Katawa Shoujo Forums

I'll just be a jerk and not bother reading this whole thread of what has already been said. (I'll do that eventually so please don't strangle me)

I'll make it short. So why does it suck in my opinion?

1.Personal things:

- Misha is annoying as hell, I'm sorry I just can't stand her charcter. Too happy, too much "wahahaha", too annoying.
- Shizune itself is just a boring character. You already know everything there is to know about her in a couple of scenes.

2.Serious flaws (in my view)

- no real drama.
- always the same scenes (student council work etc.)
- conversations that lead to nowhere.
- you learn nothing (every other route had some kind of theme or moral). Shizunes has that too unrequited love and a bit of coming of age, but it wasn't well fleshed out.
- Shizunes dad looks like a ripoff from any generic shounen-anime/manga. Why is this not a personal thing? Because you can't take these characters serious anymore.
- Shizuns first h-scene feels strange, because there hasn't really been much of a realationship at this point. Maybe that's just how she is but to me it felt unnatural.

Overall I can't see much "worth" in Shizunes route.

Good things:

The topic sign-langugae (not much but at least a bit).

Theme: Shizunes egoistic behaviour. She wants everyone to be involved in something they might now even want too. That is something she realizes too, so that's a good thing.

That roughly sums it up for me.

Extra: You might say that Shizunes route is the most realistic of all , since it doesn't feel constructed, thus becomes boring. That's neither good nor bad, ...okay well yes for a game it is bad. It's just like these "true-story" movies. Take "Zodiac" for example, boring as hell but realistic.

You're entitled to your opinion, but there are a few things you might not have considered which I will summarize some of, in case you're interested:

Elrood wrote: - Shizune itself is just a boring character. You already know everything there is to know about her in a couple of scenes.

Knowing about her upbringing is something that isn't immediately obvious and is crucial to understanding why she's the way she is.

- you learn nothing (every other route had some kind of theme or moral). Shizunes has that too unrequited love and a bit of coming of age, but it wasn't well fleshed out.

You have to read between the lines a bit. Shizune begins a huge amount of change, and we see a fair bit of it. With Hisao she begins to understand other people's emotions, experiences genuine love and physical affection for quite possibly the first time, and learns to trust someone in a very intimate way.

- Shizuns first h-scene feels strange, because there hasn't really been much of a realationship at this point. Maybe that's just how she is but to me it felt unnatural.

She knows this. She hasn't figured out how relationships are supposed to work yet, but she has a rough idea. At the time she's probably feeling a lot towards Hisao for all he's had to put up with at her house, not least of all her neglecting him, and it all comes spilling out and she takes a huge, massive step. However, she's not ready for everything yet, she's not ready to not be in control, hence the clothes stay on and she restrains him. This is 18 years of pent up frustration and confusion starting to come out, and she's terrified of screwing up but doesn't know what else to do.

Theme: Shizunes egoistic behaviour. She wants everyone to be involved in something they might now even want too. That is something she realizes too, so that's a good thing.

She immediately realizes how miserable Hisao is and is determined to give his life meaning, give him something to do to motivate him and take his mind off his problems.

Maybe gave you some stuff to think about? Read the thread if you like, we've talked about this stuff a lot already

Oh, thank God, someone else who fucking can't stand Misha. It'd be stupid to assume that Shizune's route wouldn't have her in it, but I hoped it'd be more about Shizune and less about her and her whiny fucking "problems". When Misha started bawling on the rooftop about how everyone would be better off if she just died, I just wanted to slap her and tell her to stop being so fucking melodramatic. Or push her off the roof and solve everything. Cry me a goddamn river. Okay, have an unrequited crush as a plot point, but it barely classes as emotional trauma, for fuck's sake. Unrequited crushes or being turned down happen all the time, it's far from a traumatic event and it's not a reason to push yourself onto your supposed best friend's boyfriend (because no matter how you feel inside, you can control your actions).

Misha either:
1) should have had her own route so her past could have been widely explored in case the unrequited crush on Shizune was the straw that broke the camel's back
2) or she should have taken a backseat to the family plot, which I personally thought needed more exploring given it built Shizune into who she was, and would have been infinitely more interesting

I played Shizunes arc first and every arc I played afterwards I put hers lower and lower on my tier.

