I'm assuming this probably means that you aren't familiar with it either, in that case, what with VNs being rather niche and all. Basically it's exactly what it sounds like: it's a disc (or download) of extra content that continues where the main game left off. Sometimes it involves the same characters, sometimes it has side stories. It's usually considerably shorter than the original game, too, but it's a standalone game in its own right rather than an addon. I guess the closest equivalent in Western gaming would be a standalone expansion pack or piece of DLC.

Not many of these fandiscs make it over to the West, for some reason, though there are a few that have. Persona 3 FES could be considered a fandisc, for example, due to its 20-hour extra campaign that ties up the loose ends left by Persona 3's main campaign. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows could be considered a fandisc for the original Corpse Party, too, since it fleshes out (no pun intended) a number of the incidental characters from the original before continuing the plot in preparation for a true sequel. And Kira Kira's English-language publisher Mangagamer have taken to translating and releasing some of these fandiscs for the more popular visual novels out there — Kira Kira is one of them.

Kira Kira Curtain Call is a two-part follow-up to the events of Kira Kira, and stars a mostly new cast of characters. Unfolding several years after Kira Kira's conclusion (and assuming that the "True End" was, well, true), the game initially begins with the player in the role of Souta Honda, a passionate, fiery-haired young man who is angry and frustrated at the world, and wants nothing more to express himself through the medium of rock music. At the same time, though, he doesn't want the trappings of fame that being a famous musician begins — indeed, shortly after the game begins, we see him thrown into a sexual situation with two groupies and an old senpai who is now a member of a successful band, and he refuses to take part.

Souta, you see, is desperately in love with a girl named Yui, and herein lies one of the reasons why Curtain Call is such an interesting and distinct experience from the original game. Rather than the first part of the game allowing the player to get to know the characters and then, through their choices, progressing down one of their "routes" to their eventual conclusion, in Curtain Call we begin with a protagonist who is already obsessed with the object of his affections. In what I've played so far, Yui's feelings towards Souta are somewhat ambiguous, but it's clear that there's some affection there despite Souta's previous advances leaving her with mild androphobia.

Souta is a marked contrast to the original game's protagonist Shikanosuke. Initially, Shika was a guy very much caught up in a tidal wave of events that you always felt were slightly beyond his control — though it was abundantly clear by the end of the story that he was genuinely enjoying himself despite spending a good half of the game in drag — but he grew and changed in various ways according to which of the three heroines' paths he proceeded down. Each of the paths had something in common, though: the fact that the main cast's band left an indelible mark on their high school of Oubi Academy, and you get a real sense of this fact in Curtain Call. In a nice touch, Shikanosuke's sister Yuko, who was often heard but never seen in the original Kira Kira, is one of the main supporting characters in Curtain Call and has even been very obviously designed to resemble Shikanosuke in drag to an almost uncomfortable degree.

Other characters put in an appearance, too: the second half of the game (which I haven't reached yet) focuses on one of Kira Kira's supporting characters and his attempts to make his own band. In one of the routes through the original game, Shikanosuke becomes part of this group as he attempts to [SPOILER REDACTED] but in the "True End", we simply hear that this band exists.

All in all, I really like the idea of a "fandisc". It provides the potential for a story to continue and for the game's world to be considerably more fleshed out even after the main game has concluded. Of course, you have to be careful not to outstay your welcome — Persona 3 FES ran into this issue with its immensely frustrating, cheap boss fights — but if you handle it well, it gives the player the opportunity to spend just a little more very welcome time in a game world with some characters and settings that they have become very fond of. While I was completely satisfied with the way Kira Kira concluded in all its various routes, I'm happy to have the chance to see "what happened next" and take part in the extension of that story.

The post 1157: The 'Fandisc' Experience appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

Ahem. Let's start again.

I saw Ell's route of My Girlfriend is the President through to its conclusion this evening, and it was just as magically adorable as I was expecting it to be. It was also quite a bit shorter than the previous two routes I've completed to date — those for Yukino and Irina — and structured a little differently, unfolding over two "episodes" after the initial setup instead of three.

Spoilers after the break.

Ell, or Starship Ezekiel to give her her full name, is the resident "cute" character in My Girlfriend is the President's cast. Even more so than the overflowing moe of Yukino, Ell-chan is the character that you're supposed to want to protect, hug and snuggle up under a blanket with. She's also the resident Robot Girl, after a fashion anyway.

The startlingly gooey reaction that she elicited in me (and, I'm hoping, everyone else who plays My Girlfriend is the President) is due to a combination of factors. Firstly, her striking appearance — lots of green hair, twintails, huge purple puppy-dog eyes, a delicate figure. Secondly, her manner of speaking (and, by extension, her voice acting) — quiet, calm, mellow and restrained for the most part but prone to sudden outbursts of emotion. Thirdly, her personality — innocent, pure and curious at the outset, and gradually developing and evolving over the course of the story. By the end, she's much more experienced in the ways of the world in many different ways — she's much more comfortable expressing emotions, understands what "love" feels like and has a strong sense of determination to follow her own desires rather than blindly following orders. And yet at the same time, she maintains that feeling of delicateness and purity even as we start to see other, more "human" sides of her — including, of course, a filthy dirty naughty side. This is a marked contrast from what we see of her in all the other routes, where she is much more robotic and artificial-seeming — and often an inconvenience to Jun and whoever he is pursuing at the time.

The sheer power of Ell-chan's cuteness is perhaps best exemplified by the striking way in which protagonist Junichiro changes on her path. On both Yukino and Irina's paths, Jun remains something of an obnoxious pervert for quite some time after he realises that he likes them before eventually mellowing and becoming a dedicated, devoted, loyal lover. In Ell-chan's case, however, we see Jun change almost immediately. He recognises how delicate she is and shows his tender, caring and kind side, taking care of Ell even though, as a starship, she's more than capable of taking care of herself, despite her fragile appearance in human form. We see him support her as she struggles to get over the trauma inflicted by her crashing on Earth not once but twice — and we also discover some things that are only alluded to in the other paths.

Specifically, we discover exactly why Jun is a "reconstructed human" with the power to go a bit Hulky when triggered with a kiss. Nine years prior to the events of My Girlfriend is the President, Ell crashed to Earth and almost killed Jun. After rescuing him and rebuilding him without a human template to refer to, Ell moved in with Jun's house to ensure that he was safe, but eventually departed, erasing his memories in the process. But such was the impact that the mysterious green-haired girl had on Jun's childhood that these memories eventually resurface — first through dreams and eventually into his conscious mind. There are some truly touching scenes as Jun comes to the realisation that yes, he has met this girl before, and he fell in love with her even back then.

