I responded relatively hastily, though I did make one substitution before I submitted. I kept mine to the world of games, largely because I think that was the intention, and also because if I start getting into TV series and anime I would have been there all night deciding.

Anyway. This seems like a good opportunity to expand on my choices. My picks were as follows:

Katsuragi (Senran Kagura)

I've already written reams of text on Katsuragi so I won't delve too much into that again, but suffice to say that Katsu-nee is one of my favourite characters due to the fact that I think she'd be fun to hang out with if she was a real person. I question whether or not she'd actually hang out with a dude like me, of course, given that Senran Kagura rather strongly implies that she's a bit gay — also the whole "I'm not a ninja" thing — but, assuming that sort of thing isn't a consideration… yes, I think Katsuragi would be fun to hang around with.

The most appealing thing about Katsuragi is not her aggressive sexuality — though her self-confidence and willingness to pursue what she desires rather than moping around in the dark about it is something I can respect — but rather it's that in her calmer moments, she's the very model of the perfect older sister. She's kind, she's caring, she looks out for the people she loves and she'll do anything to protect them — though she's most certainly not averse to playing a prank or two to have some fun at their expense.

Senran Kagura as a whole is filled with deep and fascinating characters, and those who actually bother to give the series the time of day (rather than writing it off because boobs) all have their favourites, leading to frequently quite heated discussions online. I could have picked any number of the Senrans, but on balance, it's Katsuragi that my thoughts keep returning to, so Katsuragi it is.

Noire (Hyperdimension Neptunia)

I love all of the Neptunia cast to pieces, but from the moment I "met" her for the first time, I knew that Noire was going to be my favourite. Twintailed hair, a tsundere personality, a propensity towards attractive but impractical-looking outfits with garters, belts and straps all over the place? Sign me up.

After spending a considerable amount of time with her over the course of a number of different games now (with more still to go), I realise that my connection with Noire goes somewhat deeper. It's not just that she exhibits traits that I find attractive. It's not even that she's cute or has a figure to die for (man, Tsunako really knows how to draw curves). It's that, amid the chaos of your typical Neptunia story, I find her to be probably the most relatable of the cast — with the possible exception of IF, whose world-weary exasperation with the nonsense she constantly gets caught up in nicely reflects the feelings of frustration and annoyance I often feel at the most stupid things our own world has to offer.

Noire, though, she's an interesting one. Determined to always do her very best and prove that she "can only do everything", she often falls foul of her own ambitions and desire to climb to the top of the heap. This is particularly apparent in Hyperdevotion Noire, where an impulsive act towards the beginning of the game throws the world into chaos — but rather than slinking away quietly to pretend like she had nothing to do with it, she takes responsibility and does her best to make things right, even in the face of constant and frustrating opposition.

Noire is lonely, too. She has a lot of what could be described as niche interests — though not quite to the degree of the yaoi-loving Vert — but doesn't quite feel comfortable sharing them with anyone. The closest she comes to opening up to another person is with the player-protagonist characters in Hyperdevotion Noire and Hyperdimension Neptunia PP'; it's kind of sad that she has trouble being this honest with the people who are ostensibly her best friends, even as they're honest with her. I suppose that, more than anything, is why I feel like I can relate to her somewhat; while I'm not a goddess running a country, I can most certainly understand the desire to shout about the things you're passionate about but hesitating, not knowing what people will think of you if you do open up.

Maya Fey (Ace Attorney)

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Maya Fey from the Ace Attorney series, a character whom I don't particularly relate to as such, but whom I find enormously fun to have around.

Maya is the perfect foil to Ace Attorney protagonist Phoenix Wright's initially bumbling ways, and grows and changes with him as a character. Initially appearing to be rather childish, over the course of the Ace Attorney games she gradually shows herself to be a deep and complex character, holding enormous respect for her cultural traditions and a passionate belief in Wright's ability to find the truth in even the most confusing of cases.

Maya and Phoenix's relationship is kept somewhat ambiguous throughout the games. It's clear that there's a bit of a "spark" there between them, but whether or not it's simply close friendship through shared trauma — they first meet as a result of the death of Maya's sister Mia, which Phoenix ends up investigating and eventually solving — or something more is never quite clear. One can probably assume that Phoenix, being a few years older (early 20s to Maya's 17 at the outset of the first Ace Attorney game) is understandably hesitant to even consider taking things any further, but frankly, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to see them get together in one of the games. To my recollection, though, it hasn't happened — though it has been a while!

