#oneaday Day 753: I Love You, Katawa Shoujo

This is the sixth (and definitely final… for now) of several posts regarding the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and would like to avoid spoilers, this post is somewhat less spoilery than the recent character-specific ones, but might still spoil a few bits and pieces. All spoilery discussion is below the break.

If you’re still reading this, it’s highly likely you already know what Katawa Shoujo is but just in case you aren’t and/or you haven’t read the previous posts where I included this exact same paragraph, it’s a visual novel developed by 4 Leaf Studios, made up of members of the much- (and usually justifiably-) maligned 4chan community along with other itinerant creative types from around the Internet. It was developed following extended discussion over a sketch by Japanese doujinshi artist Raita, and is the very definition of a “labour of love”, having come from discussions on 4chan all the way to a full-fledged, professional-quality game between the years of 2007 and 2012. It’s been described by some as “eroge” or an erotic game, but I feel this does it an injustice; there are sexual scenes in the game, yes, but the point of the game is not to get to these scenes — rather, they are part of the plot, and not necessarily a “victory” for the player. They are also not terribly frequent compared to the rest of the game, which focuses on interpersonal interactions and psychological issues.

If you want to check out Katawa Shoujo for yourself, take a peek at the official website. My previous post regarding Emi’s path can be found here, and if you’re too lazy to scroll down, yesterday’s post on Rin can be found here, the previous day’s post on Shizune can be found here, the previous previous day’s post on Hanako can be found here, and the day before that’s post on Lilly can be found here. I’ve now finished the game 100%, so perhaps I’ll shut up about it now.

So, what have we learned in our time together?

Firstly, Katawa Shoujo is a remarkable experience that anyone who cares to even the slightest degree about interactive narrative should play. While it’s light on the “game” front and heavy on the story, the player has just enough input throughout to make it feel like the decisions made throughout are meaningful. And, pleasingly, consequences of said decisions don’t always become apparent until much later in the plot. This is a good thing.

Secondly, Katawa Shoujo is proof that just because something happens to have sexual scenes in it, it doesn’t have to be sleazy or pornographic. The interesting thing about the sex scenes in the game are that they each have a purpose in the relevant girl’s story. They’re never presented as a “reward” for the player, unlike hentai games which are rather less subtle about how they spur the player on (a flash of panties here, a closeup of boobs there, eventually culminating in Our Hero inevitably jizzing on her tits… but I digress). Instead, the sex scenes allow the player to witness just one aspect of both the girl in question and the protagonist that Hisao has become throughout the course of that particular story arc. Sometimes the girl is the one with the power — Emi is a good example of this by being very upfront, matter-of-fact and adventurous about sex, much to Hisao’s surprise at times. And sometimes they’re at their most vulnerable — the rather unsettling intimate encounter between Hisao and Hanako being perhaps the best example of this. Not only that, but we also get to see how Hisao handles the encounter, too — going back to the scene with Hanako, for example, there’s a gnawing sense of unease on the part of the player during the act itself, which comes to a horrifying head when Hisao comes to the realisation that he’s not sure whether or not she actually said “yes” to him.

Thirdly, on a practical note, you don’t need flashy graphics and animated sequences to tell a fascinating story. Katawa Shoujo has some surprisingly professional-looking anime sequences, some beautiful artwork and an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack to help it tell its story, but ultimately it’s about the words that are being used. By being presented as a first-person narrative from the perspective of Hisao, the player is encouraged to thoroughly get inside the mind of our protagonist and witness him on the five different personal journeys he takes. His words, while rather more articulate than any teenager I know, are captivating and involving, and draw the player in. Couple this with the excellent characterisation of all the different characters, which makes use of stylistic tics, punctuation and even the colour of their names in the text box, and you have a highly convincing game world without the use of a single polygon anywhere.

Fourth is the biggie. Katawa Shoujo is an emotional experience. It would take a cold-hearted soul to not be profoundly affected by the five different stories in the game. Such was the surprising power of the emotion in the game that even the hard-hearted hardcore of 4chan, where the game had its genesis, had to find some way in which they could deal with these (in some cases very unfamiliar) emotions. Thus came the concept of “the feels”, which my buddy Mark was good enough to educate me about recently. (Forgive my apparent Internet ignorance.)

