is a visual novel and tactical role-playing video game developed by Too Kyo Games and Media.Vision and published by Aniplex. It was one of the first games announced by Too Kyo Games in 2018 and was released on April 24, 2025 for the Nintendo Switch and Windows.
The player controls a high school student named Takumi Sumino, who lives in the underground Tokyo Residential Complex. When the complex is attacked by invaders, Sumino fights back and finds himself at the Last Defense Academy, a school in a destroyed city continuously under attack by invaders and their leader, V'ehxness. After defending the school for 100 days, the player can re-do previous events in the game, altering the course of the narrative.
The game was a collaboration between directors Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi. Kodaka's initial pitch of the game included 100 potential narrative routes for the player to traverse. By September 2023, the writing team was not complete, leading Uchikoshi and Kodaka to hire more writing staff. Too Kyo Games went into debt while developing the game, leading the studio to take out a loan to fund development.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy was the highest selling new release in Japan for the Nintendo Switch from April 21 to May 4, 2025. It garnered "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator site Metacritic.
Gameplay The Hundred Line takes place over 100 in-game days and alternates between visual novel story progression and tactical role playing game combat gameplay. During combat, the player character Takumi Sumino, along with 14 other students in Last Defense Academy, must face off against waves of enemies known as School Invaders while protecting a defense target, such as a barrier generator or an injured person. During their turn, the player can use a limited amount of Ability Points (AP) to move the students around a grid and utilise their unique abilities, after which the enemy takes their turn. Successful attacks build up a Voltage meter which, once full, can be spent to either give a student an additional move or let them perform a special technique. Additionally, students can perform a sacrificial "Last Defense" technique when they are low on health. While within the school, any students who are killed in battle can be revived in between waves. Clearing battles earns Battle Points (BP) depending on how the player performs. When not engaged in battles, the player can enjoy Free Time, during which they can spend time with other students to increase their skills, take part in training battles to earn more BP, or explore outside of the school to obtain materials. By raising skills and gaining materials, players can enhance the students' weapons to make them more powerful in battle. After completing the game's first ending, the game's in-game title changes to The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2, described by developers as the game's "sequel within the game itself". The player is then enabled to make decisions which branch the story, with the game containing a total of 101 endings, distributed across 21 distinct 'routes'.
Synopsis Setting and characters The player takes control of Takumi Sumino, a typical high school boy living in the Tokyo Residential Complex (TRC), an underground domed structure, alongside his parents and childhood friend Karua Kashimiya. After the TRC is attacked by invading monsters, Takumi is granted the power of "Hemoanima" to fight back by a "mysterious school mascot" named Sirei, who then forcibly enlists him in the Special Defense Unit (SDU) to protect Last Defense Academy, a school surrounded by a wall of Undying Flames located in the middle of city ruins on the surface. The SDU members include: Hiruko Shizuhara, a cold, calculating, and ruthless girl who seems to know more than she's letting on; Takemaru Yakushiji, an old-school delinquent with an honor code; Darumi Amemiya, a manic emo girl who loves killing game stories; Eito Aotsuki, a kind, reliable young man who gets overwhelmed easily due to an unidentified medical condition; Tsubasa Kawana, a lively, inspiring mechanic with a weak stomach; Gaku Maruko, a selfish, cowardly, but hardworking orphan with a variety of skill sets; Shouma Ginzaki, a young man who's constantly putting himself down; Ima Tsukumo, the cunning older twin brother of Kako who harbors an extreme sister complex; and Kako Tsukumo, Ima's younger twin sister who desires to become a detective one day.
They are joined shortly after by the members of the Second-to-Last Defense Academy, led by Nigou, Sirei's second-in-command, consisting of Nozomi Kirifuji, a determined young lady who bears a striking resemblance to Takumi's childhood friend Karua; Kyoshika Magadori, a clueless young samurai with a disturbingly close relationship with her katana; Yugamu Omokage, a teenage assassin with a warped view on love; Kurara Oosuzuki, an extremely wealthy, proud, and overbearing young lady who wears a tomato mask; and Moko Mojiro, a friendly and energetic pro-wrestler.
Together, they fight to protect the school from the Invaders, led by Enemy Commanders who resemble humans and also possess Hemoanima. They, in turn, are commanded by the Supreme Commander, V'ehxness, a tyrannical dictator who wishes to do away with their religion's scriptures and taboos and become God herself; also among the commanders is Eva, whom the SDU can take prisoner and make an ally.