Anyway. Maya is a fun character who is enjoyable to hang out with. Since the majority of the Ace Attorney games unfold from first-person perspective, Maya is the character you see most frequently, since she often offers observations and suggestions to "you" (as Phoenix) while you're investigating the crime scenes. Spend that much time with a character — the Ace Attorney games aren't short! — and you're bound to develop some affection for them.

Hanako (Katawa Shoujo)

Games had captivated and emotionally engaged me with their stories before, but it was Katawa Shoujo that forged the tastes I have today. And, specifically, it was Hanako — though before we get into any arguments about "best girl", I liked all the others; I just liked Hanako the best. And here's why.

Again, like with Noire, I found Hanako to be relatable. And again, not because I'm in the literal same situation as her — Hanako has burn scars all over one side of her body due to a past trauma, and thankfully I am free of such readily apparent mementoes of tragedy — but because I recognise so many of her personality traits, her route in Katawa Shoujo was almost painful to play through.

Hanako suffers from dreadful social anxiety, much like I have done. Hanako's is far worse than mine, at least at the start of the game — she literally can't stay in the same room with people she doesn't know — but her feelings of being trapped in an uncomfortable situation, of wanting to do nothing but bolt; they were all too familiar.

Hanako's route is one of the most interesting ones in Katawa Shoujo because things sort of happen in a bit of a haze. When protagonist Hisao sleeps with Hanako, for example, it's clear that the two of them were very much caught up in the moment, with Hisao unable to restrain himself, and Hanako unable to communicate quite what she was feeling. This leads to a gut-wrenchingly awkward scene after the fact where Hisao realises that technically Hanako never actually said "yes" to him. From here, the story can branch in one of two different ways: Hisao can either try and be overprotective of Hanako, which ends rather badly with her finally snapping and casting him out of her life, or he can quietly support her when she needs it, allowing her to work through her issues at her own pace, opening up when she's good and ready.

It's this last bit that I found particularly poignant. There are a lot of things with which I need help, that is most certainly for sure. But I'm someone who tends to prefer to have the satisfaction of at least trying to solve things himself. I don't like asking for help, and I don't like people interfering when I haven't invited them — but I do welcome support and encouragement when I make it clear that I am in need of it. I understood Hanako's frustration in the "bad ending". I understood her sense of closure in the good ending as both she and Hisao come to terms with their own broken lives, accepting both themselves and each other as they both look forward to a future in which they no longer have to be alone.

The post 2033: #4favocharacters appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

I came to this genre through the Ace Attorney series, which remains one of my favourite video game franchises of all time. (Hurry up and release those iOS remakes, Capcom!) Phoenix Wright and its sequels combined the strong sense of narrative, puzzle-solving and dialogue choices from adventure games with a style of presenting the story that really allowed you to get in close with the characters, giving you a real sense of what made them "tick". Audio-visual presentation was very simple, with detailed anime-style characters overlaid over static backdrops, and a large degree of imagination on the part of the player being required.

Ace Attorney is a relatively good entry into the visual novel genre because it's fairly family-friendly (despite being based around solving a variety of murder cases) and doesn't delve into the less salubrious side of things that some of the more "niche" titles explore. There's no fucking in it, basically, despite Franziska von Karma's clear tendencies towards S&M.

I've talked extensively about Katawa Shoujo in the past, so I won't delve into that too much here, but I did want to mention a new acquisition which showed its face on my doorstep today. School Days HQ from JAST, which is apparently a remake of an earlier title of the same name, and an adaptation of an animé I know nothing about aside from something to do with "nice boat". Or possibly some other combination of those things. I'm not sure.

