Shizune's route consensus over 10 years later?

[Grayest]

So KS is over 10 years old now. Ever since joining the community in late 2019, it seemed most were not a fan of Shizune's path. Reasons varied quite a bit, from "it's boring, nothing happens" to "it doesn't do her character justice" to simply "Its bad"

I've also heard some good things, too. Some have said that her route is ambitious, or even that you have to read it more than once to understand it, and it gets better with subsequent playthroughs.

Regardless of which crowd you find yourself in, or somewhere in the middle, I don't think I've ever come to understand what the specific overall opinion towards her route is. Hence why I'm asking here.

I ask this because in spite of how much I like KS, I technically never properly played her route. I just disregarded it because of what I'd heard prior; I just skipped through most of her route to get that sweet 100%. So I've decided to go back and give her route a fair chance. After finishing, I'll return to this thread, read the comments and give some thoughts of my own.

[OtakuNinja]

My main issue with her route (aside from personal preference since I disliked her as a character) is that it only offered us one choice, and that was quite boring to me. I would have liked to be able to influence the outcome more, even if it only meant a meaningless choice to get a different scene etc. The choice offered was an important one, but sadly it had little to do with our relationship to Shizune, and more to do with Misha. Heck, I believe most of us didn't even realize what that choice meant. It would have made more sense, and been a lot more interesting, if during her route there would have been tension between Hisao and Misha or Misha and Shizune.

I did like the fishing scene though. One of my favorite scenes in the game, actually.

[DerailedOmegaMale]

The reason why I value KS as a game is because it is a roller-coaster of emotions. The only emotional part of Shizune's route was Misha's unrequited love towards Shizune and that only becomes known to the reader towards the end of the story. Otherwise it was kind of "meh" for my taste and that makes it the weakest of the five routes in my opinion.

(I only played KS once so far and didn't read any of the routes multiple times. Maybe I'll change my opinion if I read that route for a second time someday.)
(Oh and just because I liked it the least doesn't mean that it's not worth reading. Don't just skip it unless you have a good reason to do so.)

[Oddball]

There was only once choice that was poorly worded.
The romance angle was practically non existent.
It contained the two most annoying side characters in the game (Hideaki and Jigoro)
There was no real character growth.
In general, nothing really happened for the majority of the story.

[brythain]

I think of Shizune's route as the 'dark side' of Lilly's route. Both taken together would have provided the most interesting story ever if such a thing were possible at all. This is because the two are supposedly blood relatives and hence mirror each other: one dark, one light etc... oldest myth of all time.

[Decaying_Orbital]

I quite like Shizune as a character, and her design (Meganekko girls are 'chef's kiss') for one stuck out as an early contender for me. However, her route could have had a few more choices/decisions to make.

I'd almost think that Shizune and Misha should have both been equal options during it, and how you handled both of them, would have ultimately determined what happened both romantically and friendship wise between all three of them. IE who you overall choose to date, and how it effected the one you didn't, while otherwise navigating if Hisao would keep them as friends. But I suppose that would have been well outside what the KS team wanted to do.

For what we did get however I kinda like it for another level: That even in the good ending it could be implied that Shizune didn't see her and Hisao lasting as a couple going forwards past Yamaku, to her it seemed that the romance would end leaving highschool but perhaps their friendships would continue.

[Grayest]

Really good points here.

There was a good handful of things I liked, such as the Kenji scenes, and the amount of side characters. (Jigoro, Hideaki, Akira, etc) Of course, just because those side characters are there doesn't mean their use or interactions are meaningful per say.

Her route certainly had more potential, but I didn't think it was awful. I'd give it a 6.5/10

[brythain]

One of the things I like to speculate on was how long Misha could have held unrequited love for Shizune, and how long Shizune might have held unrequited love for Hisao, if things had turned out in a specific way. That led me to... what would have happened if only one of those things obtained and the other became requited and long-term.