The focus in Ell's path is very much on Jun and Ell rather than the other cast members, who barely put in an appearance. While both Yukino and Irina's paths saw some comic (and occasionally heartbreaking) love rivalry going on, in Ell's path the depth of affection that all the characters hold for this strange girl from another world — and for Jun, for that matter — is clear. Both Yukino and Irina gladly step aside when they see how happy the couple are with one another. Even resident villain Zouma-sensei (aka Josef Souma Mengele… yes, really) is quickly kicked to the curb, whereas he becomes the "final boss" of both Yukino and Irina's paths.

The reason for this is, of course, the presence of Ell's sister Remi, who is the antithesis to Ell's calm detachment in almost every way. Energetic, full of life and seemingly in possession of a limitless supply of rage and jealousy, Remi puts in an appearance to make life very difficult for the cast in pretty much all of the paths, but it's in Ell's path that she becomes the primary antagonist. Remi envies Ell, you see, as she believes that her "younger sister" is more beloved by their "mother" Qoo Little-Little, the alien who is responsible for the whole mess that sets up the events of the game. She won't be reasoned with, however, and it takes desperate measures for the two sisters — and their bizarre, foul-mouthed mother — to be able to make up with one another. But when they do, like so much else in this strange production, it's a heartfelt and touching scene.

I have one more route — that of Ran-neechan — to polish off in this game and I have to say, despite the total lack of meaningful choices to make on the game's four paths — there are no "bad endings" to my knowledge — it's proven to be a surprisingly compelling experience. It would be so easy for the game's nonsensical concepts and ridiculous, exaggerated characters to become nothing more than brightly-coloured, easily-forgotten fluff, but it's testament to the effort the team has put into the game that they are all incredibly likeable, interesting characters.

It helps that the game is clearly aware of how ridiculous it is, too, with the fourth wall regularly being broken and a ton of referential humour for those with sharp enough eyes (and/or an exhaustive enough knowledge of Japanese popular culture) to spot it. Even the ero content, which I'm not ashamed to say is pretty consistently hawt throughout, feels like it has a place, as it helps us to understand the characters' deepening relationships with one another as much as it exists to excite the player. (It helps that said content tends to come at the midpoint of the story rather than as a "reward" at the end, too — this gets the player feeling "attached" to these characters and their relationship before moving on to the major conflict that makes up the finale of each path.)

In short, then, while My Girlfriend is the President is never going to be considered a great work of "literature" (or whatever the equivalent for video games and/or visual novels is), it is most certainly a highly memorable production with a great cast, a fun (if silly) story and some high production values. If you want to play a VN where you can just "switch off", sit back and enjoy the ride (so to speak), then it's a sound offering for sure.

The post #oneaday Day 980: I Love You, Starship Ezekiel appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

(Author's note: it is nearly 2am and I am tired, so I apologise in advance for incoherent rambling.)

Mild to moderate spoilers follow.

Currently I am about halfway through Irina's route. Irina Putina is the Rusian (sic) president who shows up early in the game's (fixed) first act and then sticks around for varying amounts of time in the remaining three, depending on which route you chose. She's a textbook tsundere in almost every respect, seeming abrasive, grumpy and quick to anger on the surface but regularly demonstrating that she has a soft centre beneath all the slapping. And to be fair to her, protagonist Jun deserves every single slap he gets from her.

Playing Irina's route directly after Yukino (the titular "girlfriend" — actually better translated as "childhood friend") is interesting. On Yukino's route, a huge deal was made out of her history with Jun, particularly a key event in their past which made them the close friends (and, later, lovers) that they are in the game's story. On Irina's route, the pair are still very close to one another, but Jun's attitude towards Yukino is markedly different, at least so far as I have progressed. The pair still play with one another — Yukino's "puppy" impression is particularly adorable ("Wan! Wan!") — but over time as Jun becomes increasingly aware of Irina, he becomes self-conscious about his relationship with Yukino and about how he is stringing her along and making her jealous.

Jun, just in case you haven't read my other entries on the subject, is a bit of a dick at the start of the game. Specifically, he's a wannabe sex pest, constantly making inappropriate comments and lusting after his female friends, most of whom know exactly how to put him in his place. It's worth bearing in mind that he is a teenage boy, however, and consequently is wracked with perpetual horniness and no outlet into which to channel this energy. Moreover, his "harassment," as he calls it, doesn't escalate beyond ill-chosen words and an occasional bit of peeping at things he shouldn't. His actions are regularly completely inappropriate, of course, but he could also be much, much worse.

It's this thoroughly objectionable nature that Jun has at the start of the story that allows him to take such a bold personal journey over the course of the narrative, even as utter insanity is unfolding around him and his friends. By beginning as a heavily flawed character, a pervert, he has the potential to grow and change into something better, and the girls of the story provide the catalyst for him to change. In the case of Yukino, he learns to respect and respond to the feelings of others; in the case of Irina, he learns restraint and gentleness. (I can't speak for Ell or Ran as I haven't played their paths at all yet.)

It's actually quite touching to see. We first witness Jun going through some changes on Irina's path when she comes with him to a judo class and shows him her passion for the sport. When he ends up pinned beneath her and starts teasing her about her breasts, she gets absolutely furious at him and storms out. Normally, Old Jun would have just shrugged this off, but he actually feels bad that he has hurt her feelings by mocking something she loves so much. He goes out of his way to try and make things right — even more remarkable given that he knows she's going to leave in a couple of weeks and thus he could just as easily stay out of her way. His feelings grow, and he realises that he wants to make her happy, to give her the opportunity to be a "normal" girl for those two short weeks rather than the "girl president" position she's been lumbered with.

It's an interesting twist on what happens with Yukino's path. When Jun and Yukino become lovers, Jun stands by her, swears to support her and goes out of his way to help her complete her mountains of work — without her knowledge in some cases. As he grows to love Irina, however, he seemingly wants to provide her with an "escape" from reality for a short period, to let her be "herself" rather than the "Rusian Fairy" facade she normally has to keep up.

I really love that a game with such an utterly nonsensical overarching plot as My Girlfriend is the President still has such wonderfully-defined characters and a genuine sense of emotional engagement in its narrative. The game is absolutely masterful at building up sexual tension in particular, meaning the player is right there with Jun throughout, feeling the electricity of every stolen glance, flushed cheek and hesitant word of affection.

That sense of involvement, of being inside the heads of the characters? That's why I love VNs. There are few other places in gaming where you can have such profound experiences.

The post #oneaday Day 967: I Love You, Irina appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

I make no apologies for the length of this post.

Spoileriffic thoughts follow. If you're going to play School Days HQ and don't want it spoiled, stop reading. Yeah, you.

The first thing I'll say is that I have not seen all of this game's endings yet. Given that there are twenty of them (I think), doing so will take a while. I have, however, seen five of them, and I feel this is starting to give me a good understanding of the characters involved.