School Days is an unusual visual novel in that it's fully animated. Yes, rather than watching static images and reading mountains of text, the game is essentially an interactive, episodic animé series, where the player watches what unfolds and occasionally makes choices that direct the path of the story — choices that, unusually for the genre, can include remaining silent through inactivity. Structurally, it's identical to something like Katawa Shoujo — decision points branch the narrative down various "paths" leading to either "good" or "bad" endings, and the game client is set up in such a way as to easily allow players to "rewind" and try other choices — the virtual equivalent of putting your fingers in the possible pages you could turn to in a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

I've only played the first of the game's episodes so far, but the setup is intriguing — and, as with most visual novels, pleasingly mundane. Makoto likes Kotonoha. Kotonoha likes Makoto. Both of them are too shy to do anything about it, so in steps Sekai, Makoto's classmate, who manages to get the two of them together but steals a kiss from Makoto as "payment" for her services. Already there have been a couple of hints about Sekai being dangerously unhinged, so I will be very curious to see how the inevitable love triangle unfolds.

But anyway. I'm not here to talk plot. I'm here to talk about this style of game, and wonder what happened over the course of the last twenty years to make it "okay" to develop a narrative-focused game in which the player's interaction is largely limited to occasional choices.

You see, I vividly remember back in the late '90s when the CD-ROM revolution started. The vastly-superior storage capacity of CDs allowed developers to put a whole bunch more content in their games than was previously possible. One of the most common uses of this space was full-motion video — real actors performing scenes in games. And thus, the "interactive movie" was born. The exact implementation of the "interactive movie" genre varied from traditional adventure games which happened to include full-motion video (Sierra's Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within spring to mind here) to titles which already had designs on movies taking the next step (say hello, Wing Commander III and IV) and, at the far end of the spectrum, games that were quite literally movies that sometimes stopped for — you guessed it — the player to make a choice. (Submarine-themed game Silent Steel is the first game of this type that I remember.)

At the time, the latter option was ridiculed for offering only the most rudimentary of gameplay while flaunting the new technology unnecessarily — and often making it painfully apparent that most game developers didn't have the same budgets as movie studios. (How times change, huh?) But now, this style of gameplay has become a firmly-established genre, particularly in the Japanese market, with a little spill-over into the West thanks to publishers like JAST and hard-working enthusiasts like Four Leaf Studios, the crowdsourced team behind Katawa Shoujo.

I'm not complaining, really — I must confess that even in the late '90s I found interactive movies to be something of a guilty pleasure, despite their poor reviews — but I find it interesting that a style of play which many commentators at the time believed would be nothing more than a passing fad is now a firmly-entrenched part of the landscape of gaming. A niche part, sure, but one that certainly doesn't appear to be going away any time soon. School Days is an interactive movie, and unashamedly so — it has rewind and fast-forward buttons at the top of the screen, for heaven's sake — and there certainly seems to be plenty of people clamouring to play it.

Naturally, the apparently popularity of School Days is nothing to do with the fact that it, unlike Ace Attorney, does have fucking in it. (I also discovered post-install that it supports a USB-connected wanking machine (yes, really, and no, you probably shouldn't click that link at work), which is a mildly terrifying prospect in and of itself. No I don't have one.) Actually, it might be, though perhaps not for the reasons you're doubtless thinking of right now. The visual novel genre represents a sector of gaming that is absolutely unashamed to deal with issues that would be unpalatable to mainstream publishers (and possibly consumers, too). It tackles adult issues — sexuality in its many forms, violence and people acting like people rather than game characters — and does so without patronising the player or being "preachy", unless of course the story calls for it to do so for whatever reason. While there will undoubtedly be those who come to School Days purely to get their rocks off — and the game caters to those people by allowing the sex scenes to be viewed again once they have been "unlocked" in the story (that and the wanking machine compatibility, of course) — I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of people are attracted to titles like School Days and indeed the visual novel genre in general because, for the most part anyway, it treats them like adults.

Which, coincidentally, is something that a lot of interactive movies failed to do. The lack of budget that many of these titles suffered caused them to feel cheap and nasty, and any violent, sexual or otherwise graphic scenes tended to come across as rather laughable rather than an integral part of the story. Phantasmagoria, for example, featured a "rape" scene that was badly handled and clearly put in purely for shock value. Mention of this notorious scene made up a significant proportion of the game's viral marketing, though when it actually came down to it, it was terribly executed, poorly acted and had the complete opposite effect to what such a scene should have. Instead of being horrifying, traumatic and, most importantly, mature, it was just laughable, embarrassing, dumb. Compare and contrast, meanwhile, with a number of very uncomfortable scenes in, say, Katawa Shoujo (and I'm guessing the later stages of School Days, given the fact that it carries a warning for "violence" as well as "sexual content" on its box), all of which were thought-provoking, respectful of the player's intelligence and had a strong, real impact.

