Katawa Shoujo - Any New News?

I love getting the option to "Ignore his insane ramblings" as a choice in Lilly's route.

I've finished Lilly's route happily for the second time. Out of all the girls' routes, Lilly's still feels the most solid. While not the route that invokes the most powerful emotions (Rin's takes that), Lilly's still feels strongest overall. It accomplishes the most, and does it best.

And I do still find it to be powerful. As I said before: it's touching. Sad and happy and warm and cold and comforting and lonely. And still I wonder: what would have happened to her if Hisao hadn't come into her life? Her problem is caused by external factors, completely independent of Hisao. But without him to talk to her as he does in the good end... It makes me all the more sad to go back and play any other route.

Oh, and I am still amused by the fact that she received love confessions at her previous school. The all-girls Catholic school.

This post has been edited by Random Wanderer on Mar 27 2012, 11:14 PM

So, I completed Hanako's route.
^___________________________^
I have to admit... I kinda... liked both her and her route. Although her route still felt short, compared to the "modern" games I play, at least and at last, her story felt "complete", and I felt I was able to see and understand Hanako, through being able to actually see her reactions to... events, have her actually "voice" her feelings, and see her slowly evolve in her relation with Hisao.
Mayhap I was also a bit more forgiving of Hisao in this route about his reactions to Iwanako's letter, although I can't really say I understood either his reactions to Hanako, nor his resulting behaviour, since it's quite the opposite of what my reactions were and how I would have reacted. Oh, well.

Of course, it may also have to do with the fact Hanako is the first girl in the game I truly found (physically) cute, especially in her town clothes and cap, with which she's incredibly cute~ (Misha was rather pretty, Lilly beautiful in an elegant manner whilst neither Shizune nor Emi appealed to me). At last, I also liked her movie the most, especially the part when Hisao and her stood around fast moving, indefinite figures.

Random comments:

• Wham lines:
  (Misha) "In fact, we were quite worried about you. After all...
               You, Hanako and Lilly were all absent from class on the same day."
• Hanako and Hisao know to play billiard? Wow. Especially eight-ball? (AFAIK, nine-ball is more widespread in Japan, though billiard in itself is kinda rare) Double-wow.
• Having a lot of "to no + verb" instead of "not to + verb" is increasingly annoying.

Score: 8.

• Shizune: 6,
• Emi: 7,
• Hanako: 8,
• Lilly: ?,
• Rin: ?.

If it keeps going that way, Rin'll get a 10!

Lilly, now.

P.S. Magister Aurelius suggested me this playing order. So far, I'd say it eerily fitted me!

I absolutely adore her in that outfit.

Hmm... do you have any specific examples? You don't have to give me any, I'm just curious. While I don't always agree with Hisao's thought processes, I can mostly understand them, although there are a few cases where I'm left wondering what he was thinking. In Hanako's route for the most part he's just following a male instinct of trying to protect a vulnerable girl. The fact that that means he's not really thinking of her as an equal, and that he's using that instinct to avoid thinking about his own problems, doesn't occur to him until the end.

Yes, I laughed out loud the first time I read that.

Her movie is definitely good. Evocative might be a good term for it.

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

We can but hope. I also think Rin's route is the one you'd probably enjoy the most, but in the end only you can say one way or the other. I don't entirely approve of some of the choices Hisao makes in there, and how long it takes him to figure some stuff out, but then I could say that for most if not all of the routes.

This post has been edited by Random Wanderer on Mar 29 2012, 08:15 PM

Hanako is very cute. Drunk Hanako is rather alluring as well.

Rin's route is the one where for almost every branch and choice I was mentally having Munsch's The Scream moments. It was like I can't see any good choice... they're all bad! (As in Nice Boat bad)

