Katawa Shoujo Forums

Just being curious here.

We know Lilly went to an all girls catholic school where she was very popular.
We know Hanako was bullied, and picked on, and worse.

What do you think school was like for the others before Yamaku?

I lost my save date so I can't go back and check, but didn't Rin say something along the lines of "I could go to a normal school if I wanted,"? I'm wondering how exactly she would have done in a regular school. She isn't exactly one to make friends easily and she'd be a pretty easy target for bullies.

With Shizune, I get the feeling that this is the closest to a normal school she's been to. Prior to this, I suspect she was either homeschooled or went to some more exclusive private school.

Emi was probably alright. Still picked on for her height, probably, but nothing too bad. Just your average schooltime.

Shizune...I'd say home school but Jigoro isn't the type so maybe some exclusive place. I imagine it drove her mad either way, watching other lazier people screw things up.

Rin...Oh boy. Very easy target there. I can't imagine she'd have enjoyed it much. I could see her spending all her time in an art room no matter what school he was at though, leaving few opportunities for bullies to bother with her.

Oddball wrote: she'd be a pretty easy target for bullies.

This is Rin we're talking about there. It's doubtful that she'd even give two shits at any taunting/teasing.

Steinherz wrote:

Oddball wrote: she'd be a pretty easy target for bullies.

This is Rin we're talking about there. It's doubtful that she'd even give two shits at any taunting/teasing.

Rin would probably just take one look and ignore them. If you can't change it, why bother with it?

Rin's far from being an emotionless robot that doesn't care what anybody thinks and there's a lot worse that people can do than just saying bad things about her.

Steinherz wrote:

Oddball wrote: she'd be a pretty easy target for bullies.

This is Rin we're talking about there. It's doubtful that she'd even give two shits at any taunting/teasing.

Why is that? Rin is not a sociopath. She is both capable and involuntarily subject to giving a shit.

Xanatos wrote:

Steinherz wrote:

Oddball wrote: she'd be a pretty easy target for bullies.

This is Rin we're talking about there. It's doubtful that she'd even give two shits at any taunting/teasing.

Why is that? Rin is not a sociopath. She is both capable and involuntarily subject to giving a shit.

Oh she's capable of giving a shit she just doesn't or at least she doesn't show giving any shits to anyone she doesn't know.

MegaMoto wrote:

Xanatos wrote:

Steinherz wrote:This is Rin we're talking about there. It's doubtful that she'd even give two shits at any taunting/teasing.

Why is that? Rin is not a sociopath. She is both capable and involuntarily subject to giving a shit.

Oh she's capable of giving a shit she just doesn't or at least she doesn't show giving any shits to anyone she doesn't know.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I probably should have specified.

Oh she's capable of giving a shit she just doesn't or at least she doesn't show giving any shits to anyone she doesn't know.

I think the bolded part is key. Let's not forget Rin's extremely bad at expressing herself, so just because she doesn't show that she's affected by something doesn't mean she isn't.

Emi: Probably relatively normal though she was held back a year which is almost unheard of in Japan. I suspect she didn't form close bonds with her new classmates after her accident.

Shizune: While it's POSSIBLE Jigoro hired private tutors to homeschool her, homeschooling itself is extremely uncommon in Japan (and very much frowned upon) so it's not likely.

Rin: Given her personality, I wouldn't be surprised if Rin experienced about as much isolation as Hanako did.

Misha: There are several hints throughout Shizune's route that Misha's pre-Yamaku school years weren't particularly happy ones. It's not unlikely she was picked on as well.

Akira: Akira went to the same middle school that Lilly attended, but due to the age difference they never went to that school at the same time. Akira's middle school years weren't particularly happy either. She found the atmosphere suffocating and Lilly pretty much confirms she went through her school time there without making a single friend.

Every group of friends has the one guy that's just slightly off. I can see Kenji being that guy and having lots of friends before his paranoia went into overdrive and his vision really started to fail him.

That and his parents probably made him actually attend school.

Oddball wrote:Every group of friends has the one guy that's just slightly off. I can see Kenji being that guy and having lots of friends before his paranoia went into overdrive and his vision really started to fail him.

That and his parents probably made him actually attend school.

This comment makes me want to find a fanart/fiction of Kenji asking all his friends to build an anti feminist fort.

Heh, makes me wonder if Kenji was relatively normal until his first orgasm or if he was always a few cards short of a full deck.

Probably was wonky before that too, just moreso...subdued in expressing it. Him having sex was just the trigger for his paranoia. For something to be a trigger, it has to play off something that is already there beforehand. So yeah, it's safe to say Kenji always was paranoid since his early childhood. He just had less reason to express it, until of course stumbling upon the feminist conspiracy.

As for the girls other than Hanako or Lilly (who both adequately describe it, as was said):

Misha - I imagine that she had a fairly normal upbringing really, until she transferred over to Yamaku. Honestly, I got the feeling that out of all the girls she felt the most like 'a fish out of water', especially given how she described her first interactions with Shizune. So based on how she described her first months in Yamaku as confusing and strange, I'd say that, yeah, before that she was pretty normal, even if of course it wouldn't be until Shizune that she'd come across the part of herself that was somewhat less normal.

Shizune - Private school, maybe, but I definitely don't think she was homeschooled. In her bad ending, she specifically recalls in her younger years how she 'beat' another girl at a school geography project and it makes sense. For her competitiveness to flourish, it constantly needs to be tested and challenged with what she would percieve as worthy opponents and worthy challenges. You just don't get the former with home schooling and not enough of the latter either. So I'd say she wasn't that different before Yamaku really or if she was, she was just slowly building up to the way Hisao encounters her. Like with Kenji, she had always been that person, she only needed the right triggers to bring out that side of who she always was more and more into the foreground.

Emi - The year after the accident was no doubt unconventional, but given how her mother describes her as being resolved that her spirit survived the crash, I'm pretty sure that once she was on her new two legs she came back on track to acting, more or less, like a normal athletically-minded girl. Most of her peers got used to her, her cheerful veneer (that so effectively kept a barrier between herself and others) made certain that most teenagers would never really question, wether or not she was actually doing okay, and life went on for her. On the surface everything was fine...but deep inside of her, and without any of her peers ever being able to identify it the way Hisao may have and give her a different perspective on who she was and who she could be, the fear of loss and the resolve to not get close to anyone else hardened. Which, of course, translated in Yamaku into having many acquaintances, but only a handful of true friends.

Rin - Put it this way. Easy target, yes. And also, funnily enough, no. One of the main reasons, why bullies keep bullying, is because they feed off the reactions they cause. So someone like Hanako getting bullied would definitely be a more enticing target for them than someone like Rin. Because whereas Hanako could always be counted upon to react to being bullied, Rin almost never could. More likely the bullies would have a go at her a few times, but after she would fail to respond in a way that would be satisfactory to them multiple times...they'd probably just grow bored with her and find easier targets.

That doesn't mean, however, that I think Rin would be unaffected by it. Just that she wouldn't show it outwardly in a way that would encourage bullies to keep at it. So she'd drift further away from her peers, more and more into art and while with Hanako the disconnect between most people and her would be much more sensitive and visible, with Rin it'd be a slow and dull-felt, gradual process. Hurtful in either cases, but the way in which it would happen would be very different, especially considering that Hanako did not yet discover a clearly identifiable passion for herself to fill that void, whereas Rin did within art. Not to say that filling a social void with a non-social activity ever really works, though.