Katawa Shoujo Forums

Munchenhausen wrote:Peel away the sugar coating and looking at the reality of both teenage mentality and the difficulties of living with disabilities...

I imagine Yamaku's mortality rate is high, compared to most schools.
Suicide, disability-related accidents (falls, seizures, haemophiliac bleeding), and terminal illnesses... all add up to one thing.

There are a lot of deaths at Yamaku.
and in turn...

There are a lot of Ghosts at Yamaku.
inb4 "Ghosts don't Exist" just pretend they do okay (;

Munch, have you read this one yet?

Munchenhausen wrote:Peel away the sugar coating and looking at the reality of both teenage mentality and the difficulties of living with disabilities...

I imagine Yamaku's mortality rate is high, compared to most schools.
Suicide, disability-related accidents (falls, seizures, haemophiliac bleeding), and terminal illnesses... all add up to one thing.

There are a lot of deaths at Yamaku.

Agreed, the mortality rate is probability higher than some students would like to admit. The few students that have to face up to the fact is the Newspaper Club, who write up the obituaries. Natsume and Naomi would get a massive headache in particular should Hisao go to the manly picnic.

"This is gonna be a nightmare to do Naomi! He'd only been here a week and we know nothing about him to report on! How can we do a respectful obituary if we have nothing to work with? We don't even have a picture of him!"


While on the matter of peeling back the sugar coating, I'd say that the Yamaku Foundation runs a Hospice for the students (and general population) with the really bad conditions. Some spend a few days there...some never come out again.

Rhodri wrote:While on the matter of peeling back the sugar coating, I'd say that the Yamaku Foundation runs a Hospice for the students (and general population) with the really bad conditions. Some spend a few days there...some never come out again.

I placed that one in Niigata.

Munchenhausen wrote:Peel away the sugar coating and looking at the reality of both teenage mentality and the difficulties of living with disabilities...

I imagine Yamaku's mortality rate is high, compared to most schools.
Suicide, disability-related accidents (falls, seizures, haemophiliac bleeding), and terminal illnesses... all add up to one thing.

There are a lot of deaths at Yamaku.
[/spoiler]

Certainly , not necessarily a lot of suicide but certainly not unknown tought, if I think it would happens more AFTER Yamaku. (the suicide rate among the disabled is less high than we might think , it's many much higher among those who know they will become disabled but don't imagine they will be able to lives with but in fact most people did it when it happens.) but there must be some mortality due to the disabilities. (if the most severe disabilities are certainly not allowed to Yamaku : The purpose of this school is adapt to a "normal life" teenagers with disabilities)

It's sure that the game does not develop the theme but I don't think they are a suger coating about it : Hisao struggles with the idea of a shortened life and I remember that in of the Route, there is a reference to students who don't really have a future. ( who really have only few years or less to live)

I though it's just a thing the studiens have to deal with, if I think in a real school like that, it would be harder than in the game. (Does someone who has only two years to live would feel closer to someone who has only one hand ? I can understand how someone like Hisao can still live normally, but I do not see how this is possible in such cases; it would certainly live so depressed until death...It would be almost bad to haves friendly or romantic relationships when you knows you will die soon...how it's sad, really.)

Rhodri wrote: Agreed, the mortality rate is probability higher than some students would like to admit. The few students that have to face up to the fact is the Newspaper Club, who write up the obituaries. Natsume and Naomi would get a massive headache in particular should Hisao go to the manly picnic.

Hot shit, I haven't even considered that I dare say, you've just given me a decent plot device in my more serious fanfic... cheers!

@Zarys
That's a good point! More suicide would probaby happen once the disabled kids are shoved into 'the real world', away from all the support of being amongst so many other dsabled people who they can identify with.
Plus, leaving school is a big pain in the arse to begin with

@brythain
I hadn't, no spooky ending

Munchenhausen wrote:
@Zarys
That's a good point! More suicide would probaby happen once the disabled kids are shoved into 'the real world', away from all the support of being amongst so many other dsabled people who they can identify with.
Plus, leaving school is a big pain in the arse to begin with

Yeah, I'm somewhat sure the social ostracism is generaly the worst thing with being disabled. (And it's even more in Japan, apparantly)

I doubt that the suicide rate is really all that high. Frankly, I think the vast majority of people just learn to Deal With It.

I think too but it's not like there are stats about it, in fact so it's difficult to know...
I still think that there is a risk because it's sometimes difficult for a disabled person to have a good professionnal status and many suffer from loneliness; two major causes of suicide.