• First, even if we put aside the "male instinct of trying to protect a vulnerable girl" part (I mean, why the Hell would one feel like protecting anyone "just because" she's female and seemingly vulnerable? Natural selection instinct would rather tell one to leave vulnerable ones to their own devices, so that the whole race would grow stronger! You may want to protect others, but probably not out of instinct --but rather out of education, may it be social, religious or moral), I just don't understand Hisao's reactions to Hanako. So, she's scarred. And? What about it? Even if I consider it probably makes her uglier than she used to be, even if I consider it makes her ugly at all (a point about which I don't agree, from the pictures the game gives us, since I consider her the physically cutest girl in the game), well, if considering that someone as ugly made me avoid looking at him, or awkward around him, or staring at him like some kind of rare beast, I'd probably not ever look at anyone IRL, nor talk to anyone. So, yeah. So, Hanako is scarred. And? What's the problem about it?
  To be honest, whilst I can understand Hanako being a bit too self-aware about, I doubt people really looked at her that much. In big cities, most people don't really pay attention and even less care about the other guy, may he be blind and use a white cane, be on crutches, be on a wheelchair, be ugly as hell, or anything, so I really doubt most would pay attention to Hanako IRL, in big cities. People are just too busy minding their own business and rushing to where they want to soever go.
• Second, I didn't see Hanako as vulnerable. All the contrary, I saw her as admirable and strong-willed. I mean, she was able to live all these years, despite all her losses, her being alone, and her physical injuries. If I were Hisao, I would have wanted to stay by her sides to learn from her strengths, to gain her will to keep going. If I were Hisao, I'd have felt so weak, especially when she showed him his whole body and its scars; at that moment, I would have laughed, of myself, I would have showed her my so ridiculously small scar compared to her, and ashamedly how much a coward and a weakling I were, compared to her, to have given up everything after I fell sick.
• Third, as hinted in my second point, there's no way IMO Hisao could possibly want to protect Hanako since... he's the vulnerable one who needs to be protected! I said it in a previous post but, contrary to any girl, Hisao has a fatal condition. He's fragile and any mistake can straight kill him. Doesn't take his medication? Possible death. Shock at the chest? Possible death. Too much emotion? Possible death. Too much effort? Possible death. Not enough regular effort? Possible death. In fact, it's hard to tell whether he'd still be alive in five years, in ten years, etc. Hanako? It's very likely she'll stil be alive in 50 years.
  And that's just the physical aspect. Will-wised, Hisao lost his will to pretty much live, be happy, take care of himself, think of his future, etc. whilst Hanako was able to live through all her childhood years, without Lilly nor Hisao. OTOH, it's very hinted that, without the help of any girl to give him back a will to live, Hisao would have fallen in the bottom of the despair pit.
  So, yeah, Hisao wanting to protect Hanako is just laughable.

For instance, when Hisao and Lilly were in the restaurant, it's written "(...) whether it's a want to not be treated differently..." instead of "(...) whether it's a want not to be treated differently...".

His desire to protect her isn't because she's scarred, it's because of how shy she is and how easily she's scared off.

Well, yes, that is true. In fact, I believe it's part of the point. One of the major issues in Hanako's route is that Hisao obsesses over trying to help with Hanako's problems (whether she truly needs that help or not) as a way to ignore his own problems. That excessive focus on protecting Hanako actually feeds into the problems she has with her sense of self-worth. So by trying to protect her, in the end he's just making things worse. This will become clearer when you play Lilly's route, and you see how much more progress Hanako makes when Hisao is just her friend. So Hisao ignored his problems to help Hanako, and in the end that wasn't good for either of them.

While I don't have a convenient grammar textbook on hand to check with, the first one ("want to not be treated differently") actually sounds more correct in that case. "Not be treated differently" is what Lilly wants. "Want not to be treated differently..." That sounds awkward. "I want to do this" "I want to do that" "I want you to not do this" "I want to not do this"... "I want not to do this"... No, that last one still sounds wrong.

This post has been edited by Random Wanderer on Apr 1 2012, 05:15 PM

Which is still something I cannot understand. Protect her? From what? That, and he was weirded out by Hanako's scars. Which is a totally alien concept to me. So, she's scarred. And? Also, his feeling that she's "shy and easily scared off" is born from his feeling people would be weirded out by her scars because he himself was? So, heh.

You know, not understanding Hisao doesn't equal not understanding the story. So, yes, I got the point of the story and you don't have to explain it to me, if only since it wasn't about what I was talking. My point is that Hisao has beliefs, actions and reactions I just can't understand, and I explained why. Explaining that, sure, him acting the way he did only made things worse doesn't explain me WHY such actions made even remotely sense at all. It's not that I didn't agree with him (I often didn't, BTW), it's that his behaviour struck me as being completely alien.

