Discussion - Emi Route (*Spoilers* Warning)

[MemoriesofYou]

So, I saw that we didn't have a thread for Emi's route, while we had them all for the others. As a personal Emi fan, I felt obligated to make it. Basically, just like the title says, this is a discussion thread about how people felt about the adventure.

I was personally shocked byHOW FREAKING EASY (sexually) SHE IS AT THE START. I mean, she almost just pounces on him, and she discusses sex so casually. Not to mention that she swears more than all the other heroines combined.. While this obviously is explained later on, I felt a little shaken by the revelation that my "sweet, innocent" Emi really has so many problems that are actually incredibly depressing and realistic, such as the PTSD and other psychological issues. In the end, I actually loved her more, so it is a kudos to the team for making it so heartwrenching in the middle. She was a very well-developed character and while obviously there were moments of disappointment, they fit in well in the end and were easily overshadowed by the many amazing scenes.

[Ahlvister]

I loved the banter and teasing between Emi and Hisao. Playing the other paths makes me miss the Emi route because that teasing isn't there.

Although her PTSD was a shocking revelation and there are so many feelings

[flanch]

You'd imagine she would have it though. But i love the graveyard scene.

[JellyWeasel]

Just got what I believe to be the good ending tonight. It was one of those moments in a game/movie/book where I was sad that it was over because I didn't want it to end. Parts of it almost made me cry or something. It was really well written.
The route was actually quite depressing for me, aside from the obvious reasons. The relationship was disturbingly similar to the first and only one I'd ever had, minus the whole dead dad PTSD thing. Which is probably why I went for Emi first, since I would date someone like her in real life.
Hisao was really stupid in this route though. It was pretty obvious what happened the very first time she mentioned her dad, and even more after her mother said something along the lines of "He's no longer with us..." Not to mention that she was in a freaking car accident and he kept asking "What else did she lose?" I almost feel like this isn't worth putting in spoilers because it's so obvious.

[Snicket]

I don't remember her having such a fowl mouth, when i first played the demo. Then again that was a few years ago and the game has gotten more 'mature' since then. (and no i'm not saying that because the game now has ero in it now.) It seems the other characters were 'developed' as well. Though i don't know how much, since I've only just now finished the Emi route and got the good end. Kinda figured that whole cheery attitude was bit of a farce , but i didn't think it was a complete one...if that makes sense Still it was a good route and an interesting one to boot. (No pun intended.)

Most amusing scene: I've got to use you're window!

Gonna do this in same order as i did in the demo, which means Lilly is up next.

[Palas]

Now I fucking cried while playing this.

I found astonishing just how well-developed she was. You can figure a whole personality out of her and be able to actually handle all the pressure and all. When her fears and pain were thrown at your face like knives, I really did cry. No manly tears here. I cried because I was indeed emotionally involved with her story and all. On top of that, I found most dialogues intriguing and well-written.

But indeed, Hisao is really stupid here. First of all, it seems to me that you can't possibly get her bad ending unless you are terribly stupid and tactless, namely going yandere for her. Second of all, any player would have everything fugired out by the time Hisao is struggling to find out about all the shit, and he really had me yelling "Stop talking, Hisao. Shut the fuck u- No, really. Just. Stop. Talking. Oh my I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT YOU STUPID FUCK," mentally.

Otherwise, brilliant done. Emi should definetely be poplar now. Her path is amazing, heartwrenching, heartwarming and well-written. All at the very same time.

(Yeah there's the sex issue. She suggests anal after like two days of real intimacy, I mean, the fuck is happening. It really happened all too fast, but if that meant more room for character development in later acts, I couldn't care less)

[Rivinhal]

Now I fucking cried while playing this.

I found astonishing just how well-developed she was. You can figure a whole personality out of her and be able to actually handle all the pressure and all. When her fears and pain were thrown at your face like knives, I really did cry. No manly tears here. I cried because I was indeed emotionally involved with her story and all. On top of that, I found most dialogues intriguing and well-written.

But indeed, Hisao is really stupid here. First of all, it seems to me that you can't possibly get her bad ending unless you are terribly stupid and tactless, namely going yandere for her. Second of all, any player would have everything fugired out by the time Hisao is struggling to find out about all the shit, and he really had me yelling "Stop talking, Hisao. Shut the fuck u- No, really. Just. Stop. Talking. Oh my I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT YOU STUPID FUCK," mentally.

