Is Hisao's Presence Useless in Hanako's Route?

[NomadicElectron]

It's mostly been said but I'll put my opinion out there even if it's mainly a rehash.

I think Hisao's presence in both Lilly and Hanako's storyline had a very positive impact on Hanako and was crucial in her growth.

First, in Lilly's storyline Hisao offered his friendship to Hanako which meant a lot to her, considering Lilly was ostensibly her only friend. However, Hanako's biggest frustration with Lilly was that she tended to mother her, and now that HIsao is in the picture he tends to act parentally toward her as well. I think that once Hisao entered her life and started treating her in the same frustrating way that Lilly does she realized that the problem wasn't entirely with them - it was with her. She realized that if she's going to stop being babied by the people she cares about she needs to stop being the kind of person who needs to be babied. She took small steps to socialize with other people in her class, eventually joining a club and even taking a trip with them. It helped her gain respect from Lilly and Hisao and, most importantly, from herself. Hisao was critical in this process because he first showed her that more people than just Lilly can care about her, but if she doesn't want to be treated as a dependent, she has to take the first step and act independently.

Secondly, in Hanako's storyline Hisao starts the same way, befriending Hanako but babying her as Lilly does, but eventually Hanako tells him outright how she feels about this. Hisao then admits to Hanako that he wants to protect her and shoulder her burdens because he loves her, something that Hanako had dreamed of for quite some time but never really believed would happen and it ends with the Hanako-initiated kiss in front of a crowd of people with her scars (as mentioned above) facing bystanders, which shows that she grew by flying leaps the moment Hisao confessed to her and, we can only presume, kept growing from there. Really, Hanako seemed to be looking for two things - respect and love. In Lilly's story she got respect, in her own she got both. Or, to put it another way...
With Hisao in Lilly's route she was able to be much happier.
With Hisao in her own route, she was able to be truly complete.

[Harco]

It's mostly been said but I'll put my opinion out there even if it's mainly a rehash.

I think Hisao's presence in both Lilly and Hanako's storyline had a very positive impact on Hanako and was crucial in her growth.

First, in Lilly's storyline Hisao offered his friendship to Hanako which meant a lot to her, considering Lilly was ostensibly her only friend. However, Hanako's biggest frustration with Lilly was that she tended to mother her, and now that HIsao is in the picture he tends to act parentally toward her as well. I think that once Hisao entered her life and started treating her in the same frustrating way that Lilly does she realized that the problem wasn't entirely with them - it was with her. She realized that if she's going to stop being babied by the people she cares about she needs to stop being the kind of person who needs to be babied. She took small steps to socialize with other people in her class, eventually joining a club and even taking a trip with them. It helped her gain respect from Lilly and Hisao and, most importantly, from herself. Hisao was critical in this process because he first showed her that more people than just Lilly can care about her, but if she doesn't want to be treated as a dependent, she has to take the first step and act independently.

About Lilly's tendency to mother her: She's also motherly towards Hisao. In fact, the better their friendship/relationship gets, the more protective her behavior becomes. This might have made Hanako realize that Lilly's doting on her is not because she is useless or weak or anything like that; it's because that is just Lilly's way of showing she cares for her friends and that if it gets too much, it is a flaw in Lilly's personality, not in her own.

[NoOne3]

.... oh f, now I just imagined Hanako saying "Onii-chan~"-
*flatlines*

i think i just nosebleed.

Nonono, You're supposed to "hhhhhhnnnnnnnggggg!" on this forum.
And, maybe I'm writing from a tiny bit more cynical point of view, but the whole game left me under impression that Hisao wasn't exactly an indispensable item in life of any of the girls.
That is to say, I'm not claiming he was useless. He just happened to be, and his passing had some consequences. Dev's mercifully spared us any drama on the part of the supporting cast in any of the paths. The story is of his choices and deeds, but he is mainly there to witness a story about one of the girls. He's not even very likeable at first, and we're not even exactly sure the relationship thus formed lasted beyond the final scene. We just all wish it ought to.

Discussion about his role in Hanako's outing, depending on chosen pathline is unadvertedly biased by player's perception of things, so discussing it, is ok, up to a point when we start to quarrel, there is no some objective point of view.

