Katawa Shoujo Forums

This game really has helped me. It teaches you a lot of life lessons.

Yeah, this game made me see lot of things that have been wrong in my life for so long. But if it is a good or bad thing, i'm not sure yet. It did make feel really empty and sad, but at least now i know what i _should_ do to start making things for better.

I'm sure this has been said before. I'm sure I can't be the only one.

I have to say a few things about this VN.

This is the most life-changing thing I have ever read in my entire life.

My eyes misted up during my journey through Katawa Shoujo. It wasn't until I finished, and had a day to meditate on all of the beautiful content, that I broke down and cried.

Cried. Over a VN. Cheesy as that may be, I had to share some of my thoughts and feelings on this.

To the creators, thank you so much for changing my perspective on so many issues in my life. Thank you for making me smile again. Thank you for making me cry. Thank you for, even unknowingly, giving me the answers to the questions that nobody else could answer. Because I never opened up enough to anyone. Katawa Shoujo was like somebody had taken all of these emotional issues, and threw them in my face in such a loving and enjoyable manner that I could not help but be moved. This wasn't a friend concerned about my well-being. This wasn't someone bothered by my issues. This was the embodiment of pure understanding.

I have to say, I hope there will never be a sequel. (I know the creators have stated there will not be.) The thing is so incredible, I don't think a sequel could ever do it justice.

I don't think they should accept donations. I think that money makes the whole thing seem shallow. I'm glad its free, I'm glad it will remain so.

I used to draw, (Rin brought out this epiphany.) until high school. I was talented, even respected as an artist. Then, due to all sorts of things; Emotions that I had never known before, I stopped. I lost my muse, at least for art. Like Rin, I thought that destroying myself, metaphorically, was the answer. I believed that if I faced hardship, it would change me. I was right. I become someone that I didn't recognize. Not one that I didn't like, but one I did not know. I moved myself away, in the midst of my final year of high school. I threw my job away, my relationships away, my friends away, and even my family away. I put myself into solitude.

As I'm sure you all don't want to hear my life story, I will move on. So for any of you Tl;Dr people out there, you have your wish.

I've carried some deep emotional baggage for quite a while now, even before I threw myself to the lions' den. I wouldn't open up, I even barely opened up to my closest friend.

Then I stumbled across this VN. I had heard mention of it, through 4chan. (I've been going there since late middle school, it's always been a place to visit, to escape to.)

Now back to the present. This VN made me cry. Not mist up. Not jerk a tear. It made me sit down and think about my life, and cry.

Every character feels so real, feels so honestly there, that this doesn't feel like a book.

I want to congratulate the creators. I wish them the best of luck with their future. I wish them happiness.

And I want to thank them for shocking me back into being myself. I started sketching again. I've started to smile more regularly. I've thrown away my emotional baggage. I've opened up to my friends. Hell, I've told more in this topic to the entire internet, and I don't care. I'm happy now. I understand things better.

This VN has cleared so many things up.

And I wanted to say thank you again. Thank you.

And I know it's just a game. But it is one-of-a-kind. It is something that anyone who has a heart should read. It is so enjoyable and so breathtaking, and so brutally honest that it will forever remain in my computer's files.

I hope that someone else has had a similar experience. It would be lovely to know that it changed someone else's perspective as well.

In a (probably futile) attempt to tidy up the forums a little, I made this thread to hold all the post of thanks, well-wishing and similar sentiments from all of you.

Thanks.

I can say without a question, that this was one of the most enjoyable "set" of stories I have "read" in years;
Thought provoking, depressing, inspiring, and sensual all rolled into one. Each story brought its own insight
into approaching life in its own unique way, and they all interested me to no end.

On a more personal note, my favorite romance would have to be with Shizune. I feel like this story came
out with one of the best ways to look at the future, with purpose and fulfillment, but at the same time
taking the time to enjoy the small things in life that really make all the effort worth it.

This begets more praise than a simple "game," this will surely have quite the cult following. I am certain
this isn't the first and wont be the last thanks you will be hearing from fans.

Thank you, for this story and for the opportunity to experience it.

Silentcook wrote:In a (probably futile) attempt to tidy up the forums a little, I made this thread to hold all the post of thanks, well-wishing and similar sentiments from all of you.

Thanks.

Excellent Idea. It makes the thank yous more likely to be read by you guys in 4LS if they are in one place and I was having trouble looking through all the threads in feedback from the outpouring of thanks anyway.

I have never been more thankful for my sense of morbid curiosity.

I had heard that a game was being based on that RAITA picture, so I decided to wait it out and see what was up. An initial balk at the premise was balanced by how /tg/ had actually produced some useful tabletop gaming material when they put their heads to it. I did initially have some reservations, but years would be a long time to work for the sake of a joke. Besides, I had played games with heavy VN interfaces before, like Sakura Wars V and Galaxy Angel for the PC.

So, when Act 1 hit, I really did take notice- it was a fan project that was actually getting somewhere, as opposed to the many dozens I had seen go to the wayside in my days as a heavy old-school FPS player. My reaction was just a tad unexpected on my part- I wanted to play more, and see exactly where 4LS was really going with this. Then release day rolled around.

