As the credits roll on Ryoushi’s route and the last loose thread from the base trilogy’s finale finally ties itself off, TAISHO x ALICE: HEADS & TAILS fills me with real satisfaction, and a little relief. I came to this series a bit late and a bit out of order, picking up the base trilogy well after its following had already formed, so a fandisc built specifically to close out the loose ends I was still turning over landed with more weight than I expected going in. Its brief, sugar-sweet afterstories can feel thin next to what a fuller expansion might promise, but Woolfe’s and Ryoushi’s routes, backed by the returning voice cast and soundtrack, offer real reasons to sit back inside a cast I’d already grown attached to.
A fandisc built entirely around what happens after happily ever after risks running out of things to say fast, and Primula’s HEADS & TAILS, released in the West via Steam in July 2022 following an earlier Japan-only Switch release in 2020, solves that problem by splitting itself cleanly in two, a coin metaphor the game leans into directly. The Heads side delivers exactly what longtime readers of the base trilogy will be hoping for, short, warm afterstories with each of the seven original love interests, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Kaguya, Gretel, Snow White, Wizard, and Alice, checking in on where their happy endings actually landed. The Tails side goes in the opposite direction entirely, using brand new routes for side characters Woolfe and Ryoushi to dig back into the darker, unresolved corners of the main story’s finale. That structural split gives the whole package a real identity beyond just more of the same, letting readers choose whether they want comfort or continued mystery on any given session.
Woolfe’s route follows him enrolling at a college near his grandmother’s home specifically to track down an old friend who’d cut him off, only to find the reunion doesn’t play out the way he expected, a quietly effective story about unrequited feelings and staying loyal to someone even from the sidelines. Ryoushi’s route carries more direct plot weight, tying into loose ends from the main series’ ending in ways that reward readers who’ve stuck with the franchise closely, and it’s the route I found most likely to actually land emotionally for anyone who came away from the original trilogy with lingering questions. Rounding out the package, Arisu Academy reimagines the entire cast in a lighthearted school setting, letting Yurika interact with familiar faces in new roles, teacher, classmate, student council member, and while it’s a fun change of pace, it doesn’t stray far from each character’s established core dynamic, which felt a little too safe to me for a bonus story built around a genre-swap premise.
Where the fandisc runs into real limits is scope. Each of the seven afterstories clocks in around an hour, even with full voice playback, and that brevity can feel thin compared to what a true fandisc entry might promise, more a collection of sweet epilogue vignettes than substantial new material. The fandisc also adds new character sprites for Yurika and Woolfe specifically built for exaggerated comedic reactions, a small but noticeable visual addition that gives certain lighter scenes real punch even though the core cast art stays otherwise consistent with the base trilogy.
Presentation elsewhere holds up well. The localization handles the material cleanly, adapting regional dialect quirks and endearments into natural-sounding English equivalents rather than leaving them clunky, and the returning soundtrack remains a genuine highlight of the wider franchise. Full voice acting, Japanese only, with no English dub included in this release, covers both the afterstories and the new character routes, and it adds real warmth to scenes that might otherwise feel slight given their short length. Worth flagging directly: this release carries a content warning for mental illness, violence, blood, and mild sexual language, consistent with the base trilogy’s own tonal range rather than a new escalation specific to the fandisc.
Verdict
TAISHO x ALICE: HEADS & TAILS succeeds best as exactly what it’s positioned to be, a supplementary companion for readers already invested in this cast rather than a standalone fandisc with major new stakes of its own. The Heads and Tails structural split gives it real shape, pairing comforting afterstories against Woolfe’s and Ryoushi’s more substantial dives into the main story’s unresolved threads, with Ryoushi’s route in particular rewarding longtime fans directly. Its brief afterstories and a school AU that plays things safer than its premise suggests keep it from being an essential standalone purchase, but for anyone who finished the original trilogy wanting just a little more time with this cast, it delivers exactly that.
