Reviews VisualNovel / Saya No Uta

Nice story, but not perfect.

Saya No Uta. I came across it by accident, but I found it very interesting, before and while watching it on Youtube. It's a great plot. Fuminori, at the start, is a very sympathy-inducing character, being trapped in a world only he can see, and no family left due to the same accident that put him in this state. Saya is also great, as a mysterious, eerie-feeling character who is always cute and smiling and makes you think of Esther. All the other characters, except for Yoh, are realistic, logical and non-stereotypical. The Soundtrack, suspense, terror and the scenario are epic, especially for a visual novel. You could even imagine a horror movie or series based on it.

Now, the first problem: Sex element. Despite the later scenes, this shouldn't be a problem for me, except for the fact that Saya looks like a 4-year old and looks more like Fuminori's daughter! I know this is meant to show how Fuminori's sanity is crumbling due to isolation from the world that looks like Silent Hill gone WAY deep into Lovecraftian Genre, but it's kind of hard to watch the romantic interaction(And I mean the relationship, not sex) between these two when your mind keeps naturally thinking "Lolicon Scene". Then comes that scene people who saw it will surely remember and think Lolicon. While the objective might have been of simply making Saya shorter than Fuminori and add to the harmless and innocent image, the result wasn't harmless and innocent, it was a Brain Bleach scene even before things got really ugly. I don't know about the comics, but I hope they didn't keep Saya's child look and made a bit more teenager. Second problem: The logic of Fuminori's decisions. It seems like he's trapped between suffering Fate Worse Than Death or causing Fate Worse Than Death on others, with no middle ground. And while it's understandable he feels... awkward about his friends turning into Cthulu's spawns, it doesn't mean he would, in real life, instantly hate them for it. Also...

- Spoiler!-

If you chose to ask Saya to fix his brain, he didn't need to go to an asylum forever. Yousuke went mad; from the killing of his family, Fuminori could claim self defense against a deranged attacker in his house. And I think Saya would be careful enough to hide Oumi's remains.

At any rate, it's a great story. Not perfect, but the good elements are worth it!