Katawa Shoujo Forums

Not only that, but forcing someone who has a high level of social anxiety to be surrounded by people IS traumatizing to them. (My best friend has acute social anxiety disorder)

Factor in the whole deal about a large portion of those people being bullies that only pretend to like her for one day and the anxiety factor spikes even further, dishing out even more trauma.

brythain wrote:

Eurobeatjester wrote:I don't think it's one single thing but more of a combination of things that make Hanako's birthday traumatic.

For someone who just wants to be left alone or has social anxiety, a "forced" birthday party at the orphanage would be traumatic...plus the whole reminder of why she's at the orphanage and doesn't have a family to celebrate it with...

Wait, but everyone there has a birthday party and they all don't have parents/family.

Hanako was...5-6 when the fire happened I think? Or was it much older?

I tend to believe that she experience the warmth of having parents prior--a loving, caring, warm family that celebrated things together with her. One day, you take those away and put her in an orphanage.

One day the kids notice that she's different because of the scar. One day they think it's fun to bully her because she's different all year long. One day it's her birthday and the bullies either acts all 'kind' or redouble their effort to make her life even more miserable, thus making a day you wish to celebrate into one you want to be left alone. Kids are scary that way.

*omake*
In other news...

One day Hanako snapped. One day there was a fire in the orphanage; no survivors, but one girl with a burn scar. One day....

Hanako should play F.E.A.R.

Hanako should play that game where you melt plastic army guys with a flamethrower.

Or "I Am Bread".

Kenji has always been a very interesting character to me...

While I was playing through Katawa Shoujo the umpteen million times I have, I came to despise the "Out of the Loop" BGM, not because it's a bad piece of music, but because it heralded the arrival of Kenji. See, I hated Kenji the first several rounds of playthroughs.

Then he started to grow on me, I started thinking about what his parents might be like and why he is the way he is. More than anything though, that Shaman Eyes scene burned in my head and forced me to realize that Kenji isn't just some lunatic. (though he is a bit loony)

Now I'm kind of fond of Kenji and his antics, although he is still annoying =P

I initially dreaded his arrival too. The anime style Giant Spiral Glasses make him even more annoying.

Shaman Eyes and you realize he's a real guy underneath all the oddness, and not just comic relief.

I was looking through some old files and found that I had recorded part of a playthrough with Hypercam. Unfortunately I cut off most of the dialogue box when choosing the recording area.

The game is a lot better with dialogue.

I just played Katawa Shoujo over the spring break (of my last year of school by coincidence) for the first time ever. I've never really been a huge VN fan outside of the Higurashi/Umineko series, but I was in the mood to play something and man, free VN's are hard to come by. The last VN that I played was "Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story" and I really enjoyed the character development in that one.

That said, Katawa Shoujo completely blew me away, it was decidedly feels-y, and the creators are the bro-est of bros for making such a masterpiece. That said, I've only been through one and a half playthroughs so I've still got many feels to feel. I started the game and ended up on Rin's path, considerably so that she's the character I relate to the most. Ironically, for an interactive visual novel, it felt a lot more interactive than it was, to the point that on the second playthrough I was astonished how much of it was just part of the story. At the end of Rin's playthrough, I got the good ending, almost by chance as it turns out that one question wrong at the gallery and I would've gotten the "neutral" ending and really feeled that feel. I will admit half the time I was screaming in my head at Hisao for being such an idiot at times (meaning 98% of the time during his communication with Rin). Maybe it's just good writing and development for her character, maybe the writers just said "fuck all" when they were writing her, but I can efficiently say that I related more to her than any fictional character I've come across in any medium and that's saying a lot. It eventually got to the point that the more Hisao got confused about her actions, the more I just wanted to slap him, or rather yank him through my television and switch places with him (if . I didn't really talk to many of the other characters, being the anti-social dweeb I am, maybe it's because none of them interested me at that point or seemed relatable. I think I might go for Shizune next time however, once I get over my fear of playing in the sake of destroying these newfound feels.

