How My Junior High and Senior High School Crushes Inspired a Playable Character and a Boss in the Original Chuhou Joutai

The original Chuhou Joutai game has two female characters that go by the names of Kagami Ochiai and Ayako Sugiwara respectively. The former is a playable character, and the latter is a boss. What may be a surprise to you is they are based on the first two crushes I had in junior high and senior high school.

The Inspiration Behind Ayako Sugiwara

Ayako Sugiwara is based on my junior high school crush. We were good friends; she was in my fourth and fifth grade classes respectively. We were there during the three years of junior high. That is, until after graduation. In the year before graduation, our relationship wasn’t as good as it once was. Why?

We were both avid gamers. I was really into Mario Kart, and I can be considered a champion at the game. I mastered it as much as anyone else could. It is definitely one of those games that can sever a relationship. Same thing could go for Mario Party. In fact, WatchMojo ranked it as the number one that can damage a relationship. In fact, she refused to go to the same high school I went to, leading to the end of our relationship.

This ultimately became the basis for Ayako Sugiwara’s character in the Chuhou Joutai series. She was Susumu Takajima’s first girlfriend when they were in junior high school, but broke up after graduating from junior high school. In addition, she had also turned herself into the dark side by joining the Shintoist Province and Scarlet Devil of Team Crimson.

The Inspiration Behind Kagami Ochiai

Kagami Ochiai is, in fact, based on my senior high school crush. We only knew each other for a year; she ended up flunking out after her mother lost her job and was outsourced across the country. Unlike my first crush, she was not as much of a gamer as I was, neither was she into anime and manga. We were both in my high school’s theatre program, inspiring the idol side of Kagami. I played in the orchestra, while she sang.

What inspired Kagami’s royal side was when we went to prom that year, her sister commented that “she would truly be Driller’s princess that night”. I sort of thought of her as “my true love”. But that was short-lived. I can compare it to the typical scenario where you end up meeting and falling in love with a girl over a temporary relationship.

When I created the original Chuhou Joutai, I wanted this character to be the focal point of the game. My aim with the Chuhou Joutai saga would be the story of how a young boy sees this female singer roughly his age at a concert, have her become his oshi, and eventually meets her in his high school class. This would become the basis for their love story.

Afterword

I know there may be other things out in the world that I may have missed from my youth, but I’d be happy to share how I created those two female characters. That said, my memories with them are still ingrained into my brain this very day.