Uh, what? I'd be very surprised if an English grammar book doesn't mark "I want you not to do this" as being the correct form...
Edit: I found this article:

So, uh, it looks like no one can really agree with what is soever correct~
OTOH, I used to be, at least in 2006, in the majority~

This post has been edited by OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol on Apr 1 2012, 06:37 PM

From whatever frightens her. From whatever causes her to hide from everybody and never talk to anyone. From whatever drove her catatonic in the middle of class. From anything and everything that she might seem to need protecting from.

This is not at all an uncommon desire. It is one of the more common elements of "moe." It is the feeling I have when I react to certain characters by saying "Must. Hug. And. Protect." It's part of the whole "I want to take her home with me!" concept.

I wonder... maybe you don't understand it because of whatever it is that makes you prefer to see girls suffer and be broken and such? I don't mean that to be derogatory in any way, I'm just trying to figure this out. I know I can't stand seeing girls suffer, and I can't understand people who do like it. Perhaps your inability to understand this protectiveness is similar to my inability to understand that attitude?

No no, his feeling that she's shy and easily scared off comes from the way she constantly avoids people, the way she ran from him when they first met, the way she hides from crowds, the way she hides behind someone she knows well any time they're near other people, and so on. Hanako IS shy. That much is not in question. Her reasons for being shy are not what Hisao initially thinks, but her shyness is quite real.

*shrugs*I said I don't have a book on hand. I can only judge based on what sounds more right to me, which is itself probably based on what I hear the most often. You may well be right, and the issue is just that most people I hear saying phrases like that are doing it wrong. It would most certainly not be the first time that the English language has been mangled in common usage.

Ah, I thought that was a split infinitive, but my memories of the classes where I learned that stuff are not very good, so I refrained from calling it that for fear of getting it wrong.

The wonders of English: a language no one knows how to use properly.

This post has been edited by Random Wanderer on Apr 1 2012, 06:43 PM

A feeling which is born from his own feelings about her, and how her scars separate her from the "normal" world. Because they should, in his opinion. Because they do, in his mind. Why they would is what I don't understand.

I think you don't read enough what I wrote. Or mayhap you didn't notice I didn't bring this point up with Emi's story, when Hisao wanted the same to protect her? OK, let's try again.

So, no, I doubt my inability to understand his protectiveness ABOUT HANAKO similar to your inability to understand any kind of attitude.

Sorry, but the way I see it, he only wanted to protect her because the reasons why he thought she was shy (her scars), not because of the fact she was shy in itself.

You're hung up on her scars... I really did not get the impression at all that Hisao was anywhere near as focused on them as you seem to be saying. He didn't want to protect her because she was scarred, he wanted to protect her because she was shy. Because she came across (this is my wording, not the game's) almost as a frightened animal that needed to be approached slowly and soothed. Her scars are a visible sign of her injuries, but they did not come across as what he was focused on.

This post has been edited by Random Wanderer on Apr 1 2012, 06:59 PM

On account of this being relevant to my interests, I checked out some corpus data through Bringham Young University on the subject of the "want to not" vs. "want not to" constructions, and the historical corpus suggests that this is a change in progress; "want not to" has remained relatively consistent for the past 200 years, but "want to not" has only really been floating around for the past 100 years or so. What's more, it has only been in the last decade that its popularity really took off (twice as frequent as it was in the 90s), although my evidence suggests that the initial trend started sometime in the 70s. As I would imagine the Katawa Shoujo dev team was largely 20-something internet denizens, it doesn't surprise me that they would utilize the more innovative construction.
I don't know if it will stick, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the two forms reach some kind of equilibrium in the next decade or two. You heard it here first?

That'd explain it, then, since I'm rather in the *coffcoffcoff* mid-thirties range, so I learnt English in the, say, 80s. That also explains Ranwan's position, compared to mine! You younsters and your weird, modern speech!

