I think this is a really good reading of the material, I just think the material needed to handle it better. Without body language there needed to be a little more in there indicating people's intents, especially during those endless student council scenes. It never feels like you're in a relationship, maybe friends with benefits, yet you never press the matter which is what's so frustrating. You keep waiting for Hisao to notice and he bloody doesn't. Just a few smiles over the shoulders of others would have made a world of difference, or introducing a neutral character for Shizune to interact with to contrast better how she deals with you post-dating when you see her Act 1 self talking to someone else.HeMeido wrote:Some thoughts I had while killing rakghouls. This is the path thread, so I'm not going to bother with spoilers.
Jigoro
Jigoro isn't as much of an asshole as people make him out to be. He's obviously glad that Shizune brought over a friend that isn't Misha - he's happy they used his fishing equipment and he cooks for Hisao. He also follows Hisao's advice about connecting with Shizune later on. It's just that by that point, Shizune hasn't learned that she can't always just do things her way. As insane as his ramblings are, they're mostly accurate. Even his remarks about how the student council is insignificant and how the room has too many tables and chairs for how many people there are in it can be taken to mean that Shizune shouldn't have driven away the people who could have been her friends over something as petty as a student government. Really, Jigoro's just massively tsundere towards his children.
Misha
My God, Misha. You think being Misha is suffering now? Think about this for a second.
Her sole comfort - her time alone with Shizune during student council work - is intruded upon by Hisao. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that, up until the point where Hisao starts communicating with Shizune in sign language, Misha has to witness and mediate the relationship that she desperately wants, but will never have. After that, she becomes the third wheel and finds every excuse she can to get out of their way so that she doesn't have to watch Shizune fall in love with someone else.
Shizune
Shizune manages to have it worse than Misha. She just handles it better.
Misha loves her. Hisao loves her. She loves Hisao. She knows this is causing problems... and there is absolutely no one she can talk to about it. The only people who understand her and who hang out with her are both part of the problem and she's driven away everyone else. She doesn't want to spend too much time with Hisao because she knows how much it would hurt Misha. She doesn't want to spend too much time with Misha because she wants to be a good girlfriend to Hisao. So, she focuses on the one thing the three of them can do together: student council work. If there's no student council work, she sends them both away to avoid showing favouritism. It doesn't help that she doesn't want to do couple things just for the sake of doing couple things anyway. Working with Hisao is more meaningful to her.
When Shizune goes to visit her family, she knows she has to bring Hisao along. She knows this will cut down on Misha's quality time with her. She sets Hisao up with Hideaki to make sure he doesn't get bored and spends most of her time with Misha to avoid making her feel left out. She buys some clothes for Hisao to show that she is thinking about him. When she realizes that this isn't enough, she decides to have sex with him to get closer to him and to show how much she really does love him.
Then Misha decides to stop hanging out with them. Shizune feels incredibly guilty at having driven away her best friend and the only friend she had for about a year, but Shizune doesn't mope. She tries to fix the situation the only way she knows how by doing things to draw Misha back to her. That doesn't work, Hisao comes up with a less overbearing approach. With her relationship with Misha smoothed out and her work with the student council done, Shizune can focus on being Hisao's girlfriend for a bit and they have sex again.
All the stuff above needed further exploring, the writing needs better editing I think. There's too much material repeating things which have gone before and not enough looking deeper into ideas it has already introduced. I think you have a deep and accurate reading, the problem is the characters in the game don't seem to read into it at this level and so the writing doesn't either.
I might disagree with you on the dad though, he talks about how his daughter refused to talk to him and then it's never explored further. I'm confused as to why the family holiday occurs at all since the path doesn't explore her family and focuses almost entirely on Misha.