Otherwise, brilliant done. Emi should definetely be poplar now. Her path is amazing, heartwrenching, heartwarming and well-written. All at the very same time.

(Yeah there's the sex issue. She suggests anal after like two days of real intimacy, I mean, the fuck is happening. It really happened all too fast, but if that meant more room for character development in later acts, I couldn't care less)

Yeah, I liked her path. Pretty heartwrenching. Possibly my favorite, but I hold judgement until i've completed them all lol. And about your spoilers, I agree, (and this applies to both of them) but there are definately people like that out there.. So in my eyes it makes it even more realistic.. Man i'm loving this game.. it just tugs on my heartstrings like crazy haha..

[Yuno]

I was really interested in her story. Her whole nature seemed very cool, and I loved the exercise and racing scenes. She seemed like such a fun loving character and I was genuinely interested. However, there's a problem.

There's a definite act of conflicting writing going on, which makes me think two very different people wrote the scenes for her. This is pure speculation, but
Writer 1 vouched for the very innocent, cute, and broken parts of her.
Writer 2 vouched for the playfully lustful and nymphet-like side of her, and Writer 1 tried to backpedal the story out of it.

It seems, to me, like the perception of her character was trying to be too many things. Was she supposed to be the innocent, broken girl that kept everything bottled up, who used her sports to deal with her loss? Or was she supposed to be the lolita-like, playful, young nymphet girl?
Examples of this contrast are clear. Examples:
1: The first sex scene was very innocent in general, and very sweet. She seems to almost be exploring the notion of sex innocently. Then we find out she's already prepared with condoms in her nightstand. Keep this in mind this while reading #3

2: The second sex scene was very forceful, especially when we find out she's been chatting up the head of the team about sex. It seems like they tried hard to uphold her innocence here, saying the head of the team was gay, but the implication was made and then discarded so out-of-place that I can't help but think Emi was lying to Hisao about it. This probably wasn't the writers' intention but it seemed like it.

3: The writers reveal more of her backstory, and then backpedal. Her "virgin parts" were lost in the car crash, and she had one long-term boyfriend before Hisao, and that Hisao was her first time. This would've been believable, save for the fact that she readily had condoms and then asked Hisao for anal sex like, the second day they were seeing each other. Given the fact that she pounced on him so quickly, forcefully, and was ready for it, it just made this seem like she was lying about it.

It's a shame, really, because she was a really interesting character, and could have easily been my favorite out of everyone, but the schizophrenic writing makes her path my least favorite so far.

[FFIXMaster]

You know, for the last two and a half years--ever since I cleared the demo--I've planned on doing Rin's route first because her character was the most interesting to me, but as soon as I fired the game up and got to the first decision, I decided that I'd play Emi's first because it was the ending I got from the demo when I played it 'naturally', without any flowcharts or walkthroughs or anything...

I've gotta say, I very did not expect it to hit so close to home. She was supposed to be the cheery one, always smiling, always happy... She was not supposed to be the one that reminded me of my first relationship, the one who just kept pushing me away; my stomach was in knots for the whole middle of the path because I just couldn't get over it. At least Hisao ended up with her in the end, so it was a Good End... but I can't help but feel like their relationship is the kind that wouldn't work very well long-distance, like when they leave Yamaku and go off to college for example.

Second of all, any player would have everything fugired out by the time Hisao is struggling to find out about all the shit, and he really had me yelling "Stop talking, Hisao. Shut the fuck u- No, really. Just. Stop. Talking. Oh my I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT YOU STUPID FUCK," mentally.

Oh my god I was right there with you, it was ridiculous and I just wanted to hit Hisao.

(Yeah there's the sex issue. She suggests anal after like two days of real intimacy, I mean, the fuck is happening. It really happened all too fast, but if that meant more room for character development in later acts, I couldn't care less)

I'm right there with you on that one, too; I couldn't believe how big a slut she came off as being in the beginning of their relationship, but by the end I didn't really care because it felt like it fit her character and she was very well developed.

[Andere]

This path was excellent. From a mechanical perspective, it's a perfect example of a story arc, moving smoothly from conflict to conflict in order to flesh out and illustrate a conflict that's central to the story in general.

Hisao settles into running and his new life -> Hisao likes Emi and takes steps to start pursuing her -> They start going out -> (Lull period) -> Emi is showing signs of injury and hiding it -> Emi can't run for several weeks due to an infection caused by the above -> Emi is doing terribly in general and trying to hide it -> Emi has issues letting herself get close to people.

