My Girlfriend is the President is the latest visual novel to be released on North American shores. Developed by Alcot, this game was originally released in 2009 in Japan but thanks to the efforts of JAST USA, anime and visual novel fans now have the opportunity to experience this witty and charming visual novel this holiday season.

You play as Junichiro Hondo, a friendly and social man with an aptitude for excellent memory and physically tough body. While spending time with your childhood friend, Yukino and engaging in your perverted tendencies, chaos ensues when a spaceship crashes in the Prime Minister of Nippon’s office resulting in the death of high profile politicians. To cover up this state of affairs, the alien quickly chooses Yukino to be in charge in an overnight presidential system while brainwashing the population to accept everything they’re told.  Other notable characters you’ll meet include Irina Vladmirovina Putina, the silver haired Rusia president, Starship Ezekial, the UFO that has become a female humanoid, and Ran Miyoshi, Chief of Staff and Junichiro’s childhood friend.

At its core, this game is lighthearted and fun with its parody of government officials and whimsical atmosphere. More often than not, you’ll be stuck in comical, compromising and even mind boggling scenarios as the Vice President in your newfound daily life. The game is quite linear and the decisions you make that range from complimenting the girls to making a snap decision or judgement call. Similar to a short intermission, each route is divided into episodes with a short video depicting the girl’s thoughts and feelings towards Junichiro.

The only issue I’ve encountered was the voice option in the settings that wouldn’t save and thus resulted in every character lending their voice. It doesn’t detract from the game but it would have been nice to be able to turn off voices for select characters rather than have it reset to the default after leaving the menu each time.

A couple years in waiting for the localized version, this game is a must-buy for visual novel fans. My Girlfriend is the President is highly recommended and is the perfect way for anime fans to start off the New Year.

Score – 87%