School Days is structured in an interesting manner. As opposed to Katawa Shoujo's heavily branching first act and then five completely discrete "paths" through the game, School Days' narrative branches all over the bloody place. There are two distinct "paths" that the story splits into at the end of the second of the game's six "episodes", each seeing protagonist Makoto apparently pursuing one of the two leading ladies, but whether or not he will end up with his "chosen" girl is by no means a foregone conclusion. The various paths which the story can follow give additional context to various scenes, and help provide the player with additional understanding of a variety of characters — both the three leads and the more incidental characters. Let's look at them one at a time.

Makoto

Protagonist Makoto is, unlike a lot of visual novel/eroge protagonists, his own person rather than a "blank slate" onto which the player can project themselves. We join him as he finds himself attracted to the mysterious girl he sees on the train every day. This is Kotonoha. Shortly afterwards, his homeroom teacher rearranges the class' seats, and Makoto ends up sitting next to Sekai, whom he has not had much occasion to speak to before.

Makoto initially isn't sure how to respond to Sekai — she appears to be strong, pushy, loud and talkative. When she catches him apparently attempting to do a "charm" with his mobile phone — schoolyard rumour has it that if you take a photo of the person you like and keep it a secret for three weeks, they'll fall in love with you — things get interesting.

The very fact that Makoto is attempting this charm in the first place shows us that he's obviously quite a lonely person. He seems quite solitary at the best of times, and lacks the confidence to approach Kotonoha on the train. It takes Sekai's assistance for him to be able to talk to Kotonoha, and even then he struggles. Conversely, he appears to have absolutely no trouble talking to Sekai, though that might just be because she doesn't take "no" for an answer.

But why is Makoto lonely? We see that he has friends — he often hangs out with his best buddy Taisuke in class, for example, and he still has occasional contact with Katou, a girl whom he went to his previous school with. But he's distant, cold and aloof at times. At least some of this can probably be attributed to his home life. His parents are divorced; he lives with his mother and his little sister lives with his absent father. We don't see Makoto's sister often (or possibly at all — I can't speak for paths I haven't followed yet) but it's clear that he misses her; on a number of routes, he seems genuinely pleased that he's going to get to spend the weekend with her when we hear that she is coming to visit.

When Makoto does eventually get into a relationship, we find out a few more things about him. We discover that he's quite awkward in embarrassing situations, particularly when coupled with the equally-awkward Kotonoha, but like any red-blooded male, he has "needs" — specifically, a need for physical intimacy, even if it's just holding someone's hand. His sensitive side comes out even here, though — in one conversation with Sekai he worries about coming across as "perverted" when all he did was take Kotonoha's hand. Granted, she did slap him around the face when he did so, however, so what is the poor chap to think?

We also learn that he's easily swayed, particularly by women. He is weak-willed and unable to stand up for himself when another woman confesses their attraction to him, and he finds saying "no" difficult to do. Given the other facets of his character we know about, however, it's probably fair to say that this isn't because he's a horny pervert — on the contrary, he's a very considerate lover, given the evidence we see — but rather because he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. This is a character trait he clings onto in most paths, though in the one where he focuses on Kotonoha to the complete exclusion of everyone else around him, he says explicitly to her that he no longer cares who he hurts, so long as he gets to be with Kotonoha always.

Despite the fact he is so easily swayed, he does have the capacity to devote himself to something (or, indeed, someone) and tune out all other distractions. While it takes quite some time in most of the paths for him to figure out whether it's Kotonoha, Sekai or someone else he wants, once he does figure this out, he sticks to his guns. Unfortunately, whoever ends up spurned doesn't always cooperate.

Which brings us neatly on to Kotonoha.

Kotonoha

Kotonoha initially appears to be a "Hanako" — a shy girl who is almost painfully awkward in social situations, particularly those involving members of the opposite sex. She speaks in a quiet voice and clearly thinks about the things that she is going to say before she says them, presumably in an attempt to ensure that they are the "right" things and that she doesn't make a fool out of herself.

We discover in several paths what one of the root causes of Kotonoha's shyness is: bullying, both in the past and the present. We learn that Sekai's tomboyish friend Nanami went to the same school as Kotonoha in the past, and Kotonoha regards her as a bully. We also learn that the other girls in her class bully her and take advantage of her whenever possible. This becomes particularly apparent at the school festival, when they leave her to man their class' reception desk all day while they go off hunting for boys to take back to the secret "break rooms" to have their way with them.

Kotonoha's difficulties stem largely from her appearance. She's cute and she has noticeably larger breasts than many of the other girls, and she tells Sekai that it has been this way since the end of primary school. She resents this fact, however, because it makes the boys look at her "in an indecent manner" and the girls assume that she is wrapping all said boys around her little finger. The truth of the matter is quite the opposite, however, as Kotonoha has never dated anyone prior to meeting Makoto, which explains her awkwardness around him.

Kotonoha is heavily hung up on the conventions of polite Japanese society. It takes her two days of effort to summon up the courage to ask Makoto if she can call him by his first name, even after they've already been on a date and have spent several days eating lunch together. She is terrified of being touched, worrying about being seen doing anything improper, and resists all of Makoto's advances when they are first together.

This particular facet of Kotonoha's personality can be attributed to her father, whom we don't see but we do hear about. He's very strict and doesn't approve of her consorting with boys, and also imposes a curfew on her to ensure she doesn't step too far out of line. Interestingly, her mother, whom we do see much more often, is the polar opposite of this, encouraging her to take more bold steps with Makoto, even going so far as to teach her the family's "secret lemonade recipe".

Kotonoha, like Makoto, isn't quite sure what to do once she's in a relationship. However, one thing is abundantly clear in every path: once she considers herself to be in a relationship, she considers that to be for keeps. She is not good at admitting when something isn't working, and continues clinging to false hope long after the object of her affections has clearly sought solace elsewhere.

If Makoto decides that Sekai is the one he really likes, then Kotonoha will continue to doggedly pursue him, eventually assuming that the reason he doesn't want her is because of her reticence and fear of being touched. She grows more and more bold and discovers that she can take advantage of Makoto's easily-swayed personality, particularly if sex is involved. She appears to develop something of a taste for sex after she seduces Makoto for the first time, going so far as to do some rather indecent things to him on the way home, and in one last-ditch attempt to break him and Sekai up (if, indeed, that is the path down which the story is going) seduces him once more and surreptitiously snaps a photograph of him in a very compromising position.