Plot Takumi Sumino and his childhood friend Karua Kashimiya are caught up in an apparent alien invasion, whereupon Takumi is rescued by a robot named Sirei. However, Takumi finds himself separated from Karua and taken to the Last Defense Academy, where he is conscripted into the school's Special Defense Unit due to him being compatible with cryptoglobin, special blood that unlocks a power called "Hemoanima" that grants him special abilities to fight the aliens, dubbed "Invaders". Sirei explains that the Last Defense Academy contains a weapon critical to humanity's survival in the war, and Takumi and his fellow students must defend the school for one hundred days. While reluctant at first, Takumi is forced to fight off waves of Invaders with his fellow classmates. They are eventually joined by surviving students from the Second-to-Last Defense Academy, who are led by Nozomi Kirifuji, who looks identical to Karua, much to Takumi's confusion.
After several battles, the students learn that the Invader Commanders resemble humans, and have Hemoanima. In addition, the students' efforts to defend the school are met with major setbacks, such as Sirei being mysteriously murdered, leading Takumi to suspect that there is a traitor within the SDU. Eventually, after many victories and some losses among the SDU, including Nozomi, they manage to defeat Supreme Commander V'ehxness of the Invaders. However, they learn humanity has already evacuated to a massive space station called the Artificial Satellite, and come to believe they have been left behind as sacrificial pawns. Determined to find answers, the students break into the school's fortified Defense Room, where they discover a young infant named Shion is being used to fill numerous missiles with highly volatile Undying Flames, which humanity plans to bombard the entire planet with to exterminate the Invaders once and for all. SDU member Eito Aotsuki kills Shion and absorbs his cryptoglobin, revealing himself as the traitor. He views humanity as monsters due to a cognitive disorder, and wishes to eradicate the human race. Takumi and the other students battle and kill him.
With the missiles disabled and no help coming from the Artificial Satellite, the students prepare to meet their end at the hands of the Invaders. However, when the 100th day arrives, an escape pod activates, ready to evacuate the students to the Artificial Satellite. Realizing they had a method of escape all along and regretting the mistakes he made that caused the loss of Nozomi and many other students, Takumi wishes he could change the past. Shion's spirit contacts Takumi, informing him that having absorbed his and the Commanders' cryptoglobin, Takumi's Hemoanima power has evolved to allow him to travel back in time to Day 1. Determined to save everyone, Takumi uses his power to return to the past.
The Hundred Line 2: Last Defense Academy
From this point, Takumi can make various choices that can alter the timeline in significant ways, such as choosing whether or not to kill Eito right away, carrying out the mission they were assigned, rebelling against humanity and joining forces with the Invaders, deserting the war, and more.
In the "Last Defense Academy 2nd Scenario", which exposes the full truth of the war, the students learn they are not actually on Earth, but a human-habitable alien planet called Futurum. The humans in the Artificial Satellite fled Earth's destruction and started the Exodus Project to colonize Futurum. However, upon arriving, they were shocked to discover the planet was already inhabited by an intelligent species called the Futurans. Unable to communicate past the language barrier, Project Exodus waged war against the Futurans and created Takumi and the SDU by cloning them from Shion's cells and implanting false memories, and tasked them with defending Shion until the Undying Flame missiles were ready. Nozomi is the only true human among the group, having secretly joined them so she could fight by their side. However, when the students confront V'ehxness this time, she destroys the Artificial Satellite with her own Undying Flames missile, wiping out humanity. V'ehxness's victory is short lived, as she is quickly killed by the SDU.
With humanity gone, the students feel there is no more reason to exterminate the Futurans, who were defending themselves against the invading humans. However, Sirei's programming glitches and he decides to continue the plan, forcing Nozomi to destroy him. The students head to the Defense Room to disable the missiles, but Shion is forced to fight them. All of the students sacrifice themselves to transfer their power to Takumi, who destroys the missiles at the cost of his life, leaving Nozomi the only survivor of the SDU. Now alone, Nozomi wanders the ruins of Futurum until she comes across a trio of Futuran children and befriends them.
In the "S.F. Route", Takumi discovers that not only does fellow SDU member Hiruko Shizuhara retain memories from previous timelines, but also that everyone is trapped in a time loop, forced to repeatedly defend the school for 100 days over and over. He also learns of the existence of the G'ie, parasitic organisms capable of taking over both living and dead bodies, who are responsible for committing several murders in other routes. Making use of a time leap machine in an abandoned research lab, Takumi and Hiruko leap into other timelines to stop the G'ie from committing their murders and create an ending where everyone can survive to Day 100, breaking the time loop. Eventually, the students kill V'ehxness, but discover that the missiles have fully charged and the escape pod has been destroyed by a particle bacteria infection. They use the time leap machine to flee to a timeline where the pod is intact and the SDU was wiped out defeating V'ehxness. Shion uses astral projection to safely activate the school's self-destruct mechanism and destroy the missiles, and the triumphant SDU escapes to the Artificial Satellite.
Development In 2017, developers Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi formed a new video game studio called Too Kyo Games. They announced four projects in 2018, with one being The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.
Characters and narrative The game's scenario was written and directed by Kodaka and Uchikoshi, with character designs by Rui Komatsuzaki and Shimadoriru, and music composed by Masafumi Takada.