The "thank you 4LS" thread.

[Snow_Storm]

Thank you based 4LS!

[ZXRN]

I actually just wanna thank these guys for making get off my butt and get some physical work done. And for bringing Emi to this game to inspire meh. (and a lot of other people in this forum)

[eleventhirtyeight]

Thank you, 4LS, for inspiring my writing to be more emotional and involved. You really got me wanting to create stories as powerful as this one, because I normally focus on a lot more humor in my writing. KS had a fantastic balance and, well, yeah.

After playing and succumbing to "feels", I also came to the realization that if I want my life to be a story this powerful when I think back on it, I need to create it myself. I need to create my own memories and understand that romance is more fragile than realized and understanding those you love is fantastic.

Also, Shizune's casual dress? Inspiration for my own style.

[tayfinch]

I want to thank the creators and community for making this game what it is. I'm a first-timer to the visual novel scene, and have been powerfully affected by my experience with Katawa Shoujo. This game is beautiful and has changed me for the better.

Thank you, again, for this experience. Amazing.

[Total Destruction]

I find it amazing that all kinds of people can play KS and find it to be amazing. I myself had no idea what to expect, and had never played a VN before. This game hit me really hard, but in a good way.

I'm glad to see that someone else finds it to be such an amazing game. It truly is great, especially since it spawned from the internet and is free.

This a million times over.

Already said it myself before, but respect, 4LS!

[Pickman's Model]

I'm not a gamer, and I'd never played a visual novel before, but I thoroughly enjoyed KS.

Just need to finish Hanako's route, and I'll be done.

Probably gonna feel like shit afterwards.

Thanks for making me feel like shit.

[genei-jin]

Never thought a VN could seriously impact my life, but it has. Thanks, in a good way. I mean it.

[viibryd]

I just finished the game for the first time earlier this evening. My only other experience with a game at all like this is the English Translation of Love Plus, which I enjoyed immensely, though it was a little easy to figure out the 'system'. These types of games are really out of character for me, but with some background... Well, you'll see what I'm getting at.
Last summer I got out of an emotionally abusive marriage to a unfaithful woman that crumbled this once proud and confident person to emotional rubble. To summarize, I'm 33, I lived with my parents again for most of the rest of last year after leaving her, I moved back out on my own this past January, and thought I'd get over it. Well, obviously not. I started anti-depressants this week, I'm still seeing a psychologist, I'm doing better, but it's slow and the last thing I've wanted to think about is trusting a woman ever again. Really honestly, that last part is most of it.
Since then I've started playing video games again more, to fill the time. Kotaku ran an article about Katawa Shoujo and I go the distinct impression that the game was very akin to something I'd enjoy.
It was.
I cried a little.
I can' t believe I just admitted that. I'm 33 and I'm crying (JUST A LITTLE!) over a game. But I did. I played the game like I would have acted if it were real and tried to make a little emotional investment for the sake of immersion, and guess what? I ended up with a wonderful ending with the girl I would have been most interested in were I really living the game: Emi.
What's all this rambling crap about? Well, I learned something. Something pretty profound, to me anyway, something that undoes the last thing that's been really holding me back from moving on completely: you don't have to trust someone to love them, at least not until you're ready to. And that is what I needed to hear. Boy, did I ever need to hear it.
So thanks, everyone who worked on the game. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You really put together something special that I really enjoyed playing, and on top of that, it was, well, therapeutic.

[Devilfire]

I've never been one to cry at games, or anything. I'd never been one for Japanese society either (yes I know this game is Western-made, and the background are from Western places, except a few, but still) after completion of this game 100%, I could say NOTHING has ever moved me as much as this game. No form of art, book, video game, or movie has changed me like Katawa Shoujo has. The writing is beautiful, the character structure is amazing and the musical pieces are some of the best I've heard. In fact, I believe the music was the whole factor in making me cry throughout the story. I'm a sucker for classical, and the way the music is incorporated in some scenes is just amazing. I want to thank you 4 Leaf Studios for coming together and making this amazing Visual Novel, and it's a shame no continuation will happen, but after getting 100% I can say I will be replaying some characters' stories, as I've grown too attached to them. The game has taught me very important life lessons, and has made me look at disabled people differently. I've began running, and getting into the Japanese culture (from speaking and typing it to the history of Japan) and I'm getting into other VNs also. I don't believe I will ever encounter a VN as powerful as this one (possibly due to the fact of the disabled part - it seems to play out well throughout the story and I don't think any other VN would try something like this) so again, thank you 4 Leaf Studios for the visual novel that is Katawa Shoujo

Sincerely, a fan of KS.