The character is interesting enough, but her route was barely about her, it was so heavy on Misha and every other person that floated around, I just felt like "come on man, get to it."

This is probably just because it's her "way" but I didn't really like the lack of love in it either. It's all so clinical, "You wanna date? Ya sure whatever we're dating now". I just felt no attachment there, Hisao might as well have been just another bauble on her shelf gathering dust.

erisi236 wrote:I played Shizunes arc first and every arc I played afterwards I put hers lower and lower on my tier.

The character is interesting enough, but her route was barely about her, it was so heavy on Misha and every other person that floated around, I just felt like "come on man, get to it."

This is probably just because it's her "way" but I didn't really like the lack of love in it either. It's all so clinical, "You wanna date? Ya sure whatever we're dating now". I just felt no attachment there, Hisao might as well have been just another bauble on her shelf gathering dust.

You seem to have come to a subjective conclusion on this, and I can totally respect that. If you don't feel attached, I can't make you feel attached.

And I just so happen to believe that you're partially right in saying the route isn't really about her. I'd rephrase that as "it's just as much about other characters as it is about her", but the point remains. This is the route in which Hisao's introspection is the most important. As I've said earlier (and it's totally on me to get my analysis, like, written out in one place so that people can actually read all of it at one time without skipping all over the thread) Hisao's character arc is just as large if not larger than Shizune's, and Misha's is nothing to scoff at either. That's not bad, it's just different. This route is very different from the others, and this is just one of the ways that it diverges from the norm.

A lot of people who say that "the route was barely about her" fail to consider a few things:

1) The communication barrier between Hisao and Shizune for the first 2 acts (in which Shizune has to use Misha as a proxy just to speak with people) is such that I think most people don't really see her as entirely "there", just as a subconscious thing. She's not the one speaking, so her presence isn't entirely concrete. If that makes any sense. I have the worst feeling that it doesn't.

2) Anyways, as metalangel did a pretty good job of explaining in a previous post on this very page, Shizune is not all that good at communication in the first place. A good chunk of Hisao's relationship to Shizune is getting her to come out of her isolated shell and learn how to properly express herself. In short, it is her "way", her character, as you said. Therefore, it's not that the love wasn't there, the whole point is that this couple is struggling to find a way to properly express it to each other...we return, once more, to the idea of communication as a motif.

Anyways, you are most definitely entitled to your opinion. Thanks for sharing

I didn't mind Shizune's arc, but it just felt ... incomplete. It wasn't a perfect journey, but there was not a whole lot of conflict, or if one wants to argue that there was, there was not much resolution. This is keenly reflected in the sole choice the player has to make in the entire arc. I guess it seemed like there was so much more waiting to happen that never did: hints that Shizune is able to speak but chooses not to, some sort of reconciliation or understanding reached with her dad, and above all I was just waiting for some kind of breakdown, an admission that she can't control everything no matter how hard she tries but Hisao can make it all okay for her. I think that's the sticking point, unlike all of the other girls, we never crack Shizune, and thus we don't have to pick up the pieces, making the whole story quite uneventful and largely unfulfilling in comparison. Sure, her character makes progress, but we spent so long breaking the communication barrier and dealing with Misha's crap on the side that Shizune doesn't go as deep as I would have liked to see.

That said, Misha was slightly annoying, but she was also another truly broken character beneath the facade of loud, bubbly cheer that deserved more exploration of her own, even is she doesn't swing the right way, which I personally doubt is entirely true anyway.

Summary: Misha needs her own arc and Shizune needs another couple acts to get to the bottom of her story.

I honestly felt that Shizune's arc suffered more from pacing and execution issues than from the actual storyline: the climax (heh heh) has the longest "tail" of any other story: unlike the other routes, which end with a short stinger after the climactic moment, Shizune's route leads into a long conversation and spying on Misha.

In addition, it had the least interaction, which made it a bit harder to stay invested. Even if it's a choice that doesn't mean anything, having a choice means that the player feels some agency in how the story goes, instead of being a passive watcher.

I also seriously disagree that we needed to see her break down and rebuild: seeing her transition much more slowly is fine.

It actually kind of pained me that I didn't like her arc. After the demo she was like "my girl" and I was all hyped up to get her.

