So I guess I may as well go first spurting out my little story of how I came to cry and a stunningly well produced jumble of words and cartoon drawings.
I first played the demo of the game way back, a few years ago I think. And I really did enjoy it, it was my first time experiencing a VN and was truly enlightening. Though I didn't feel anywhere as nearly attached to the experience as I have done with the full game, due to obvious reasons. And so I moved on fairly quickly from it, and it eventually faded from memory. That was until about a month ago, while surfing the web on various anime related sites, it had been announced that KS had been released. I'll admit I wasn't head over heels for the game, I had almost no memory of what it was like. However after downloading the game and finishing Lilly's path in a skip, skip mentality I was blown away by the sheer profoundness of the game. So I decided to play again, this time, playing the entire game in one sitting, with out no skippin'.-WARNING SPOILERS IN NEXT SENTENCE- And when the 7 hours and 14 minutes was up, I had found myself laughing, crying, smiling and unable to sleep as thoughts of wheat field scene, and the mad dash to the airport, as well as the tear churning dialogue between Hiaso and Lilly raced around my mind. So for the next week or so, that's all that occupied my thought, at every free moment when my mind was disengaged from the monotony of everyday life as a high school student. It was almost as if KS was eating me up inside, the fantastic story, the vivid artwork, and the beautiful musical accompaniment (which for me was in-fact the most gripping element to the game); all embedded into my mind. I felt that I shouldn't play the game again, in fear that I'd only be further sucked in to this brief ecstasy, that I would only be further whisked away to some high school in northern Japan. I kept listening to the OST on YouTube, and being 'blessed' with a visual/sound memorizing mind, all I could think about were the wonderful scenes in KS. Eventually I became to loath this constant KS fly buzzing around in my mind, and actually deleted the program several times (only to re-download it again soon after ;D ) in an pathetic effort to serve my interaction with it.
So here's when I tell you how to get off this drug.
I found myself actively trying to block out the game, which I suppose is instinctive, when really. It's the wrong thing to do. In the end I just became more and more infatuated with the thoughts and feels that were trying to knock through my little mental wall. So instead I just let myself think about it, and eventually you gain this perspective on this seemingly perfect little bubble that is the Katawa Shoujo experience. One of the first steps, is to relate the theme's of the game to your life, for me, having played the Lilly route was that I have some girl-friends that are very independent young women, very high level athletes; and yet still they study extremely hard during lessons and still seem to find enough time to help/organize/ and generally chill out with me. And I suppose I've always thought of them as perfectly capable of fending for themselves, however after finishing the game, I realized that it's all just a facade. So now I spend a lot more time caring about them, asking if they need any help with lessons etc. Next is to view the game for what it is; a piece of art. A platform for writers,composers,animators, drawers and engineers (all wonderful artists in their own merit) to get their own ideas, imaginations and feelings out, and to showcase them to the world.
And so ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that rather than becoming obsessed with this powerful and moving visual novel, what you should do is learn the lessons it teaches, and to implement them in your own life
A final word to those that feel they cannot play down another path as they are too attached to one specific character; please do play down another path. It show's there is another story you can learn from, allowing you to again a wider perspective of the story as a whole, and it helps to establish the game as a piece of fiction, not as reality. I played the Hanako path and it was just as enlightening and enjoyable as Lilly's path, and has made me consider my actions to those around me (but more about the lessons learned from KS, maybe in some other thread, I reckon I've babbled on long enough)
Anyways, hope this has helped some people, peace out guys/gals.
