To Heart
To Heart is a Japanese romance eroge visual novel developed by Leaf and released on May 23, 1997, for Windows. It was later ported to the PlayStation and given voice acting. A second PC version, titled To Heart PSE was released containing the PlayStation version as well as bonus games. To Heart PSE and the PlayStation version had the more intimate scenes removed. To Heart is Leaf's fifth game, and the third title in the Leaf Visual Novel Series, following Shizuku and Kizuato and preceding Routes. The gameplay in To Heart follows a plot line which offers predetermined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the eight female main characters. A sequel of To Heart, To Heart 2, was released on December 28, 2004, for the PlayStation 2. A special bundle of To Heart 2 and a PS2 version of To Heart was released on the same day. The original PC release of the visual novel was titled To Heart, but the anime and the PSE versions later changed to ToHeart without any space between the words. The English release of the anime uses the former format. A remake, also titled ToHeart, was released on June 25, 2025, for Windows and the Nintendo Switch.
To Heart was adapted into a thirteen-episode anime television series by Oriental Light and Magic aired between April and July 1999, and a second anime, To Heart: Remember My Memories, aired between October and December 2004. The first anime was licensed by Right Stuf International for distribution in North America; the first DVD was released in March 2007. Two manga series were produced, both illustrated by Ukyō Takao and serialized in MediaWorks manga magazine Dengeki Daioh. The first manga, which ran between October 1997 and December 1999, was based on the original visual novel, and the second manga, which ran between November 2004 and July 2005, was based on the anime To Heart: Remember My Memories. A drama CD entitled Piece of Heart was released in October 1999.
Premise
Set at a high school in the near future, the main character, Hiroyuki Fujita, is a student. He encounters ten pretty girls, including his childhood friend Akari and a maid robot Multi HMX-12, and must make the right decisions so as to win their hearts. In the anime adaptation, the story focuses on the relationship between Hiroyuki and Akari.;Hiroyuki Fujita
;Akari Kamigishi
;Shiho Nagaoka
;Multi
;Tomoko Hoshina
;Serika Kurusugawa
;Ayaka Kurusugawa
;Lemmy Miyauchi
;Aoi Matsubara
;Kotone Himekawa
;Rio Hinayama
Gameplay
To Heart is a romance visual novel. Its gameplay requires little player interaction as much of the game's duration is spent on reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents the story's narrative and dialogue. The text is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Hiroyuki is talking to, over background art. Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites. A gallery of the viewed CGs and played background music is available on the game's title screen. To Heart follows a branching plotline with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction.The game divides each school day of the storyline into four segments. These segments illustrate the events that occur during Hiroyuki's commute to school, during school, after school, and after he returns home at the end of each day. Depending on the time of the day and the player's actions, they may be presented one of four types of events: dated events, which occur automatically during certain points in the game's plotline; affection events, which occur during certain periods of time only if specific conditions pertaining to a character's affection towards Hiroyuki are met; frequency events, which occur after meeting a character a predetermined number of times; and VS events, which occurs if two characters' affection towards Hiroyuki conflict with one another.
At the end of each school day, the player is given the option to navigate to various locations within the game's setting. Each choosable location is accompanied by an image of a heroine in order to allow the choices to be easier to make. Every so often, the player will also come to a "decision point", where they are given the chance to choose from multiple options. Text progression pauses at these points, and depending on the choices that the player makes, the affection rate of the heroine associated with the event will either increase, decrease, or remain the same. This mechanism determines which direction of the plot the player will progress into. There are ten plotlines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each of the heroines in the story. The game also contains a bad ending in which the player is unable to pursue the other scenarios. In order to view all of the plot lines, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and make different decisions to progress the plot in an alternate direction.
In the versions released since the original, there are six bonus minigames available. The first game is a platform game called "Heart by Heart", in which the player controls a To Heart character in one of the thirty static, non-moving levels. The player's objective is to defeat all of the enemies in the level using various attacks within a time limit. The minigame also features a two-player variation, in which the players may compete or cooperate with each other within the game's levels. The second, "", is a puzzle game in which the player gains points by forming and eliminating lines of three or more blocks of the same shape. The player achieves this by swapping the preexisting blocks in the game's screen with those in a bank of blocks allotted to them. The third minigame, titled "Ojō-sama wa Majo", is a side-scrolling shooter game featuring Serika Kurusugawa. The player's goal is to progress through a horizontally scrolling level, while attacking enemies and dodging their attacks. "Katamomi Multi" and "Katamomi Serio" are bonus scenarios in which the player is given simulated massages by the characters Multi or Serio using the DualShock controller's vibration function. Lastly, "Water Survival" is a minigame that appears in Shiho Nagaoka's scenario, in which Hiroyuki and Shiho attempt to shoot each other with water guns.
Development
After completing Shizuku and Kizuato, main planner and scenario writer Tatsuya Takahashi began conceptualizing the third entry to the Leaf Visual Novel Series, which would later become To Heart. Takahashi originally considered creating a story with dark fantasy and gothic themes, but changed his approach in order to avoid making three consecutive works with dark themes. He then settled on creating a romance, and later incorporated comical elements. Early in development, Takahashi consulted frequent collaborator Tōru Minazuki for the creation of the story. The two originally considered creating the story and characters entirely by themselves, but after Minazuki expressed his concern that having only six heroines is not enough to exemplify a romance theme, the two asked writer Saki Aomura and illustrator Hisashi Kawata to assist in the project's development. Out of the ten heroines created, Takahashi wrote the scenarios for Akari, Multi, Tomoko, Serika, Aoi, and Ayaka; Aomura authored the scenarios for Lemmy, Kotone, and Shiho; and the scenario for Rio was written by a third writer named Udaru Harada. Minazuki designed and illustrated Takahashi's characters, while Kawata illustrated the remaining characters.The writers did not begin work on the story until the characters were created. Takahashi felt the game's story is simply actions that represent what becomes of the characters. He mentioned the story exists not because he wanted to write the story, but because he wanted to "illustrate" the characters. Takahashi believed that such a writing style was unique even within the game industry at the time, but has since become the norm. Although the story contains futuristic elements such as maid robots, Takahashi stated the story takes place during contemporary times. Parts of the school in which the game takes place was based on the alma mater that Takahashi, Minazuki, and Aomura had attended, and Takahashi said the game's story reflects the staff members' school experience during the 1980s. To Heart was released as an eroge visual novel for Microsoft Windows PCs on May 23, 1997, following the releases of the previous Leaf Visual Novel Series titles.
PlayStation release
The original Windows version was followed by an all-ages version for the PlayStation on March 25, 1999. Takahashi viewed the PS port as a "brand new game" under the disguise of a ported title, as he believed the original staff in the development team could not be satisfied with simply a straightforward port. Several changes were made to the PS version, including the removal of adult scenes and additions such as voice acting, new and rewritten scenarios, a new heroine named Ayaka Kurusugawa, and bonus minigames.Takahashi stated that the addition of voice acting was decided upon early into development, but because of the high amount of memory needed to store the voice acting's audio files, the decision caused the development team to debate between using higher quality audio or a smaller number of discs. Ultimately, the amount of data required by the voice acting caused the game to be released on two discs. Aomura also made changes to the stories of his characters, and he admitted that he did not thoroughly understand Shiho's character while writing her scenario for the Windows version's development. He made revisions to the scenario in the PS version, and saw the result as a completed version. Takahashi felt the majority of the scenarios were smoother without the erotic scenes present in the original version, and stated that the original's inclusion of fan service scenes was a natural decision made during development, despite how they felt forced to him.