Munchenhausen wrote:Peel away the sugar coating and looking at the reality of both teenage mentality and the difficulties of living with disabilities...

I imagine Yamaku's mortality rate is high, compared to most schools.
Suicide, disability-related accidents (falls, seizures, haemophiliac bleeding), and terminal illnesses... all add up to one thing.

There are a lot of deaths at Yamaku.
and in turn...

There are a lot of Ghosts at Yamaku.
inb4 "Ghosts don't Exist" just pretend they do okay (;

And that's why there's a paranormal research club in Yamaku (in my headcanon anyway)

My headcannon is that the few normal students with no disabilities that go to Yamaku experience the same sense of shunning, stigma, and exclusion that disabled students would receive in normal schools.

Eurobeatjester wrote:My headcannon is that the few normal students with no disabilities that go to Yamaku experience the same sense of shunning, stigma, and exclusion that disabled students would receive in normal schools.

So Misha is overcompensating?

brythain wrote:

Eurobeatjester wrote:My headcannon is that the few normal students with no disabilities that go to Yamaku experience the same sense of shunning, stigma, and exclusion that disabled students would receive in normal schools.

So Misha is overcompensating?

Misha would be a special case I think because she works so closely with Shizune. If the other students have issues with her it most likely stems from people's dislike of the overbearing student council or her general volume, and not resentment that she's "normal."

I hope to get into that idea a little bit in Learning To Fly.

As far as Misha goes, I think she's really struggling internally not so much because of that, but because she's trying very hard to deal with the fact she doesn't have much of an identity outside of Shizune. You see it in Shizune's route a lot and in some of the others. In fact, it can be argued that being rejected by Shizune caused her to become the person she is now, and not in a positive way. She reinvented herself as the person she wanted to be, without many cares or worries or doubts, but I don't think that identity is healthy because Shizune features as such a prominent part of it.

After graduation, I see Misha becoming a very different person, maybe more like her original self before coming to Yamaku.

Eurobeatjester wrote:As far as Misha goes, I think she's really struggling internally not so much because of that, but because she's trying very hard to deal with the fact she doesn't have much of an identity outside of Shizune. You see it in Shizune's route a lot and in some of the others. In fact, it can be argued that being rejected by Shizune caused her to become the person she is now, and not in a positive way. She reinvented herself as the person she wanted to be, without many cares or worries or doubts, but I don't think that identity is healthy because Shizune features as such a prominent part of it.

After graduation, I see Misha becoming a very different person, maybe more like her original self before coming to Yamaku.

I've observed sometimes the 'social chameleon' phenomenon in which some people actually have a rather flexible self-concept which adapts readily to their social surroundings. We tend to think that we have a fairly rigid core personality, especially if acculturated to think of individuality as a specific and laudable virtue. But this isn't the universal case. Misha's 'rigid' personality is actually her exoskeleton, so to speak — uncompromising good cheer. Her real core is relatively plastic, it responds adaptively to her environment; when the exterior slips, you see that she's equal parts self-determination (drastic hairstyle changes, for example) and confused determination (she is easily troubled, but also has a lot of will-power to proceed along some line of action), but normally oriented towards her relationships with others.

She might never have had a clearly-defined 'original self' at that age — most people actually don't have one until they're at least sixteen, and by twenty, it's mostly begun to form a core. Prior to sixteen, the core is extremely mutable in most cases. In a culture that is less individualistic, it takes longer to form a core unless the person is more isolationist, more introspective, more prone to separation from society.

However, I do agree with large parts of your analysis, especially in relation to Shizune. That's why I wrote Misha's arc the way I did. She does have a personality. She says she hasn't a life nor a story of her own, but by the end, we know she does. She just pretends she hasn't.

brythain wrote: I've observed sometimes the 'social chameleon' phenomenon in which some people actually have a rather flexible self-concept which adapts readily to their social surroundings. We tend to think that we have a fairly rigid core personality, especially if acculturated to think of individuality as a specific and laudable virtue.

I second both the notion that the type of person exists and that Misha is probably one of them. (I suppose that I am one of the more isolationist individuals, however.) I've always kind of wondered what type of person Misha was before Yamaku, but I'm kinda afraid to check bad end for information about that. I know she was a bit more mellow, and less pink, but that's about it.

It just seems to me that she came up with her personality in the game as a coping mechanism. You can see this in her as well when she cuts her hair. That's a pretty drastic image change.