As I drift further and further away from the "blockbusters" of the games industry to get my entertainment, it pleases me that certain barriers seem to be gradually collapsing. While once the prospect of playing an "eroge" visual novel would be shameful, now people will happily and freely admit to it — thanks, at least in part, to a much better cultural understanding of the difference between "porn" and "containing erotic content". (That said, people are a lot more open about their porn consumption these days, too.) While I wouldn't recommend titles like School Days or Katawa Shoujo to someone not mature (or open-minded) enough to be able to handle their content, I'm very happy that they exist, providing true entertainment for adults without any of the associated skeeziness of porn.

(I can't get away from that wanking machine option in the menus, though. That's just odd. Does the game prompt you when to get your knob out? And how do you… oh, no. Never mind. Probably best not to think about it too much.)

The post #oneaday Day 922: Interactive Tales appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

It's a big ol' stereotype for someone who is "into" video games to have an interest in Japan — at least it was, anyway. As popular, mainstream titles have shifted far more towards Western studios with this current console generation, Japan and all things related seem to have been relegated to something of a niche. And that's absolutely fine, I think, because it means that people like me can explore things like the country's culture without feeling like they're jumping on some sort of bandwagon.

I say "explore". Most of my knowledge of Japanese culture comes from, you guessed it, video games. (That and following J-List on Facebook.) But before dismissing that out of hand, it's worth noting that many Japanese games do explore and celebrate Japanese culture and traditions in a way that you hardly ever see in Western titles.

I can remember the first game I played in which I was conscious of this: Shenmue on the Dreamcast. I found it interesting that the main character removed his shoes every time he entered his house. Not only was this a pleasing attention to detail, I discovered that this is traditional behaviour. And given that Shenmue was based very much on the idea of creating a realistic, small-scale game world in which to "live" as much as pursue the game's story, this was just one of many things which initially jarred but started to make sense the more time I spent with them.

The Persona series are notable for this, too. To date, I've only played Persona 3 and 4 (and have recently started the first game in the series) but I feel I got a good sense of what it's like to be a high school kid in Japan — or at least, as close an interpretation as the media will ever give you. I do wonder if the depiction of Japanese schoolkids in anime and video games is akin to the depiction of American "highschoolers" in TV shows and movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Clueless.

From these games and numerous others (including Katawa Shoujo which, interestingly, was actually developed by Westerners who clearly had a good understanding of Japanese culture) I've picked up all sorts of useless facts (mostly centring around schools) which may come in handy should I ever find myself in Nihon-koku. I know that schools have big shoe racks inside their front doors. I know that kids are expected to join clubs as well as attend classes. I know that traditional festivals with fireworks are A Big Deal, and that boys supposedly go crazy for girls in yukata. Boys also go crazy for girls in hot springs. I know that udon and soba are types of noodles, and that takoyaki is both made from octopus and regarded as a kind of fast food. (I also know that your stats have to be high enough to finish a big beef bowl, but the same could be said for a big-ass steak in the West.) Moving into more esoteric territory, I know that popular supernatural mythology suggests that restless spirits often hold grudges and can do very unpleasant things to people who piss them off.

It strikes me every time I play one of these Japan-centric games (the most recent being Persona and Corpse Party) that it's rare to see an analogous "learning experience" in Western games. Or is it? Perhaps I'm just too immersed in Western culture on a daily basis to notice; or perhaps Western culture has lost a lot of its traditions over the years, leaving most people free to behave in a manner of their own choosing. Consider what you did when you walked into your house today: did you take your shoes off? The answer is "maybe", because it wasn't expected (unless you have a self-decided "shoes off household") so it was up to you.

We still have plenty of strange traditions of our own, though, mostly, like Japan, surrounding significant festivals. Look at Christmas: we have carol singers, German markets in city centres, mulled wine, mince pies, midnight mass, christingles and all manner of other things. We have very specific rituals in place to celebrate things like birthdays. We cheer when waiting staff drop trays of drinks (though I really wish we wouldn't), and we have songs for all occasions.

