Katawa Shoujo Forums

Actually, now that you mention it...

That line about the girl missing a thumb made me raise an eyebrow. Because... that's pretty minor. Hell, there was a girl in my class at school who was missing an entire hand. Nobody thought of her as disabled, and in the five years I knew her, I can recall it being mentioned all of once. So... it's weird to think of somebody like that at Yamaku, since it's not all that limiting and likely wouldn't attract negative attention in the way that Hanako's scars might.* I rationalised it at the time by thinking that maybe that wasn't the only problem she had, but the line still sits oddly with me.

*Okay, while I was typing that, I thought of one circumstance where losing a thumb might cause you big problems. If you were right handed and then lost your right thumb, learning to write again would be annoying as hell. That said, I'd expect it to be more a matter of practice, maybe using a laptop in the meantime, rather than "Disabled school for you"...

Same there. In my class was also guy who lost very stupidly half of his finger (after that, he was sometimes called ,,Nine and half" ). Hey, I also almost cut off my finger with axe; I don't lost if only for fact that I have really strong bones. My brother ,,polished" his thumb on grinder to bone. He have none imagination, so he have similar accidents quite frequently, idiot. Not mention that in villages peoples with cutted off finger or two is fairly common sight.

While we're on the topic of disabled people we know, I have a classmate with a malformed right hand. It cuts off right before his elbow, and there's this kind of ring around that area (a ring of flesh) where his thumb and a finger are. He can move it. It was a bit disconcerting at first, but I got used to it.

it says on her character profile that she got those burns at a pretty young age and her father died in the same fire, so mabey her dad died trying the sheild his daughter, im sure that would cause some sever physcological and emotional problems for her. thats just my $0.02

fanatic wrote:it says on her character profile that she got those burns at a pretty young age and her father died in the same fire, so mabey her dad died trying the sheild his daughter, im sure that would cause some sever physcological and emotional problems for her. thats just my $0.02

It wouldn't surprise me either if, just after the fire, Hanako was bullied while getting rehabilitation in hospital and when she tried going to school before going to Yamaku. Bullying or just no one talking to her because they found her ugly disgusting. Children are capable of soaking things up like a sponge, so it would have some effect as well. (If this did happen).

@ Free the Bee
Yes, thats what I mean. A lot of the students aren't REALLY disabled so much as they appreciate the environment. Its not that everyone gets shipped away into cripple prison once they get into an accident but how many mothers do you know who'd send their third grader back to just "deal" with something like that on their own? It probably isn't entirely illogical to assume that most of them just "stuck around" after they'd already adapted.

Since this takes place in Japan, the issues of bullying and social stigmas are even more significant. Japanese society is very conformist and not too tolerant of people who are different or "stand out", which Hanako would certainly do not only in appearance but behavior. It's not always obvious unless you pay attention, but you can see these attitudes in many anime.

OtakuMegane wrote:Since this takes place in Japan, the issues of bullying and social stigmas are even more significant. Japanese society is very conformist and not too tolerant of people who are different or "stand out", which Hanako would certainly do not only in appearance but behavior. It's not always obvious unless you pay attention, but you can see these attitudes in many anime.

I don't imagine Japan is the only country where parents "warehouse" childeren they can't deal with or refuse to deal with.
I'm sure it is common the world over.

Bara wrote:

OtakuMegane wrote:Since this takes place in Japan, the issues of bullying and social stigmas are even more significant. Japanese society is very conformist and not too tolerant of people who are different or "stand out", which Hanako would certainly do not only in appearance but behavior. It's not always obvious unless you pay attention, but you can see these attitudes in many anime.

I don't imagine Japan is the only country where parents "warehouse" childeren they can't deal with or refuse to deal with.
I'm sure it is common the world over.

True enough.

In any case, the point is, even assuming any physical injuries did not require any additional consideration, she simply would not do well in a normal school. She might very well be at risk of further harm at the hands of her peers, in fact. So her only real options for a safe environment are homeschooling or a place like Yamaku. If this is the case I'm sure they understood and used the burns as justification, if it's required for admission. This of course is assuming there isn't a physical factor that we are not aware of right now which explains her presence much as with why Misha is present there. We've only seen like 1/5 of the story so far.