Kotonoha's stubborn, dogged determination stems from the fact that she has nothing to lose. We learn early on that she has no friends, preferring to absorb herself in a book than try and make peace with the girls who bully her in her own class. She welcomes Sekai into her life, however, believing that she is helping her altruistically. When it becomes clear that Sekai also has feelings for Makoto, however, Kotonoha becomes very jealous and clearly worries that she is going to end up alone again, so figures that she might as well throw everything she's got into trying to rekindle whatever spark there once was. On the flip side, if Makoto devotes himself to her, she doesn't appear to care one little bit about Sekai's feelings, because she knows that she'll always have Makoto and doesn't have to worry any more.

Kotonoha is a prime example of a character who is not at all what she seems at first glance. The shy, demure-looking cute girl actually turns out to be something of a master manipulator if provoked — given that she has nothing to lose, who knows what she's capable of if things really don't go her way?

Sekai

Sekai is the exact opposite of Kotonoha in almost every way. While Kotonoha is always immaculately-groomed and generally in her shy, quiet and demure persona, Sekai has shaggy, scruffy hair and is loud, brash, and confident, usually saying exactly what she thinks. She has a close group of friends whom she confides in regularly, and she latches on to Makoto as soon as the pair are made to sit next to one another.

It transpires, of course, that Sekai has actually had her eye on Makoto since the school's opening ceremony, when Our Hero helped out her childhood friend Setsuna. (Setsuna also fell for him around this time, though this only becomes apparent or an issue in one path that I've seen so far.) She is secretly delighted at the chance to spend more time with him, even if it is just to get him together with someone else.

It quickly becomes apparent that Sekai's interest in Makoto is a borderline obsession, as she refuses to give up on him even if it's clear he's favouring Kotonoha. She allows herself to be strung along in a "friends with benefits" relationship that arises from Makoto's frustration and Kotonoha's unwillingness to be touched. She is frustrated by this arrangement, but sees it as better than nothing. "It's a lie," she says every time Makoto tells him he loves her, "but it makes me so happy." On the rare occasions where she does get frustrated and voices these concerns to Makoto, he immediately apologises and decides that they should stop doing what they're doing, but every time she retracts what she says out of fear of losing him.

On the occasions when she does lose him, she shows that she does not cope well with rejection. She sinks into a deep depression, often becoming so upset that she's completely unable to function. Often her friends are able to help her out of this, but if Makoto proceeds down the path where he devotes himself entirely to Kotonoha, she becomes completely inconsolable. She loses all sense of self-respect and self-worth, submitting to Makoto's friend Taisuke as a "second best" option, culminating in a horrifying scene where Makoto and Kotonoha walk in on the aftermath of her clearly having been raped, despite the fact that both parties involves deny this. (This is the same path where Makoto comments that he doesn't care who he hurts any more, so his reaction to seeing one of his best friends having clearly been abused by another of his best friends is simply to be irrationally turned on by the fact he saw her in a dishevelled, half-naked state, going so far as to whack one off over the memory when he gets home. What a cock.)

Alongside the fact she is prone to depression, she also has something of a defeatist streak. In one path, her mother gets a new job in Paris and it becomes apparent that Sekai is going to have to leave with her. She does everything possible to try and avoid this but eventually concludes that it is hopeless and gives up entirely. It takes Setsuna stepping forward and mock-seducing Makoto (and secretly hoping that it can go further) for her to realise that she is willing to fight for him, and is unwilling to give up on her own happiness just because of something that may or may not be out of her own control.

Sekai does not appear to have a mean bone in her body. Even when Kotonoha is doing her best to secure Makoto as her own, Sekai never stoops to insults or manipulation, instead preferring to "win" on her own merits. The worst she gets is yelling "Coward! Idiot! Die!" down the phone at Makoto towards the start of the game when he's getting cold feet about asking out Kotonoha — a sequence which caused me to mistakenly describe her as "dangerously unstable" when I first started playing.

And while she describes herself as "quite a perverted girl" (despite being a virgin when Makoto first meets her) she never uses sex to get what she wants, unlike Kotonoha — although it could perhaps be argued that the times when she willingly goes along with Makoto's "friends with benefits" relationship is a form of manipulation to try and keep him around for as long as possible. She has no real power, however; she even jokes at one point that getting Makoto to say that he loves her more than Kotonoha is "more than I can get you to say, even with your dick in my hand".

Sekai's clearly a better fit for Makoto. The two of them both seem considerably happier when they're together, but shaking off Kotonoha proves to be rather difficult on most of the paths through the game. When they do get it together, though, there's much less of a feeling of "bittersweetness" than in some of Kotonoha's endings.

____

All three characters are fascinating to study, and not one of them falls into the trope trap. All of them have a surprising degree of hidden depth, and their interactions with one another is what makes School Days such a fascinating game to play. I'm looking forward to discovering even more about them as I creep ever-closer to 100% completion — it might be a while yet, though, since after seeing five endings I'm still just at 31%.

The post #oneaday Day 949: I Love You, Kotonoha... No, Wait, Sekai appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

I'm on a bit of a "narrative-based games that challenge the conventions of what is 'normal' and/or 'acceptable' for video games to tackle" kick at the moment, if you can even have a "kick" in such a thing. So it was that I found myself playing Kana Little Sister recently.

"What is Kana Little Sister?" I hear you ask. It's another one of them visual novel type things from Japan, meaning lots of reading, occasional decisions to make, anime-style pictures and, in many (though not all) cases, some naughty pictures. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can acquire a legal copy that works on modern machines right here. Link is pretty much NSFW, just so you know.

It will probably not surprise you to note that there are likely to be spoilers ahead. Consider yourself warned. Spoileriffic stuff is below the break. All discussion here is based on a single playthrough which achieved Ending No. 6, aka "Live Now", aka "Intellectual Ending No. 3", so any and all spoilers will relate to that route only.

Okay, let's get the inevitable, unavoidable things out of the way first. Yes, there is sex in it. Yes, it's pretty explicit and makes use of some frankly unnecessary onomatopoeia at times. (SQUELCH.) Yes, one of the central narrative threads is a "will they, won't they" incestuous relationship between protagonist Taka and the eponymous Kana. (Reassuring spoiler the first: Kana was adopted, so they're not actually related at all.)

There we are. That wasn't so hard, was it? Now, let's talk about the game proper.

Kana is dying. She's been dying for a long time, and her whole family knows it. Her older brother Taka, the protagonist of our story, used to resent her for the attention and love that her condition (chronic renal insufficiency, if you're curious) got her from her parents, but after the two became separated from their parents and lost in the woods as children, Taka, feeling some sense of having to start acting like a "big brother" rather than the spoiled brat he has been until that point, feels an overwhelming urge to protect his fragile little sister from harm, culminating in his throwing himself on top of her to take the brunt of an attack by a swarm of bees — an attack which leaves him so severely injured that his role is temporarily switched with the usually bed-ridden Kana as he recovers in hospital.