What I thought, somewhere in the progress of both paths was: "Who is this girl, and who switched her for Hanako?" My mental picture of this character was quite different, and both times I just had to admit, that it was probably the picture composed from short 1st act playthrough and tons, and tons of forum posts and shimmies which were either moeifing her beyond common sense, or humoristically stating the opposite. I think Devs were playing with this picture also, and wanted to play a trick on those players who believed it.

The statement seems to me like this: Shield her, babysit her, and smother her, and she's gonna get fed up with your shit. Instead treat her like a person she actually is. See? You knew she plays chess, but did you know she plays pool too (and looks nice with a cue)? She's even suposedly doing karaoke in front of a very private public. She's not a pop star, nor a chess grandmaster, but theese are her hobbies. She's got some other feelings, except social enxiety and If someone believed in her that just might be enough.

She's not doomed if the protagonist chooses someone else, and she has some future. Maybe she will follow her career as a school journalist, until some day she'll be there, standing on the street in the outskirts of Bosaso in Somalia, next to a scared, twitchy cameraman, and with a cool stare and a microphone in her hand she'll be interviewing the self proclaimed leader of mercenary-pirates, Iron-Legs Ibarazaki herself! (Please some of the Mishimmists read this post, please, Hanako has her cool hat and Emi's in olive drabs holding a ridiculusly big RPK gun with a drum magazine!).

[Meikos]

I did a bit of thinking on this myself, and overall... I'm not sure what to think. On one hand, she learns to completely trust someone during her own arc and on another hand she learns to become independent in Lily's arc. I almost want to say that Hisao did nothing more than shift her dependency from Lilly to himself. But then again, learning to open herself up so much to one person would lead me to believe that she could open up more easily to others. A sort of literary Catch-22.

That being said, I have to comment that out of Emi, Hanako and Lily's arcs, while I find Lily's to be the most satisfactory, the Act 2 introduction and final picture for Hanako just tug my heart strings deep down.

[Zahlman]

Honestly I feel like everyone is overcomplicating this.

Makes me wonder is Hisao presence kind of useless in her own route...

Does Hanako go into the city on her own initiative? No. End of discussion. Sometimes the shy girl needs a little push in the right direction.

[Snelx]

Honestly I feel like everyone is overcomplicating this.
Does Hanako go into the city on her own initiative? No. End of discussion. Sometimes the shy girl needs a little push in the right direction.

If u take a look at Lilly's route,
Hanako has even decided to travel around Japan, without Hisao.
Instead, with her clubfriends.
That would make HIsao 'useless' in saving her from her conditions.

Overall,
i'm already quite convinced that Hisao does play a significant part in Hanako's life.
not because he help Hanako to be less shy, or become her lover.

But it is because the mere presence of Hisao, is what triggers Hanako to change.

In Lilly's path, after being friend with Hisao, Hanako feel that "even Hisao is also treating me the same as Lilly."
And since both Lilly and Hisao are going to get together, Hanako just suddenly feels that she need to buck up and cannot rely on them too much, and to give them time for themselves.
Not to mention, indirectly, Hisao and Lilly are giving Hanako some space for her issue.
ultimately, Hanako is able to stand on her on.

In Hanako's path, She does feel the same feeling that "even Hisao is also treating me the same as Lilly."
However, in this case, she wants to be appear as a potential lover in Hisao's eye.
She does have the intention to change herself.
Just that, she does not have the direction/ the way she should implement that change in herself.
Thus, resulting the actions seen in the bad/ good ending etc.

Overall, Hisao's presence is important, as it triggers the change of Hanako.

[Nivrin]

You know what.

I think...

ALL OF MY FEELS.

Hanako, Y U so endearing.

[viduuskamen]

This is what I put together, considering Hisao's presence in everyone's paths:

http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=13&t ... 238#p70238

I think Hanako would have recovered a bit on her own regardless (see Shizune + chess); but the difference is that she's able to make much bigger leaps as to fall in love with Hisao in her path. That and I can't possible imagine her showing her scars to anyone like that anytime soon.

[Guest Poster]

I don't really see Hanako's match with Shizune as an indication of improvement. I think Hanako's eagerness to play a game with someone (and feel being equals with someone even if for a little while) has been in there for a long time, but the right circumstances for it to come out were rare, since Hanako herself wouldn't approach people to challenge them and other people would rarely approach her due to her skittishness. This was probably a rather unique situation of Hanako not being able to avoid interaction with Shizune (which, given Shizune's overbearing personality, would normally be the case) and Shizune unknowingly pressing just the right button with Hanako.

