Truth be told, I don’t know much about the world of doujinshi and fanfics, but the idea of publishing your own stories, releasing zines and managing a factory in a game seemed really appealing to me. Hence, I gave “Sensei! I Like You So Much!” an honest try and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of care and attention to detail that was put into it!
Developer: Lao0 Studio
Publisher: Erabit, Infini Fun
Genre: Indie, Visual Novel, Business Simulator
Release Date: August 5th, 2025
Reviewed on: PC
Available on: PC
Copy was provided by StridePR.
In “Sensei! I Like You So Much!”, you’re a fanfic author who never published their stories to the world until one fateful day when you left your hard drive behind at uni – and an unlikely friend emerged to give you the little push you needed to publish the very same stories you wrote. From there, you’re thrust into the world of fandom culture, complete with followers, commissions, conventions, and merch.
Note: I forgot to take screenshots, so I’ll just use some from various presskits. Pardon not seeing some guy-on-guy action in these… The game also isn’t limited to BL or Yuri either. You can create any character in theory.
The main gameplay loop consists of you managing your stamina/energy and scheduling your daily life: Do you work part-time to afford new merch, do you meet up with friends, or do you perhaps brainstorm ideas for new stories? At the end of the day, you can then sit down and “write” your fanfics.
I say “write” because the fanfics themselves are pre-written. You don’t actually type them out. Instead, you select scenarios from genre tags and inspirations based on your activities. Some stories branch out with small choices or let you slot in a name, but it’s more about curating stories than truly writing them. Publish your work, and you’ll either gain followers or flop. New followers mean more commissions and opportunities.
As it turns out, people really loved “Bob Roth” which was the shipping name I went for. In “Sensei! I Like You So Much!”, shipping culture and fandoms appear to be a lot more mainstream than I remember them to be. Huge billboards on busy streets show the ship you went for… which, at times, can break the immersion a lot… but the game does also try to stay relatively close to reality with a lot of its concepts and mechanics.
In my playthrough, people adored “Bob Roth” – the shipping name I gave Cloud and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7 – while my mafia-themed AU became a runaway hit despite me giving side characters completely ridiculous names.
Before long, I got to design ita bags for others, create little badges and other merch, speak to Gods in my dreams, manage a factory, fail at the claw machine, decorate my room, put together multiple stories into one zine, and even attend conventions where I could then sell those! Whenever a word came up that I didn’t understand, the game was quick to explain said term in a little pop-up, which I, as an outsider, found incredibly useful. Still, some terms, like genre tags, don’t get that same treatment which might be problematic, especially with tags like “NonCon” – even if you can turn that off in the settings theoretically.
The attention to detail here is impressive. You can tell the developers know fandom culture inside and out, and their passion is written into every corner of the game.
With all that in mind… Based on the store page, I expected a stronger focus on writing and management, but Sensei! is primarily a visual novel with some management elements sprinkled in. The story centres on your protagonist (whose gender, appearance, and pronouns are locked in btw) as she slowly comes out of her shell with help from other characters.
That’s fine in theory, but I found the VN portions long, slow, and unengaging. Despite paying attention early on, I quickly lost the thread of who was who or why I should care, and eventually skipped most of the dialogue just to get back to fanfic management. The fact that nearly if not every character is female also raised questions for me. Do men not exist in this fandoms? Am I not welcome as a guy? No idea.
Honestly, the VN portions wouldn’t probably be all that bad either if it weren’t for the English translation being pretty rough at times. Random line breaks (at times in the middle of a one-syllable word), some typos, and some odd word choices make these sections a pain in the arse to read. It’s not game-breaking, but it hurts immersion a fair bit.
Overall, “Sensei! I Like You So Much!” is an adorable game with a varied soundtrack and a deep love for fandom culture baked into its design. You can import characters (I ended up shipping Cloud and Sephiroth since someone premade them and since I couldn’t be arsed to learn character creation), publish fanfics, and build your own following. The trigger warnings and content filters are also a thoughtful touch.
That said, if you’re hoping for a management sim first and foremost, you may be disappointed. This is a visual novel at heart, and whether you enjoy it depends on how much you care about the characters and story. For me, the hook never really landed and the bad translation held back a lot of the cutesy plot.
Still, if you love visual novels, shipping culture, and the idea of blending fanfic creation with merch management, this could be a charming little gem, once the translation is cleaned up or if you decide to look past it altogether.
This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.
If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.
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