The story proceeds through several stages in Taka and Kana's growing up. As the pair mature, Taka maintains his protective "big brother" nature over Kana, to the extent that he tries to be with her as much as possible and even keep her away from his skirt-lifting friend Masa. If anything, he's somewhat overprotective of her in the early years while she's still well enough to go to school and be out of the hospital, but Kana certainly doesn't resent this, coming to depend on Taka's support when she is forced back to her lonely life in hospital, observing the world passing her by through the window.

Taka is an intriguing character as he is a deeply, deeply flawed protagonist. His protection of — some may say obsession with — Kana in the early years causes him to be somewhat socially awkward simply because he spends so much time in the pair's private little bubble. So much so, in fact, that when the slightest possibility of getting together with class hottie Yumi comes up, he literally runs away terrified, lashing out at the poor girl after it emerges his classmates had read a sort-of love letter that he penned her in an attempt to simply get her alone and talk about, you know, The Feels and shit.

As it happens, Yumi had nothing to do with the letter being found — Taka's classmates discovered it by themselves, but Yumi panicked and didn't know what to do. As a popular girl, she didn't want to lose face in front of her classmates, but equally she felt guilty about the humiliation it put Taka through. Taka, meanwhile, harboured an obsessive grudge against Yumi right from the incident in elementary school all the way up until the end of high school. He eventually grudgingly forgave her, however, and gave her a button off his blazer on graduation day as a memento to remember him by — assuming, at the time, that this would be the last the pair would see of each other.

It wasn't the last the pair would see of each other, as it happened. Yumi had herself been harbouring something of an obsession over Taka, culminating with a chance meeting of them both at a college party, her getting him very drunk, seducing him, dragging him back to a motel and then doing what can only be described as fucking the bejeezus out of him. It becomes painfully apparent during their rather awkward lovemaking that Taka's mind is elsewhere — while Yumi screams about how much she loves him, Taka's mind keeps being smitten with flashes of Kana's face. He sees traits of Kana's in Yumi, even though the two are polar opposites — Kana is shy, quiet and retired while Yumi is brash, confident, used to getting her own way and rather pushy.

Taka agrees to go along with a relationship with Yumi, however, in an attempt to get his growing feelings for Kana out of his mind — or perhaps to deny they even exist in the first place. Yumi is ecstatic at finally having snared the man she had her eye on since elementary school, and does everything she can to make their relationship happy, dynamic and fun. Taka is repeatedly wracked with doubt about whether or not he's doing the right thing, though, and his heart is never quite in it. He doesn't want to introduce Yumi to Kana, and is mortified any time Kana sees the two together — including one utterly toe-curling moment where Kana walks in on the two of them having sex.

Yumi doesn't pick up on Taka's hesitance and reluctance until it's too late — perhaps because she doesn't want to see it — but the pair eventually split as Kana's condition gradually worsens. Taka doesn't explain exactly why he ditches Yumi, noting only that there is someone else that is important to him, and that he "had to make a choice". He's still in denial about the feelings he's harbouring towards the girl he has grown up knowing as his sister — though after finding a family album with no photos of Kana as a young girl, he starts to have suspicions.

Taka sacrifices most of his life to take care of Kana as her health goes into a slow decline. He drops out of college, gets a menial job to earn some money and spends every waking moment he can with Kana. Kana appreciates his visits and draws strength from his presence — she'd later note in her diary that she wasn't fighting alone, because her "Bro" was with her all along, allowing her to far outlive the life expectancy the doctors gave her.

Taka, growing increasingly desperate as he sees this girl that he loves — though he's still confused exactly how — attempts to give her the opportunity to live as normal a life as possible. He takes her out, allows her to fulfil her modest dreams of seeing the ocean and, eventually, confesses his feelings to her. Kana reciprocates them, and the pair both admit that they've known for a while that they weren't blood relatives.

The two make love in a scene that is a far cry from the urgent, animal intensity of Taka's encounters with Yumi. Taka is gentle and tender with Kana, not only because he's afraid of her fragility due to her illness, but because she's the one that he really loves, and has done for some time. The pair are happy in each others arms, with Kana saying that she feels like she's finally achieved something — to be with the one that she loves.

It's at this point she starts to let go of her already tenuous grip on life. She gets a fever, and her health starts to decline more rapidly. Like the pair's aunt Sumako, however, whom they watched die from cancer with few regrets, Kana is accepting of the fact that she does not have much time left. Instead of bawling hysterically like in an earlier scene, she faces death with quiet contemplation.

It transpires that it was the pair's trip to see the ocean and their subsequent confessions of love to one another that caused Kana to feel fulfilled. She wasn't giving up, she felt she had achieved everything she wanted to. She faced her fate happily and without fear.

"Today I saw the ocean," she writes in her diary. "I'm not afraid any more."

Taka doesn't discover this page in her diary — the very last entry — until some time after she has breathed her last. Following her death, Taka found himself unable to cry for her, wondering what was wrong with him to stop him crying when he "should" or "needed" to. This entry, this simple statement of her acceptance of her fate, and her feelings of fulfilment with her short life, causes him to snap and finally let out the emotions he's been bottling up. He breaks down in tears and is inconsolable for some time, but finally he understands Kana — including her reasons for wanting to donate her organs to Taka's cousin after her death.

As time passes, Taka heals and finds direction in his life. Kana lived her life with no regrets, he understands, and died knowing that she had fulfilled that which she wanted to achieve. He gets Kana's diaries published as a book, which helps Yumi understand the pain and suffering that both he and Kana were enduring and allows her to forgive him; throws himself into his studies; and aims to do the best he can with the time he has left.

Kana's diary notes that she believes no-one should live forever because by several hundred years in the future, the world will have changed to such a degree that humans will have had to evolve to keep up with it. She believed it better for people to live in their own generation, and to live a full a life as they can in their own circumstances. That way, there's no looking back at the end and thinking "What if…"

It's a good philosophy to take, and one which Taka takes to heart as he looks forward to the rest of his life, knowing that his little sister has forever changed his outlook for the better.

So that's one route through Kana Little Sister. There are several others, which I believe are significantly different. I'll be interested to see what they involve.

If you're wondering whether the game itself is actually worth playing, the answer is "yes", with a few provisos. It's a visual novel, so you will be spending 95% of your time reading text and looking at anime pictures. It's also a visual novel translated from Japanese, which brings up its own set of considerations. The text is rather slow-paced, descriptive and occasionally repetitive, and there are a whole bunch of spelling and grammatical errors throughout (including one memorable sequence that repeatedly uses the word "apolozige").

