Katawa Shoujo Forums

KS is probably one of the best visual novel I have ever read and probably even the best story I laid my eyes on. I have so many good feelings after completing a couple of paths and I would like to share and learn about other people's impressions, feelings and influence.

When I was downloading the game I wasn't really that excited about it. Knowing about my interest in reading, I knew that after about five minutes of playing I would definitely stop from boredom and forget about this VN forever. Also it was a dating simulator about disabled girls which I thought was quite weird and didn't understand what was the big deal all about as KS was mentioned in many blogs and websites. Being the adventurous type I am, I decided to try the game and see for myself what the hype is all about.

Afterwards my life has probably changed for the better. After what I was thought was a dumb, uninteresting visual novel turned into a story that touched my heart. Even though I've only completed Lilly's and Shizune's path which is about 40% of the novel I knew that there were still a few more characters to explore. I had a roller coaster of emotions when I was playing Lilly's route especially during the final moments when Lilly had to leave Hisao forever and that he lost his chances of seeing her ever again when he had his heart attack at the airport.

The writing in KS was so strong that connected me with other characters. My most favourite character is Misha as she was such an energetic and bubbly type of person, and also her drills I can't stop thinking about her and Shizune as how cool they are ( not in any means an erotic way).

Now I respect disabled people a lot more and learned know that I'm pretty lucky and should be happy that I live a more fortunate live than people with disabilities.


How did you guys feel before and after reading KS?

Did you feel any strong connections with specific characters?

What had made you download KS?

Did this visual novel change you in good or bad ways?

I downloaded the game on piratebay maybe a week~ ago, give or take a day. Didn't even know what VN meant, just thought oh a dating sim..I played those on newgrounds like 5 years ago, okay. Thought the story was weird and the characters would be creepy but I was bored. Played through Emi's route (My only full completition, and ofc my favorite character.) The same night I finished Emi's, I called up my friend and convinced him to start running with me at 7am everyday (I was in cross country and track in high school 2 years ago..So Emi clicked with me). Got me motivated to start running again, and gave me a whole new outlook on disabilities as a whole. Also, I got "the feels" from Emi, so I'd say yes, for the better. I did play part of lilly's story, but I still prefer Emi, I just connected with her so much more thanks to running in high school, shes inspirational.

Before I started playing I was like "meh a dating sim" my friend told me about it. I was skeptical as I'm not all about hentai this and that.

When I started reading though, I found it to be quite the opposite of what I thought it was going to be. I found myself absolutely immersed in the story, and couldn't stop reading it. I felt very drawn to Lilly, as I share a similar disability, though mine is only in any darkness. I am night blind myself, and it's virtually impossible for me to be able to see anything in dark. I've never seen stars in the sky. When it described her movements, I was taken aback at realizing that that is just how I am, only in any low light. After finishing, and getting what I believe was the good ending, of Lilly's storyline, I was in tears, I found it to be amazing. The scenes of an erotic nature, I found were made in a very tasteful and mature manner, which I was quite pleased with. Since then I've gone through Rin, Hanako, and Emi, and will be starting Shinzuke very shortly. I've only started 3 days ago, and I can't stop myself from continuing. It is an amazing read, and all the characters are exceptionally defined in their own personalities. I very much enjoy it, and it has changed my outlook on quite a few things.

I have also just started running now after completing Emi's route earlier today. I got motivated so much throughout the story for many different reasons. I have a whole new perspective on disabilities, before I just looked at disabled people and never give a second thought. I respect them much more after completed a few routes.

I agree on the fact that the erotic scenes are mature mannered and that it isn't like other VN which rubs the hentai scenes in your face and makes it a selling point. So far I completed the routes of Lilly, Shizune, Emi and Rin respectively. Definitely looking forward to Hanako's and Kenji's as they are all well written and made really emotional ( mostly in a good way).

After walking through Remember11 I was restless, so an old friend of mine finally had mercy with me and recommended me Katawa Shoujo (he is not into the whole visual novel thing, but he saw that it has got a lot of seeders on the pirate bay). Well, I downloaded and installed it, liked the twisted beginning fair enough, stumbled a bit through the first "days", thinking "oh no, snow sakura with crippled girls", but then it kind of catched me to an emotional rollercoaster. Not the first VN giving me "the feels", and probably not the last. But the others were just emotional porn, Katawa Shoujo was more in the "oh crap, what a failure at life I am" league.

I was a broken man after the first playthrough.

The second one gave me the resolve to finally do something about it, and I actually do something - not without setbacks, sure, but still some progress was made. And I don't intend to stop.

Got to hear about KS when it was still in development - someone made a secret in LJ's fandomsecrets about how all fans of KS were "sick fucks". I got curious. The characters looked cute and I always wanted to give visual novels a shot, and it sounded harmless enough - as this was free I waited for the full release and torrented it then.

