Well I want to go ahead and finish up my review of Katawa Shoujo today since I spent exactly a month working on it here doing research and reading the story through all the chapter. Boy do I have a story to tell here.
KATAWA SHOUJO FINAL OVERVIEW
I have spent over one month playing a visual novel that came from the most unlikely place. Thinking it was just going to be a VN that would feed on the fetishes using disabilities as it's focus point like most Japanese VN tend to do. Boy, was I in for a surprise when I found out this VN wouldn't even be this, and instead be something different all together.
In the end what I played was a visual novel that would that told the story of a boy who suffered form a heart attack and wound up in a school for the disabled, and within that school he would meet 5 girls with a story their in which the one he chooses to hang out with, he would learn about them, their problem, their suffering and find a way to solve the problem all while developing a romantic relationship with them. This is about the visual novel by the name of Katawa Shoujo, a visual novel made by a volunteer group known as Four Leaf Studio.
How One Page from a Doujin gave form to what would be a Complete Visual Novel
Back around the year 2000, a doujin group known as RAITA use to mainly do doujin works long before they got involved in doing work for Valkyria Chronicles. In one of their doujins, they drew up a seires of pictures that featured 5 girls with unique disabilities for a visual novel idea they had in thier heads. They reffered to this concept as "Katawa Shoujo" in the concept piece they explained about how they envision each of the girls, and how their routes would play out.
Now let's march 7 years down the road...
In the year 2007 on January 5th in one of the most unlikely boards you'd expect, would come across this page from the book and post it on their anime imageboard.... that board was 4chan. When the image was posted there, it caught wind very quickly and grab the interest of the anonymous users who became interested in the idea of seeing a visual novel that focused on disabled girls. Ideas would be tossed about all over the board and eventually the picture was stickied to keep it in place so that the group could continue thier discussion. Eventually a few of the anonymous people decided to start work on developing the game concepts on another board and began to pass the ideas around for a while as they tried to come up with a story and how to apply these girls to it.
Eventually around later that year, this group would release an early concept demo know as the "Gird 1 demo" to show thier progress with the project. It caught some with interest and eventually word began to spread about the project across the internet in certain area. Just so happens those few places that it spread to ended up getting the right people to join in and form a year later under the name of a studio known as "Four Leaf Studio" or 4LS which was a reference to the place of origin 4chan.
Eventually the main story began to form, artist would leave, and news ones would stand in their place. eventually by around late 2008 the internet would get it's first taste of what was the initial layout for what would be Katawa Shoujo. It was here, where the team released the demo of Act 1 to Katawa Shoujo. Where we finally would get a glimpse into the progress the team worked on for the time being. Yes it was far from done, but it gave the internet an idea of what they were doing.
With each passing year the dev team would shift between members that would come and go, the project being put on hold, the idea being scrapped, even rewritten. Art designs would change with time, character designs would be altered. And even though people wanted to fund 4LS's Dev team, they refused any form of donation, insisting that they should give it to charity instead. The devs would even throw jokes around the net during April Fools to tease the fanbase. But non the less, each year a demo would come out of act 1 and changes would be made.... what would ultimately come from it would arrive after 5 demos later on the faithful day of January 5th, 2012.
The day Katawa Shoujo was released to the whole internet...for free.
The Story of a Boy who's Life Changed with a Heart Attack
The story of Katawa Shoujo introduces us to a boy named Hisao Nakai. A senior high school student who lived an ordinary life until he recived a letter form a secret admirer that asked him to meet her outside near a forest by the school. It would come to his surprise when this girl who had a crush on him turned out to be Iwanako, a girl Hisao knew from his high school. And when she asked to go out on a date with him....it was then when it happened. He suffered a heart attack that put him in a hospital.