As I think about it further, it's becoming clearer to me why there's something of a tendency to see comparatively less traditional culture in Western video games than we do in Japanese ones. It's to do with subject matter and setting: Japan is very fond of mixing the mundane and the uncanny for dramatic and unexpected effect, whereas in the West we're rather fond of "hero"-type characters who focus on getting the job done, not pissing around building up his Social Links. This is a generalisation, of course — there are plenty of games that involve a lot of sitting around talking, though even then they tend to be through a self-deprecating lens rather than taking a genuine pride in traditional culture. When was the last time you saw an English character (i.e. someone from England, and not just a character with an English accent) who was not either 1) evil or 2) posh — or sometimes both?

Perhaps there's no place for traditional culture or ritual in Western video games — or no traditional culture or ritual left in our modern society to even incorporate into a game. That's fine, of course, though I think it rather sad, in that case, that we have the opportunity to learn a great deal about Japanese culture from their creative output, while any Japanese players exploring the Western body of work will arguably take little from it save "nice architecture".

Am I wrong? If so, please feel free to share some of your favourite examples of video games that exemplify Western culture, tradition and ritual in the comments — I'd be curious to hear what people think, or even, if they don't think it's relevant, why they don't care.

The post #oneaday Day 780: Nihon appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

Let's talk about sex. Sex in video games, to be exact.

I read this article over on Eurogamer today. It makes its point in a rather crude manner, noting that video games "can't do sex", going on to cite numerous examples including popular media's backlash against Mass Effect's sex scene and BioWare's subsequent retreat into their characters' underwear; sex-focused games such as 3D Sex Villa 2; Second Life's notorious sex industry (which likely accounts for a considerable proportion of that virtual world's economy) and numerous others.

But I sort of think that the argument in that article is a bit flawed. There seems to be something of a confusion in the distinction between "sexual content" and "porn". I don't think anyone is advocating the inclusion of outright pornography in our games, though this is often the assumption that mainstream media makes when news emerges of sexual content in a high-profile game. But the Eurogamer piece jumps from discussing Mass Effect's soft-focus sideboob to games that are just plain porn. There's no middle ground, it seems.

Or is there? Well, yes, but you have to look outside of the mainstream and outside of the pornographic games industry to find it.

Probably the most common example you'll find of this "middle ground" is in the dating sim/visual novel/eroge genre. I've played a few of these over the years for curiosity's sake and while some are just interactive porn stories (Paradise Heights springs to mind — there are no choices to make and a lot of fucking) others like True Love, Kana Little Sister, Three Sisters' Story and, yes, Katawa Shoujo use their sexuality as something more than just a titillating scene for players to jack off over or something deliberately provocative to attract the ire (and thus inadvertent publicity) of the mainstream media. (This latter interpretation is a cynical view, I know, but I've seen too much video game marketing over the last couple of years to believe it doesn't happen.)

Rather, these games use sexual scenes in context. Katawa Shoujo is perhaps the best example, with sex scenes proving to be a way for us to get to know more about the characters. We learn that Emi is adventurous and willing to try anything once; that Lilly, despite her prim and proper appearance, enjoys her sexuality; that Shizune is dominant in all aspects of her personality; that Misha is confused; that Hanako believes no-one will see her as anything more than a "princess" to be saved; that Rin craves intimacy, to find some way to connect to another person. All of these scenes feature explicit erotic imagery and text, but none descend into being porn — sex for the sake of sex. During the sex scenes with Rin, for example, there's a lot of philosophising about what might be going on inside Rin's confused, creative head. Lilly uses one of her sex scenes to show Hisao what it's like to be blind. Emi's "Anal." scene is endearingly awkward as only teenage sex can be. And Hanako's encounter with Hisao is faintly horrifying after the fact.

"I can't fap to this!" was the war cry thrown up by members of 4chan upon playing Katawa Shoujo, but that's not a bad thing — do you jack off every time there's a sex scene in a movie? No, because that's ridiculous. Sex doesn't equal porn.

