homophobic otome enjoyers make me sick. it happened with me, also, when somebody told us that "otome games are strictly Girl MC x Male LI" and even though we have this dynamic in Kamakura Bloom (4!!!! Male LI that you can romance with F!MC) they said that because other relationship dynamics exist in our game you can't say it's an otome anymore. it's stupid arguing what the original japanese word 乙女 means which is just "young girl". it's funny 'cause I know these people don't know any japanese themselves and I passed N4. anyhow, just for the sake of marketing it's easy to say otome because I KNOW that otome lovers will enjoy our game, since all the inspiration we took for this game was primarily from otome (Olympia Soiree, Kamigami no Asobi, Hiiro no Kakera,Kin'iro no Chord, Amnesia, Piofiore, Starry Sky and more), a little from galge (Clannad, To Heart2, Katawa Shoujo), but if you're playing as F!MC and romancing M!LI you are practically playing an otome game, there's no actual difference.
I find people who argue this topic to be either really stupid or really homophobic, or both
Viewing post in Being an otome game dev isn't for the weak. comments
Ugh, I'm so sorry this happened to you too. It is so abundantly clear that Kamakura Bloom will be enjoyed by people who play otome games if they gave it a chance. I can't wait for it! The art style and characters are so clearly shoujo-inspired, and it's sad that people think having other relationships in the same story means it's suddenly not Maiden enough!