But it's testament to Kana Little Sister's strong story and well-defined characters that even with these linguistic idiosyncracies, it's still not something you will want to put down easily once you're engaged with it. It's a rather different beast to Katawa Shoujo in that it's not a "dating sim" type of game and thus you're not outright trying to woo a specific girl. Instead, it focuses on the complex, intimate feelings between two people as they speed through life towards a conclusion that they both know is not going to end well. It's by turns touching, heartwarming and tragic — or, to put it another way, Here Be Feels.

The post #oneaday Day 760: I Love You, Kana appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

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~!

The post #oneaday Day 753: I Love You, Katawa Shoujo appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

This is the fifth (and possibly final… maybe) of several posts regarding the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and proceed down the “Rin” 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 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 Shizune can be found here, the previous day's post on Hanako can be found here, and the day before that's post on Lilly can be found here. I'm at 96% completion as of tonight, with only a few scenes and endings left to clear up. In for a penny, in for a pound…

Rin is an infuriating enigma from the moment Hisao first meets her, and remains so for pretty much the whole of her story. She's calm, aloof, frequently nonsensical and, more often than not, completely self-absorbed. Despite this, she's not disliked by the other students and indeed has developed a surprisingly close bond with Emi who, being outgoing, bubbly and the sort of person who wears her heart on her sleeve, is the absolute antithesis to Rin. The pair admit shortly after Hisao meets them that they were put together in the dorms because it was felt they "complement each other well". They chose to interpret this as meaning that they had all their limbs between them — Rin missing her arms, Emi her legs — but it's actually much deeper than that, as their personalities also complement each other.

Hisao's interest in Rin is piqued just as he is wallowing in self-pity over his life situation. He feels depressed about being at Yamaku, at not being normal and at his bad memories of lying in the hospital bed. It bothers him significantly more than it does on the other paths through the game, and causes him to wear a perpetually grim expression on his face. He's not naturally the most outgoing, smiley person in the world at the best of times, but his relentless grimness intrigues Rin, who is a self-professed "people collector."

"I'm sorry I'm such a mess," says Hisao to Rin once they start to get to know each other.

"It's okay," she replies. "It's the best part of you."

Hisao doesn't quite know what to make of that, but finds himself drawn to Rin regardless. Later he comes to the conclusion that it was Rin's carefree nature that attracted him to her in the first place — she, in her own way, acted as a "muse" for him, inspiring him to pull himself out of the pit of darkness he was slowly drowning in.

"Maybe that's why I latched so tightly on to Rin," he muses, reflecting back on their relationship. "Trying to get inside her world that was so different from my own bleak life."

Whether or not he actually realises it, Hisao does manage to get inside Rin's world, but perhaps not in the way he expects. Through her, he starts to take an interest in the smaller details, seeing things with the perceptive eye of an artist. On a trip to town, he notices a woman's subtle gesture; in class, he catches a fleeting glimpse of a passing bird and feels inspired to try and draw it, even with his own self-doubt in his skills. Even his internal monologues become more riddled with imagery as he observes things, relating things to nature and the things he sees around him. It's an interesting yet subtle change to Hisao's personality compared to some of the other paths, but an apt way for the more contemplative protagonist he becomes to behave.

Rin, however, isn't as carefree as Hisao assumes. Inside her seemingly spaced-out exterior is a great deal of turmoil. She doesn't like to talk about it because she can never find the right words, and it's questionable as to whether or not she really understands what it is she is so conflicted about, either. One thing does seem to comfort her, though, and that is her art. When she paints, she feels like she can freely express the things inside her mind, and hopes, by extension, that anyone looking at them will be able to catch a glimpse of her soul and gain a better understanding of her. She wants to be understood, but has such difficulty expressing herself that most of the time it simply causes her to retreat into her own world. Planet Rin, around which Hisao establishes himself as a satellite.

Rin is lost and directionless, pulled in several directions at once, swept up in a current of people doing things she doesn't want or understand. Her pushy art teacher, apparently seeking to live vicariously through her and correct his own past mistakes, seizes the opportunity to push her into exhibiting her paintings and move into becoming a career artist. It's abundantly clear from her initial hesitation and resistance to the idea, however, that she's not sure she really wants to do this — even after Hisao's gentle nudging pushes her over the edge into letting it happen.

She feels she has to change, but she confesses to Hisao that change is "the scariest thing in the world" to her. She also doesn't seem to understand what she is supposed to change into, and doesn't understand the emotions that well up inside her — except for loneliness, which becomes painfully obvious to Hisao when he catches her all alone in the atelier in which she takes up residence: cutting a pathetic image, kneeling on the floor naked except for a shirt, seemingly masturbating as best she could with no arms.

"I thought that all that is inside me could become a picture if I tried really hard," she explains. "And it could. But it doesn't feel like it's enough any more. Because if nobody else can see that, I will still be alone."

Rin, it seems, is just as frustrated as Hisao, though for different reasons. Hisao is frustrated at the yawning chasm that seems to open up between the pair of them whenever they talk, and Rin is frustrated by the fact she just can't seem to explain her emotions and put them across to other people, even with the help of their art.

But after some reflection, Hisao comes to the conclusion that nobody can ever express their true feelings exactly in a manner that others can understand. He explains this to Rin, noting that wanting to do something for self-expression — be that talking, writing or art — isn't wrong in and of itself, but assuming that everyone else will somehow then magically be able to "understand" them is wrong. Why? Because everyone sees the world differently — something which becomes very apparent every time Emi shows up in Rin's story, as she is always filled with energy, rushing around with a smile on her face, compared to Rin and Hisao, neither of whom crack a smile for almost the entire time they know one another.

Hisao realises throughout the course of his relationship with Rin that he wants her to be something more than a friend. He has fallen in love with her despite the fact that she drives him crazy at times. The feeling of "inspiration" that she gave him in his darkest moments is what allowed him to pick himself up, pull his head above water and start living his life. He gradually comes to accept himself and his own disability, and this in turn allows him to take a more objective view of things.

Rin, meanwhile, isn't sure what she wants. She wants Hisao as a friend, because she doesn't want to be lonely, but at the same time, she doesn't know how to behave around him, doesn't understand his feelings and is even more confused by her own. It's not until she shows up on his doorstep, drenched by the rain from the outside and shares arguably the most intimate sex scene in the whole game with him that she really "lets go", releasing the walls she has up around herself, guarding her emotions and feelings from the outside world. Ironically, it's then she who tells Hisao that he needs to let go and, for once, live in the present.

Rin does change through the course of her knowing Hisao, but it's a slow, gradual process rather than the "destroy and rebuild" approach she assumes she must take earlier in the story. By the end of her tale, she's still the same spacey, weird girl she always was, but with a newfound acceptance of herself — more able to communicate what she's feeling, and more accepting of the fact that sometimes there will be things that other people just won't understand.