Hanako seems like a person who wants to change, but needs circumstancial encouragement in order to go through with it.

In Lilly's scenario, this was Lilly and Hisao getting together and Hanako wanting to give them some space without getting in the way that made her accept Naomi's invitation when the latter approached her and improve her ability to have casual relationships with others, even though a deep relationship is still beyond her comfort zone.

In her own scenario, I'd say Hanako still has the potential to accept Naomi's invitation (which hasn't happened yet by the time the route ends) though she might be a lot more hesitant. Both she and Hisao, at that point, are still in a phase where they're unsure what to do with their life. The whole thing might be up to Hisao. If he keeps his promise in the park to mutually support each other's growth and encourage her to broaden her horizons, I have no doubt she'll end up where she was at the end of Lilly's route or even better, since she has also learned deeper intimacy. If he were to sink back into his White Knight role and discourage her from joining the club for fear of seeing her get burned (metaphorically), things are more likely to go south for the both of them.

[Rolanberry]

I really want to believe that Hanako; being in love with Hisao, will helps her condition to improve.
But in other routes, it just seems that Hanako doesn't need any help.

Of course you're free too interpret and analyze to your heart's content, but I think the main reason why Hanako does so well for herself in Lilly's path is that that path is about Lilly, and if Hanako were having all the issues there that she has in her own path that would detract from Lilly's story.
While the writers obviously tried to keep the paths more or less consistent, there are some things you have to change to tell the story you want to tell.

I sort of wish it was something super deep about Hanako but I think this pretty much sums it up. Its basically 'baby girl this isn't your story.' I love me some Hanako but I do think out of all the girls she has the most issues, and it would be a little much to handle her problems in Lilly's route.

For the sake of the story to focus on Lilly they just needed Hanako to be able to get OK and out of the way.

[Guest Poster]

I agree with that. If Hisao getting together with Lilly were to leave Hanako on her own and utterly miserable, I doubt many players would have the heart to go on with it. So for the sake of convenience, Hanako's recovery was emphasized to avoid guilt tripping suitors of our blind blonde.

[Brogurt]

I've seen Anonymous taking part in a LOT of discussion about how likely it is that Hanako would nearly fallen in love with Hisao on Lilly's route as well. Sad stuff too, such as the fact that Lilly and Hisao apparently loudly fuck like rabbits multiple times while Hana is next door or in an adjacent room. If she really does develop feelings, I guess it's better that the issue gets handwaved like it does, since if it wasn't, the only way the path could focus on Hisao and Lilly would be if Hanako were to get fed up and off herself or something. And even that would be a huge point of interest for a while.

[Shadow250000]

Just for the record I'm a 20 year old male.
I'd like to talk a bit about the whole panic attackthing since others here have talked about it, as well as maybe some other stuff. But before that, I'd like to say a few things about myself so you get where I'm coming from.

A few years ago I was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome; an autism spectrum disorder.
A few symptoms include:
- avoiding eye contact
- social anxiety
- staring at the ground while in public
- seems content when left alone
- does not understand social cues and thus might act inappropriately, appearing rude, uncaring, and tactless
- might be able to function in one-to-one interactions but not with multiple people
- has strong sense of loyalty; very loyal to friends
- might or might not desire friendships; most seem to desire friendships but the stress involved makes them decide it is not worth it
Sounds like Hanako right? But I'm not saying she has aspergers, I'm saying the trauma and subsequent bullying by her peers caused her to develop similar symptoms.

The reason I bring this up is because Hanako's social situation is very similar to mine, throughout my reading of KS, I understood her very well and felt a very strong bond with her because she's so similar to me.
What I would say is the main difference between us is that since I learned I had aspergers (and even before that), I've been consciously and subconsciously developing coping mechanisms to deal with the social anxiety and stress that I feel in public, so that I can appear more "normal" to others.
Hanako on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any coping mechanisms, which is one reason why she has so much trouble in social situations.
In fact, if I didn't have a common topic to talk about with people (gaming), I might have ended up like her, but without a Lilly.
Now that I've said all that, I hope you understand that I mean it when I say I know how she feels.

