Katawa Shoujo Forums

About a year and a half after I started playing VNs, a couple of months before now, I stumbled onto the Katawa Shoujo page on TV Tropes. By then (Mostly due to the Rance series and Nitro Plus), I was desensitized, so I found nothing squicky about a visual novel about crippled girls. Furthermore, if some troper took the time to add that it was well-written and tasteful in the description page, and no one bothered to edit it out, then I figured that it was at least worth a look.

As soon as I got through the intro, I turned it off because I knew that I was going to play at least one route of this demo all the through in one go and lose track of time. When I had time, I played it through and did not regret it. As of now, I would gladly recommend this game to anyone whom I wanted to introduce visual novels to. When this game releases, I want it to be as good or better than the demo for three reasons.

1. To get more people into visual novels.
2. It would be a shame if it ended up terrible.
3. To watch the Japanese squirm as they wait months or even years for Katawa Shoujo to be translated into their language.

Katawa Shoujo came up as #6 after I filtered out what I don't like on VNDB and then sorted by rating, which is pretty high in a list of ~220. I was first intrigued by the pleasant art style; second because I experience some rather debilitating arrhythmia as well, caused by LQTS, which is scary enough and rare enough that I immediately sympathized pretty strongly with Hisao.

encrypted12345 wrote:3. To watch the Japanese squirm as they wait months or even years for Katawa Shoujo to be translated into their language.

Hah! I agree, but bear in mind that there's a far higher percentage of Japanese who can read English than English-speaking Westerners who can read Japanese in kanji/hiragana. Their suffering is mitigated.

Not to mention that there is a very dedicated Japanese TL team already.

Still, it's for the fact that Japanese will have to translate a VN!

OneMore wrote: Still, it's for the fact that Japanese will have to translate a VN!

Because they don't already translate other stuff not made in Japan?

G3n0c1de wrote:

OneMore wrote: Still, it's for the fact that Japanese will have to translate a VN!

Because they don't already translate other stuff not made in Japan?

I think he's trying to imply its ironic for the Japanese to be translating a visual novel rather than us for a change. On a side not, some disney songs are hilarious in japanese

And to get back on topic, I was looking through Sankaku complex for...anything to quell my boredom, evidently I found Katawa Shoujo

I didn't find Katawa Shoujo, Katawa Shoujo found me.

I was first introduced to KS in the many generals on /v/ that happened in the late spring/early summer. Most of that year consisted of me trying to find ways to kill time, especially with regard to how much any given investment would cost. I paid special attention to the hours/dollar ratio, with a ratio of more than 1 being the goal. For example, I played through Vanquish and Darksiders a second time each, and I dumped many many hours into the Fallout 3 goty edition. Knowing that the demo and the full game of KS would both be free, I figured it might be worth a shot. As odd as it sounds, I might say KS is now a part of my lifestyle, and it certainly has broken the 1.0 mark, even though the internet and electricity bills have probably gone up.

I was looking for a new wallpaper on /w/ and stumbled upon a thread with KS wallpapers. Googled it, downloaded Act 1 and fell in love.
Even though I already was into anime at the time I wasn't a regular on /a/ or /jp/ so I didn't know about it.

It was some years ago when I got interested in VNs. I've always loved anime and manga, watched and read a lot of them. But I wanted more. I've got a Mac, no Windows PC, so it was hard to find popular free VNs for me.
But one day, it was in the evening I think, I found something beautiful… Katawa Shoujo. The mighty Google helped me, some small websites too.
Now that I look back… Let's call it fate or the opposite of doom ^_^

Btw, I'm new here. Nice to meet you!

Ah, my very first post on this forum and it's in a thread that's been around longer than I've even known about the game. Feels a bit strange.

Anyhow, I believe I found out about this about two...ish years ago. I had recently become interested in visual novels, and was searching clips on Youtube when I stumbled across a clip featuring Emi. Intrigued, I decided to search it up and came across this website, of course. Despite the fact that, being female (not to speak for everyone though), I tended to avoid most eroge games since the pornographic scenes are usually aimed at men and didn't really do much for me, I decided to give it a chance and download the first act as the whole concept fascinated me. I have to say I have no regrets. The story, the art, the characters, everything, are all so well thought-out and beautifully put together, not to mention done in good taste. I don't even mind that there will be sex scenes later on, the devs seem like mature people and I feel they'll handle them well.

Well, that was a... longish reply to such a simple question. Not to mention rather off-topic. Sorry, I tend to ramble sometimes.

Kirsty101 wrote:Ah, my very first post on this forum and it's in a thread that's been around longer than I've even known about the game. Feels a bit strange.

Anyhow, I believe I found out about this about two...ish years ago. I had recently become interested in visual novels, and was searching clips on Youtube when I stumbled across a clip featuring Emi. Intrigued, I decided to search it up and came across this website, of course. Despite the fact that, being female (not to speak for everyone though), I tended to avoid most eroge games since the pornographic scenes are usually aimed at men and didn't really do much for me, I decided to give it a chance and download the first act as the whole concept fascinated me. I have to say I have no regrets. The story, the art, the characters, everything, are all so well thought-out and beautifully put together, not to mention done in good taste. I don't even mind that there will be sex scenes later on, the devs seem like mature people and I feel they'll handle them well.