I liked the interaction I had with the other characters, Kenji is a character that I grew to love just as much as I hated, and Kenji's interaction with Rin was fucking hilarious. I especially liked the nurse and Mutou, who I felt deserved a little bit more attention. If I had such decent adult figures in my life I probably wouldn't be as cynical as I am. But first impressions can be wrong, as I learned with Nomiya. When I first met him while helping Rin with her painting I had the thought that he was a bothersome parent or possible pedophile only to find out he was the art teacher. When I took the class things got a bit better, my opinion changed about him and I saw him in a different light, a very positive, supportive and outgoing art teacher, similar to the one I had last semester. But towards the latter half of the game my opinion later changed to literally a screaming "what an assbutt."

Yeah. This game was feels for me.

Yeah, I think it's pretty common for everyone to deem Hisao as a bit of a dickshit through a few of the routes, especially Rin's.
Also, it isn't too uncommon for people to be hesitant starting a new route Take your time, and I'll give you a head's up for Shizune's route.

It's the kind of route where a lot of the feels happen in the background. There's a lot of reading and it has the least amount of choices, if I'm not mistaken. To really appreciate it, you'll just need to take your time and possibly have a re-read or two Welcome to the forum!

Munchenhausen wrote:Yeah, I think it's pretty common for everyone to deem Hisao as a bit of a dickshit through a few of the routes, especially Rin's.
Also, it isn't too uncommon for people to be hesitant starting a new route Take your time, and I'll give you a head's up for Shizune's route.

It's the kind of route where a lot of the feels happen in the background. There's a lot of reading and it has the least amount of choices, if I'm not mistaken. To really appreciate it, you'll just need to take your time and possibly have a re-read or two Welcome to the forum!

Thank you for the welcome XD.

It does sound interesting though. I'm a person who loves when stories can make me feel emotions or make me cry. Aha. I'm just a very nostalgic person, who enjoys the what you'd call "auras" of things, and I'm just afraid that another playthrough will change my whole perspective of the game and what I currently feel for it. Not in a bad way, but I'm just very loyal and Rin popped my Katawa Shoujo cherry.

At least I don't have to deal with the art teacher again. Not a lot bothers me more than left-brained technical arseholes. For as much as he claims to care about Rin, he sure did a pretty good job of just showing that he cares about her career and not much else. I hated how Rin was doing art her way, expressing herself regardless of how messy or confusing and then she had to deal with all the bullshit of people expecting things from her. You can't force someone to paint!

HeartShapedBox wrote:Thank you for the welcome XD.

It does sound interesting though. I'm a person who loves when stories can make me feel emotions or make me cry. Aha. I'm just a very nostalgic person, who enjoys the what you'd call "auras" of things, and I'm just afraid that another playthrough will change my whole perspective of the game and what I currently feel for it. Not in a bad way, but I'm just very loyal and Rin popped my Katawa Shoujo cherry.

At least I don't have to deal with the art teacher again. Not a lot bothers me more than left-brained technical arseholes. For as much as he claims to care about Rin, he sure did a pretty good job of just showing that he cares about her career and not much else. I hated how Rin was doing art her way, expressing herself regardless of how messy or confusing and then she had to deal with all the bullshit of people expecting things from her. You can't force someone to paint!

That's half the reason I liked KS, it was something that made me stop and think
Haha I know how you feel, Emi was my first route. To this day, after about a year, there is a special place in my waifu-receptors for that legless little lass

Munchenhausen wrote:Yeah, I think it's pretty common for everyone to deem Hisao as a bit of a dickshit through a few of the routes, especially Rin's.

He wouldn't have to be if the girls weren't dickshits themselves.

Well, he is the Master Of Romance®

So, last weekend I took my lady down to the unnecessarily busy and horrendously over-expensive lovely London to watch a musical.
It's one of her favourites and one that's been growing on me a bit recently. We ate an expensive steak, got lost, bought a fuckton of M&Ms, watched a fantastic rendition of a classic and then slept in a small little hotel a good mile away. The musical itself got me thinking,though...

So, how does everyone think Hanako would react to watching The Phantom Of The Opera?

I imagine she'd be intrigued and enjoy the first part, identifying with the phantom's desire to be loved despite his fuckin' deformed face, but come to dislike him after he pretty much forces his love interest to marry him and tries to kill the man she loves, before breaking down in an emotional rage and accepting his life of lonliness.

"Hisao, it's only intermission! Why do we have to leave now?"