Those who follow this blog will know that I’m not averse to talking about emotions, feelings, memories and the like. But some people online choose to cultivate a deliberately aloof persona free of such earthly considerations like emotions. What happens when one of these people is confronted with an experience like Katawa Shoujo, finds themself enjoying it and wants to talk about the experience? They can’t crack that cold facade, surely? No. Thus came the concept of talking about “your feels” which is somehow more manly than talking about “your emotions”. I don’t know. It even spawned its own meme — granted, the “I Know That Feel Bro” guy had been around since the end of 2010, but he was the ideal barrier for those who wanted to talk about emotions they were feeling without, you know, admitting they had feelings.

What is it that makes Katawa Shoujo so emotional, though? Simply put, it’s the relatable nature of the characters and the situations. While relatively few people can know exactly what it’s like to suffer with the disabilities the cast of the game have, it becomes apparent relatively early on in the story that very few characters let their disability define them. Some, like Rin, overcome their disability by learning to cope in different ways. Some, like Emi, use their limitations as a means to spur themselves on — her mother explains to Hisao that “she doesn’t see herself as ‘the girl with no legs’, she sees herself as ‘The Fastest Thing On No Legs’.” Some, like Lilly, seem to treat their disability almost as something completely inconsequential, even though it means they can never experience the world in the same way as others. And some, like Shizune, develop their own means of coping with the difficult lot which life has thrown them, whether that’s using a close friend for interpretation, or developing personality traits that naturally draw people close to them.

It’s these aspects of the characters that are most interesting — they’re all traits that even people who don’t suffer from disabilities can and do possess. Emi’s drive, Rin’s creativity, Lilly’s grace, Shizune’s determination — everyone knows at least one person with one or more of these character traits. This makes the characters immensely relatable, and the fact that each of the five paths has clearly been written from the perspective of someone who has “been there, done that” means that the conversations between Hisao and the girls are sometimes spookily familiar.

Hanako is an interesting character. Unlike the other girls, she has difficulty coping. It’s not that her scarring causes her physical pain, but the associated memories, guilt and depression have had a profound impact on her personality, making it hard for her to trust anyone, and easy for her to cling on to those people that she does find herself trusting, like Lilly and Hisao. Hanako’s story was, for me, one of the most touching, because it focused on her having to overcome one of the most terrifying obstacles in one’s life — self-doubt. I could relate to both Hanako and Hisao in this story, since I’ve felt the way Hanako does in the past, and I’ve been in the position of Hisao, too, desperately wanting to help someone and not knowing if the help you’re offering is actually making it more and more difficult for them to recover.

Fifth and finally, Katawa Shoujo has taken on cult status to a bizarrely huge degree. There are nearly 1,500 photos attached to the Katawa Shoujo entry on Know Your Meme, and the game has spawned several submemes of its own, including Hisao’s “HHNNNGGG” heart attack reaction to anything that proves to be too cute for him; Misha’s infectious “Wahaha~” (the tilde is important) laughter; and numerous others, including this utterly bizarre but hilarious Flash game. Notably, too, Katawa Shoujo is included on game-tracking site Raptr. This may not seem like a particularly big deal, but very few freeware titles for PC find themselves listed on Raptr, let alone auto-tracked by the Raptr client software. Its inclusion is a sign that it is recognised as a title of relative importance, rather than just some throwaway freeware fan project.

Because that’s exactly what it isn’t. Katawa Shoujo took five years to make it from conceptual artwork to the finished, professional quality and free product we have today. It was put together by a team of 21 individuals from around the world, who assembled under the “4 Leaf Studios” banner for the sole purpose of making this game a reality. It is a game that exists through sheer bloodymindedness and a refusal to give up, and the result is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had with a game — even if its relative lack of traditional “gameplay” makes calling it that somewhat questionable.

My time with the girls of Yamaku High School is drawing to a close, and I’m genuinely sad to leave them behind. I very nearly didn’t play this game at all, initially making the usual assumptions about free, fan-made projects — assumptions that you, dear reader, may still be making about this game.

Boy, am I glad that I didn’t pass up the opportunity. Don’t you miss it, either.

Wahaha~!