Katawa Shoujo: HNNNGGGGGGG!!!

Note: Quoteblock is currently non-functional.

But anyway. For purely text-based stuff I wouldn't find it weird that a blind person could partake - heck, it would surprise me if no such people did - but this surprised me a bit because of the visual component: The text in a VN will often not describe the scenery, since it's expected that it is being looked at; contrast books, where everything is described because there are no pictures.

True, but that doesn't necessarily matter. For the most part, it's just to give a sense of time and place. The dialogue and characters are the important parts, and usually I have an idea what's going on in the background from context.

Like I said, the art and such is pretty, but when you get down to it it's just window dressing.

Yes, exactly. The premise had me curious, but it's the fact that everyone with disabilities is treated as a person first, and someone that needs help second. That's not to say there's not any challenges and frustration, but for me and folks like them it's just how life works.

I found it very refreshing that in many cases, characters will be hurt if Hisao or other well-meaning characters treat them as helpless or needing to be constantly taken care of, which only demeans and humiliates them as human beings. That kind of condescending behavior just says "you're helpless so I need to take care of you because you can't help yourself."

I think it's implied in some routes that life goes on without Hisao. Like, everyone else's personal lives don't fall to pieces just because you're not on their route. Case in point, Hanako joins a club in Lilly's route, so it's not like she needs Hisao to draw her out of her shell. (Actually, I've seen some arguments that Hanako is actually worse off in her own route than she would be otherwise.)

Which is interesting, because protagonists in a VN are often set up to be some magical problem-solver who gives people their happy endings.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Doesn't Lilly's path end hella later than Hanako's, though? So the point when she joined the newspaper club might be after the point when her own route ends.

Hisao can totally be a major cause of things going to shit, though, not counting Bad Ends. Like encouraging Rin to do the art exhibit thing or triggering Misha's Haircut Change Of Significance.

(Let's pretend the quoteblock function isn't borked right now.)

That is true, but my point was that Hisao doesn't have to be directly involved in her life for her to eventually get better.

edited 9th Jan '15 2:56:10 PM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Well I haven't finished all of them yet, only about 2 and a half, but Emi's at least was for the better. Otherwise she'd still have the ice queen personality under all the genky girl traits. She's a Stepford Smiler, just very good at covering it up.

Even if it's very short, her bad ending effected me quite a bit. She just pretends that nothing's wrong and acts cheery as she says to Hisao's face that she'll never let anyone close to her heart and romance is just shallow fun until then.

The two you've finished are Lilly's and Emi's, would be my guess? I wanna know what I should not talk about in super spoilery terms.

Sure, sure. That was supposed to be a response to the arguments that she's better off in Lilly's route than her own.

Like I said, the art and such is pretty, but when you get down to it it's just window dressing.

I understand that our perspectives on this are... rather different, to say the least, but I very much disagree. I have my own bias in that I am a fairly artistic person, I admit, but I don't think its importance or significance should really be brushed aside so much.

edited 9th Jan '15 6:09:35 PM by Sabbo

Fair enough. I don't deny there's some critical details in the animations.

Shizune's, actually. I was going to go for Lilly last since the accuracy of her condition means it's not going to introduce things I don't already have myself.

A bit funny in that the def character a lot of people seem to find obtuse and unlikable is my favorite character.

edited 9th Jan '15 7:17:03 PM by darkabomination

I wasn't sure what to do about the FM Vs, but since there wasn't any text or dialogue, I decided to just leave them out entirely. There's some symbolism and foreshadowing in them, but they're ultimately not very critical.

The opening video has the credits text in it, so I just transcribed all the text then extracted the audio from the video in VLC and set that as background music.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

You're missing out on some good music, though.

Also, since I'm listening to them all again anyway, even the music seems to be symbolic in its own way, so I'd say it's worth giving a listen to.

edited 9th Jan '15 10:58:10 PM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

The only reason I don't like Shizune is that she doesn't seem like a very honest person, and the kind that forces her beliefs onto others.

Check out my fanfiction!