It there where he finds out that he suffers form Arrhythmia, a heart condition that cause his heart to beat abnormally and risks him of having a heart attack that could kill him if he doesn't take care of himself. The doctor would eventually convince his parents to arrange for him to attend a school for the disabled known as Yamaku High. At first he wasn't sure what to make of it, but evnetually when he started to attend the school, his life would change drasticly once he meets up with 5 girls that would change his view on life.
Shizune, a deaf mute girl with a serious determined personality who was the president of the student council along with Misha who was Shizune's translator.
Hanako, who suffered burns along the right side of her body and is very timid and frightened of people.
Lilly, a blind girl with a very classy demeanor, who enjoys drinking tea on her brakes.
Emi, an enthusiastic prosthetic legged athlete who is a part of the track team.
And finally Rin, a strange girl with no arms, who has the passion to paint and drew using her feet.
It's from here the reader helps decides Hisao's path as he decides which girl he will get familar with and eventually develop a bond with that will lead to a relationship and hopfully a happy ending, or if the wrong choices are taken a bad ending could result from it.
Katawa Shoujo's major point is it's storyline, and while I've only touched the basic of the main beginning of the story, I want to explain some more about some of the ideas behind production of the story. As you play through Hisao's story and get connected with one of the girls, you eventually get to become familar with them, thier personailty, thier life at Yamaku High and over time, the problems they face. Most would think that thier disabilty would be a hinderance, but to be honest, the never seems to be much about a that as it is more about a problem that comes from more within the girls that they either keep secret, or just simply have trouble overcoming.
It's also important to note that from looking around on the net following KS's release, one thing I noticed is that each character is built around a specific preference for the player. It seems that while many out there tend to favor Lilly and Hanako. There are some out there who even favor less noticable ones llike Shizune's and even Emi's. When I rated each story I mainly did it under my personal impression from what I experienced as I read through the story. Thus probably why I favor characters like Lilly and Hanako so much. And yet I notices how some seem to favor Shizune's more subliminal, competitive, approach. While I never caught on to Shizune's route, I can agree after I was explained a bit about the route through thier eyes, that it has it's own special purpose too. Course I probably don't see it as clearly.
So the best way I can put it is that, the story pretty much can hook into Hisao's life, and as you go through each of the girl's routes, you'll find at least one girl you'll probably like out of the bunch and probably one your going to end up not favoring as much, but whatever the case may be, you'll still find something special within each of the girls stories you play.
It's also very important to note that each girl's route was written by a different person, thus leading to some interesting concept, though it's somewhat inconsistant (especially for Hisao's character) it's tolerable when you consider how much the devs devoted into this for free.
And if you go through each route, you bound to either by the end be weeping in tear or at very least relooking at how you look at yourself in life and perhaps even reconsider your actions...
Working for Free has it's price, but it pays off
When you think back to how the devs work on this, you have to wonder why they didn't consider any payment. It of been a motivator for them, and yet they insisted that everyone should give to charity instead. I assume it was to help keep from causing misdirection and complications in due time.
Sure there's was many cases where they wrote about the mishaps they had planning thier stories, but how did it turn out in the end?
Well looking through the music, the art and the story, you can be quite surprised how well people can cooperate in putting together a project that they did entirely free. There may be inconsistency among the storyline and the art, but it can be looked over simply because they kinda needed the extra man power to push the project through. It kinda surprises me how the dev team consisted of people from around the world too. The US, Australia, the UK, and even an animator form Malaysia, and also they considered of people of various ages as well with the youngest starting at 14 (she's 18 now) and the oldest being around 30 something.
These are just small examples of a few members that made up the multinational group of 4LS. And even through their hard work, they manage to deliver with a nicely defined story, beliveavle characters, wonderful art, and music that flows nicely with each route according to the events as they play out. Overall, they did a good job considering as I mention before...they did this entirely free.
