You have to speak two languages to understand the title of Genso Manège, but there's no denying that it suits the game well. “Genso” in Japanese roughly means “dreamlike,” while “manège” is French for carousel, so the title can be translated as “Dreamlike Carousel.” Set in a mysterious traveling carnival in either late 19th century or early 20th century France, the story plays with themes of carnivalism and haunting magic in a way I haven't seen in an otome game since the beautiful Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly.

Emma, the renamable heroine, is a seventeen-year-old living in pastoral Blancbourg. Having been orphaned seven years ago, she lives with her childhood friend Arnaud and his mother, both of whom are aware that she's a witch, albeit one who hasn't been able to use her powers since her mother died. When a traveling amusement park know as La Foire de Rêve (“the dream fair” or “the promenade of dreams”) arrives in town, Arnaud encourages her to visit it. Once there, Emma meets Hugo, the director of the park, who immediately recognizes her latent magic abilities. Hugo reveals that he and the other workers at La Foire are trapped there by magic, and he hires her to free them, promising to help her train her magic in order to do so. Each route of the game reveals a little bit more about the situation at La Foire while also exploring the history of each of the romanceable characters and their relationship to the park.

Thematically, the story digs into the literary theory of carnivalism, which explores the world turned upside down – think of the servant and king reversing their social roles, although it goes farther than that in ways beyond the scope of this review. Carnivals and festivals have long been cited as examples of inverted norms, places where the rules of reality don't apply, and Genso Manège does a good job playing with that. Rumors of missing people follow the park as something known as “the Hamelin Phenomenon,” named after the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Emma can see that there are strange things going on there: Lyon, who can't appear without his costume, the automatons that staff the booths, and the merry-go-round that looks strangely like the one her father once designed and gifted to her as a music box. Everything is just a little bit off, and that makes us question why Hugo and the others are bound to La Foire in the first place. Each route delves into it a bit more deeply, and a Grand Ending once all of the routes are complete finally delivers all of the answers. But the idea that all of this has to exist in a norm-free environment like a carnival is never left behind, and each route also explores the meaning La Foire holds for each character, including what it comes to mean for Emma.

There are six romanceable characters, five at the park and Arnaud. While there's no one best order, since the ostensible true route, Arnaud, is locked until you've played the others, leaving Hugo for last (or second-to-last, if we count Arnaud) is probably a good idea. All of the routes are very enjoyable, bittersweet in good ways, and even the ones I didn't expect to like, such as tsundere Serge, I ended up enjoying. (Admittedly, I played Serge first, since my usual method is to go with the character I don't expect to like first and work up from there.) Each route is comprised of eight chapters total, which includes the three chapters of the common route; counting the common route it's about twelve hours of playtime per romance. Each route has two endings: a bittersweet Rêve ending and a happy Romance ending. Even as someone who doesn't care for unhappy endings, I can say that the Rêve endings are well done, and actually do add a bit to the story. And given that the story of Genso Manège is a little bit sad all around, the Rêve endings don't feel uncomfortable, unnecessarily harsh, or out of left field.

All characters except Emma are voiced, and the music is lovely and unobtrusive; the only sound aspect I didn't care for was the twinkly sound effect that accompanies menu choices and the arcade-style minigame. Fortunately, the minigame is entirely skippable if you're just here for the stories and beautiful men, and even if you're as astoundingly bad at minigames as I am, it's not too difficult to play. The art is really beautiful all around, with primarily pastel shades enhancing the dreamlike feel of the park (with Arnaud's darker color scheme being nicely symbolic) and a good amount of detail in the sprites, special illustrations, and backgrounds. Emma herself isn't just a blank self-insert character, either, and she has her own issues to work through over the course of the game. She's not bursting with personality, but she's also not a cardboard cutout, which definitely helps to pull you into the game.

Genso Manège is overall a very good game. It does suffer from some of the issues plaguing otome games as a genre, such as heroes who largely slot into expected tropes and an occasional tendency towards overwriting, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing it. It's a story that understands the liminal nature of the carnival and works with it, creating a dreamlike atmosphere replete with both the joy of a funfair and the bittersweetness of knowing that our time at such places has a limit. If you're an otome game fan, you don't want to miss this one.