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Why do you have a such a personal emotional investment in KS ??

I was thinking about this when reading the responses to my " why the hate for Shizune " topic , the " why are misha thighs fat " topic and the response to that hanako pic ... it's insane how we respond to anything negitive to any of our favorite aspects of KS ... It can't be good for our mental , emotional and maybe even physical health to get worked up over just a VN

So what personal reasons do you have for the attachment to KS ??

For myself its started out as just an escape ( even if its for an hour or so ) from real life ... but then idk why it almost seemed like i see myself in Shizune a little bit ... so of course ppl who didn't like shizune i had to take it a little personal ... and idk how many time i had to say " jez ... get a grip ... its just a VN "

Dude, it's fiction. Anything that happens in fiction is ALWAYS better than real life (that's why RL can get boring sometimes, but we have our means to lighten that up).

Me? I'm a feels addict now. I need to feel the 'feels' again, because somehow a month isn't complete without it. Another reason of my own attachment is how Shizune-Misha-Hisao's relationship kinda' reminded me of my own a few years ago--albeit with a not-so-happy-ending.

It's the escapism that fiction allows.

Playing KS we're all 17/18 year old males again, at a High School surrounded by cute girls.
In reality we're regular boring people (Some of us are significantly older then 18) and we see people who may not necessarily be presented at the their best on a daily basis.

Given the chance, I'd eternally be 17 or 18 years old and happily live the last year of High School over and over again like some twisted "Groundhog Day" Universe.
But that ain't gonna happen, for any of us, so we turn to fiction. In doing so we form opinions as to how 'our' fictional universes should be and best suit our personal preferences.
If we all agreed on the same best characters/routes/scenes it'd be boring and we may as well just live in the real world.

alien.marksman wrote:It's the escapism that fiction allows.

Playing KS we're all 17/18 year old males again, at a High School surrounded by cute girls.
In reality we're regular boring people (Some of us are significantly older then 18) and we see people who may not necessarily be presented at the their best on a daily basis.

Bingo. It's experiencing those thrills of early relationships again, and that gets inside your head, it brings what are perhaps long dormant memories and emotions back. For me, the second half of Emi's route (when you officially start going out) did this, all the awkwardness, silly dates where the chosen activity is irrelevant, speculative physical contact and not wanting to part ways at the end of the day (to the tune of "Wouldn't it be nice" by the Beach Boys)

When I spend some days thinking about games, movies, books, their aspects, plot, charchters...I realize that they have had a great impact on me. And I've been thinking about Katawa Shoujo since I completed Emi's route (my first one).

Every game is better then real life haha. I did a research paper on why players get addicted to gaming, specifically online gaming. You guys might find this interesting:

They [games] also focus on Malcolm Gladwell’s expert analysis on how to have a successful life, and how to enjoy your job.

“Autonomy: You get a role you decide to do everyday. Even if you might not always decide exactly what you do, you can choose how to get it done.

Complexity: It must be intellectually stimulating challenge. As the book states, it should “engage both your mind and imagination”.

Connection Between Effort & Reward: The harder you work, the greater your income or recognition (at least eventually).”

Katawa Shoujo does all of these. It's why everyone loves video games, it fullfills what we want in life. It's not a bad thing to like a game more then life, just don't let it control your life.

Something I find myself emphasizing when I encounter emotional experiences like this in visual novels, games, and other similar media is the border between fiction and reality.

Do such situations in Katawa Shoujo always present themselves like that in real life? No, not really. Sometimes a seeming paradise is portrayed in some medias that you simply want to immerse yourself in, as an escape of sorts... Should you expect to find a girl like Lilly, Hanako, Shizune, Rin, or Emi? Not really. As it has been said, guys and girls aren't really at their best to be presented every single day, and it's still entirely possible you won't even find someone you'd be terribly attracted to. We're all different with our own little kinks, quirks, and eccentricities, that's what makes us human. But you shouldn't expect a human to fit such a fine mold, anyway.

But, in spite of all that... I just feel that things like Katawa Shoujo aren't really meant to exist as showing you something better than real life. Rather, it can be showing you what your life could become, in a way. Of course, you can't meet Lilly or Shizune, they're fictional. But can you meet a potentially nice girl, fall in love maybe, and feel all of the feels that happened within the story? Most definitely. Can you find a girl with a personality just as attractive? It's possible. Sometimes an eye-opener can make you a bit more attentive of some of those fleeting opportunities that might be all around you.

Maybe I'm being a little optimistic, here. These are my thoughts, anyway. Instead of focusing on why a fictional world can be better, think about how you could make your reality better by learning from it.

I'm the above guest is me by the way, I suppose the site logged me out without me noticing.

rydiafan wrote:Why do you have a such a personal emotional investment in KS ??

