An Ivitation to an Analysis: Katawa Shoujo

[Newton]

"Katawa Shoujo" is the first VN I'd ever played and I imagine that applies to many of us. Also like many of us, it took my breath away when I first played through it, had my thoughts and soul filled up with the content during playing, and was deeply disappointed when it was over. Then I replayed it to see how I would feel towards it after I had grown as a person and I ended up being disappointed (bar Rin's route). The flaws of it appeared so obvious that I was shocked that I hadn't noticed them before. So I'd like to examine the sorcery that this game seems to cast on people and I'd appreciate the help of this community. This first entry is not all in-depth but rather an ice-breaker and I intend this whole thread to be an exploration rather than a thesis since I'm a little mystified myself and I encourage anyone to dispute me on my points. 

 

If it helps, you could consider my viewpoint to be "It shouldn't work...but it does". As if the budget constraints led the team to make choices that would hamper other works but somehow bolster this one (possibly).

 

Origin.

 

Frequently, I would repeat to myself the amazing fact that total strangers across the world had united (on 4chan of all places) to create a fully scripted visual novel with CGs, music, and even animations. This fact amplified the already strong feelings I had for the game into a sense of wonder. It makes me wonder that if the creation process were not known, would the game have the same impact? If a professional company had created the game with a greater budget for assets, would we think less of it?

 

Music

 

The music in Katawa Shoujo is good but off. Not off-key or anything, but that it sometimes seems to be at a higher emotional pitch than the scenes usually suggest. But more importantly, it's completely scattershot. By that, I mean that if you took the music and released it on its own album, there would be absolutely nothing to unify the tracks together. It's like each track came from a different composer from a different game. Consider "G-senjou no Maou". All the tracks are unified by the theme of being remixes of classical music pieces. "Muv-Luv"'s tracks are unified by being being in mostly the same genre akin to a movie score and utilizing mostly the same instruments (or synthesized instruments) such as strings, piano, and others that might be found in a film orchestra. In Katawa Shoujo, there is no such unity. There is a bossa nova piece, a weeping strings piece, and Kenji's theme, a completely wacky jaunt, as well as others. 

 

And yet...it works? Why? Perhaps because of something Palas mentioned in a review of "Fate-Stay/Night" (I don't have the link so if anyone can post it for curious souls, you're welcome to do so). That, eventually, the repeated tracks come to create a conditioned Pavlovian effect. We like the music not just for itself, but for what it represented and accompanied in the past. 

 

 

These are all the thoughts that I can spare right now. I'll be back to post more in the future but, until then, I'm interested to know what you all think.

 

Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kosakyun]

Frequently, I would repeat to myself the amazing fact that total strangers across the world had united (on 4chan of all places) to create a fully scripted visual novel with CGs, music, and even animations. This fact amplified the already strong feelings I had for the game into a sense of wonder. It makes me wonder that if the creation process were not known, would the game have the same impact? If a professional company had created the game with a greater budget for assets, would we think less of it?

[MiraculousNova]

"Katawa Shoujo" is the first VN I'd ever played and I imagine that applies to many of us. Also like many of us, it took my breath away when I first played through it, had my thoughts and soul filled up with the content during playing, and was deeply disappointed when it was over. Then I replayed it to see how I would feel towards it after I had grown as a person and I ended up being disappointed (bar Rin's route). The flaws of it appeared so obvious that I was shocked that I hadn't noticed them before. 

[Zalor]

The thing I find about VNs (and books in general) is that the magic disappears after you read through them once.

 

True, you can still enjoy a good story, but you will start noticing flaws and things that sometimes don't make sense in the story.

[Tyrael]

Palas' post would be better off as a full fledged blog post imo

[Newton]

Palas, thank you for sharing your story. It's wonderful to see how art can have an impact on people's lives.

 

For my part though, I'm a storyteller myself, an aspiring filmmaker. So if there's something that works in a story, I want to know how so that I can incorporate it into my own stories. And if it's something that is so impressive on people from a source that seems like it has no reason to be so meaningful, then I want to know what they did and how. I consider the best stories to live on in people after they're done reading or watching them. 

 

What you mentioned about daily life is interesting. I can definitely see that theme present in the work. How what happens in life isn't very important but it's important to us experiencing it. Like playing chess with a shy girl or running daily to improve a heart condition. Something intriguing is how it takes tired anime tropes and breathes life into them by treating them with a sense of groundedness and respect. Like a festival, a student council, and, of course, five different anime girl archetypes. Attention seems to be paid to slight glances and body postures (Hisao narrating of course) and other such signs that show that they seem to be alive. Basically "anime...but if it were taken seriously".

 

I tried to play a bit of "Little Busters!" but couldn't get very far because it seemed to lack this groundedness and there didn't seem to be much going on with the characters other than what one could see of them. Especially the main character who is presented as such a boring, limp noodle just so the story can show his progression to al dente. 

 

My first post was thought out poorly. The origin and the music is a part of the effect but the story constitutes the most important portion, by far, and it should be analyzed first. Not reviewed, route by route, scene by scene, but investigated into how the different elements combine to create a holistic work.

 

I'll be back with some more thoughts soon. Hopefully, I've given somebody enough to chew on.

 

Ciao.

[Newton]

Too good, just what I wanted. 

 

Something I'd like to add:

 

So what makes Katawa Shoujo's slice of life segments different from slice of life segments in other visual novels is that they aren't (just) situations - they are the objective of the protagonist's actions. He wants to act normally, but he can't. If you think about it, each of the girls' disabilities is written in such a way that it is just like any other trait that makes us not know exactly how to deal with a person we've just met, except overblown. Hanako's shyness is graphic, made visible by the fact that she has scars; Shizune is even more distant as a figure of authority due to how you can't talk directly to her; It's difficult for someone not to understand and acquiesce to Hisao's difficulties in making friends with them - and having a normal conversation is the goal here.

 

This might be the groundedness you're talking about. School life is actually a pretty serious thing when you're actually in it. So by solidifying everyday problems into clear, plain to see difficulties, they mimic what our own ordinary shenanigans feel like.

What makes the ordinary school scenes compelling whereas anywhere else they would be drab and tiresome is exactly for the reasons you've said but I'll translate to screenwriting speak. 

 

Stakes. There are things at stake. Hisao's goal is to come to terms with his condition (though he might not be fully aware of it, in the beginning, he just wants to go back to the life he had before) and if he doesn't achieve it, then his life will be marred by sadness and self-pity (or in an incredibly melodramatic turn, he'll get drunk, fall off a roof, and die. Overblown, but illustrates the point). Every conversation is a chance to move his life forward by choosing to connect to people, or a missed opportunity and a reason to hide himself away even more. 

 

Combine that with a town and school that seem that attention was paid to how it might feel to be there (many lines concerning how Yamaku is in the country or how the city reminds him of where he used to live, for example) and characters that possess down-to-earth human struggles make it all a successful experience. 

 

Anything else that can be said? Maybe a final word on what we've learned story-telling wise?