Discussion - Emi Route (*Spoilers* Warning)

[Quitch]

I was originially put off by the large amount of sex scenes, before I realised - their 18 year old kids. That's what kids do in relationships. It did make me a little unable to relate though, as I'm 30 now, and their behaviour was that of teenagers, just starting to develop the skills to work out problems like this on their own.

*sigh* makes me feel old

Same age here and It made me feel a little wistful, these two discovering all this stuff for the first time. I think some people have forgotten what it was like to discover sex for the first time.= (at least in Hisao's case, not sure about Emi the game doens't say).

I've only played through this route and Shizune's and of the two I prefer Emi's. It kept her in the focus and dating actually felt like dating, not to mention the good ending was pitch perfect. I liked that it ignored the elephant in the room that was graduation.

Route did suffer a little from "idiot main character" syndrome, but that's a visual novel trait so I can forgive it. He was better than most and, hey, 18 years old can create drama out of anything

[Guest Poster]

I had fun with Emi's path. I loved the bantering between Emi, Hisao and the Nurse. (bonus points for the relation between Emi and Nurse mirroring Nurse-kun's 4-chan stories) Her route is definitely fun enough to compensate for her unassuming Act 1 end.

Emi's PTSD issues did take me off guard a bit, since it's so counter to the initial impression of her. (an impression enforced by the blatant lies in her site/manual profile)

I'm not sure if the devs mentioned anything about this, but I do believe Emi's not a virgin when she meets Hisao. (near the end, she mentions she had a relationship with a guy at Yamaku who she ended up pushing away due to her emotional commitment issues, so it's likely their relationship already got physical by that point)

I wonder if I'm the only one who wasn't surprised by Emi's sexual forwardness one bit. She's fairly worldly, has a down-to-earth and cheery personality, is not particularly prone to embarassment and has a go-get-em approach to life. The devs also mentioned before (I believe) that Emi is older than Hisao with a fairly mature and motherly streak, so when I started the Emi path, I kept the image of an older girl in mind (rather than going with the loli stereotype) and I wasn't surprised to see her taking the initiatives in the relationship. I thought her impish smile as she called Hisao a prude for hesitating to take the next step to be very amusing.

The shed scene could have lacked taste if it wasn't for the fact it ended up such an epic fail. (resulting in recurring "let's not do that again" statements passing back and forth afterwards)

As a sidenote...Emi's sexual forwardness is actually something that's a fairly realistic depiction of relationships where one of the people has emotional commitment issues. I've read several stories from people who said that the relationships with partners who had trouble with emotional intimacy were often marked by the fact they were shagging like bunnies all the time. It was the partner's subconcious way of making the relationship appear to be more intimate than it really was. This is both in-character for Emi and also sheds a more tragic light on her horny behavior.

So I don't see Emi as a slut. She's no prude, but she's not a one-night-stand person either.

[INFERTakuya]

The devs also mentioned before (I believe) that Emi is older than Hisao

Yeah, she's one year older than Hisao as she missed out on school (presumably about a year of it) due to the accident that took her legs, and the subsequent recuperation and rehabilitation. Naturally, when it came to continuing her education, she couldn't possibly go on to the next grade as if nothing happened, so she ended up being a year older than her classmates.

[Daverost]

"See you around, Hisao." ... We don't speak again after that. Oh my god I thought I was going to die of heartbreak.

Good God. What was his response? Something like "No, you won't. You won't even try." And all she did was shrug. I could feel my heart shatter.

[Quitch]

This path was excellent. From a mechanical perspective, it's a perfect example of a story arc, moving smoothly from conflict to conflict in order to flesh out and illustrate a conflict that's central to the story in general.

Hisao settles into running and his new life -> Hisao likes Emi and takes steps to start pursuing her -> They start going out -> (Lull period) -> Emi is showing signs of injury and hiding it -> Emi can't run for several weeks due to an infection caused by the above -> Emi is doing terribly in general and trying to hide it -> Emi has issues letting herself get close to people.

And that's the thing. That last part is The Conflict, and it drives literally everything one of the two characters does. She, in turn, pushes the rest of the plot. Everything up to the lull gets Hisao in a position to care about, be affected by, and affect The Conflict, and everything after it develops, reveals, and addresses The Conflict. Even before it's openly revealed, it's evident and present in her actions, and the smaller conflicts it creates serve to illustrate cogently how it is a problem. And her disability is incredibly relevant.

Everything is relevant! Everything pointless is trimmed away. Even the single plot thread that doesn't really seem relevant to the central plot, Hisao's newfound interest in science and desire to pursue it in college, eventually advances the current plot while it *also* serves to give the reader a sense of where the protagonist will be going after the plot.