The same is true to a lesser extent in True Love, another dating sim based in a high school, though in this instance it's a regular education institute rather than a special school. In True Love, gameplay revolves around managing the protagonist's schedule so he builds up a series of different statistics ranging from creativity to sportsmanship. Different statistics will attract different members of the game's cast, and this then sends you down their various narrative routes where, again, along the way you get to know them a whole lot better and, again, you get to shag them at least once in a scene that, while erotic, is more focused on characterisation than providing something for the player to get their rocks off to.

Three Sisters' Story actively punishes players for being promiscuous, though not until it's far too late to do anything about it. Throughout the course of the game's story, the player gets the opportunity to have sex with the three sisters in question, but also has the opportunity to turn them down, too. If the player elects to have sex with all of them over the course of the game, the story doesn't end well for our protagonist, even after he saves them from abduction. A degree of self-control on the player's part is required in order to get the best ending. Do they want the sexy scene now, or do they want the story to end well?

Moving out of the visual novel genre, Silent Hill is another series which has always used sexual imagery to striking effect. Rather than being outright explicit about it, however, it tends to make use of more abstract imagery, leaving the player to interpret things for themselves. At no point in the game do we see exactly what made Angela so wrong in the head, but we can interpret that it was sexual abuse from her father. At no point in the game does James speak about his resentment over his wife's illness depriving him of sexual gratification, but we can determine that from the appearance and behaviour of Maria, the various times Pyramid Head shows up and the grotesque mannequins who form the bulk of the game's enemies.

You can't fap to Silent Hill, in short.

Look at Catherine, too. The game's just come out in the UK so a whole new wave of reviews has been hitting. I was rather surprised to see at least a couple calling it out for not being daring enough with its visuals — i.e. not showing any tits, muff, cock and/or balls. Despite the game's focus on adultery, sexuality and adult relationships, there are no explicit sex scenes in the game, and nothing more than sideboob in the nudity department. But the thing is, there doesn't need to be. Catherine didn't need explicitly pornographic scenes to get across its point. Sex is a key theme in that game, but that doesn't mean we need to stop for a fuck break every so often. Sometimes implying something can be just as powerful as showing it and — God forbid — making it interactive: Heavy Rain's painfully awkward interactive sex scene says "HHNNNGGG" at this juncture.

So can games "do sex"? Why yes, yes they can. Unfortunately, those games which do do sex and do it well tend to be confined to the specialist interest, cult classic or underpromoted independent title department. So why don't we see large publishers taking more risks, producing more adult games with sexual themes and/or content?

Part of it is a marketing issue. Getting too explicit with the sexytime in a game will net a release an "Adults Only" rating from the ESRB, and that's a big no-no for a lot of game retailers, thus hurting physical sales for the publisher. Given the growth of digital downloads, however, at least part of this problem goes away — there's no shame in purchasing an Adults Only title online, and publishers can simply sell it themselves, which is generally a better deal for everyone involved anyway.

Part of it, too, is fear of backlash from the mainstream media and, subsequently, politicians who don't understand the first thing about the industry, assuming it to be toys for children. California had a narrow escape just last year, and it's doubtful that publishers want to take the risk of making the people in charge think that censorship of a creative industry still finding its feet is a good idea.

Do we "need" sex in games? If we want to explore the full gamut of human emotions in the interactive stories that we tell, then yes, we do. We need to get over the assumptions that everyone playing games is too young to be able to handle sexual content. We need to get over childish tittering at every sight of sideboob. We need to have realistic characters who have realistic relationships.

What this doesn't mean, however, is that we need sex in all games. And those games that we do have sex in should justify its inclusion somehow, otherwise we're right back to accusations of peddling porn again. Katawa Shoujo and its ilk are doing it right. Mainstream publishers could learn a lot from the risks that independent studios and those who tackle the development of a game as a creative rather than a technical or marketing project.

Who knows what the future holds? I certainly don't. But it's clear that the industry as a whole still has a lot of growing up to do as yet.

The post #oneaday Day 757: SEX! appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

Bettering yourself is a difficult thing to do. First of all, you have to really want to change, which isn't necessarily the same as not liking something about yourself. It's the difference between self-pitying cries of "I hate that I'm like this!" and inspirational yells of "I may be like this now, but you better watch out, cause I'ma kick your ass!" or something equally obnoxious.

There are lots of ways you might want to change yourself. It could be eating better, working on a new creative project, getting more exercise. Chances are, there is something you would rather do better — probably even several things. Once you've picked one, that's where the challenge comes in — motivation to begin.