I was thinking about this when reading the responses to my " why the hate for Shizune " topic , the " why are misha thighs fat " topic and the response to that hanako pic ... it's insane how we respond to anything negitive to any of our favorite aspects of KS ... It can't be good for our mental , emotional and maybe even physical health to get worked up over just a VN

So what personal reasons do you have for the attachment to KS ??

For myself its started out as just an escape ( even if its for an hour or so ) from real life ... but then idk why it almost seemed like i see myself in Shizune a little bit ... so of course ppl who didn't like shizune i had to take it a little personal ... and idk how many time i had to say " jez ... get a grip ... its just a VN "

Sir, you are a man after my own heart and you're a man full of logic.

Yeah, I love KS and I think it's a great VN but I ain't gonna treat it like it's a god or some shit. I'm also ain't gonna get buttmad when somebody say "KS is a shitty game" because I got more imporrant things to worry than that.

Another thing I'm slowly getting angry towards the fandom is people gettin' mad over joke fanart and fanart that basically dark (like this one fanart of Hanako gettin' gang raped by Mutou, Jigoro, Kenji, and Rin's teacher or the artwork of her killing herself.). It's just fiction and it's not real.

All in all, it's fiction. Nothing more, nothing less. Stop getting worked up over it.

EDIT:
I'm gonna put this out right here right now - Even if your Katawa ShoujoWaifu was real, she would think you are a creep and hang out with all the popular girls...including Hanako.

Creep and proud of it, then ----->

Mr. Wang wrote: But, in spite of all that... I just feel that things like Katawa Shoujo aren't really meant to exist as showing you something better than real life. Rather, it can be showing you what your life could become, in a way. Of course, you can't meet Lilly or Shizune, they're fictional. But can you meet a potentially nice girl, fall in love maybe, and feel all of the feels that happened within the story? Most definitely. Can you find a girl with a personality just as attractive? It's possible. Sometimes an eye-opener can make you a bit more attentive of some of those fleeting opportunities that might be all around you.

I'm going to second this. Even if it is just a game, which I must insist it is, there's nothing wrong with being inspired by such a thing and to believe that it reflects life somewhat. It's certainly possible to meet people like this and to fall in love with them.

How should I put this... I've observed and interacted with humans long enough to know that the Katawa Shoujo characters are realistic.

It's fiction, that's why it's so much better.

And because you only see the neccesary things of the story in it, in real life, there are many other things. Like having to work/school every day. Wich makes real life 'worser?'

metalangel wrote:

alien.marksman wrote:It's the escapism that fiction allows.

Playing KS we're all 17/18 year old males again, at a High School surrounded by cute girls.
In reality we're regular boring people (Some of us are significantly older then 18) and we see people who may not necessarily be presented at the their best on a daily basis.

Bingo. It's experiencing those thrills of early relationships again, and that gets inside your head, it brings what are perhaps long dormant memories and emotions back. For me, the second half of Emi's route (when you officially start going out) did this, all the awkwardness, silly dates where the chosen activity is irrelevant, speculative physical contact and not wanting to part ways at the end of the day (to the tune of "Wouldn't it be nice" by the Beach Boys)

Agreed. Some of my most vivid "feels" were during the heyday of my first dating experiences around age 17-19. KS definitely brought some of those old warm and fuzzies to the surface.

One of the reasons I got a bit emotionally invested in the story is because Rin's path reminded me a lot of my current relationship. Some of the major plot points that caused a great deal of tension was almost a carbon copy of the tensions we went through. It's not easy dating someone who is that emotionally aloof. And who randomly just doesn't want to see me for weeks or months. With no explanation. Or at least, no consistent explanation. I have a very hard time understanding her. And even when she tries to explain herself, I have difficulty understanding it. And she often admits to me she has a hard time explaining things. All these qualities I saw in Rin. It's been over 5 years now. And it doesn't get easier. But at the same time, I can't bring myself to leave her.

That being said, I'm not going overboard in my emotional investment in this game. The reaction to the shimmie art of Hanako hanging herself was absurd. It's a fictional character. And that was a piece of art. Art is meant to elicit emotions, and therefore it was successful. It was not in bad taste, because Hanako isn't real. If they depicted a real person hanging herself, then that would be in bad taste. But in the realm of fiction, everything is fair game.

Back when I first finished KS, I was pretty depressed, because I realized that real life would never be this good. Beautiful blondes with exquisite manners, cute shy girls that like chess and reading, etc. Not only are these girls archetypes of theoretical perfection, but in the game, I have a chance with each and every one of them.

Yamuka itself is a bit of a metaphor for all this. It's a special school, on a mountain, far away from reality, where everything is perfect. For some, it's used to relive happy high school memories, and for others, it's for reliving the fun highschool experience they never had. Either way, it takes us, for a moment, to a place where everything is good again, and I think that's why we play games, watch movies, and read books in the first place. Reality sucks.