I just found out about this game literally 3 weeks ago and have been playing it off and on getting 100% I am pleasantly surprised by this game and was completely different than what I expected when I first heard about its premise. So consider me tickled when I realized how human these girls were depicted and that the male protagonist wasn't some 'fix-it-with-my-penis! character. (although he does get a lot of that anyway!)

As for each of the girls, I would have to go in the order I encountered their routes in. Emi was my first and from what I've gathered, is the easiest to fall into in terms of routes. A good, solid route as any to start on and it was very brisk, funny and had a good hit in the feels towards the end. Even after playing all the other routes, Emi still remains my favorite. Oh and...anal.

Hanako was my second choice and absolutely loved her route, despite the fact it felt shorter and less complete of a story. It seemed the overall problem basically fixed itself and then it ended. There wasn't any long-drawn out struggle with coming to terms with her mental insecurities and it seemed she WANTED to be back out there in the world and make friends. This is proven later in Lilly's route where she takes it upon herself to join a club and make friends. She's stronger than one would believe. And her H-scene? More graphic than any combined! Unexpected to be sure!

Shizune was chosen next just to get her over with. I never cared much for either her or Misha. (watches Shizune/Misha lovers froth at the mouth) But seriously, I felt she was overbearing and selfish. Her entire route was a bit drab and dull, but it had its moments with her dad and including Lilly and Akira into the mix, which was a nice and welcome touch. The one choice you did make, I gleefully went into the bad ending with abandon, but then later made up for it just so I could get 100%.

I then chose Rin next...dear...friggin...lord...Rin! Her route is so convoluted and dark, half the time I didn't even know if I had ruined the relationship in all three of her acts! It was a miracle at all that I got the best ending on my first try! She went into some dark, depressing areas of her inner psyche to destroy herself, just to understand herself. I'm still on the fence if I'm even caring for this route at all, probably because it hit a bit close to home regarding a friend I know in real life. That ended in tragedy sadly...

I ended my experience with Lilly and good thing too, it was the one story that actually hit upon each of the main girls of the game and presented a more idealized romance blossoming between Hisao and Lilly. Was the end a bit rushed, sort of. Was it foreshadowed any? Absolutely. I just feel it could have been executed better. The epilogue after the credits almost makes me believe this was 'meant' to be the canonical choice of the creators, that Lilly is ultimately the person Hisao would choose. Why else would she get something extra none of the others girls got? Which leads me into...

If there was ever an anime regarding Katawa Shoujo, I truly believe the Lilly route should be the actual romantic story they should follow. It hits on that entire relationship between her and Shizune, their family ties (and brings in Misha). It encompasses the Hanako arc and even briefly includes Emi and Rin. How I'd changed it up some, is that Hisao and the girls rally around Rin to help her with her issues and in turn, when Lilly is leaving to Scotland for good, it is Rin that puts the idea in Hisao's head to go chasing after her. Rin would recognize all the effort Hisao and the others did to make her happy, she would want Hisao to claim happiness of his own and would help encourage the Lilly relationship...in her own weird way. Just some musings.

Finally, in terms of overall preference and likeability, here are my rankings - Emi > Lilly > Hanako > Rin = Shizune/Misha. GG.

Yeah, something like that would make sense. Ultimately, all the girls work at least as well as just friends to Hisao, which is of course one of the great strengths of this game. But if you had to choose one to build a narrative around, Lilly is probably the best for the sake of an easy and natural way to rope in the other characters. Rin and Emi would need some increased presence, but that's not hard - just keep Hisao practicing his running so he can befriend Emi, and Rin is a package deal and the best friend anyway since she is, after all, easy to talk to. -sage nod-

A related word about Hanako's route: The issue "fixing itself" is kind of the point, actually. The bad route is what happens when Hisao thinks of Hanako as someone who needs to be fixed, instead of recognizing that she's already a strong person taking steps towards recovery at her own pace. All she needs is some people she can rely on to keep giving her the strength to carry on. At Lilly's route shows, it works just as well if she just stays friends with Lilly, and Hisao is nice to have, too. In fact, it might even work out better. It's kind of interesting to note that Hisao actually often messes things up for a bit and, at first, makes them worse than they would've been without his interference. Of course, if he comes though and we can assume that their relationship remains stable, it's probably still a long-term gain. It can be a little depressing, but ultimately it furthers the idea that you aren't there to try and "fix" these people, and that it's never easy. And that's refreshingly honest, too, honestly.