Inspiration can come from the strangest places. In this post back in 2009, I commented on the strange effect that changing my Second Life avatar from one which loosely looked like me to someone rather more buff an' ting had on me. I suddenly felt inspired to better myself, and to attempt to hammer and chisel my flabby body into some sort of shape, to be more like my virtual self.

Well, I can't say that it had a massive effect on me — I'm still overweight and would very much like to change that — but that initial push over the edge gave me some preliminary interest in fitness, and the knowledge that yes, I could do it if I applied myself.

Later on, I tried the Couch to 5K running programme, which takes 9 weeks to get you from wheezing, sweating mess up to someone who can run continuously for half an hour without stopping. It's an excellent system, and one which has a very positive impact on anyone who tries it. But again, it can sometimes be difficult to get started.

One of the interesting things that those of us who have played Katawa Shoujo noticed was the inspirational effect that some of the characters had on members of the community. I'm not necessarily even talking in the "overcoming their disability" sense — rather, I'm referring to certain admirable character traits which a number of the girls in the game demonstrate to both protagonist Hisao and the player themselves proving to be a powerful motivational factor.

The most oft-cited example of this is Emi, an amputee girl and track star who describes herself as "The Fastest Thing on No Legs". She overcame her disability to become a strong, fit runner, so why shouldn't a person without a physical disability be able to do the same thing, too?

You can probably see where this is going.

What would happen, then, if you combined the infectiously cheerful, never-give-up personality of Emi with the well-paced Couch to 5K programme? Well, you get the following chart, which I include here after the break as a courtesy to that certain subset of you who have played Katawa Shoujo and are considering taking up running but having absolutely no idea where to start. Indeed, even those of you who haven't played Katawa Shoujo but would like to be able to run for more than five seconds without HHNNNGGGGing can benefit from this. (To support the programme, I also recommend downloading this app for iPhone.)

As for me, I'm back into an almost-regular gym routine but haven't done a long run for quite some time, so am planning on ploughing through the whole Couch to 5K programme again — with Emi's help, of course — very soon. I shall be providing occasional progress updates on here when I can be bothered and/or when I don't have anything interesting to write about that day.

Why don't you get up off your arse and join me? See you on the track.

(Click Continue Reading if you're on the front page to see Emi's chart.)

The post #oneaday Day 756: Emi's Inspiration 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 post regards the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and proceed down the "Emi" 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.

Right. Now everyone who is here actually wants to be here or doesn't care about spoilers, let's talk about the game, and specifically Emi.

I have played through one of the several "paths" available through the game so far — the one which focuses on the aforementioned Emi. The nature of the cast (and, for that matter, the protagonist's personal journey) in Katawa Shoujo pushes the player into initially identifying characters by their disabilities, meaning that at the outset Emi's distinguishing characteristic is that she doesn't have any legs. Progress through the narrative, however, and certainly in Emi's case, her disability becomes arguably the least important aspect of her whole.

Emi is a runner — she describes herself at one point as "the fastest thing on no legs". Her early interactions with the protagonist Hisao see her as a bubbly, enthusiastic, popular and young-looking girl who is really into sports, and who really wants to help Hisao better himself through the sport that the school nurse ordered. Hisao quickly notices that Emi seems like a different person when she runs — while she's ditzy, girlish and flirtatious when she's talking, while she runs she is determined and focused. Nothing matters except the task she has immediately in front of her.

This particular aspect of Emi's personality is the most important thing about her. She is independent and determined. She makes her way around on her prosthetic limbs without needing help from anyone, and pushes herself physically daily. She doesn't like to admit when she gets hurt, and on the one occasion in the story where she finds herself confined to a wheelchair for a limited period, is bummed out when she has this feeling of power taken away from her. When she is in the wheelchair, she has to rely on other people, and she is not used to that. She is used to being in control — both of herself, and of the situations she finds herself in.

