#oneaday Day 749: I Love You, Lilly

This is the second of several posts regarding the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and proceed down the “Lilly” path and would like to avoid spoilers, I recommend you skip this post. I’ve even put the spoilery discussion below the break. Aren’t I nice?

If you’re still reading this, it’s highly likely you already know what Katawa Shoujo is but just in case you aren’t, 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.

Lilly is an interesting character. From the moment Hisao first meets her in the secluded abandoned classroom that she and Hanako have been using as an improvised tearoom, it’s clear that she’s cut from a different cloth to many of the other students at Yamaku. Of course, the other students at Yamaku are also cut from a different cloth to the rest of society thanks to their various disabilities, so for Lilly to set herself apart must make her pretty remarkable.

Of all the characters you come across in Katawa Shoujo, Lilly arguably seems the most at ease with her condition. She has never known anything other than life as a blind girl, and so she has adapted to this life. She can find her way around without the help of another person; she doesn’t get offended when people make faux pas like Hisao’s blurted-out “I see”; she doesn’t depend on anyone else for support. She is, in many ways, one of the strongest characters in the narrative, which is one of the things that attracts Hisao to her in the first place.

Lilly may not depend on others for support, but others certainly depend on her. Hanako, despite being shy, retiring and reluctant to talk about her scarred body, relies on Lilly’s support to an unhealthy degree. Lilly doesn’t resent this at all, seeing Hanako almost like a daughter in many scenes. In fact, as Hisao’s relationship with Lilly and Hanako grows, they start to feel more like a family — a “misshapen family” as both Lilly and Hisao refer to the situation, independently of one another.

Lilly hides her pain well. It’s questionable at times as to whether or not it is “pain” as such, because of her good nature and calm demeanour. She misses her parents, though, and is curious about them. When she goes to visit them in Scotland during her aunt’s illness, it becomes clear that she enjoyed the experience more than she thought she would. Her sister Akira has other ideas, however, and still feels bitter resentment towards the fact that they effectively abandoned both her and Lilly in Japan while her father went to work in Scotland. While Akira went on to work for the Japanese branch of her father’s company, there’s an obvious distance between them that Lilly doesn’t feel to such a degree — or if she does, she doesn’t show it.

Lilly lets down her guard during the trio’s trip to her family’s Hokkaido summerhouse. Hisao comes across her standing alone in a field in oddly pensive mood, seeming somehow more fragile than she’s ever been. He manages to get her to admit the things that she fears. She doesn’t want Hisao to go away — especially not to be snatched away by death, as she fears when he almost suffers another heart attack while with her and Hanako.

Lilly’s tentative desire to rejoin her family comes to a head when Akira is invited to go and work with the family business in Scotland, and Lilly’s family gives her a “summons”. Lilly initially doesn’t appear to know what she is going to do, remaining evasive on the subject when Hisao questions her about the future. It eventually transpires that she has decided to accept their summons, however, and travel to Scotland, leaving behind Hisao, Hanako and the life they are growing to love together. It’s clear she’s conflicted about this. She doesn’t want to lose the people she loves — Hanako and Hisao — but at the same time doesn’t want to lose her family, either. Despite being opposite to her sister in almost every way — she’s feminine, calm, quiet and reserved compared to Akira’s masculine, brash, loud and confident demeanour — she loves her very much and doesn’t want to lose her, nor does she want to lose the chance to be with the family she hasn’t seen since her early teens.

Hisao is partly to blame for what subsequently happens. In his relationship with Lilly, he grows more caring of others — particularly Hanako, whom he starts to see less as the fragile little porcelain doll she appears to be and more as someone who just needs to feel security — but also comes to depend on Lilly for support. She’s the first person he turns to when he needs help — when Hanako locks herself in her room around her birthday, he immediately phones Lilly in Scotland asking for advice, before coming to the realisation afterwards that he should have made more of an effort to make his feelings for Lilly clearer.

Later, in contemplative mood, Hisao comes to realise that Lilly’s sense of independence and aloofness is born from her internalised pain of having lost people dear to her. While they’re not dead, the distance between her and her family is a source of pain to her, and when her sister decides to leave, too, she feels that she is obliged to go and be with them.

Hisao realises that Lilly, believing herself to be strong and independent as well as aware that both Hisao and Hanako depend on her for support, felt she had to make a decision for herself without relying on others. He mentally kicks himself for not having realised her inner turmoil sooner, and for having remained focused on his own problems and worries far more than about her. He realises that he should have talked about it with her, seen she was in pain, conflicted about what was to come. But instead he selfishly focused on the single future that he saw for himself — he put everything, including Lilly, in place and expected to be able to just sit back and let things run their course.

Real life, unfortunately, is rarely that simple, so it is the prospect of losing Lilly once and for all — even though she said herself that she didn’t want to lose him — that spurs him into action. Unfortunately, the pressure of chasing her down as she is about to board her flight proves too much for Hisao’s delicate heart, and he suffers another heart attack. His final thoughts are that he has failed, dying on the pavement with the girl he loved just out of his reach — and that it is his fault or, more specifically, his body’s fault, snatching happiness away from him due to his own physical weakness.

Assuming Hisao remained honest and true with Lilly throughout the narrative, however, that’s not where the story ends. While he ends up in hospital attached to a variety of machines — a place he never wanted to return, and an event which only adds to his worries that he has “ended up back at square one” — it transpires that Lilly hasn’t left his life just yet, and he has one last chance to save things.

Hisao comes to realise that he sees a lot of himself in Lilly — the desire to be independent, not wanting to burden others with his problems, the fear of having his hopes, dreams and precious people snatched away from him. Hisao promises Lilly that he won’t let that happen to her, because he knows firsthand how awful it is to find it difficult to trust someone — something Lilly has struggled with due to the losses she has suffered in her life — and how terrible it is to lose everything once held dear. In a rare and uncharacteristic display of forthrightness and stubbornness, he asks her to stay, not because he needs her, but because he wants to share her burdens and her happiness.

Ultimately, the biggest struggle Lilly has to overcome is not her disability, which remains almost irrelevant for most of her story. Instead, it is her way of thinking, and the walls she put up around herself. They’re different to the walls Hanako puts up around herself, but they’re still walls nonetheless. It’s almost as if she can’t see them from within, however, which is why it takes Hisao’s bold gestures and words to show that her life can take a different route.

Tomorrow: Hanako. If you’re playing Katawa Shoujo yourself, it’s worth playing the Lilly and Hanako arcs close to one another so you can observe the similarities. During Hanako’s story, you also learn quite a lot about Lilly that isn’t explored in the same way in her own arc.