A Staple for Future Visual Novels and an Insperation for Readers
If there's one thing I learned about Katawa Shoujo is that it is very well executed for a visual novel. In fact the best way to really define it is a "Lite Visual Novel". As unlike most Japanese based VNs, this isn't very over the top heavy or puts too much graphical stuff within the H- scenes. It keeps it as a minimual point that's just enough to satify the reader seeking it, even by the end, what reader will end up falling for is the character's and thier stories. It's very rare thing to see a visual novel of this type. In fact I don't recall anything like this that can actually match to Katawa Shoujo. The only VN that does drama very close to KS's level, but with more H-scenes built into it would have to be from "A Drug that Makes You Dream". But even then, the variation between those two novels are as different as Night and day. Which is why I feel KS kinds stands out as a unique novels that is different from the rest.
In the after math of the release, there has been a rise in imsperation coming from various artist out there. Some wanting to start thier own VN. I know some visual novels do exsist out there like KS that were made outside of Japan, but never actually stood out or made an impact like this one has. Mainly because of how it got started.
But now that KS has made history that it'll be reconized as one of the first "good" VN's made internationally, it probably now serve as a staple for future visual novels to use as a guide to help make thier stories match up at least to it's level, if not better. But only time will tell when this will unfold. There's already VNs in the work on cooking and even mental disabilities. If they can be executed and well planned like Katawa Shoujo then I'm certain into them as well.
Also on a final note, the one thing can explain about KS is that upon finishing the stories, I can't help but feel that the novel left me to realize that I need to probably look a bit into my life and the direction I'm going. I have already considered the idea of excersing, finding a better way to understand and express myself and perhaps even find a girl I want in my life. Course like everything else, only time will tell if this will hold true. But when I look around the internet these days at those who play Katawa Shoujo, other have considered the same idea as well. So if anything I can see that this may have also been built as a novel to not only be an good read, but impersional in the process!
FINAL RATING FOR KATAWA SHOUJO
Story: 9 Each of KS's routes have something special to them that makes them special in a way that will capture the hearts of many, even perhaps look into themsevles to find answers about thier life. Rarely do novels do this these days. But somehow KS manages to pull this off very well. The only oddity it suffer from is the inconsistancy coming from the characters at time, but can be forgiven by the fact that the routes were written by different people.
Music: 10 The music within the game is powerful and captivating. Each chatacter can be associated with thier own specific theme song and the songs all play at very well timed moments. Which ads more favor into the story whether it be from comedy, drama and so forth. It's nice to see how these songs improved over the years as well.
Art: 9 While inconsistant due to the fact multipule artist worked on different things in the stories, it doesn't however be inconsistant to the point not look too out of place in most places. Thankfully the art direction works well enough to keep the character to appear in place and make them all fit in with the story. It even help convey the story real well epsecially during cutscenes. Also special props for hiring an animator to work one year on animation for all 5 girls + the opening.
Originality:9 The idea about doing a story about a high school that focuses on students with pyshical disabilties along with 5 girls who disabilities stand out really strong makes for a very interesting format. Even though it started form a Japanese group's orginal idea, it took fans to make it a reality and they manage to pull it off well without making it seem like that the disabilites are the problem here. But instead the problem is more or less personal conflict with issues that come into thier lives. Truely a nice and powerful concept.
Replay Value:9 I'm pretty certain one of two things are bound to happen when you play it. Your either going to play through all the routes like I did, or your going to play through one girl's route that you loved over and over again. Because you found something important in that route that may make you think about yourself. To think that this game was designed in a way that it works on you like this is something truely. It takes alot of thinking to make character fit your taste perference. Which is why I think that your bound to replay this in one way or another.
OVERALL SCORE: 9.2 / 10
Welp, that wraps up my review of this game. Like I said, I like to look into games with detail and to be honest I wasn't going to consider doing a final overview. But if you haven't noticed... Ruka has recently took interest in my reviews and has been posting them in his blog so I couldn't resist doing the rest. I thought it would at least give something for everyone to look over since I have a tendecy to express my thoughts since I love going into detail about these kinds of things.
But yeah, I guess from here on out I'll just talk about stuff from here on out if a question grabs my interest.
