her animated episodic web-series shortly without possibly respond any post on social media, led her to privacy towards her video game development. Toby Fox was credited in the game as a composer, shared with her.

In Feburary 2023, Mr. Saitou's demo was released in a limited time as a part of Steam Next Fest.

## Trivia

* One of the characters, Sunflower from *Plants vs. Zombies*, appeared in the game as a part of the band in Kinoko Matsuri Club.
	+ Sunflower's character became a cultural icon for Shigihara, known for her appearance with the character as a vocal work and songwriter in PvZ's Zombies on Your Lawn.
* Mr. Saitou's human sprite, designed by Shigihara, was based on the sixth and current president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa.
	+ Due to Saitou's character and "dead-ringing" appearance of Furukawa, Shigihara foreshadows the idea of porting the game into Nintendo Switch shared with *Rakuen*, under the name **Rakuen - Deluxe Edition**.
* "llamaworm" is a combination of "llama" and "worm".

## References

1. ↑ This single-serving Ghibli-esque adventure about work and worms will warm your heart | PC Gamer
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mr. Saitou - PC | gamepressure.com
3. ↑ Mr. Saitou Review – Try Not to Cry Llamaworm Edition (msn.com)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 RPGs Coming This Week, 3/19/23 | RPGFan
5. ↑ You will love Mr. Saitou, even if he’s a llamaworm (destructoid.com)