And that's the thing. That last part is The Conflict, and it drives literally everything one of the two characters does. She, in turn, pushes the rest of the plot. Everything up to the lull gets Hisao in a position to care about, be affected by, and affect The Conflict, and everything after it develops, reveals, and addresses The Conflict. Even before it's openly revealed, it's evident and present in her actions, and the smaller conflicts it creates serve to illustrate cogently how it is a problem. And her disability is incredibly relevant.

Everything is relevant! Everything pointless is trimmed away. Even the single plot thread that doesn't really seem relevant to the central plot, Hisao's newfound interest in science and desire to pursue it in college, eventually advances the current plot while it *also* serves to give the reader a sense of where the protagonist will be going after the plot.

(Well, I guess there is one pointless thing: The sidestory with the librarian and the stolen books isn't ever resolved. The attentive reader already knows that Kenji was the one stealing the books, though, so it doesn't really matter; it only ever occupies the stage for thirty seconds or so at a time, and they never dwell on it.)

And throughout, it uses those smaller conflicts to illustrate and flesh out the greater conflict while they also keep the reader invested in the story. It does a lot of showing, and when it tells, it tells in short bursts. Character growth happens, and character growth is always relevant, because the character growth is both the way to resolve the conflict and the way that the conflict is resolved.

And at the end, when the conflict is resolved, it moves smoothly into denouement and then stops. No more conflict, we know enough of how things move forward, ergo the plot is over. Roll credits.

This is how you tell a story. It's a textbook structure, and it's a textbook structure because it fucking works.

[Mirage_GSM]

I couldn't believe how big a slut she came off as being in the beginning of their relationship,...

So she's a slut, because she likes to have sex with her boyfriend? *shock*
I guess Kenji was right after all: Women are all sluts in the end...

[FFIXMaster]

So she's a slut, because she likes to have sex with her boyfriend? *shock*
I guess Kenji was right after all: Women are all sluts in the end...

No, she's a slut because it feels like the only reason she even asked Hisao to be her boyfriend was so they could fuck. She knew beforehand that she would not ever let him get close enough to her to form a real relationship (the fact that she ended up being wrong about that in the end is irrelevant), and she was only using him for sex.

[Worthington]

So she's a slut, because she likes to have sex with her boyfriend? *shock*
I guess Kenji was right after all: Women are all sluts in the end...

No, she's a slut because it feels like the only reason she even asked Hisao to be her boyfriend was so they could fuck. She knew beforehand that she would not ever let him get close enough to her to form a real relationship (the fact that she ended up being wrong about that in the end is irrelevant), and she was only using him for sex.

No, it's just a facet of her personality. She's both playful AND pensive. She had a crush on Hisao, she acted on it but in addition to that, she's a physical girl and had a physical attraction to Hisao and acted on that physical attraction. They're pretty much adults, they're allowed to do that. A lot of people have sex early on in the relationship and then gather more intimate feelings after that. The fact that she's worried about Hisao getting too close that he might get taken from her already proves that she considers Hisao important enough not to lose.

Also, am I the only one who finds it hilarious how people keep mentioning what a "popular girl" Emi is throughout the path?

[Hoof]

Fuck, Emi's story really got to me on a personal level. I've been through something very similar to her, and while reading this I realized I've been coping with everything exactly the same way she had for most of my life. I was bawling my eyes out over how much pain it was causing Hisao and thinking about how I've put so many people through the same thing. There were several moments where I had to pause the game to get a good cry in, and at one point I had to just turn everything off and go for a walk, I was so shaken up. It's probably stupid to feel so attached to a fictional character, but after her good end I feel like if she can get better, so can I.

And oh man, I probably won't be checking out the bad end. If I'm such a wuss over the story, I don't know what a sad ending would do to me :C

It really says a lot about the writer's skills that I had such an emotional response to this path. Absolutely amazing work, you should feel super proud of yourself. Thank you.

[fanty]

So I went for Emi first since she seemed to be just so fun and cheerful, so I thought it would a be a light-hearted path... yeah.

I agree with the people upthread who mentioned Hisao being an idiot in this route. It's no fun to see the main character trying to figure things out, when you figured out what was up at the first mention of Emi's dad.

Though I did like the fact that Emi was casual about sex. Teenagers are not particularly known for their prudishness and chastity.