[Total Destruction]

Never thought a VN could seriously impact my life, but it has. Thanks, in a good way. I mean it.

Off-topic: Coolest username right here. Makes me wanna sub out my avatar for His Q-ness.

On-topic: You know it. I don't recall the last time a video game ruined me or made me see things in a positive light.

[mysterycycle]

I already said my thanks in full in the Feedback forum, here: http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?p=102140#p102140

But I'd say it again: thanks, 4LS, for an incredible experience that I hope will be life-changing.

[Secutor-Techpriest]

4LS,
I've followed this project since the threads came to and visited /tg/.
Gotta say, this has got to be one of the most emotional, well written pieces of fiction I've read.
Nothing else has ever gotten me to 'feel' like this before.
Well, not everything, but still.
Not to ramble off like Rin, I'll leave you at a 'thank you'.

SC.

[Aijou]

Oh my god 4LS,

I have never gotten emotional from a game until I played this.

I don't know how you did it, but somehow this game just feels so real.
I've spent the past week playing through all of the endings,
& they all get me. Every time.

This game has given me a new perspective on life,
I mean, seriously, I'd date a blind girl now after playing through Lilly's ending.
You really don't know the impact you've made on the lives of the people of this community.

Thank you dearly 4LS,
I can't wait to see what you plan on releasing in the future.

Your dedicated fan,
JON

[BionicKraken]

So when I first finished the game, I went through Emi's path and got the good ending without really realizing what I was doing. I was naturally attached, though, and wanted things to work out well between Hisao and Emi, the two adorable characters that I don't even want to call fictional at the moment. I was pleased that I reached a good ending (not knowing until slightly later that there was a bad one), and had mixed feelings about going through the game again so quickly.

Of course, I did, anyway, this time successfully reaching Rin's path without too much issue. This time I realized I was much more attached to the character, though, though Emi's personality seemed so much easier to go along with. I cared to the point of looking up a FAQ here to see which answers would lead me to the ending I wanted; the choices in her path were much less obvious than Emi's, so I wanted to make sure I didn't fuck it up.

It turned out to be one hell of a rollercoaster, of course. I'm here now, though, still thinking about it at 5 in the morning even though I have work tomorrow (at 4 pm, luckily). I was smiling when I started writing this, and I still am now. That was just . . . absolutely the best thing I've ever read. Is "read" the correct word? Perhaps "experienced" is better; especially when I think of how well done the music is, which I'm still listening to now even though my headphones are killing my ears.

I guess a "thank you" to the developers is what I'm supposed to say now. I'm not even sure. I'm just grinning like an idiot. Even harder when I think about it. Emi's path was a really good story; Rin's rendered my heart nearly as weak as Hisao's. I don't think I have any urge to go through the game any more. I don't think I could possibly enjoy it any more. Perhaps Hanako's story would be interesting, but no other character caught my attention as much. But I digress. Thank you so much for Katawa Shoujo. I hope you all are damn proud of making it.

[HanakoLover]

I'm also here to thank you, Four Leaf Studios.

An acquaintance talked to me about this game a lot of years ago, and just when I started to thought that it would never be finished, someone told me it had been released in January this year. So two weeks ago, I started playing it. I immediately fall in love with Hanako in the library scene, but I ended up with Emi because I took her bait and forced "myself" jogging, xD

That was Friday 18th. The following day I went to work, and I was all the time waiting to get out so I could return to my home and continue to play with KS. Then, in Saturday, I finished Emi's arc. I cried, and it hit me harder than I expected. Then, Sunday, after work, I started Hanako's arc...

How could yo do that? I LOVE Hanako, although she's not real...It reminded me of the ideal of the girl I've always been searching for. I only had a girlfriend when I was fourteen, and it couldn't be called something like that, back then I had no real idea of what love was. Since then, I never had any romantic story again, so here I'm, 24 years old and still virgin. In the last years I started to think the idea of getting sex without love, to have liberal sex wasn't a bad idea at all, but something always stopped me of trying to get it. Katawa Shoujo reminded me of how beautiful love can be...It's just what I want. And I want a girl like Hanako, I girl I can understand, and a girl that can understand me.

