Katawa Shoujo: HNNNGGGGGGG!!!

I've stated elsewhere I'm not a big VN fan, and this made me a little uneasy considering the premise...but I really did enjoy it. Emotions galore, etc.

As for girls, I do think Shizune was my favorite path..if only because I had to play it twice to fully soak it all in. I also noticed Kenji's role was a lot more prominent in this route — but it could have been just my imagination.

I do have to say playing through Rin and Hanako's routes made me feel..a little uneasy for different reasons. They were enjoyable, yes, but Rin seemed really abstract at times and Hanako's route seemed..awfully short to me.

I see a lot of people asking for a Kenji route and others asking for a Misha route, but I'd personally pick the hell out of a Jigoro route.

Jigoro is an unredeemable asshole.

Jigoro is bad and you should feel bad.

(Seriously though, he's easily the worst character in the whole thing.)

I hate him even more than I do Misha.

He's just that bad.

I'd pick a Jigoro path if there were guitars named Fuckslayer, groinsaws, meteors of holy fuckfire, prosthetic legs made out of pistols, vampire cavemen on Mars, dragons made out of motorcycles, and many other things.

I like Jigoro. I mean, he's an infuriating guy, but he's a character I enjoy hating.

Knowing Jigoro, there probably would be.

Ahahaha, good, good. Glad to see we're on the same wavelength with him. I just hope none of you thought I was serious..or does sarcasm fall upon deaf ears here?

We take everything extremely seriously and literally.

I think I like you guys. ;)

The Jigoro route is the one where you get to hideously murder him, right? Yeah, I heard that's going to be part of the Kenji route DLC.

Irony ensues if you do it with his biography.

Jigoro would have been a more fun character if he served a real purpose. He didn't really do anything and his impact on Shizune was rather vague.

Jigoro was the most flat parental figure present in the entire game. His jerkish tendencies only make him more irredeemable, if not at times flat out comical...probably an attempt to make him easy to hate and provide a Freudian reason behind Shizune's competitive behavior.

That said, I didn't like Misha's nearly overbearing prominence in Shizune's route either, and would have probably enjoyed it more had it focused more on Hisao and Shizune's alone time. We only infer they're doing things offscreen..the most romantic your conversations get with Shizune is mainly talking about why you like her. I understand the concept: slice of life. But I feel like I'd have enjoyed the romantic aspect of her route more if it was told better or built upon a little more.

Do I make sense, or do I sound like I'm being picky?

edited 29th Jul '12 4:49:34 PM by Monta

Nah, that makes send. Admittedly you had me sold at "less Misha".

That's my basic opinion of Shizune's route. Not enough Shizune in it. I think the story is rather hampered by the fact that you either need someone like Misha around or to kind of ignore Shizune's deafness to tell the story. Okay, sure, Katawa Shoujo is making the point that they're not defined by their disabilities but...

Right, good. I mean, Shizune is probably the most interesting character in my opinion..maybe because she didn't follow an exact stereotype like 'tsundere' and the writer did a good job making it realistic. So it was a bit of a let down that Misha's personality, at times, was overbearing and even annoying. I know that her presence probably killed a lot of romantic aspects, since Shizune didn't really want to hurt Misha..but that's why Hisao learned sign, right?

More Shizune and more depth to her family would have definitely helped the experience, I think. Admittedly, I think the beta Shizune route was better than the current one..even if the bad ending was OOC.

Beta route?

That's to say the original idea for the path. A case of 'what could have been.' The game went through many different changes, of course. But among the ones I've seen, I've found changes to both Shizune AND Misha.

For Misha, she was at one point just Shizune's translator and was to disappear altogether or become fairly minor. She was written with little character other than being Shizune's mouthpiece, but I think Hisao was going to take her place at some point.

Another change to Misha I've heard all too commonly had her break at Act 4, as usual, but essentially end up /dead/..which is what put Shizune into her own depression.

As for changes to Shizune, she was supposed to be one of the more affectionate girls and get a lot more screentime with Hisao. The beta endings of this had Shizune and Hisao either affirming their relationship with a Happily Ever After in stark contrast to the Maybe Ever After or Shizune ended up committing suicide.

I will try to look for my sources, but they seem to be scattered

And here I liked Misha far more than Shizune... Actually even more than Hanako as well, despite that she's the one I wrote a fanfic^note shameless plug about.

Anyway, for that reason, I think what was actually written is a decent improvement. On the other hand, I wonder if Shizune came off as such an untrustworthy manipulator in the original version...

Since it's my first time posting here (but not reading), I'll also just toss in my personal ranking:

Misha > Hanako > Emi > Nurse > Lilly > Hisao > Kenji > Rin > Shizune.

Funny, I think that Shizune's route has too much Shizune in it. Of course, that's to be expected, since it wouldn't be Shizune's route otherwise, but Misha and Jigoro are the only interesting things in it (and probably the only reason I finished this route without falling asleep first).

If nothing else, at least it made a decent "final route".

I also found Misha more interesting than Shizune. While Shizune is an interesting character on her own right, she isn't lovable as much as rest of the cast and doesn't really fit in a slice of life route. Of course I'm relatively speaking, I did enjoy her route and personality. Also Jigoro is a good example of Flat Character. His over the topness makes him enjoyable.

edited 30th Jul '12 1:27:57 AM by ozaniel

Considering how he's only one of two parental figures in the game (ignoring Hisao's parents), that's not saying much. Or maybe it is, if you're also including dead backstory parents.

I consider Jigoro the type of character you desperately hope to have more than one dimension and show some actual concern in any of the conversations, but you're consistently disappointed. Considering the aim was most likely to construct a condemned character to con you into sympathy for the conniving Shizune, I'm not confident it was a good idea. Conceptually, though, it's congruent with her route, contested as it is...

edited 30th Jul '12 4:28:29 AM by AnotherDuck

Jigoro was perfectly entertaining to me. The problem is that he's in the wrong game. It's generally pretty good about being realistic, but all that extended family around Lilly and Shizune just ranges from "pretty cool" (Akira) to "straight out of the animes". Pretty well-written characters in their own right, but why here?