Going back through act 1 was really nothing special, 'cause I did want to get to the new material and all that sort of thing, so I decided to start on Lilly's route and work my way down through the game by pairs (Lilly/Hanako, Emi/Rin, Shizune). While everyone has their own praise for some of the big moments in the game, the point where I had my first inkling that this game would be something special was when Lilly touched Hisao's face to "look" at him for the first time. There was more basic humanity in that one gesture than a good deal of games on the market can muster over their game time. Just the simple desire to know a friend. As I played through the game itself, it rather struck me that, there was one goal to directing all of Hisao's labors-

The happiness of others, which would reflect upon himself.

Katawa Shoujo elevates empathy and understanding to a worthwhile goal of gaming in and of itself, on a very personal and deeply affecting level. The goals in other gaming are often rather impersonal, with little feedback save for a few throwaway lines here and there, whereas KS is unrelenting in establishing Hisao's connections to the people around him as the singular focus of play. At about the same time I realized this, and experienced what it meant in practice, it became impossible to maintain the detachment required for a real review. The game hit me deep, deeper than I had originally wanted to admit, and it made other games just seem rather empty of the essential human things that KS just plain revels in.

And most importantly to me, it is an exceptionally good-natured game. That is to say, the game seems to have been written with the assumption that there is good in human nature, a desire to create beautiful things, whether it be art, generosity, and most central, love itself. It's written in defiance of the cynicism that too often infects gaming and gamers alike.

So, really, thanks for creating the game I never knew I always wanted.

Get in, KS devs.

I'm not good with words, so instead of coming up with walls of text that would undoubtedly cause mild headaches, I just want to say two things.

1. These last two weeks have been incredibly fun for me. I was looking forward to play the game whenever I had the opportunity to complete get sucked into the stories. It was very rewarding.

2. A Thank You! to Everyone who contributed to make KS what it became.

Ps: Actually, there is a third thing:

3. Congratulations! You've made a dream come true. That's something to be proud of.

So, i've always been very skeptical about anything out of Japan. I've found myself completely unable to get into any anime other than Cowboy Bebop or Death Note for example, and the main reason I like those two series is because of how strong the writing is - not to offend anyone since I know many people here have different tastes to me - I believe that the writing of these two series is so strong and has such a wide appeal that if you made them into, say, English-produced live action series with high production values and the general public was ignorant to the fact that they were originally Anime/Manga, no one would be able to tell. They're just great and have a universal appeal.

Now obviously, KS isn't Japanese, but someone playing the game who didn't know any better would probably think it was a localized VN, so forgive me for lumping it in with Japanese entertainment in general.

I learned about KS from a thread on Reddit, read a bit, "Oh, so it's one of those cleverly disguised Hentai games. I'll read the comments for a laugh."

Then I delved deeper, read through more comments, got to all the people praising the game for its story, saying don't be fooled by the exterior, etc, I decided to give it a try, going in about as prejudiced as you possibly could: I thought this game would be the player guiding the main character along with some half-assed writing until being rewarded with some Hentai sex scene. That it was made by English speakers and set in Japan just kind of solidified my feelings here, and man, a game set in a High School for disabled kids? Seemed pretty juvenile to me. I didn't expect to play for more than 30 minutes or so, especially since I certainly havn't found myself interested in any High School dramas for a decade.

After playing the first 30 minutes, I found myself sucked in by some legitimately good writing. I didn't feel like I was in control of the story, nor did I feel like I was the main character, I felt like a bystander simply being told a story for the most part (apart from the obvious choices - but even then, it was still Hisao talking and not me) and that is not what I expected at all. This wasn't just some weird Hentai "pretend-you're-the-main-character-you-lonely-nerd" game like I was expecting. Not even close. This was a STORY, and a great one.

So I kept playing, and playing, and playing.

5 hours later I was done with Emi's line and I felt the same way I do after finishing a legitimately good book, television series, movie, etc, when I know that this is the end and there likely won't be an official continuation ever - the story completed: pretty damn sad for the rest of the day, but also coming away thinking "wow, that was god damn awesome."

It's been 3 days since I finished, and i've still been thinking since then about how great the story was, and considering playing the other routes (though with how emotionally draining it was, i'm trying to avoid it ). You folks made the 3rd thing that I personally have ever enjoyed that uses the Anime/Manga art style. The writing is so strong that you even took a setting I originally scoffed at and made me care about it and the characters in it. Thank you very much.

You did play all the routes and not just Emi's, right?

Otakumon wrote:You did play all the routes and not just Emi's, right?

Seconded, if you truely have only played Emi's you are really missing out.

Yeah I have no doubt that the rest of the game is worth playing. I'll get to it eventually. Just felt the need to put in my 2 cents as humans do.

That's good. I just thought you might be new to VNs and was about to miss out on some more good stories.

Jeffrey wrote:Yeah I have no doubt that the rest of the game is worth playing. I'll get to it eventually. Just felt the need to put in my 2 cents as humans do.

It is take your time doing it, I rushed through hanako's after completing Emi as my first arc. A few days later I had to replay it, I didn't miss much story wise but some of the events had a much stronger effect when I was playing at a normal pace rather than a "crap it's 1am in the morning and I need to finish this" pace.

You've maybe seen already, but some of the stories are awesome reads and deeply emotional.