This extends to her attitude towards sex, also. While we never quite find out whether or not Emi is actually a virgin prior to her first liaison with Hisao, it's clear that she knows what she likes, but is not necessarily that experienced. She quickly takes control of proceedings, often dominates Hisao and is very difficult to embarrass — the one exception being the occasion where the two decide to try anal sex and both end up finding it a somewhat disappointing, mildly humiliating experience. Emi also uses sex as a way of getting what she wants or as a diversionary tactic to get her out of difficult conversations — further evidence of her need to remain in control of the situations in which she finds herself.

What Emi discovers through her relationship with Hisao, however, is that despite his reticence he is someone who causes her to lose control and relax her grip on the power she holds over herself. We see this on the occasion where she falls asleep in his arms and has one of her regularly-occurring nightmares about the death of her father in the accident that cost her her legs. Emi realises this around exam time, and regains control of the situation by informing Hisao that they can't see each other until after exams. She even tells him why. Hisao accepts this, but feels like he is being pushed away.

Emi's biggest fear is losing the control and sense of independence she has. She feels that she is obliged to struggle through life by herself. She was very close to her father, and having both him and her legs suddenly removed from her life after the accident left her hesitant to get too close to anyone or anything for fear that she would once again lose everything she held dear. When she is confined to the wheelchair, she is upset because she feels like she has lost the independence that her prosthetic legs brought her — even though it is only for a short time. She resents the few occasions on which she has to ask for help, such as when she can't get the wheelchair over the lip of a doorway.

Emi's relationship with her first boyfriend initially mirrors the journey which she and Hisao subsequently take. The difference is that the first boyfriend couldn't take the being pushed away by Emi's refusal to rely on anyone but herself, while Hisao remains determined and resolute in the face of adversity and resistance — traits which he learned from Emi — and stands by her, even as she claims she doesn't want or need help. While this leads to conflict between the two on several occasions, with Emi showing uncharacteristic anger when pushed too hard, she eventually comes to the conclusion that Hisao is just as determined as she is, and wants to be a part of her life — not to be her knight in shining armour and "fix" her, but to simply be there for her.

Her opening up to Hisao is both sudden and gradual simultaneously. After a particularly nasty spat between the two, they eventually make up. Emi invites Hisao to "come and see her dad" on a particular day — an invitation which everyone else who knows Emi realises is a big deal, but which Hisao is hesitant to make assumptions about. It's clear to the player long before Hisao that the visit to her father is a regular trip to visit his graveside, and that letting Hisao in on this deeply personal experience is a huge, sudden step for Emi.

She can't handle it all at once, however, so while they are standing by the graveside, she works her way up through a string of personal, private admissions, starting with her favourite colour that very few people actually know, and eventually concluding with what really happened on the night of the accident. As Hisao observes, she handles this difficult process of opening up much like she handles physical activity — starting with something easy and simple to warm up, working into a good rhythm and then ending with the most demanding and difficult challenges. By the time she has burst through that "wall", she has come to the conclusion that having Hisao around might not be such a bad idea after all. She accepts that opening up to another person is not a sign of weakness or a lack of independence.

Emi, like the rest of the cast in Katawa Shoujo, is a deep and complex character. While she has a disability, she does not let it define her, nor does she let it be an inconvenience to herself or others throughout the course of the game. She is strong, determined and initially unwilling to accept help even though she needs it — not because she is weak, but because she needs an outlet. Her nature changes Hisao, too — he becomes stronger, more impulsive, determined and willing to take risks. Not only that, he, too, refuses to let his disability define him. While he is embarrassed about his heart condition at the game's outset and strongly wishes to distance himself from the rest of the student body whom he sees as not "normal", by the conclusion of the Emi plotline he's ceased to think of things in such black and white terms. He stops using the word "normal" and instead focuses on the person he's talking to. He becomes determined to overcome adversity and push his own boundaries without breaking them. It's the determination and stubbornness that he learns from Emi that cause her to eventually open up to him in the end.

The very fact that I've managed to write 1,500 words about a character in Katawa Shoujo should convince you that this is a title worth investigating if you haven't already. There aren't that many games out there in which you can explore the characters in such depth, and it's this aspect that makes Katawa Shoujo a truly special thing to experience. The visual novel genre may be light on the interaction side of things by its very nature, but I can say without a doubt that even after one playthrough, Katawa Shoujo is one of the most engrossing character-led gaming experiences I've had since Persona 3 and 4.

The post #oneaday Day 746: I Love You, Emi appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.