[Decaying_Orbital]

how long Shizune might have held unrequited love for Hisao

This is an interesting take brythain, and something similar that I incorporated into my own fanfic, dealing with Hisao X Shizune following a bad ending Emi route. Even on my very first run of the game, I could tell that Shizune (and/or Misha) rather liked Hisao just due to how hard the both of them tired recruiting him during act 1. Act 1 in particular tends to highlight Shizune/Misha in such a way that most of the other main cast don't really seem to until you are actively on their path, and start the second act.

[A Certain Citrus]

I wrote up some thoughts on the route some time ago, which you might have seen (Shizune’s section is about halfway down): https://auricorange.wordpress.com/2021/ ... rospecive/

A22 responded here: https://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12812

I should have been less of a dick, but excepting my framing and the developmental matters he refuted, I’d stand by the essence of what I wrote.

There’s a scene where Hisao compares Shizune to a live wire; flailing energetically, but without any ultimate goal or purpose. I’d say the same of the route. Individual facets are good. The desire to off-screeen important moments is interesting. Shizune is original. Jigoro is funny. Misha’s scenes are emotional. Hisao is compelling in the final scene.

But none of these come together to be more than the sum of their parts. Jigoro’s sequence adds little to Misha’s sequence, and vice versa. Compare that to other KS routes, where tonal notes and events tend to build toward the same thing. The counterargument is that everything in Shizune’s route exists to shed light on her character, but that’s weak, IMO. It’s not like the other KS routes DON’T reveal character, and while Shizune seems more complicated than Lilly, Hanako, and Emi, I don’t think she’s interesting enough to warrant making her the focus.

The advantage of leaving story elements ambiguous is that it makes your audience think about alternative, interesting possibilities. Does the replicant save Deckard at the end of Blade Runner because it's become more human? Because it realises it's about to die, and that killing Deckard would be pointless? Because, facing death, it gains an appreciation for the sanctity of life? To spite Deckard by proving itself a better person? All interesting to think about. That's not true of Shizune's route. Why is Shizune the way she is? A) It’s her innate personality, B) Her dad is an ass, C) Something we can’t possibly know, D) Some combination of the above. It’s ambiguous, but there's nothing to really think about, and none of the solutions change much.

With all this said: I’ve come to think there’s a meta reading of Shizune’s route that IS interesting.

I wish I’d compared Shizune to Beethoven. There’s the obvious – we all just learn about and then kind of ignore the insane fact that one of our greatest composers was deaf. But also, by all accounts: Beethoven was a titanic jackass; immensely combative, difficult, and exhausting to deal with.

How do you weigh Beethoven’s legacy against what he was like as a person? His music has made millions happy across centuries. Does that justify how he was?

Shizune is Shizune. She’s difficult, driven, perfectionist, and hypercritical. She knows that. She knows she can make people miserable - but, she also creates amazing experiences for the Yamaku students that make hundreds happy. Does that justify how she is?

You might say “It’s possible to do great things professionally, and also be nice. This isn't a dichotomy.” Sure – but I don’t think that every given person can do both. Shizune can never be like Lilly, no matter how hard she tries. It'll always be an act, in defiance of her own nature, and even iron-willed Shizune will eventually let her real self bleed through into the role.

If you are difficult and abrasive and perfectionist, and make the people around you miserable – but you aren’t evil - what are you supposed to do with your self?

I think that's the question Shizune's route wants to answer. And, after much meandering, it does; reaching the same answer Beethoven reached – you can channel your difficult personality in service to the greater good.

I don't think that's something most people can relate to, but it is interesting. And it's made more interesting by the route's own existence serving as commentary on the same question. Few people love it, but most have gotten something out of it. It’s probably made more people happy than you or I will with everything we ever do in our entire lives. Now, how exactly do you weigh that happiness against the infamous difficulty of…

And we'll leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.

[Hacksorus]

Most of the points I wanted to make have already been made in this thread (or in AuricOrange's wonderful essay). The characters don't go through much growth or are annoying in the first place. The choice you get is poorly framed and feels like a slap in the face. The plot points don't really click together super well. But despite this I've always liked the route, if only because it's in Katawa Shoujo, the VN that changed my life. When I replay KS, I don't leave Shizune's route behind; it's an integral part of the experience.