Because I also had a dark past. The cause is supposed to be the Asperger syndrome. I was different from the boys of my age, and I'm still diffrent. So, because of my own secluding and the cruelty of young people when they meet someone different, I had a hard life. I remember a therapist coming to my class in middle of the lessons, when I was about 10 years old. This always made me feel so bad, because I saw me as "the different, the strange", with all my classmates looking at me as the therapist took me out of class to have sessions with her. I was so susceptible about all that, that I ended up physically damaging almost all my classmates several times...And even if I was the agressor, my wounds wouldn't heal. I'm talking about the wounds in my heart.

Anyway, I had a few people with I got along well, and this started to improve a little over years. Nevetheless, I was so secluded in myself that I never really opened to them, and so, my self-esteem never really improved. When I was 16 years old, I started to meet people with my same interests (manga and/or videogames), people I found on the Internet. This helped me a bit with my self-esteem, but it didn't stop certain classmates to tease and hit me with thworing objects during class.

Then I started bachillerato, the Spain equivalent of high school. But in few months I started skipping class. I discovered that I was so fragile to pressure, of any kind. I tried to start again a few times, but I always ended up leaving...Then, three years ago, I watched an anime which also hit myself hard: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. In this story, what I think is the key of life is emphasized a lot of times: believe in the you who believe in yourself. In other words, the real self-esteem only comes when one convinces himself that he's the fucking god!! In a good way of speaking, I don't mean being bigheaded.

But it wasn't Gurren Lagann alone. In those years I also found my first REAL friends, and that helped a lot. In the end, I finally finished high school with very high marks. I got my self-esteem up without the necessity of having a girlfriend who could understand me. But there was still a large path to walk. Not only my helf-esteem wasn't high enough, but I also started to feel that I wasn't a good person...

I started studying at university, but ended up leaving it as I had done with high school in the past. That was in the ends of 2011. In the same year, I lost the friend I loved the most, the friend who did the more for me when I was wandering without deciding to study again. So in the final year of high school I learnt to stand almost by myself, without the help of that friend, and I also started to improve my already good friendship with a few other friends. But after leaving university, I felt that no one could then fill the hole I had in my heart. Only that friend gave me a friendship that could heal the wounds of my heart, because she understood me very well, and was very affectionate to me. Yes, it was a girl, but I never fell in love with her: it was a genuine friendship between a guy and a girl.

During 2012, I've had to focus myself, not letting my hobbies become a way of escapism, as always, and try to decide about my future. Now I found something to study with makes me feel enthusiastic for the first time of my life: to become a teacher for children of 0-6 years. But I was still insecure about how was all going to turn out.

And then I started working...And then, I started to get bullied again. I was so sure I had succeeded in getting my self-esteem up, but then I felt that it was all a mirage, that I still was more insecure about myself than I thought. I was taken back several years before, and all my self-confidence, all of me...Started to break apart again.

Then I played Katawa Shoujo, and then I met Hanako Ikezawa...my love. I felt that I wasn't alone any more, that it could exist people like me but with problems even worse than mine. I never had such a gargantuan fear of others...
I always wanted to find someone like her, to protect someone like her with all my might. But I was wrong. Katawa Shoujo showed me that you can't overprotect that kind of people that way. I started to think about me and my past, about how I hated to be treated differently. I understood it: if I were Hanako, I would also want to be treated as the same level as others. I also started to understand what it felt so bad to have working mates caring for me as if I was a kid in previous jobs. I felt touched by the way Hanako dislikes people; the way she prefers quietness meetings rather than awfully noisy drunking meetings out at night; the way she, as me, had minor hobbies who let her stay secluded in her own world....It was just like me, but with even worse problem, much more worse.

Now I'm not going to go for any girl who can't connect with me that much. If I can't find a girl I can love more than Hanako, her being a fictional character, then there's' no point in a relationship.

But Katawa Shoujo has also put me in the mood of begoming a better person. Being a good person is just the way everyone should be. Being more aware and understanding about others. It also made me look at people with disablities in another way. In the end, I also have my own disability in the form of Asperger Syndrome, but now, more than ever, I feel I can fight towards a future, like Emi. I feel like I can have an adult relationship, like that of Hisao and Lily, and I feel like in this huge world, my real Hanako is somewhere...And I will meet her someday.

Thanks a lot, For Leaf Studios, for making such a wonderful piece of art...And with the only goal of art itself. Kawata Shoujo will be in my heart forever, as well as Hanako Ikezawa.