Out of all the endings tucked inside Doomed Otaku, the Hato Boyfriend route might be the silliest one I’ve chased down — and I say that with genuine affection. You’re essentially romancing a bird. The game itself can’t even decide what to call it: the turtle dove, a Pidgey, a pidgeon. It flips between all three every time it comes up, so don’t be thrown when the wording shifts on you. This guide walks you through where the bird actually shows up, how to win its little game of Look Away, and what you get for your trouble at the end.
Where to Find the Bird (and When)
Here’s the thing that cost me the most time: the bird only responds during daylight hours. You can interact with it before 18:00, and that’s it. Pigeons don’t patrol at night, apparently, and the game holds you to it. So plan your chasing around the daytime window or you’ll be standing around wondering why nothing happens.
Its spot on the calendar alternates between two places, so keep an eye on the in-game date:
- 12.23 — Plaza (Playground)
- 12.24 — City (Near the apartment)
- 12.25 — Plaza (Entrance of O-ian’s place)
- 12.26 — City (Near the apartment)
- 12.27 — Plaza (Near the platform, where all the other pigeons are)
- 12.28 — City (Near the apartment)
Past 12.28 I honestly don’t have the later locations mapped out, so I can’t tell you where it wanders after that. If you’re following along day by day, the pattern above should carry you far enough to hit the affection milestones.
How Look Away Works
When you interact with the bird, you play a game of Look Away. Match your hand input to the direction its head moves. You don’t need a perfect run to earn affection — hitting 3 out of 5 moves correct is enough to gain some, though the quality of your score matters:
- 5/5 correct — you gain 10+ affection
- 3 or 4/5 correct — you gain 5+ affection
Knowing the sequences ahead of time is the whole trick here, and this is where I’d have loved a cheat sheet on my first run. Each attempt cycles through fixed patterns, then loops back to the very first one, so once you’ve got them memorized you can score consistently.
| Round | Sequence |
|---|---|
| Look Away 1 | Left, Right, Left, Right, Left |
| Look Away 2 | Right, Right, Left, Left, Right |
| Look Away 3 | Left, Right, Right, Left, Left |
| Look Away 4 | Right, Left, Right, Left, Right |
After the fourth sequence, it returns to the beginning and keeps cycling. I found it easiest to run through the motions a few times so the pattern sticks in your hands, not just your head.
Affection Milestones and the Hato Ending
As your affection climbs, events unlock — and from what I can tell, you can view them on the same day you reach the threshold. Here’s what triggers when:
At 50 Affection, if you’ve been performing well up to that point, the bird hands you an Egg. Neato, right? It feels like real progress for all those rounds of head-tracking.
Then at 100 Affection, things get properly weird in the best way. You confess to the Pidgey and declare it your pet — right before the Egg hatches into a baby dove. The two of them come back to your home with you, take one look at the filth, and leave in obvious disgust. That’s your Hato ending. There’s your romance, cut short by a dirty apartment.
For all that effort, your Max SP goes up by 1. Just one. I’ve made my peace with it, but yeah — phooey.
Wrapping Up
If you’ve made it to the credits on this route, congratulations on becoming a dove parent for all of about five seconds. It’s a goofy little detour, but the sequence puzzles and that final joke make it worth the daylight-window scrambling — even if the reward is a single SP.