(Well, I guess there is one pointless thing: The sidestory with the librarian and the stolen books isn't ever resolved. The attentive reader already knows that Kenji was the one stealing the books, though, so it doesn't really matter; it only ever occupies the stage for thirty seconds or so at a time, and they never dwell on it.)

And throughout, it uses those smaller conflicts to illustrate and flesh out the greater conflict while they also keep the reader invested in the story. It does a lot of showing, and when it tells, it tells in short bursts. Character growth happens, and character growth is always relevant, because the character growth is both the way to resolve the conflict and the way that the conflict is resolved.

And at the end, when the conflict is resolved, it moves smoothly into denouement and then stops. No more conflict, we know enough of how things move forward, ergo the plot is over. Roll credits.

This is how you tell a story. It's a textbook structure, and it's a textbook structure because it fucking works.

Amen to this. Good show, hivemind.

It really helps that it feels like a real relationship between two young people still experimenting at all this. There's great banter and you see how it builds, and then suddenly Hiaso wants to go further but hits a wall and the conflict begins. It's not handled in a childish way, rather he constantly probes for ways to get past her defences but without being a total ass (unless you make bad decisions). Sure, he's a little slow on the dad thing, but other than that I finally felt like I had a VN where the main character wasn't making everything worse to create artificial drama.

I think Hisao picks up on the dad thing earlier than people give him credit for. At some point I recall he's about to say it, but stops at the last second because there's a chance that he's wrong. You'll notice that he's not surprised by the graveyard, he's clearly been expecting this.

[pibby]

Before anything, I'd like to lol at the thread starter. Eroge girls are pretty damn loose, and to me I thought the sex took relatively longer to arrive at in comparrison to Japanese-made eroge including Shuffle! and Yume Miru Kusuri. Which btw was a nice relief from the general approach to affection, where penetration comes immediately after the first kiss.

Shout outs to whoever did Emi's path (I'm too lazy to look it up or to scan the credits), I am forever a convert. Until I play the other girls' paths

I swear, Emi was like the last person I thought I was going to get to until I saw that they revamped her art after the Act 1 demo. I was like, "Damn, I could actually take this girl seriously!", given that mostly everyone, including me, had the least faith in her. Last in the polls is nothing to be proud of. I haven't checked yet but if somebody makes a poll of the girls after the game's complete development (although some patching would be nice as their are still mistakes like mislabled actors) I bet you it would look a whole lot different.

Not only was it the improved art that got me through the storyline but also exploring the surprising parts of her personality that she so gingerly kept from us during Act 1 demo. Not only does she have puppy eyes but she's got evil bitch eyes too! Again story development VERY well done. Everything was set at a nice pace, even making me cry at the end

Just wanted to post my generic thoughts on the game so far and if I find a donation link for KS I'm going to give my fair share as a way to say thanks to the 4LS staff for taking time out of their lives to make what I think is a great start to English eroge.

Oh, and shoutouts to safe sex and non-genetilia sex scenes!

[Yozul]

I think that I need to say something, and I don't know if this is the right place, but I can't think of anywhere better.

I'm not particularly into visual novels. I've tried them before, and the idea of them seemed really cool, but I never much liked the actual stories.

Anyway, I happened to see an article about this one somewhere, and it seemed like it might be interesting. Plus it was free. I figured I'd give it a try. I ended up with the Emi ending my first time through the game, and I couldn't shake the feeling that something was odd. It was like I really, really identified with Emi, and I couldn't figure out why. She's an outgoing, athletic, short teenage girl with PTSD, and I am exactly none of those things. I just... didn't get it.

I played some more, got the other endings. It's a good game, I liked almost all the stories. Today, I decided I wanted to replay Emi's. I got to the part where she says "So I can't rely on you. Or the nurse. Or anyone else. Just me. That's how it's got to be." and I froze. I don't know how long. I wanted to punch something. I went for a walk. It's 40 degrees out, and raining, and I didn't even put on a jacket. I just keep thinking "Am I wrong?"

Is it possible for a person to have had PTSD since before they learned to talk? I have to say something, because not saying things is what I've always done, but I don't really have anyone to say it to.

Am I wrong? I don't know. I'm not Emi. I can't just confess my tragic past and make it all better. I don't have a tragic past. I trust people. Maybe too much, even. I think most people are decent at heart. I just think they're useless. I don't believe anyone can help. Am I wrong? I like people just fine, but I refuse to need them. I hate the very word need. It's weak. It's stupid. But am I wrong? I don't know. I don't know anything right now.

Everything I am. Everything I've ever been. Am I wrong? I think that maybe I am. I just don't know. I think that maybe I need help after all, but I'm afraid, and I don't even know how to begin to find it. I just don't know right now.

