Former Sisterhood thread

[Endofone]

This is a wonderful fanfic. It's a great continuation of Hanoko's path. I really liked the multiple perspectives as well. That brings a more in depth feeling to the story. It helped me empathize more with the different characters and understand each and every one of their feelings. I was rally sad when it ended. I felt i wanted more but, in a good way as in i'd like to go on and see their future together. Great job working on this thing!

[Negativedarke]

Yes indeed, Sisterhood is a wonderful followup to Hanako's route. I'm quite happy with what we got. But if Guest Poster ever does decide to do the sequel there is more that could be done. We've got meeting the parents. Well Hanako was about to meet Hisao's, it'd be nice to see how that went. Hanako taking Hisao to her parents grave. And of course Lilly's parents. Although there is the tendency to make Mr. Satou a bastard, we really don't know what the case is with him. And what heard of Lilly's mother makes me wonder if she might be troublesome herself, abiet in a different way. And I'd love to see Hanako tell Lilly about her past. While I don't think she'd "show" Lilly as much as she did Hisao, It would truly be another major opening up from Hanako to Lilly.

[Guest Poster]

Some of those things you mentioned did indeed cross my mind as potential sequel ideas, including turning Lilly's parents into actual characters. The story would shift closer to Lilly than to Hisao since (as the title indicates) this is above all a Hanako & Lilly fanfic. Obviously Hisao would maintain a strong presence of course. That said, I'm still in the process of deciding if those ideas can be combined into an actual narrative. I don't think think there'd be a parental grave because since Hanako doesn't really seem to have any extended family, it'd make sense for her parents' ashes to be spread instead of letting a little girl pay for and maintain a family grave.

[Hisao&Hanako<3]

^That can almost be turned into a cruel joke, dude. Unless her parents' bodies were recovered after the fire was put out, they literally were turned to ashes right there.

I always wondered how it all went down, actually. Who called the fire department? They must have been able to make it pretty fast if, after Hanako's father died, they arrived in time to save Hanako while her mother burned. Maybe she curled up into a ball and went unconscious.

Oh, I can't go on thinking any more about it, I'll cry. Those exact words in the story brought me down for 10-20 minutes. I didn't even keep track. I just read "I curled into a ball as the fire swept over me... my mother tried to shield me... That's the only reason I lived." That moment, to me, was the single most touching event in reading all of the visual novel. That this girl before you, who you love so dearly, only survived because her mother gave her life. I can't imagine thinking any other moment is more touching except when Hisao finally confesses his feelings to Hanako.

Oh yes, I can relive it over and over again, and I have been, over these last nine months. And even if I play other games, it's not long before Hanako has a presence in them.

[YZQ]

There's a difference between "burnt beyond recognition" and "reduced to ashes". Have you any idea how hot it is to burn human bones? A household fire is unlikely to have that kind of heat. If you'll talking about 9/11, with that amount of jet fuel and other stuff, it's another story.

I agree with GP that her parent's ashes are likely scattered after further incineration.

[Guest Poster]

It wasn't really meant as a joke. It's just that over 99% of all Japanese are cremated after death and I doubt Hanako's parents were an exception. Japan's a crowded country where people are kinda stuffed together and I suppose that also counts for cemetaries...burying everyone just takes too much room. Deceased are cremated and their urns are usually put at the family grave, although spreading the ashes has become more common over the last decade. I figure if Hanako has no family to take care of her after the accident, that also means she has no family to fork over money for a family grave.

[YZQ]

GP, I think that will depend on where you're staying. If you're living in the megalopolis, cremation is definitely the way. If somehow Hanako had been living in a sleepy town/village, burial is possible. But, as you said, she probably doesn't have the dough to maintain the plot.

[Guest Poster]

I doubt a sleepy town would have an orphanage though and since Hanako returned to her old school after her accident, the orphanage was probably not too far from where she lived before the fire. Hanako doesn't strike me as a country girl either.

[YZQ]

Not to mention the fact that children is now a dying breed in Japan. The situation is probably not so bad in the mid 1990s-to-early-2000s (Hanako's childhood), but it is definitely bad now. Some primary schools only have a handful of students in the sleepy towns/villages.

[Sea]

Not to mention the fact that children is now a dying breed in Japan. The situation is probably not so bad in the mid 1990s-to-early-2000s (Hanako's childhood), but it is definitely bad now. Some primary schools only have a handful of students in the sleepy towns/villages.

Mmmm, First world problems

[Negativedarke]

It happens a lot in nations with a high enough overall standerd of living. People find validation in careers and the like rather than having lots of children.

Or they really are all too busy wanking to Erogage and Yaoi.

[YZQ]

Mmmm, First world problems

It has become an existential problem for Japan, thank-you-very-much. That's how bad the baby shortage is. Add to that Japanese mistrust towards outsiders (resulting in low numbers coming into the country), and you have a recipe for disaster.

[Guest Poster]

People find validation in careers and the like rather than having lots of children.

That's actually been the case for Japanese men for generations. Due to Japanese work culture, his job was often the only determining factor for his identity that the average salaryman had. The company was the real family and the group the husband had an emotional connection with. Japan is already a crowded country and people tend to have very little living space. Naturally, people aren't going to have lots of kids if they already feel they're overpopulated. But at the same time, Japanese also get very old and are generally in pretty good health, so the overpopulation is also due to the fact Japan has lots of senior citizens.

Education costs are high in Japan and yet what university you went to is the one determining factor in places that decides whether you get hired or not, hence the übercompetitive and stressful exams at the end of high school. High school itself is often deemed insufficient to make it into the more prestigious universities, so many high school students go to cram schools after ordinary classes ended. This raises the costs of education even more. Obviously, parents aren't going to have lots of kids if they feel they won't be able to pay for the education of all of them.

Despite the extreme prevalence of erotic anime, manga and weird stuff, Japanese aren't very sexually active. Heck, the more active workers were only home on Sunday so it's not like husband and wife got to even see each other very often. In addition, rent is extremely high in Japan, so living space is limited and as a result people don't have a great deal of privacy. Since showing affection in the presence of others is such a no-no, it's rare for kids to see their parents kiss, let alone see their parents make babies. That would be awkward anyway since many Japanese kids share a bed with their parents until they're into their teens (both for practical and cultural reasons) and it's difficult to have sex when there's a kid literally lying between you, so it's not that uncommon for married couples to stop having sex after the birth of their first child. The lack of privacy is also why love hotels are such a booming business there.

Finally, Japanese women are being influenced by western culture and start desiring more than just being a wife and homemaker after marriage, but Japanese culture hasn't moved quite as fast, so women are still encouraged/pressured to quit their job after marriage/pregnancy, daycare and part-time work is frowned upon, so women simply don't get married as quickly anymore.

All in all, there's lots of little things that cause the current aging of the population in addition to the factors that cause that phenomenon in other countries.

[YZQ]

What GP said. Besides Japan, Italy is the other country that I can recall off my head that is aging this badly.

[Negativedarke]

This just means that Hisao and Hanako have a duty to have lots of Babies! Well more serously I can see them having one or two children, depending on finances. Lily is definatly the sort to want to have children. Akira though is very much the career minded sort. In fact Akira might even want to avoid having kids because of what happened with her and Lily.

See there is actually a problem with everyone wanting their children to get the prestigious jobs. There are the jobs that like to think they keep things running. Then there are the jobs that keep things running. And a lot of those are the jobs that actually keep things running. Like plumbers or garbagemen. You know what happens when you don't have any plumbers or garbagemen? You end up to your eyeballs in Shit or Trash.