(I'm lazy so I'll just put a spoiler on everything below)
Now then. In the scene with the panic attack, it's mentioned more than once how all the other classmates are looking at her when she's walking over to, and then sitting at the desk with Hisao, Misha, and Shizune.
Other people in this thread have said the reason for the panic attack was her birthday being mentioned. I think that's partially true, or at least that was the final trigger for it, but I think the reason for the buildup to that point is the other classmates.

Believe me when I say, feeling the eyes of many people staring at you, making little comments that may or may not be about you, it's far from being a good experience. And Hanako hates being looked at much more than I do for obvious reasons, so this was way worse for her.
Over time I've trained myself in those circumstances to force my mind to think about something else, the work in front of me (during high school), something I want to think about, the area I'm in, the music I'm listening to, ANYTHING but thinking of the people looking at me, to alleviate the stress.
This is an example of a coping mechanism, and again, I don't think Hanako had trained herself for any of that. I mean judging by the bad ending, if she did train herself for that, she might have to think to herself that "since she needs a coping mechanism, she must be broken" and she definitely didn't want to do that, because she's not.

Anyway, the way I see it, her classmates looking at her so much put her up on a cliff, and then while she's already very stressed, Hisao mentioned the birthday party, and that sends her over the edge.

Oh and regarding whether Hisao is useless, he's definitely not. In Lilly's route Hanako may have improved her social skills by herself a bit (I'm on act 3), but in her own route at the end she's much better than in Lilly's route. (at least better than in act 3)

[Snelx]

Thats some good insight

I have a feeling that it is the stares. But the story didn't mentioned anything, so i thought she was okay, and is stable to gather her courage to ask to sit with Misha, Shizune & Hisao.

Yeah. At the last scene where Hanako kisses Hisao in the public, with passer-by all around, shows that she somehow overcomes it with love.

[Harco]

Hm, I've been thinking about that panic attack and what caused it.

But let's start from the beginning, with my own experience. I suffered from panic attacks a couple of years back. It is an understatement to say that they're very unnerving. When you're having a severe panic attack, you really think you could die at any moment. Your mind thinks there's danger everywhere. All your muscles tighten (to make a run for it, something which you desperately want to do despite looking like you froze on the spot), your hearing becomes much more acute (even the slightest whisper will sound like thunder in your head) and you feel like everything is closing in on you -- the walls, the people around you... even stuff like your desk, the pencil in your hand or the letters in your book look menacing.

Therapy learned me how to deal with them and they are a lot less frequent now I'm not overly stressed anymore. They're not entirely gone, though, and I'm still susceptible to them when I'm really tired or stressed. I think that's what caused the attacks in the first place, actually, because I first started to get them when I was on the verge of a burnout.

So, tiredness and stress... Hanako had plenty of both:
- her upcoming birthday and the traumatic experiences that it recalls;
- the progress she made with Hisao and social life in general. She made more progression in one month than she had in years. That whole process must have been exhausting for her.

Just a cause is not enough, however, something must trigger the attack. In this case, I think it was a mix of:
- approaching Hisao, Misha and Shizune -- a big step for her, and in itself very stressful;
- the reaction of some of her classmates, looking at her (like she has gone mad, no less);
- Misha's suggestion that she (Hanako) and Hisao were a couple -- if casual friendship is scary, she must have been terrified of an actual relationship;
- the mention of her birthday, the worst day of the year, was probably the final straw.

I don't know if Hanako had panic attacks in the past, but maybe she could've worked it out on her own if she actually was alone and in a place that felt save. Her class obviously wasn't such a place and I think the stares and whispers from her classmates didn't cause the attack, but certainly didn't make it any easier to deal with it. She was lucky Mutou kept his cool and allowed Hisao and Shizune to quickly and safely guide Hanako outside. It's not like an attack is immediately over then, but just getting some space and fresh air already helps immensely.

Finally, when Hanako is lying on her bed, I think the actual attack is long gone. I don't know exactly what she is feeling at that moment, but if I must guess: exhaustion, shame, sorrow and "just" the general distress that a panic attack leaves in its wake. Not a pretty sight and also not a pleasant feeling for Hanako herself. That she let Lilly and Hisao in, even said that she wanted Hisao to stay when he offered to go, is a MAJOR show of trust, even though -- or despite that? -- we eventually find out she hates being seen as a weak, fragile person.