Now that I think about it, maybe in the anime having Hisao run with Emi is a great way to open up her storyline alongside Rin's. Maybe get the more secure (later in the anime) Hanako to assist Emi and Hisao in getting through to Rin which will then help Rin enable Hisao make that fateful decision to chase after Lilly at the airport. It all comes full circle! Brilliant!

EDIT: BTW, how the frig do I put in a working, clickable link in my signature line?!

edited 7th Jul '15 1:37:44 PM by Darkflamewolf

As long as it makes Rin secretly the most important character, everything is good.

Also:

While most of the routes could have the issues in them addressed with just-friends Hisao, I'm pretty sure it'd have to cut a bunch from Shizune's route with no Hisao making Misha jealous by romancing Shizune.

Also, gotta fit in that manly picnic and Hisao nearly falling off the roof somewhere. Probably after he's just tapdanced on trauma mines and generally fucked up everything.

edited 8th Jul '15 1:17:13 AM by rikalous

Manly picnic can be included as a nightmare Hisao has. We all know Kenji is weird/screwed up enough for Hisao to have nightmares about him.

edited 8th Jul '15 1:17:34 AM by Chariot

I actually like that idea of having Kenji's manly picnic as a nightmare. Would make it all the more hilarious when we pull the rug from viewers after its over to have it all be a dream when in reality, the big festival was that very day and he just had a bad dream just prior!

Also, whatever happened to the fully voice Katawa Shoujo? Did it fall into oblivion or something?

To make a ridiculously negative post:

Honestly, it's not like you're losing much of worth by cutting most of Shizune's route. Her character is interesting, but the vast majority of her route is just random anime people shenanigans.

Honestly, what little I heard from that project makes me think it's probably better off dead.

...

To add a bit of less-negativity, the nightmare idea can possibly work with a bit of effort. You just have to play with the function the first chapter has for the development of Hisao's character - he's someone who lost everything and spends the first chapter orienting himself in a new world. Choosing one of the girls means Hisao found a direction for himself, while in order to not choose one and end up with the Manly Picknick, you have to generally do things that make Hisao retreat into his shell of self-pity. So I guess an effective way to pull it off would be to have a little something happen the night before the festival that frustrates him and makes him feel like all his hopes for a new life were in vain, and then he falls asleep and has that terrible dream, wakes up and decides "you know what, screw this, I'm gonna take this opportunity and see what happens".

Not to be a jerk but, Jesuotaku was involved, so there was not that much of a chance of it being finished.

OH GOD WHY AM I A CAR!? - Forzare

I'm pretty skeptical of attempts to voice act Katawa Shoujo. Partly because most internet groups don't know what they're doing and will quickly fall apart (which makes 4LS so amazing).

Plus most people don't really appreciate just how long KS is. The word count is comparable to The Lord Of The Rings. By my count, there are 30370 distinct lines.

edited 10th Jul '15 7:33:23 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

You don't need to voice internal monologue. That cuts the number of lines considerably. If you take some old school approach, you might even just not voice Hisao (although him is not a blank protagonist, so it wouldn't fit).

But, yeah, it is still freakish long. Another issue is the time. I mean, no one would be a paid professional, so they would need to do it in the free time. How long would that take? And Katawa Shoujo don't have the luxury of being possible to release it in chunks to keep interest. Lack of tangible progress can be really discouraging.

The only similar project I know is CoLabHQ's Let's Read Homestuck. By now they probably voiced more than a Katawa Shoujo project would need to, but it took them over 2 years and they release it serially.

Katawa Shoujo did release in chunks, though.

Okay, so releasing Act 1 and then the whole thing isn't very many chunks, but the point is it can be done if necessary. They'd probably have to be pretty big chunks, though.

What you need is some dedicated Let's Players who are willing to read one character's lines in their play throughs (so I'm going to guess at least 10+ Let's Players to account for all voices), someone else edits all the dialogue and splices it in and then make a seamless vocal track for the game! I'd say the hardest job would be the poor sap at the end splicing it all together.