I completed Lilly's route.
'Classical' may be how I'd describe both Lilly and her route. In fact, 'classical' is a word that fits Lilly: she's a classical beauty, her story is a more classical love story than for the other girls, and even her confession picture, Hisao and her holding in the wheat field, would be fitting of a classic art painting.
What comes out of this? Her story wasn't unpleasant, and neither was it unromantic, but it wasn't exceptional either. Not bad, more than above average, but below exceptional.
Score: 7.5

Comments:

• Lilly is a tea aficionados and drinks tea from TEABAGS?!?! She also likes most French vanilla black tea? An aromated tea? And Orange Jaipur? Oh, come on! You live in Japan! Have some Gyokuro Shincha of the highest quality! Or, if you don't want green tea, have White Tea or a First Flush Darjeeling of SFTGFOP1 grade!
• 'Akira' and 'Lillly'? What kind of naming is that? Their parents really had some weird one, to give one a Japanese name and the other an English name (I don't even think it's Scottish...)
• It's funny that Hisao never asked whether Lilly was born blind or became so later in life and just assumed things (such as her not knowing what a colour was). Whilst Lilly's reactions rather points to the former, it was only way later that she actually mentioned the matter. Hisao was pretty about the question since you obviously cannot miss something you never knew.
  In fact, as I play the game, this is becoming what I dislike most about it and Hisao. With the game's silly, funny and weird major theme of showing that "that people who have disabilities are still people like the rest of us", it was to be expected but Hisao's insistance about the matter (and the variations around the matter, such as him repeating how it was weird that he could adapt to Yamaku at all) was really annoying.
• So Lilly cut herself because Hisao startled her. Hisao then talked about the limitations her lack of sight imposed on her. You know, Hisao, plenty of seeing people cut themselves whilst cutting cooking stuff if startled!!!
• Lilly is most adorable when pouting!
• Wait! Lilly went to the showers whilst in Hisao's room? In the game, it was treated as if there was a shower IN Hisao's room, which didn't make sense since, earlier in the game, he had to go outside, in the common men's shower room (where he even met Kenji once)!
• I still don't like Hisao's lack of reactions to Iwanako's letter. Is there any route where he has the decency to write her back?

So far:

• Shizune: 6,
• Emi: 7,
• Hanako: 8,
• Lilly: 7.5,
• Rin: ?.

Yes!

Well, as I recall he tried but couldn't manage to come up with anything in one of the routes I played recently. I think it was Hanako's, although I could be mistaken. Beyond that... well, you know as well as I do, right now. I can't remember at all how he handles the letter in Rin's route, and that's the only one you have left to play. To be honest, in Rin's route I was so worried about trying to figure out how to keep her alive that minor things like a letter from the girl who confessed to Hisao at his old school barely even registered.

This post has been edited by Random Wanderer on Apr 2 2012, 09:44 AM

Naaaaahhhhhhhhh! There's still Kenji's route!

Well, I suppose someone could read the letter at Hisao's grave, or something...

That'd be such a manly reading!

Yes, I took a pause. To got to a manly picnic.
P.S. Kenji, a man drinks at least single malt whisky, aged 18 years, not mere 12 years!

So, I completed Rin's route, thus the game.
To be honest, Rin's route wasn't as depressive and heartbreaking I thought it'd be, from what I heard soever about it... or mayhap I played too many utsugees to be affected enough? Whatever.
I cannot say that I didn't dislike it, but I'm not sure I don't think that I may not have liked it either. The possibility exists. Though I guess the opposite holds true as well. Anyway. At least, I felt I could suggest the likelihood that I might not have despised Hisao as much as I did in the previous routes for he exchanged with Rin exactly what I thought about him and held against him, and her answers reflected exactly my opinions about him and why I didn't like him in the other routes. AND HE WROTE BACK TO IWANAKO!!! Of course, one might also propose the idea that the fact I may rather be entitled to assert I preferred Rin's neutral ending to her good ending wasn't exactly completely alien to such an opinion either.
That being said, I may be tempted to conjecture Rin might not be the girl whom it's possible I would not deny not to like as much as the others because of the paradoxical situation where I may have felt myself in the opposite situation as Hisao, rhetorically speaking, when it comes to a matter of distance. That is, if you take it the other way, of course. Oh well.
If I were to describe Rin's story in a few words, I may say that it may have felt the most mature story, though mayhap only because it's the one that, eventually, explored the deepest the fact the game is the story of teenagers having to confront what it is to grow up, to wonder about oneself, people around you, life, from where you came, where you were, where you're heading, and who you are.

