Ok it's been a while since I've played her path, but doesn't virtually every side character come give you advice on her at some point during the path?
Misha, the Nurse, Emi's mom (maybe). Does Kenji say anything absurd but insightful in this arc? I don't think so, could be wrong.
You have to ignore pretty much everything they tell you to get her bad ending.
I think seeking Misha's help causes Hisao not to ignore it. The Nurse's advice doesn't seem to do much towards either end. Emi's mom is in the same boat as Misha.
Mutou pretty much flat out tells you what you need to do to get her good end.
No, he's talking about scientific observation. It ends up being a phrase Hisao remembers later and tries applying to social situations - that is, that the actions of one object might cause visible reactions in others nearby - so he wonders if Emi's flip-flop mindset might be something her mom can clue him in about. But the conversation with Mutou and the offer for that conversation are not related to her
at all.
Or you just have to ignore them all and not talk to them, being single mindedly focused on Emi. Again, keep in mind, when you are making choices in the game, you aren't only choosing what Hisao will say, you are forming his very personality. If you ignore everyone, and always follow Emi everywhere she goes, the personality you form for him is kind of a clingy freak. And this isn't even going into Emi's own personality, which is far more similar to Hanako than it seems on the surface. Emi is also a deconstruction of white knighting, and if you keep pressing her about her issues, you are trying to "fix" her, which is pretty much the antithesis of what this game is about.
I don't know that she's quite a deconstruction. Certainly not on Hanako's level. Bear in mind that Hisao isn't necessarily clingy if he's BadEmi Hisao, he's just not really social with most people. Hisao, up until the conversation on getting close to people, assumes he's in a romantic relationship. Then he wonders if it's not just her thinking they're friends with benefits, and that upsets him. Before he can even get his head straight she's off lying to other people how important Hisao was to her during that one, what was it, exam week(?) that they barely talked to each other, and inviting him to dinner with her family. She's the one being more clingy in public, not him. He doesn't treat her like he treats Hanako in her arc.
Just pointing out, for those of you where it wasn't blatantly obvious, every bad ending is due to errors on Hisao's part and errors on the girl's fault. Specifically, you (the player) influence Hisao to make decisions that specifically agitate the girls, leading to an escalating reaction where the relationship dissolves and everyone walks away feeling miserable. Every. Single. One.
I can mostly agree on this. The girls will often make decisions that agitate him, too, and it's his responses that you pick, sometimes. So he's not always the trigger, and usually his actions are at least somewhat justified.
I'd almost go so far as to say the main conflict in each arc has to do with Hisao mirroring the worst aspects of the girl in question, but I haven't gone over the details in enough depth to affirm that statement.
I don't know about that, but as a general statement, it's not bad.
On the flip side, BadEmi Hisao refuses to open up to anyone. He doesn't need to connect with other people (Emi excepted), rejects help from those in the best position to offer it, and most certainly won't open up to the loud airhead who's expressing concern (for a change). The Emi situation is something he can't handle, and he doesn't want anyone else's help, so he starts running himself.
It's not uncommon for someone going through a tough time to not want to open up with all the sordid details to someone they're not all that close to. And sometimes, it
can make things worse. It's less that he doesn't want anyone's help, and more that he's embarrassed, ashamed, depressed, and probably doesn't believe anyone else
could help anyway.
After a week of him basically pretending she didn't exist (and her doing the same), his attempt at the track in the Bad Ending was pretty pathetic.
Preten-wha? He's hurt and confused, so he spends some time away from her to lick his wounds and try to work things out in his head. If he shouted at her at her house, he's feeling a nice amount of guilt, as well. He doesn't go face her before that because he can't, not because he won't.
He was too aggressive about it though. My first run through Emi's path, I was in that situation, and stayed to talk to her mom. She gave me advice about it, and Emi and Hisao ended up having the conversation they needed to have. It's not about not pursuing the situation at all, its about pursuing properly. I am trying to remember what you say in particular that pisses her off if you follow her right away, but I do recall there being something...
You
can't make Hisao stay and talk to her mom unless you've made him have a
completely unrelated conversation with Mutou by that point. And if I recall correctly, if he follows her, the argument eventually degenerates enough that he asks something about her father, rudely, because of course he's figured out that he's the core of her darkness. He realizes how rude it was as soon as he says it, but she is enraged about it and tells him to get out for it.
BadEmi Hisao won't even try to fight arguments she doesn't believe herself.
I'd phrase that differently:
BadEmi Hisao is too hurt, confused, and lacking self-confidence to effectively try to fight arguments he doesn't fully realize she doesn't believe herself. Especially "confused". The difference between BadEmi and GoodEmi is whether or not Hisao has someone else's perspective on the situation. When he gets that, he ends up a little less confused, and is able to cut through her shell of bull to get at what's really bothering her.
Also, Emi allows Hisao to make stupid mistakes. In the other arcs, one wrong choice is an express train to Bad Ending. For Emi, you need to make two wrong choices. The second chance is an important detail.
Um, the first "choice", being talking to her mom (if you have the option), isn't Hisao making a stupid mistake. Emi
just freaked out about her father and left the table in a hurry, what did she think those two, who have nothing in common
but her, were going to discuss? The wallpaper? Though Emi does, at least, realize she went overboard when Hisao is respectful about her asking him to leave. But, no, that one isn't a stupid mistake. He literally had nothing else to do but sit at the table and say nothing in a horribly awkward silence that wouldn't help anything. If Emi's mom had
left the table... eh, maybe, but I still wouldn't say so.
The second choice isn't really a stupid mistake. See what I said before about why he might not want to discuss everything with Misha. The same thing
is a stupid mistake in Hanako's arc, but the circumstances are totally different - a close friend of both Hisao and his love interest, who seems to know them quite well, gives him advice. The option isn't whether to get her advice or not, but whether to act on it after getting it. This is
not that.
And, IIRC, part of the reason for the "second chance" is because Emi's arc, otherwise, only had one real choice that affected the outcome. There's still Mutou's conversation which is needed to set it up, but again, it's something totally unrelated...
She doesn't "allow" him to make that one mistake (that is, confronting her about her dad in that argument), which is, in all honestly, almost trivial compared to hers.
If he manages to break through her shell, and if that's the ending setup you got, she's more than willing to be forgiving about it. Otherwise, she uses it as a good excuse to break off the relationship. She uses it as a mostly legitimate excuse - "you and I just aren't working", which is true - but, still. They're not working because she's put him into a state of ridiculous confusion and then gets upset about his attempts to make sense of what the hell is going on.