Hisao changes in the same way. While his relationship with Rin has signs of severely self-destructive tendencies at several points throughout the narrative, his inherently tenacious nature (which we see in several of the other paths, particularly Emi and Shizune's) means that he refuses to give up — either on Rin, or on himself. It's a difficult journey for them both, but one which ends with them not necessarily understanding each other completely, but having a much better understanding of themselves.

This, I feel, is an apt way to end Katawa Shoujo, since each of the five paths throughout the game is designed to have a particular emotional impact on the player, with each of the girls representing a particular trait or quality. Some of these will resonate with the player a little more; some of them the player will find more attractive; some of them the player will find less desirable or even offputting.

For me, I felt like I understood Hanako the best — her fear of social rejection, of being judged, of being scared to put trust and support in others. But I found Emi's drive and determination coupled with Lilly's grace and empathy to be the most attractive qualities. While I would describe myself as a creative type, I'm not sure I've felt such inner turmoil as Rin does over her own self-identity — though I have felt the desire (or, rather, "need") to change myself on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, my initial reaction to Shizune was one of dislike, though on reflection I do recognise certain aspects of her personality in myself — her practical nature, wanting to succeed and, at times, wanting to compete over even the silliest things.

So, then, as trite as it might sound, like in Rin's ending, I feel that in my time with Katawa Shoujo I have come to know myself a little better. Certain paths and situations resonated with me a lot more than other for various reasons, whether it was because I recognised the situations, whether I recognised traits in myself or whether, in several cases, I had had those exact conversations with someone.

Playing Katawa Shoujo has truly been a remarkable experience that I'm incredibly happy I had the opportunity to go through. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I won't ever be able to experience those stories for the first time again. If you haven't already, though, you can, right here.

The post #oneaday Day 752: I Love You, Rin appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

This is the fourth of several posts regarding the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and proceed down the “Shizune” 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 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 Hanako can be found here, and the previous day's post on Lilly can be found here. Following this, there's only Rin left to go.

I found playing Shizune's path quite interesting because I actually spent a lot of it not being entirely sure if I liked her or not. Her competitive, dominant, bossy nature is somewhat at odds with what I personally find attractive, and so I found myself wondering if pursuing her would have the same degree of emotional impact as the other girls. I still haven't quite made my mind up about it, as yet, but it was certainly an interesting story, despite being the least interactive of all the paths through the game, with only one meaningful choice to make.

At the outset of the game, the player is trained to think of the deaf and mute Shizune and her bubbly interpreter Misha as a single unit. It's difficult not to, as they're always together at the beginning of the game, Shizune only appears to speak in ellipses, and Hisao has to understand everything she says through Misha. Misha, being something of a wild child, has no sense of when Shizune is being sarcastic or scathing, but Hisao proves himself to be fairly astute early on, mostly understanding the intent behind Shizune's words but occasionally being surprised.

Despite her businesslike exterior, Shizune is actually quite immature and childlike underneath. She enjoys competition — making everything a game. At the slightest possibility of something becoming competitive, she'll challenge Hisao to "beat" her at it, usually offering punishments for the loser rather than rewards for the winner. She is proud, though, and doesn't back out of the consequences she set for herself, even if she does lose at times. We see this in the scene where the pair are carrying Kenji's inexplicably huge crate back to his room — she's the first to stumble and is perfectly willing to wind up carrying it herself.

Shizune's competitive nature is a coping mechanism she developed to get people to interact with her. As someone who could neither hear nor speak, she was isolated by her very nature. When we meet the rest of her family, including her cross-dressing brother and her irrational, trolling father, it becomes very clear that her childhood couldn't have been easy. The rest of her family clearly had no desire to learn how to communicate with her in sign language, and she came to resent having to communicate with her notepad. This is abundantly clear from how resistant she is to using it in her conversations with Hisao.

Shizune's story ends up being as much about Misha as it is about Shizune, however. When we're initially introduced to her, the player is left wondering exactly what she's doing at Yamaku. It's actually one of the other paths where we find out that the school isn't solely composed of disabled students, and since Misha appears to be free of physical deformities, we find ourselves wondering if she either has some sort of chronic condition, or some kind of mental disorder. Her seemingly unstable personality is arguably strong evidence for the latter, but we also find out in another path that Yamaku doesn't cater to those with mental disabilities, either, so it can't be that.

Misha, it seems, is simply there because she wants to learn sign language and go on to become a teacher in it. Hisao, to his credit, doesn't immediately assume that there's something "wrong" with Misha, but it's something of a natural conclusion for the player. As we get to know her throughout Shizune's path, however, it becomes clear that it's simply the sort of person she is — wild and bubbly for most of the time, but with occasional moments of clarity. And a love for the tilde.

The most interesting scenes with Misha come towards the end of the story, as Hisao's relationship with Shizune deepens. Misha comes to Hisao, utterly depressed, and asks him to comfort her. If he does, the two end up having curiously dispassionate sex, with the feeling afterwards that things have irreversibly changed. And sure enough, down this route lies the "bad ending", down which Shizune's nature causes her to end up alone.

It's this side of Shizune that is the most interesting thing about her, and a key part of her relationship with Misha, also. Shizune says to Hisao throughout the course of the story that the games she plays are a means to draw people in, to bring them closer. It works, too — we see even the chronically shy, retiring Hanako join Shizune in a game of chess at one point, drawn in by Shizune's magnetism.

What Shizune has trouble with, though, is knowing what to do with people once they are close. This is perhaps partly due to her difficulty in communicating with them, but it's also part of her personality. Given that we've established she grew up in a family environment that wouldn't have been all that supportive of her disability, she wouldn't have had a good model of what "people who are close" did with one another. This explains her detachment, and her businesslike nature in all matters. It also perhaps explains why when she and Hisao have sex for the first time, she ties him down and takes total control of the situation.

This detachment is a source of difficulty for Misha, who fell in love with Shizune some time ago. She sees how well Hisao and Shizune's relationship goes, and this depresses her, leading her to her potential late night liaison with Hisao. If Hisao displays some strength of will and refuses to go with it, Misha eventually gets back to her old self — thanks to Shizune's positive influence on Hisao.

Shizune spurs Hisao on to learn something out of his comfort zone — in this case, sign language. Her competitive nature also has a positive impact on his own personality. While he doesn't become as outright competitive as she does, he takes on some of her better traits, such as refusing to give up on people when they have given up on themselves. This particularly helps Misha, as Hisao absolutely refuses to let her sink so deeply into a pit of depression when it's clear that the two were such good friends. Eventually, we see Misha realising that she can't keep trailing along behind Shizune the whole time — Shizune has her own plans for the future, which involve becoming by turns a ruthless businesswoman and subsequently a philanthropist. Misha, meanwhile, elects to pursue what she is good at, even going so far as to take out-of-hours classes to improve her grades and score herself an international scholarship to continue her signing studies.