Random comments:

• Doesn't Hisao have any common knowledge? Not knowing that painters with no arm paint with their feet, or their mouth, and asking about it seemed quite silly.
• "...despite the impossibility of mixing colours like the change of seasons...": actually, it's very possible and it'd be yellow, since the change of seasons is associated with the element of Earth, which is associated with the colour yellow, in Wu Xing. Of course, since Rin and Hisao are japanese, they may be excused for not knowing though, Rin being Rin, it may have been what she had in mind~
• "It's a story about three guys drinking beer for two weeks straight and doing little else." ...sounds like a very interesting book. ^^;;;;;
• It's weird that the writing sometimes use imperial and sometimes metric.
• Ah, it said Hisao shared his bathroom with Kenji. It's weird that Lilly didn't mind, though...
• It's weird. I'd define Rin as sane, though in a particular way, but not as eccentric. I wouldn't even say she was that odd. After all, what she said and did made sense, under some mindset. Well, at least IMO.
• So Rin is a jewel, heh?
• Somehow, I get the feeling Nomiya isn't popular with the game's fans. For my part, I understand his behaviour and don't disagree with it, though I think he should have a bit more empathy, with him being a teacher and all.

Scores:

• Shizune: 6,
• Emi: 7,
• Hanako: 8,
• Lilly: 7.5,
• Rin: 8.

Conclusion: it was a more than average game. In fact, I may even be inclined to suggest it wasn't bad. But not exceptional; probably not even striking enough that I'll remember fondly much of it in a dozen new galgames. The stories were of good quality and refined, the girls were pleasant with whom to interact, the music was good enough. Overall, it was a high-production. I especially liked the movies (one for each girl, in addition to the OP? Wow), and the main page changing with each new chapter opened. OTOH, the bad points were IMO the irregularity of the quality, look and feel of the CGs, Hisao himself whom I didn't like in most routes (not to mention with whose decisions and thoughts I foremost disagreed but, then, that's often the case with ren'ai protagonists so that's OK), and the major theme, which I still think as funny, silly and weird. Though not ill-exploited, I guess.
Game score: 7.5.

P.S. My favourite girl remains Misha. She doesn't have a route and it's perfect that way since, considering her background story, a route would go against her personality but...

Hmm. Well, Rin simply thinks... differently from most people. Her mind doesn't work the same as most folks' do. However, I don't remember there being any real inconsistencies with any of that. Like you said, everything she does makes sense, if you look at it from her rather unusual perspective.

Oh, I'm not trying to debate or anything, I'm just thinking out loud about what you said.

Did he? Oh good, I couldn't remember, and I was worried that he hadn't and that you'd be upset about him never doing so.

That's better than what I was afraid you might say. I'm glad you liked it.

Oh, a random question... did you put all those double, triple, quadruple, etc. negatives in your first few paragraphs on purpose? In some ways it doesn't seem not Rin-like...

If the game is good, why would you be afraid I'd say otherwise? I don't think there ever was an instance when I didn't comment objectively anything.

Didn't you ever notice that it's the way I usually write when commenting about girls?

It seemed like you were doing it even more than normal, this time.

Whether or not something is good is a matter of opinion, and I was worried how much your opinion and mine might differ in this case.

I was? If I were, it would just tie up with my second point, then~ It wasn't really done on purpose, though. Well, not that purpose, at least.

Not really. Whether or not you like something is a matter of opinion. When it comes to a writing, there are objective ways to judge its qualities (spelling, grammar, style, flow, characterization, etc.). When it comes to a galgame, there are standards to which compare a game's qualities (graphics, ergonomics, level of personalization of the GUI, sounds, background music, voices, etc.). Liking a game and judging its values are two different matters. The whole part of the evaluation of the game may not be objective, but there are enough objective values with which to judge a game that a good game shouldn't ever be evaluated as an awful one... except if you're being dishonest. It's like movies; regardless of how much you like or dislike a movie such as, say Titanic, you'd have to be very dishonest not to acknowledge its high production value.

I don't think I even liked Katawa Shoujo 33% as much as it seems you did.

But you didn't hate it, and you rated it above average. That's better than I feared, and is good enough for me.

A bit more than "above average", actually but, well, if that's enough for you... Amusingly, 7.5 puts Katawa Shoujo at the level of Galaxy Angel, Utawarerumono and Sakura Taisen in my book, if that's glorious enough for it~ Of course, they're not really comparable since Katawa Shoujo is an ADV+NVL whereas the others are ADV+SLG games (so, it'd be in fact wrong and unfair to compare them since the criteria to judge either are, for the most, different) but, heh.

Anyway, Katawa Shoujo is done so I should rather concentrate on my new game and my new girls~