Then I played the full version and it practically felt like she didn't love me.

I've taken you up on your offer and thought/read about this whole thing a bit

metalangel wrote:Knowing about her upbringing is something that isn't immediately obvious and is crucial to understanding why she's the way she is.

Hm, fair enough, but to be honest I couldn't care less about that. I know that's not a good point but pretty much personal preference, but the moment I saw her I already made up my mind about her and thought "you are uninteresting!" (which is horrible I know!). To be fair this changed towards the end a bit.

metalangel wrote:You have to read between the lines a bit. Shizune begins a huge amount of change, and we see a fair bit of it. With Hisao she begins to understand other people's emotions, experiences genuine love and physical affection for quite possibly the first time, and learns to trust someone in a very intimate way.

I always thought she already knew what kind of person she is. Hm, I guess I'll have to replay that arc again.

metalangel wrote:She knows this. She hasn't figured out how relationships are supposed to work yet, but she has a rough idea. At the time she's probably feeling a lot towards Hisao for all he's had to put up with at her house, not least of all her neglecting him, and it all comes spilling out and she takes a huge, massive step. However, she's not ready for everything yet, she's not ready to not be in control, hence the clothes stay on and she restrains him. This is 18 years of pent up frustration and confusion starting to come out, and she's terrified of screwing up but doesn't know what else to do.

Yeah, okay I didn't think of that. It's the same as before I'll probably replay her arc again, but still your (and the other arguments I've read) sound logical.

metalangel wrote:She immediately realizes how miserable Hisao is and is determined to give his life meaning, give him something to do to motivate him and take his mind off his problems.

Okay that I can actually remember.

Conclusion: Damn, as I thought I'll have to redo my review and to replay Shizunes arc (probably Emi's too). I'm quite confident of the other routes I've written about but I think my "Oh god, Misha please just die in a fire!" attitude might have been a hindrance to stay somewhat objective. I think my biggest problem with Shizunes route was that I didn't really get "into it" as much as I have in Rin's for example to truly get everything and "read between the lines".

Anyway thanks for giving me some food for thought.

themocaw wrote:I honestly felt that Shizune's arc suffered more from pacing and execution issues than from the actual storyline: the climax (heh heh) has the longest "tail" of any other story: unlike the other routes, which end with a short stinger after the climactic moment, Shizune's route leads into a long conversation and spying on Misha.

In addition, it had the least interaction, which made it a bit harder to stay invested. Even if it's a choice that doesn't mean anything, having a choice means that the player feels some agency in how the story goes, instead of being a passive watcher.

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand I get what you're saying re: interactivity, but on the other hand, books. I'd probably feel differently if the choices in other routes weren't largely meaningless.

I also seriously disagree that we needed to see her break down and rebuild: seeing her transition much more slowly is fine.

I'm with you 100% here. The notion that a girl has to be broken in order to be interesting is utter tripe.

This says everything that needs to sad about Shizune's route. As I said it is probably the most subtle and deepest (except prehaps Rin's) of the whole. But compared to, say Lilly's or Hanako's it is lacking.

Does this mean the us Shizune fans are the hipsters of the KS fandom?

bradpara wrote:

This says everything that needs to sad about Shizune's route. As I said it is probably the most subtle and deepest (except prehaps Rin's) of the whole. But compared to, say Lilly's or Hanako's it is lacking.

Does this mean the us Shizune fans are the hipsters of the KS fandom?

...possibly true in my case. Yiiiikes.

Let me just proffer another way of looking at it, how the choices you make in each arc contribute to the development of the story, the lesson you learn, and to reaching the desired outcome:

Lilly: learn to be yourself, don't just rely on her
Rin: learn to understand her, you don't have to change her
Hanako: love her for who she is, not from pity or condescension
Emi: give her the room she needs, but never give up
Shizune: don't cheat on her with her best friend

The handling of Shizune's route is more of a reflection of the girl herself: less of "the feels" and more of the intellectual nuances.

Saucium wrote:The handling of Shizune's route is more of a reflection of the girl herself: less of "the feels" and more of the intellectual nuances.

Quoted for Truth, the girl wants you to think That is what her question is after all "Can you tell me what you think?"