Perfect stats—my new strategy was working!
←Part 3: Playing Tamagotchi for Game Boy for the First Time in About 20 Years | Part 4: My Second Attempt: The 32-Year Life, and Eventual Murder, of Henrytchi | Part 5: That's When My Murderous Plot Came Together→
I began to read up on Tamagotchi for Game Boy. There isn't a lot of information out there. I mean, there's a FAQ on GameFAQs that, although better than nothing, is missing lots of key information. There's also Tamagotchi Wikia, which is about the same. Between the two, there is almost enough information to figure out how to play this game—though quite a bit of trial and error and analysis of the numbers and how they were affected through various actions was still required.
I endeavored to take better care of Henrytchi than I had of Chartchi. He grew to become a Marutchi.
Perfect stats—my new strategy was working!
At age 3, he turned into a Tamatchi (not Tamagotchi, but Tamatchi—literally "Ball-tchi"). This was when I knew I was on the right track, because typically you only get a Tamatchi if you took good care of a Marutchi.
He was so great, he won The Beauty Contest.
Then, he turned into a...???? Huh? What's this?
He's called an "Oyajitchi." A secret character. Not easy to get. I had really done well.
Now, let's step back for a moment. Maybe my Stateside friends don't know who Oyajitchi is.
Oyajitchi literally means "Old Man-tchi." He is basically the head of a stereotypical old Japanese man with stick legs. He likes sake (rice wine) and beautiful women. Huh? What? You've never heard of him? That's because he was removed from the American version of the game. He was replaced with "Bill" (named after Bill Clinton) or "Sam" (named after Uncle Sam). According to the backstory of the original Japanese version of Tamagotchi, there is an Oyajitchi Village on Planet Tamagotchi where many of these elderly Tamagotchi live. There, they drink sake and eat snacks constantly. One day, an Oyajitchi got Planet Tamagotchi (which is, itself, actually just a giant living Tamagotchi) drunk on sake. The planet became uninhabitable, which forced the Tamagotchis to move to Earth in their spaceships until Planet Tamagotchi sobers up and becomes habitable again, which is why we have to care for them! This whole story, the whole premise of Tamagotchi, withheld from American audiences because some angry helicopter parent might complain to Bandai about alcohol references!
By the way, on the topic of Bandai, the company that made this game, here is me at the peak of Mt. Bandai in 2016. The woman in the photo and I climbed all the way up. Yes, in Fukushima Prefecture (the one that had the nuclear meltdown, and the one where I worked for a year and four months), there is a mountain called Mt. Bandai. It is unrelated to the company Bandai; in fact, the kanji are different.
Anyhow, back to Pokémon. Err, I mean, Tamagotchi.
When you get Oyajitchi, most of the food/drink menu stays the same, except that instead of cake and stuff, you can give him sake and drinking snacks. Sake and snacks (squid in this case) are extremely unhealthy for him, but in spite of that, I sometimes rewarded him for a job well done at competitions with one bottle of sake and some squid. Because he's an oyaji, seriously—never letting an oyaji drink sake is like never letting a kid eat candy. It's just mean.
OH, YEAH.
I took care of him for a long time. He had become an Oyatchi at age 10. I took care of him to age 20, then age 25. Then age 30.
Wasn't he going to go back to his home planet? I decided to give it another year. He turned 31. I played all the way through age 31. Then...
Age 32?! Seriously?! Is this guy ever going to return to his home planet?!
Caring for Oyajitchi became more and more time-intensive. It seemed his food and happiness were depleting every few seconds, yet he could not be termed to be "dying" because as long as I kept up with his demanding amount of care, he was fine.
He would still poop on the floor unless I guided him to the toilet.
Finally, in an act of desperation, I decided that Henrytchi had to die. I suspected, especially because of some information from Tamagotchi Wikia that vaguely hinted at it, that unless he died, the UFO would not come and take him back to Planet Tamagotchi.
It was a heart-wrenching decision. I couldn't just neglect him. I'd done so well to care for him for...15 days in the real world. I couldn't just stop feeding him, playing with him, and cleaning up his poop and let him die from neglect, sad and alone...
←Part 3: Playing Tamagotchi for Game Boy for the First Time in About 20 Years | Part 4: My Second Attempt: The 32-Year Life, and Eventual Murder, of Henrytchi | Part 5: That's When My Murderous Plot Came Together→