Fundamentals

[Wing]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum and I just finished playing through most of Katawa Shoujo like 15 minutes ago.

I played through Emi -> Hanako -> Rin -> Lilly and while I was doing Hanako's arc, I noticed that so far, there were fundamental problems with our heroines that could be said as the essence of most other problems.

In my view..

Emi -> Fear of loss
Rin -> Fear of Change
Hanako -> Loneliness
Lilly -> Fear of weakness

That being said, the reason why I think this game is so attractive to me is because the personification of these human truths are so easy to relate to, and it gives us hope that we can conquer our innate human nature and try to obtain happiness.

Any thoughts on this?

ps. first post here, go easy on me please

[Carighan]

Yes, in each path Hisao has to learn something, and the heroine has to overcome something. Although personally I'd argue that in Lilly's path it's tricky, because the design nearly inverts the character roles.

[pandaphil]

Thats why I love it. Each girl represents a different emotion.

And welcome to the board sir. Please enjoy your stay!

[YZQ]

Thats why I love it. Each girl represents a different emotion.

And welcome to the board sir. Please enjoy your stay!

Come to think about it, the girls shouldn't play WoW's latest expansion. I swear the various Sha in Pandaria will receive exponential powers from them.

[bahamit_147]

Thats why I love it. Each girl represents a different emotion.

I can't help but agree fully with this statement, they are all completely different people, very well rounded and believable.

There is different set of fears and hurdles to overcome.

[pandaphil]

Thats why I love it. Each girl represents a different emotion.

I can't help but agree fully with this statement, they are all completely different people, very well rounded and believable.

There is different set of fears and hurdles to overcome.

So true, and you can see yourself in all of them to some extent or another.

Yet despite that, like the author of this fine review on Japanator says, the girls start out as your standard anime trope characters, (which is one of the reasons I've lost interest in anime in recent years) and by the end they've pretty much flipped them on their ear. That's some brilliant storytelling.

http://www.japanator.com/japanator-recommends-katawa-shoujo-21864.phtml

[Steinherz]

Thats why I love it. Each girl represents a different emotion.

And welcome to the board sir. Please enjoy your stay!

Come to think about it, the girls shouldn't play WoW's latest expansion. I swear the various Sha in Pandaria will receive exponential powers from them.

How did I know someone was going to bring the Sha from WoW up? XD

Most of these fundamentals do seem to be correct. But if that's the case what of Shizune (and Misha by extension)?

[pandaphil]

Hey Steinherz, I'm in love with your sig. Is it a quote from something?

[Steinherz]

Hey Steinherz, I'm in love with your sig. Is it a quote from something?

It is a quote, but I have utterly no idea who it is from .

[Wing]

@Carighan

Yeah, Lilly was a really interesting route.. There was a few things that helped me decide though. For one thing, she always acted prim and proper, and she tries to act as "normal" as possible. With that in mind, along with her family's assumed disapproval of her blindness, shows that she wants to look strong, look like she's in control. She didn't confess to the tutor that she had, mainly due to that she didn't want to "open" herself up to be hurt. The last clue that brought me to her personification is that when she fell down because of Kenji, it was the first time we get to see Lilly not in control. I believe that it was due to when Kenji grabbed her, she couldn't see it coming because of her blindness, and since she strives to look and act completely normal, it really affected her. Hopefully my ramblings aren't just some nonsense from an insane person haha

@pandaphil

Thanks man!

@Steinherz

Actually I forgot about Shizune! It was around 3:30 in the morning when I typed that last post out haha.. I have to go replay Shizune's arc and then post more haha


Also, I came to another conclusion that maybe the reason why we are so motivated to do something after finishing katawa shoujo is because after we finish these stories, these girls become personifications of our own faults, and because these girls solved their problems (hopefully, assuming good endings), then it would show you that you can solve your own problems too. It reminds me of Eclectic Psychotherapy.

[Xanatos]

Don't recall Rin fearing change. Just a lot of communication failure. Never got Lilly fearing weakness either.

[YZQ]

Don't recall Rin fearing change. Just a lot of communication failure. Never got Lilly fearing weakness either.

Lily doesn't fear weakness per se. Weakness opens other people up to worrying about her, which IS her primary fear.

To me, Rin ultimately wants to communicate with people. Unfortunately, she thought that art should be her primary means of doing so (since it's second nature to her). She did fear having to learn to communicate via other means.

[Wing]

Don't recall Rin fearing change. Just a lot of communication failure. Never got Lilly fearing weakness either.

Lily doesn't fear weakness per se. Weakness opens other people up to worrying about her, which IS her primary fear.

To me, Rin ultimately wants to communicate with people. Unfortunately, she thought that art should be her primary means of doing so (since it's second nature to her). She did fear having to learn to communicate via other means.

Keep in mind that this is all my conjecture haha

Anyways.. I think she doesn't like to be perceived as weak. But.. then again, you can always say it's something like pride.. but I did list a bunch of reasons why I think Lilly fears weakness.

For Rin, I based it mostly on her quote

"...Change is the scariest thing in the world to me. And I seriously don't know if I want to change into a person who could do the thing the teacher wants me to do. I don't know if I could even if I wanted to."

But now that I think about it.. Maybe her fear of change is brought on by her fear of communication..

[YZQ]

Thats why I love it. Each girl represents a different emotion.

And welcome to the board sir. Please enjoy your stay!

Come to think about it, the girls shouldn't play WoW's latest expansion. I swear the various Sha in Pandaria will receive exponential powers from them.

How did I know someone was going to bring the Sha from WoW up? XD

Most of these fundamentals do seem to be correct. But if that's the case what of Shizune (and Misha by extension)?

I'm a Warcraft lore fan, and for those who are playing, you just know that the Shas of Despair AND Fear are going to run amok due to the girls feeding them.

[bahamit_147]

I may be one of the few people that doesn't play WoW, and has no idea what a Sha is (I played for about a month before getting bored and uninstalling it). However I did understand you saying that it feeds off of fear, I think most of the girls defiantly feed it, in a way you could say shizune feeds it as well, though the image that just popped into my head was all of the girls in MMORPG style, armed to the teeth and ready to fight lol. Actually would be interested in seeing a Fan Art of that.