Homemade chocolates or obligatory chocolates? In part two of our Valentine’s Day special, we’re ranking all the love interests of Ikemen Sengoku: Romances Across Time in a chocolate-based tier list…

If you missed Part One of this Valentine’s Day special – or you’re not already familiar with the way Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Japan – then I recommend giving it a quick read first. In Part One, I explained the differences between homemade chocolate (honmei-choco) and obligatory chocolate (giri-choco), which form the main criteria for the rankings below…

Tier List Rules

For this tier list, I’ll be adding a Valentine’s Day spin to keep it seasonal, using different types of chocolate gifts as a basis for categorising the Ikemen Sengoku love interests.

However, to prevent the ranking from being too limited, I’m expanding on these two types of chocolate gifts, to form three separate tiers: giri-choco, store-bought choco, and honmei-choco…

Giri-choco

Team giri-choco: Naoe Kanetsugu, Imagawa Yoshimoto, Maeda Keiji, Mouri Motonari, Kennyo, and Kicho.

No hard feelings to any of the love interests in this team–my main reason for putting them in this tier is that some of them aren’t yet available to romance (like Kanetsugu and Kicho), and others I just haven’t gotten around to playing yet!

Some of these love interests have peaked my interest more than others, but at the end of the day, they all belong to one of my favourite otome games of all time, so they still get some obligatory chocolate. I just won’t be splashing my cash or pouring my heart and soul into their Valentine’s Day presents… Sorry!

Store-bought choco

Team store-bought choco: Uesugi Kenshin, Sarutobi Sasuke, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Ishida Mitsunari, Takeda Shingen, Sanada Yukimura, Mori Ranmaru, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

I said in ‘Team giri-choco’ that I put them in that tier because I hadn’t yet played their routes–but I still had to squeeze cutie Ranmaru into this store-bought tier. He’s just so cute! How could I not spoil him?

As for the rest of this team, they’re love interests whose routes I’ve completed, but they weren’t my all-time favourites. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great routes in this tier that I really enjoyed, but I decided to only pick my top three for the ‘honmei-choco’ tier, which meant some goodies had to be in this tier instead. I only have so much time for baking, after all…

Honmei-choco

Date Masamune

Coming in at number three in my overall Ikemen Sengoku ranking, Date Masamune was the first route I ever played in the game, and he’s still one of my all-time favourites. He’s exciting, sexy, funny, and his route a wild ride from start to finish (in all the best ways!).

I’m certain that he’d be able to bake something far better than anything I could come up with (did I mention he can cook? Absolute husband material), but I’d do my best for him anyway. Happy Valentine’s Day, Masamune!

Oda Nobunaga

I was pretty slow to hop on the Nobunaga train, but now that I’m on, I can’t ever turn back. He was one of the sexiest love interests I’d come across in an otome game by the time I played his route, and I’ll never forget his ‘strip shogi’ scenes.

And yes, I chose a blushy-face screenshot for the above image on purpose. It’s hard to beat a stern, stoic warlord going all ‘uwu’ on you. Some spicy dark chocolate for you Nobunaga, you sexy, sexy warlord.

Akechi Mitsuhide

This won’t be a surprise if you saw part one of this Valentine’s Day special, but Mitsuhide will forever hold the #1 best boy spot in my heart, so of course he gets my fanciest homemade chocolate this year (and every year, really).

His route was equal parts thrilling and heart-wrenching, and his banter with MC was just perfect. I really can’t praise it enough – and I don’t want to repeat what I said earlier this week – so just trust me when I say that his route is great and you’ll love it!

~ Happy Valentine’s Day ~

I also wanted to share that the artist for Ikemen Sengoku (Yamada Shiro) – who often posts art of the Sengoku boys to their Twitter – actually posted a cute illustration of Yukimura for Valentine’s Day this year, which you can see below!

❤️happy Valentine❤
皆さまハッピーバレンタイン☺️🍫#イケメン戦国 pic.twitter.com/TM1DJboPKu

— 山田シロ (@yamashiro_k) February 14, 2022

Your Turn!

Do you agree with this choco-based Valentine’s Day tier list? Let us know how you’d rank the love interests of Ikemen Sengoku in the replies at the bottom of this post~

Game Info

☆ Game name: Ikémen Sengoku: Romances Across Time | イケメン戦国・時をかける恋
☆ Developer: CYBIRD / Ikémen Series
☆ Publisher: CYBIRD / Ikémen Series
☆ Platform: Mobile
☆ Age Rating: 17+ (Google Play) / 12+ (Apple Store)
☆ More information: here!

Thank You

~☆ Patrons ☆~

SSR – Tarranga

SSR – Caroline

SR – Fitzroy

SR – Teryarel

R – Vilicus