[dirtnasty]

I got the Emi happy ending the first time I played. I think it's probably the most positive one, where Hisao gets healthier and gets in a relationship with one of the cutest girls apart from Lilly.

He even gets to try anal with Emi, and they made it pretty realistic for a couple trying it for the first time.

The writing was fantastic, I loved the cinematic. I really felt like Emi, despite her grace and cheerful mood being a facade some small part of the time, she was a relatively positive and happy person. The PTSD part was done very well, with sobriety and respect. I liked this route's Hisao, even though there's one scene at Emi's mother's house that I just thought he was a dick. He was also clueless for some of the time that Emi's Dad had died in the accident which cost Emi her legs. I saw that coming a mile away.

Anyway, I think that it's a good reward for doing all the right things and wanting to be healthy. Lilly's route for instance is worse in the sense that Hisao definitely suffers much heavier health issues and probably won't live as long as if he chose Emi's route.

The sex in this VN is part of the storiy in most cases, amd well placed. It's not gratuitous, and the writing, although dense, give the characters a lot of characterization. I can see why some people feel an attachment to some extent to these characters. I do think some routes are a little too long sometimes. And I didn't care for Kenji at all, his actions were always mostly filler and irrelevant. He was an annoyance.

[Quitch]

To be fair, in the moments where Haiso is a dick it's because he lets his frustrations get to him. Most of the time he holds his tongue. I thought it was handled pretty well, just once or twice he lets his annoyance get the better of him and he says things he regrets immediately.

[Althamus]

I gotta say though, this reminded me of Halflife a fair bit because whenever anyone talks to Hisao in Emi's arc, they always know ALL the details of his life.
I was like "...srsly, this guy is a frickin' celebrity in the school..."

"Oh hey, it's Gordon Freeman!"

"Hey Gordon, how about we get a beer again sometime?"

[Haseo]

I gotta say though, this reminded me of Halflife a fair bit because whenever anyone talks to Hisao in Emi's arc, they always know ALL the details of his life.
I was like "...srsly, this guy is a frickin' celebrity in the school..."

"Oh hey, it's Gordon Freeman!"

"Hey Gordon, how about we get a beer again sometime?"

Well when they spoke with the Nurse and it is implied that he knows a lot about Emi, Misha and Shizune are harrasing Hisao, Emi's mom...well is Emi's mom and the others just say thing that might be helpful in the relationship, more like suggestions.

[ubergeneral]

I did this after just doing Rin's path. I thought Aura did a spectactular job writing Rin's path but I felt that Emi's path was too cut and dry.

Maybe it's just me. I'm honestly suprised that people are praising it as much as they are. Perhaps there is something I didn't consider before. I may end up changing my opinion

When I was reading this, I couldn't help but think, "what is the conflict?" Everything worked out too easily. Hisao goes running, All works out. Emi hurts her leg, but it all works out. They stop hanging out, then they start hanging out. It took too long for the plot to start moving.

Perhaps I misinterperated it but I felt that while emi's path should keep it's happy theme, it needs a much undertone that keeps the reader interested.

Don't get me wrong. I loved Emi's path. It was colorful and well written. I can say for sure that Emi is getting really popular now, all joking aside, I felt it was missing something that really fleshed out the route.

....

on her sexuallity, my original interperetation on his being so open was simple. She's had sex before and didn't think that having sex again with a guy she liked would be a big deal. Could the intimacy issue factored in? Perhaps. But all that aside I don't think she was a virgin. She knew way too much about what to do in the bedroom and I doubt she would have been willing to just have sex like that if it was her first time. I'm certain hivemind took all that into consideration.

This explians the anal sex thing too. Emi has had sex before and wanted to try different things. That's why she decided to try anal since she's wanted to try it but didn't have someone to do it with.

Looking back the interperetation with her using sex to make up for the lack of intimacy might work. However I think Emi needs to have had sex with Hisao between them finishing finals and them having their fight.

The first few times they had sex they had just started dating. But if they had sex again after their long break, it would have almost confirmed that she was using sex as an way of feigning intimacy. BTW this wouldn't have to be another H-scene. It could be as simple as saying, they had sex again.

[Guest Poster]

I believe there's a line somewhere where Hisao mentions that whenever he tries to pry into Emi's past, she "changes the subject" by seducing him and having sex.

[Quitch]

When I was reading this, I couldn't help but think, "what is the conflict?"

I think this earlier post breaks down the path incredibly well:

http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4799#p64933

I think the reason it feels a little slow at first is due to the lack of decision points in Act 2, only a single point. It really needed a couple more to break up the story a little.

[Mirage_GSM]

However I think Emi needs to have had sex with Hisao between them finishing finals and them having their fight.

Definitely not!
If they did, Hisao wouldn't get to adress the problem again which wouldn't allow the story to progress.