In fact, by the end of the story, it's only Hisao who ends up left without a firm idea of what he has to do by the time he graduates, and the realisation dawns on him that after the journey he took over the course of the year, he wants to help others. He wants to make sure that others turning up to Yamaku as depressed as he was when he first arrived are met with the same degree of friendship and support as he found when Shizune and Misha latched onto him. He decides he wants to become a teacher, accepting the fact that his heart condition means he'll probably die younger than other people, but wanting to make the most of the years he has.

Ultimately, Shizune's ending is much like Shizune the person — practical and businesslike. It doesn't have the romance of Lilly's ending, the raw emotion of Hanako's ending, the "finally, we understand each other" nature of Emi's ending — but it is a positive outcome for everyone involved. Hisao's life looks set to take a turn for the better as he has a clear goal, and his time with Shizune taught him that.

So while personally speaking Shizune may not have been the most appealing character, she has a positive, inspirational effect on Our Hero. And such is true for many things in life; the things that are best for us, the things that lead us on to Great Things aren't necessarily the things that provide us with the most instant of gratification. I can certainly relate to that.

The post #oneaday Day 751: I Love You, Shizune appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

This is the third of several posts regarding the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and proceed down the “Hanako” 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 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 Lilly can be found here.

Before I proceed, I should probably explain a few things — primarily, why the hell I am blogging more about this game than pretty much anything else I've ever played?

I don't have an easy answer to that save for the fact that it's resonated with me. And that's pretty much all there is to it — gameplay consists almost entirely of reading, looking at pictures and listening to music with the occasional choice between two (or, on very rare occasions, three) options. So it's certainly not the in-depth gameplay that has made me so interested in and enthusiastic about this title. The quality of writing, the well-defined characters and the emotional stories that they're used to tell, though? That's the prime attraction for me, and simultaneously what might put some others off.

So, on to Hanako.

I was expecting Hanako's path to be one of the most difficult to deal with, not necessarily from a choice-making perspective, but from an emotional perspective. While I can't relate to the trauma Hanako suffered when she lost her parents in the fire that caused the scars over half her body, I can relate to her social anxiety — that urgent feeling in your brain that when surrounded by unfamiliar people you really, really want to be somewhere else, and fast.

Like Hanako, I don't suffer it all the time. I have close friends with whom I can hang out, relax and chill out with for indefinite periods of time, just as she has Lilly and subsequently Hisao. But at the same time when thrust into a situation that will require socialising with people that I don't particularly know — or, worse, like — I often have a "fight or flight" response, usually ending in the latter. It's something that has got somewhat better over the years, but I can vividly recall on a number of occasions at university being out with a group of friends on the town, and just quietly slipping away at some point throughout the course of the evening because I couldn't take it any more. Often my absence went unnoticed.

Back to Hanako, though. In Hanako, we see a scared, fragile little girl in a teenager's body. She's afraid to leave her childhood behind, even after it was ripped from her by the death of her parents. She latched on to Lilly as a mother figure, and Lilly, as the caring, kind and gentle sort of person, accepted her. The two enjoy a good relationship, though Hanako becomes extremely dependent on Lilly's support, as we see by how terrified she is when it becomes necessary for her to talk to people when Lilly isn't there. She stammers, she fumbles her words and, occasionally, she simply bolts.

When Hisao comes on the scene, it's the beginning of something new for both him and Hanako. Hisao and Hanako both feel as if they are damaged goods, for different reasons — Hisao for his heart problems, and Hanako for her visible scars, which she does the best to cover up at all times with her hair and clothing. They begin to discover that they're able to relate to one another for these conditions that they're ashamed of, and, on the "good" route, come to bond over their scars. Hisao may only have a single scar on his chest as opposed to burns all over the side of his body, but it's still there as a constant reminder of his weakness.

Their finding each other comes to be less beneficial for one another than initially appears. While they support each other, they quickly fall into a codependent relationship, with one relying on the other. Hisao uses Hanako as an excuse not to have to think about the future, thinking of her as a special case who needs protecting. Lilly picks up on this and calls Hisao on it towards the end of the story.

If following the "good" path, Hisao ends up with Hanako late at night. He shows her his scar, the reminder of his painful past. In response, she strips down and shows him her body, scars and all — "this is me, all of me," she says — and the two end up having rather awkward sex. It's not until afterwards that Hisao has the sickening feeling that he wasn't even sure if she said "yes" — it was just something that happened, though he feels afterwards that it shouldn't have, that all it has achieved is put more walls up between the two of them.

Up until this point, Hisao has been somewhat absorbed in his own "white knight" quest to "fix" Hanako. Indeed, Hanako's "bad" ending sees her flying into a furious rage as he gets so absorbed in his role, so utterly convinced that he can somehow "save" her that he fails to see — or accept — that she wants and needs the space to work things out for herself, and to be independent, despite how much she has relied on others.

The final scene of Hanako's "good" path, however, reveals the girl's true intentions — "I wanted you to see me as someone more than someone you had to protect," she says. "All I ever was to you was a useless person, like a child." Hisao initially wants to deny this, but realisation finally dawns on him.

"She had become to me what I had been to my friends after my heart attack," he thinks. "A broken person."

He realises that this is actually the last thing he wanted to happen. He knows how awful it felt to have people he loved fall away from him because of his own issues, and at this point, he realises that he's been doing the same to Hanako. She didn't want to lose him, but her own feelings of inadequacy meant she felt she was unable to pursue him and admit her true feelings. We see this from the last thing she says in the story — her kiss is a "gift", and "something she should have given [him] a long time ago".

Hanako's feelings cut deep. I can't count the number of times over the years that I have felt similar feelings to her. Feelings of inadequacy, of being unable to measure up to impossible, undefinable standards that I've conjured up from somewhere. Feelings of being "useless", of being a "broken person". Feelings that came to a head as my marriage and life as I knew it came tumbling down around me. I had fucked up, made a mistake, ruined everything. And who would want someone so broken?

My own feelings, of course, don't come from physical scars of feeling responsibility for a past traumatic event. In my case, they're born from depression and, I imagine, whatever mental scars my less-than-pleasant life at school left me with. The result is the same, though — a depleted sense of self-worth, the feeling that you'll lose people simply for being somehow "useless" or "inadequate".

I haven't felt those feelings to the same degree for some time now, but Hanako's story resonated deeply with me precisely because I understood what running through her mind, if not the exact circumstances which caused such thoughts. While I shan't say that experiencing her story was particularly "comfortable", containing as many truths and familiar things as it did, I'm glad I went through it.

The post #oneaday Day 750: I Love You, Hanako appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

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.

The post #oneaday Day 749: I Love You, Lilly appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.