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Yeah. The entire summer trip is where my eyes start to roll into the back of my head. It all just felt extraneous.

Mahorfeus wrote:Yeah. The entire summer trip is where my eyes start to roll into the back of my head. It all just felt extraneous.

It's extraneous to Yamaku, but what I realised (for myself, anyway) was that this was the only route where you got to see someone's family in detail. Rin and Hanako don't have families on-screen, Emi's is sadly sparse (better if you count Nurse) and Lilly's is a lot better if you've done Shizune's. Otherwise, almost all you have is school life without understanding of the deeper effects of upbringing etc.

From my perspective, Shizune's route is an outlier from the other girls' routes. The other girls have routes that are variations on the romance genre (placed on different spots on the scale between romantic comedy and romantic drama and romantic tragedy) -- where the romantic relationship between the male and female lead is the primary focus of the story. However, Shizune's route fall squarely into the 80's teen film genre (e.g. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club,St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink) -- where romance is just one element that may or may not be the primary focus. This difference is neither good nor bad per se, but it can be rather jarring to the player -- especially if one plays Shizune's route last.

(Personally, I never cared for most of the 80's teen films, although I loved Ferris Bueller's Day Off.)

EDIT: Also, the theme to St. Elmo's Fire always makes me think of Shizune's route...

True, though I honestly felt that it never meaningfully expanded on Shizune's character. Some conjecture can be made given what we see of Jigoro, but it just didn't really go in depth. Speaking of whom, seems more like a walking meme than a nuanced character. All in all, it just felt like a wasted opportunity.

Oscar Wildecat wrote:EDIT: Also, the theme to St. Elmo's Fire always makes me think of Shizune's route...

Which is funny, because it feels more like an Emi song to me .

dewelar wrote:

Oscar Wildecat wrote:EDIT: Also, the theme to St. Elmo's Fire always makes me think of Shizune's route...

Which is funny, because it feels more like an Emi song to me .

It's copyright EMI Music Publishing, no?

dewelar wrote:I still think reading through it all at once is a bit of a slog, but IMO if you take it slowly and take breaks now and then to think about things and let them sink in, you'll be highly rewarded.

Maybe that's why Shizune never really struck me as being bossy or bitchy; I took my time with Shizune's route, playing it in small increments over the course of a week or two. I actually became quite attached to her and Misha, which made the direction the story took in the final act all the harder for me to swallow. I greatly respect A22 as a writer, but I think he was trying too hard to handle the relationship aspect of Shizune's story arc differently than the other writers, and the end result feels kind of shallow compared to the other routes.

Still, I thought it was a very enjoyable route, and the writing is indeed deeper than a lot of people give it credit for.

Oscar Wildecat wrote:Shizune's route fall squarely into the 80's teen film genre (e.g. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club,St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink)

Whoa. There's a parallel I never imagined I'd seen drawn. "High praise." — Nicholas Cage

EDIT: Also, the theme to St. Elmo's Fire always makes me think of Shizune's route...

Hm, why's that?

Mahorfeus wrote:True, though I honestly felt that it never meaningfully expanded on Shizune's character. Some conjecture can be made given what we see of Jigoro, but it just didn't really go in depth. Speaking of whom, seems more like a walking meme than a nuanced character. All in all, it just felt like a wasted opportunity.

Which is funny, because A22 has previously said that literally everything in her route is written to expand on the characters presented. You just need to look for the little things, then you see just how many layers the characters have.

Atario wrote:

EDIT: Also, the theme to St. Elmo's Fire always makes me think of Shizune's route...

Hm, why's that?

I guess it's because I heard the song for the first time in a long while shortly right after I first completed Shizune's route.

Numb wrote:

Mahorfeus wrote:True, though I honestly felt that it never meaningfully expanded on Shizune's character. Some conjecture can be made given what we see of Jigoro, but it just didn't really go in depth. Speaking of whom, seems more like a walking meme than a nuanced character. All in all, it just felt like a wasted opportunity.

Which is funny, because A22 has previously said that literally everything in her route is written to expand on the characters presented. You just need to look for the little things, then you see just how many layers the characters have.

So Shizune is an onion then. That explains so much...Like why Jigoro can't stand her.

I don't know, I guess I just can't get really get behind that sentiment, even if it was A22's intention. Rereading it has made me realize that I perhaps judged Shizune far too harshly, but I can't say that my opinion of the route itself has changed much. I think the only "layers" we can really peel back from Jigoro or even Hideaki's character are the ones we infer. In that regard, I still feel that even Emi and Lilly's routes got across the family dynamic better. But again, I don't know. Maybe I just need to reread it another thousand times like some of the fanfic authors have to. I do confess that I am not entirely detail oriented, unless I am looking up a specific scene.

Speaking of onions layers, I think Kenji is definitely a cake. Or an onion. I find it funny how all of the routes give puzzle pieces about him. I wonder how much collaboration went behind his creation (I'm sure that's been asked somewhere in the Ask thread by now).

About Shizune's route:

As I understand it, Shizune's route is about Shizune, not Hisao. Hisao is very much an observer in this story and not the active factor he is in other routes. This means that in order to understand the route, you constantly have to be asking questions and making inferences. What does Jigoro tell you about Shizune's drive? What does Hideaki's personality tell you about the dynamic between Shizune and Jigoro?

Additionally, I find a lot of information is conveyed through subtle expressions and actions. Again, it requires carefully noticing these expressions and trying to understand why they are in the story. This is a big contrast to, say, Emi -- not subtle at all.

Shizune's route is the most literary of the routes, because one has to be constantly questioning the work. It doesn't help that the climax of the story -- the resolution between Shizune and Misha -- happens completely off-screen.

All of this makes for a difficult VN path, but a great story.

Are we discussing Shizune's route again? Or Shizune again?

...

Can someone send me a quick PM of what's going on? I'll answer via PM when I have time.


One thing I'll say, you really need to be invested with the culture involved in it to actually understand why 'x' does 'y'--which is often lost to most western audiences (the majority of the readers).

Can you please enlighten us then?

makes you wonder why it would be written like that to a primarly western audience.