People Think That Every Corpse Is Dead.
Looking into the Higurashi manga was such a great decision. Every arc has a new way for Keiichi to deteriorate from a normal, cheerful, energetic boy into a shaking, crying, guilt-ridden mess, and I can't get enough of it.
There's a point (read right to left) in the Cotton Drifting/Watanagashi arc where Keiichi is huddled up and crying, convinced he's to blame for the disappearance of two of his friends, terrified that Rena's going to disappear too, and Rena puts her arms around him, and he takes her wrist and presses it to his mouth, still crying, and it's so good. He's so vulnerable and it hits me straight in the heart.
I read the Abducted by Demons, Cotton Drifting and Curse Killing arcs, then skipped a couple and went straight for the Atonement/Tsumihoroboshi arc, because Tsumihoroboshi is easily my favourite instalment in the original visual novel series, and probably one of my favourite stories of all time. There's so much I love in it. It's painful and cathartic and perfect and gives me a lot of emotions about the power of friendship.
I was afraid for a moment the manga wouldn't include the part where Keiichi hugs Mion, and then they ended up holding each other for three pages. I'm so pleased.
On
batman's recommendation, where by 'recommendation' I mean 'assurance that it contained a lot of broken sobbing', I've started playing Chaos;Child. The first twenty minutes contained the worst scene I've ever read (not poor-quality, just horrifying) and I'm still upset about it. I don't think a work of fiction has ever made me so viscerally uncomfortable before.
I've been managing better with the rest of the game since then! I wouldn't say I'm invested yet, but it's holding my interest.
There are points throughout the game where the protagonist fantasises, and you get to choose whether the fantasies are positive or negative. The negative fantasies tend to involve over-the-top murder and the like. You don't need to daydream about that sort of thing, Taku; there's enough over-the-top murder in your actual life right now. There's one point where he goes 'hey, there's been a murder, let's SNEAK INTO THE CRIME SCENE AND FILM IT' and I was going 'TAKU, YOU'RE A TEENAGER IN THE SCHOOL'S NEWSPAPER CLUB, YOU DO NOT NEED TO EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ACTUAL HORRIFIC CRIME SCENES, JUST WRITE ABOUT CAFETERIA SHORTAGES OR SOMETHING.' But no. He broke into the crime scene. Astonishingly, he found the experience pretty traumatic. Should've listened to me, Taku!
The positive fantasies are, on the whole, extremely horny. I always go 'okay, how horny is the protagonist going to be this time?' when I start up a new visual novel, and in Taku's case the answer is 'very'.
I think the most puzzling 'positive' fantasy so far has been 'your childhood friend gets turned on by the drink you serve her and goes to wank in your bathroom'. It's not 'she gets turned on and you bang'. It's not even 'she gets turned on by you and goes to wank in your bathroom'. Even 'she wanks in your bathroom while thinking about someone other than you' would be a fantasy I could understand, but the fantasy we're presented with is literally just 'drinks an aphrodisiac, wanks in your bathroom'.
At some point I'm going to rank all the Japanese murder videogames I've played by how horny the protagonist is. Actually, I could do that right now. Roughly ordered from horniest to least horny, with the 'extremely horny' bracket reserved for characters where it's a bit too much and sort of bothered me:
Extremely horny: Takuru Miyashiro (Chaos;Child)
Kaname Date (AI: The Somnium Files)
Sigma Klim (Virtue's Last Reward)
Battler Ushiromiya (Umineko: When They Cry)
Keiichi Maebara (Higurashi: When They Cry). I deliberated over the ordering of the characters in the 'extremely horny' bracket, but Keiichi gets the lowest spot because he has so much honest respect for his female friends (while still, I can't deny, being extremely horny).
Moderately horny: Junpei (9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors)
Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3). I'm also going to count Kaede's 'assistant' character, Shuichi Saihara, in this bracket; I love him and his sexual issues and so he's getting an entry in this list regardless of protagonist status. Shuichi extremely needs to get fucked but is also very repressed, so he balances out to 'moderately horny'.
Slightly horny: Hajime Hinata (Danganronpa 2). The 'Man's Nut' optional scene complicates this a bit, but Hinata's behaviour in the scene it unlocks doesn't match his behaviour throughout the rest of the game, so I'm inclined not to consider it canon.
Makoto Naegi (Danganronpa)
Not particularly horny: Carlos (Zero Time Dilemma), who comes above Phoenix Wright on account of being desperately in love with both halves of a couple, even if he's refreshingly unpervy about it.
Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
This is a very important list and I'm glad I've fulfilled my duty of compiling it.
There's a point (read right to left) in the Cotton Drifting/Watanagashi arc where Keiichi is huddled up and crying, convinced he's to blame for the disappearance of two of his friends, terrified that Rena's going to disappear too, and Rena puts her arms around him, and he takes her wrist and presses it to his mouth, still crying, and it's so good. He's so vulnerable and it hits me straight in the heart.
I read the Abducted by Demons, Cotton Drifting and Curse Killing arcs, then skipped a couple and went straight for the Atonement/Tsumihoroboshi arc, because Tsumihoroboshi is easily my favourite instalment in the original visual novel series, and probably one of my favourite stories of all time. There's so much I love in it. It's painful and cathartic and perfect and gives me a lot of emotions about the power of friendship.
I was afraid for a moment the manga wouldn't include the part where Keiichi hugs Mion, and then they ended up holding each other for three pages. I'm so pleased.
On
batman's recommendation, where by 'recommendation' I mean 'assurance that it contained a lot of broken sobbing', I've started playing Chaos;Child. The first twenty minutes contained the worst scene I've ever read (not poor-quality, just horrifying) and I'm still upset about it. I don't think a work of fiction has ever made me so viscerally uncomfortable before.
I've been managing better with the rest of the game since then! I wouldn't say I'm invested yet, but it's holding my interest.
There are points throughout the game where the protagonist fantasises, and you get to choose whether the fantasies are positive or negative. The negative fantasies tend to involve over-the-top murder and the like. You don't need to daydream about that sort of thing, Taku; there's enough over-the-top murder in your actual life right now. There's one point where he goes 'hey, there's been a murder, let's SNEAK INTO THE CRIME SCENE AND FILM IT' and I was going 'TAKU, YOU'RE A TEENAGER IN THE SCHOOL'S NEWSPAPER CLUB, YOU DO NOT NEED TO EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ACTUAL HORRIFIC CRIME SCENES, JUST WRITE ABOUT CAFETERIA SHORTAGES OR SOMETHING.' But no. He broke into the crime scene. Astonishingly, he found the experience pretty traumatic. Should've listened to me, Taku!
The positive fantasies are, on the whole, extremely horny. I always go 'okay, how horny is the protagonist going to be this time?' when I start up a new visual novel, and in Taku's case the answer is 'very'.
I think the most puzzling 'positive' fantasy so far has been 'your childhood friend gets turned on by the drink you serve her and goes to wank in your bathroom'. It's not 'she gets turned on and you bang'. It's not even 'she gets turned on by you and goes to wank in your bathroom'. Even 'she wanks in your bathroom while thinking about someone other than you' would be a fantasy I could understand, but the fantasy we're presented with is literally just 'drinks an aphrodisiac, wanks in your bathroom'.
At some point I'm going to rank all the Japanese murder videogames I've played by how horny the protagonist is. Actually, I could do that right now. Roughly ordered from horniest to least horny, with the 'extremely horny' bracket reserved for characters where it's a bit too much and sort of bothered me:
Extremely horny: Takuru Miyashiro (Chaos;Child)
Kaname Date (AI: The Somnium Files)
Sigma Klim (Virtue's Last Reward)
Battler Ushiromiya (Umineko: When They Cry)
Keiichi Maebara (Higurashi: When They Cry). I deliberated over the ordering of the characters in the 'extremely horny' bracket, but Keiichi gets the lowest spot because he has so much honest respect for his female friends (while still, I can't deny, being extremely horny).
Moderately horny: Junpei (9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors)
Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3). I'm also going to count Kaede's 'assistant' character, Shuichi Saihara, in this bracket; I love him and his sexual issues and so he's getting an entry in this list regardless of protagonist status. Shuichi extremely needs to get fucked but is also very repressed, so he balances out to 'moderately horny'.
Slightly horny: Hajime Hinata (Danganronpa 2). The 'Man's Nut' optional scene complicates this a bit, but Hinata's behaviour in the scene it unlocks doesn't match his behaviour throughout the rest of the game, so I'm inclined not to consider it canon.
Makoto Naegi (Danganronpa)
Not particularly horny: Carlos (Zero Time Dilemma), who comes above Phoenix Wright on account of being desperately in love with both halves of a couple, even if he's refreshingly unpervy about it.
Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
This is a very important list and I'm glad I've fulfilled my duty of compiling it.