Well, that was a... longish reply to such a simple question. Not to mention rather off-topic. Sorry, I tend to ramble sometimes.

Think nothing of it. That's what forums are for.

Anyway, speaking as a man (although I'm sure other men are different), I've never been very fond of pornographic images like those you described either. Although I have looked up pornography , I've found that images depicting sex seem to disgust me. I've never really enjoyed looking at another man's junk, heh.

Having said that, I have seen images of sex that don't disgust me that much. A manga called My Lovely Ghost Kana is one work that I feel portrays sex as rather wholesome and, well, fun. I did feel awkward reading it, though . I'm sure the developers have somewhat similar sentiments, so I don't have any worries.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

Polydunami wrote:

Kirsty101 wrote:Ah, my very first post on this forum and it's in a thread that's been around longer than I've even known about the game. Feels a bit strange.

Anyhow, I believe I found out about this about two...ish years ago. I had recently become interested in visual novels, and was searching clips on Youtube when I stumbled across a clip featuring Emi. Intrigued, I decided to search it up and came across this website, of course. Despite the fact that, being female (not to speak for everyone though), I tended to avoid most eroge games since the pornographic scenes are usually aimed at men and didn't really do much for me, I decided to give it a chance and download the first act as the whole concept fascinated me. I have to say I have no regrets. The story, the art, the characters, everything, are all so well thought-out and beautifully put together, not to mention done in good taste. I don't even mind that there will be sex scenes later on, the devs seem like mature people and I feel they'll handle them well.

Well, that was a... longish reply to such a simple question. Not to mention rather off-topic. Sorry, I tend to ramble sometimes.

Think nothing of it. That's what forums are for.

Anyway, speaking as a man (although I'm sure other men are different), I've never been very fond of pornographic images like those you described either. Although I have looked up pornography , I've found that images depicting sex seem to disgust me. I've never really enjoyed looking at another man's junk, heh.

Having said that, I have seen images of sex that don't disgust me that much. A manga called My Lovely Ghost Kana is one work that I feel portrays sex as rather wholesome and, well, fun. I did feel awkward reading it, though . I'm sure the developers have somewhat similar sentiments, so I don't have any worries.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

On the topic of not enjoying looking at another man's junk (and such a lovely topic it is too ), I've never quite understood why penises are so detailed and massive in some hentai. Granted, I can understand wanting to make everything look as realistic as possible, and I guess the male reader is supposed to see themselves in this main character so making him well-endowed would be sort of an ego-boosting thing (again, I'm not trying to speak for everyone), but sometimes it crosses that line and ends up focusing more on the man's nude body than the woman's. I would think most people who read that stuff for the pornographic elements (which I'm pretty sure is the intended use ) care more about the female's parts rather than the guy's.

Anyhow, I agree that not all hentai and eroge are necessarily "OMG ITS EVERYWHERE! OMG THERE'S SO MUCH OF IT! GIMME THE CHOCOLATE!". 'Virgin Night' comes to mind (in fact, I believe it was by the same author of 'My Lovely Ghost Kana'. I've never read that one but I may check it out now). Granted, it's still pornographic, and it doesn't hold anything back, but it's still not as horribly over-the-top (well, a bit over-the-top with the body fluids and such) and depraved as some hentai. The sex is dealt with fairly maturely too (for porn, that is). There's very little fanservice before any of the sex scenes (a few panty shots here and there), and we actually get to know the characters as actual sympathetic people rather than just a bunch of nymphomaniacs. I wouldn't say it's one of my all-time favorite reads, but it was a nice change from other hentai I've read (yes, despite that fact that over-the-top hard-core hentai does nothing for me, I still continue to look it up out of curiosity. What can I say, I'm a sucker for punishment).

(Be warned: If you search up this manga you may end up coming across a similarly-titled yaoi. The one I'm talking about sometimes goes under the title of 'First Night'. Also, I get the feeling it might be harder-core than 'Kana', so keep that in mind. )

Wow, I've really managed to digress from the original topic, haven't I? Haha.

Isn't most hentai just for laughs anyway? Big veiny penises increase the hilarity of "IMPREGNATE MY ASSPUSSY WITH YOUR VOMIT STICK!"

Or... are we on different pages here?

Limbless wrote:Isn't most hentai just for laughs anyway? Big veiny penises increase the hilarity of "IMPREGNATE MY ASSPUSSY WITH YOUR VOMIT STICK!"

Or... are we on different pages here?

Well if it was using those exact words, then I don't imagine it could possibly be taken seriously. Think I've read fanfictions like that though, usually written by virgin 13-year-olds.

There's a hentai called 'Take On Me' ('Domin8 Me' in North America) whose main character is a 5-foot tall teen boy with a twelve inch pecker. It is meant to be taken seriously.

(In fairness, it is one of the better hentai I've read).