I liked Shizune and could probably relate to her the most out of all the girls. That being said I didn't get the "feels" or a huge moment of inspiration to go and change my lifestyle for any of the girls - I don't think I've ever had that feeling from fiction. Katawa Shoujo was brilliant and very well-written, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day to me it was only a fictional story and Hisao was only ever himself, never "me". The characters and their situations were realistic enough, but at the end of the day I knew that they were just a creation of good writing and a collection of drawings. I don't have Hanako or Emi suddenly living in my head, I don't cry at night or go without sleep because I can't stop thinking about Rin, I don't feel massive urges to go out and find a girl just like Shizune to date or someone like Lilly to "mother" me (nor would I actually prefer any of them over my own partner if they were real people ... in fact I was a little disturbed when I read this from other fans, as well as people changing their lives "for" these fictional girls). Maybe it's because I'm fairly content with my life the way it is, maybe I'm just an unfeeling tosspot, maybe VNs don't just evoke that much emotion in me. If other fans did get something from it, good for them, but it hasn't seemed to touch me in the way it has done for others.

From my experiences of the Demo I was quite excited to finally play this game. But there was another reason too. 4LS also made the game "the answer", which nails down what Visual Novels are all about and how they are made. [http://katawa-shoujo.com/the_answer/]

Since this "guide" made me see Visual Novels in a complete different light than before, I was curious to see what kind of Visual Novel this Studio will produce in the end. The theme disabilities is also extremely interesting in my perspective and so I kept on looking forward to the games release.

When I finally played KS, I couldn't help myself but be completely enchanted by it. And it didn't take long for me to decide that I want to review this game. So my days were something like this. 1.Play a route till 5 A.M 2. Write everything down about this particular route I think was important 3: One day later, start with the next route. And so on.

So how did I feel after everything was completed? Hm, multiple things: sad, happy, excited, enlightened, moved and still in some kind of trance. What did I learn? Oh, I think a lot. I seriously thought about disabilities itself and I think I can see disabeled people a bit different than before, meaning accepting them like everybody else, though not that's wrong I accepted them before but I had no clue how someone could life like that, now I think I have better understanding of that. Not completely mind you, but at least way better than before. There are much more things KS showed us but I'll keep it short for now. This game also made me get into contact with an old friend of mine, so that's pretty cool.

Overall I'm extremely happy to have played Katawa Shoujo.

Edit: Characters I could realate to? Well. A bit to Hisao and his awkward behaviour towards these "new" people. Quite a bit to Lily, because she has several traits that I not only share but value.

Edit 2: Whoops! I accidently clicked on "quote" and not on "Edit", sorry.

Impressions before the game? "Oh Christ a VN... Well maybe I'll humor it and see what all the fuss is about, I am pretty bored right now."

Impressions after completing a character's route:

Yeah it is true "Ace", this just makes me think more about not judging things until we have played or experienced it.

Basically this

I was pretty much going in with incredibly low expectations. I'd actually not heard about this before, and only found out about KS because of The Escapist. Mostly I checked it out to see whether or not any sort of class and care would be put into this, or if it was just a fetishist's dating sim.

Surprisingly, I found myself in a visual novel, which at first ended up putting me off a little, since I didn't expect such low interactivity. I liked it once I got used to it, but with Emi as my first story path I didn't feel a supreme amount of engagement. Maybe a personal thing, since I've been around way too many women with the "I'm going to pretend I have no problems and push away anyone who says otherwise" mentality. But once I got to the other girls, I was as immersed as I would be with a good book. All the laughter and sadness that everyone here knows about happened in spades, and I had to nag everyone I knew with recommendations and clarifications about the misconceptions I had at first glance.

Having just finished my last path, Rin's, I'm left with a happiness that I got to experience the story, and yet a sadness that I don't experience anything like this in my life. Who knows, maybe it'll help motivate me to change things like it has for others, but unfortunately I'm not one to jump into that.

Yellow 13 wrote:Basically this

Question, is the one on the left a Wallpaper or is that the early Beta Menu? I kinda like it more than the released menu.

EDIT:
To answer the TC. Before I expected a random Date Sim like I use to play on NG. I've heard of this game a couple months back through Kotaku, never really looked into it until I found out the full release was out.

The game took me on a nice emotional roller coaster which helped me reflect more about myself and past relationships.

Emi motivated my workouts more. Other than nothing drastic. I already drank coffee and tea on a regular basis.

FissionXMailed wrote:

Yellow 13 wrote:Basically this

Question, is the one on the left a Wallpaper or is that the early Beta Menu? I kinda like it more than the released menu.

I don't know, i just got the image from 4chan, sorry

FissionXMailed wrote:

Yellow 13 wrote:Basically this

Question, is the one on the left a Wallpaper or is that the early Beta Menu? I kinda like it more than the released menu.

It's probably the main menu, judging by the fact that the left-hand portion is cut off, which is where the menu options would be located.