What I'm less sure about is whether this fondness I have for the route is because the writing comes with a unique charm, or in spite of it. In recent years (and further inspired by AuricOrange's thorough analysis) I've gained a greater appreciation for some of the nuances of how KS's individual parts come together to create the powerful, aesthetically distinct final product that we got; how the directing brings together the music, audio, and writing in such an incredible way.

What I'm getting at is, the writing is only one of the things we experience in Shizune's route. The music, art, and direction in Shizune's route are, to my understanding, largely brought together by the same people who did those things for the more universally acclaimed routes as well (let's just forget about that CG where Shizune is like 10 feet tall ). When I look back to my fond memories of Shizune's route, how many of those fond memories are of things that are actually exclusive to Shizune's route? Does that question matter? Maybe not, but I'm at least glad I've had the opportunity to try and sort some of these thoughts out.

But yeah, I don't envy A22 on this one. A project like this in which multiple writers work on different branches of the same game is inevitably going to invite some uncomfortable conversations, and I doubt anyone could have imagined that KS was going to become the phenomenon that it did. I can only imagine that KS's profoundly messy development process might have influenced his work at least somewhat. It makes me kinda sad to see A22 pretty much disappear for the longest time and only reemerge to scornfully respond to a highly critical (but reasonable imo) analysis of his work.

For all its flaws, I still like Shizune's route. The final gradation day scene still moves me deeply every time I experience it, and it's among my favorite in the game.

[OtakuNinja]

(let's just forget about that CG where Shizune is like 10 feet tall )

Impossible. That's the best part

[Ciclo]

Still nice

[asdfghjkl;';']

This is a great idea for a thread. Maybe we could do a similar treatment for the other routes (unless that's already been done and I just haven't checked yet ).

A Youtube video about Shizune's route appeared on my recommends only a year or two ago (which the uploader has since deleted for some reason) which I found myself agreeing with and laughing at meself for not realising as much when I first read the game 10 years ago.

Shizune's a really bad person. I wonder if this is going to strike the rest of yous here as obvious or controversial. Would be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts. The video argues; and as far as I can recall, having not read the original game for a long time, I agree that the moral of the story, if you can call it that, is that Shizune is extremely toxic and ought to be avoided, by Hisao, Misha, and anyone else in the story who gets caught up in her poor behaviour.

Now that's obviously a terrible prescription for the purpose of helping her grow or fix her flaws. I took it as advice aimed at those characters in particular.

I don't think I need to give a list of bad things she does in the game, but fwiw the two that stand out are
1. Nonconsensual intercourse with Hisao
2. Her rather controlling(?) relationship with Misha

I think it's a cool and interesting idea from a meta perspective to have a route revolving around a character like this. Someone who's pretty much a villain in other routes, and who the MC doesn't 'fix' in her route. I'd have to replay the game though to decide whether or not it made for an entertaining experience. From what I can remember, teenage me considered Shizune, Rin, and Emi all in a vague "it was alright" bottom tier and was in love with Hanako and Lilly haha.

[Siphonata]

This is a great idea for a thread. Maybe we could do a similar treatment for the other routes (unless that's already been done and I just haven't checked yet ).

I might consider creating a similar thread for one of the other routes sometime. That said, I wasn't around during the heyday of the KS fandom so any knowledge I have of it is all secondhand. From what I heard, Shizune's route is the most polarizing route in the game, aside from maybe Lily's. Shizune's route does have an interesting angle (you're basically dating your work superior) and the scenes about Misha's unrequited love are interesting, adding much depth to an already fun character, but it's bogged down by being overly verbose, filler scenes (e.g the fishing scene and all the scenes with her family), infodumping about Shizune's motivations at the end and clunky execution of concepts that were introduced far more organically in Lily's route (e.g Lily and Shizune being related).