In both my recent review of Emi's route and my upcoming review of my fourth-favorite route, I mention at length how important the seemingly filler scenes are to Katawa Shoujo's success. I firmly believe that the reason the hard-hitting scenes in Katawa Shoujo are so effective is what I like to refer to as manipulation of enjoyment. This is a technique based around contrast. Contrast is a powerful tool in any writer's arsenal. On the sunlit field, between the blooming flowers and delightful little streams that whistled their little song whilst darting merrily on by, lay the rotting, limbless corpses of a hundred men, dragged out of their homes and murdered.
The above may not be very effective because of the short build-up, but it'll at least catch some people off-guard. It's all about the contrast. KS uses the same idea in a much more subtle and elegant fashion. It fills out large part of its routes with pointless filler. Because this is pointless, it feels nonthreatening, and the writers are skillful enough to each give it their own flavor of enjoyability. Emi's and Shizune's route give you amusing banter, Rin allows you to enjoy yourself listening to her delightfully weird dialogue, and Hanako and Lilly's routes fill you with inner peace.
Something that almost all of the fluff does brilliantly is have short sub-plots embedded within it. These don't often last more than a single scene, but they keep it feeling relevant. In Emi's route you go on a picnic that gets interrupted. Shizune's route sees you competing over a box you're delivering to Kenji, and Lilly's route has you having a nice dinner. There's no way this stuff is relevant to the overall plot, but it gives you an objective for that scene, which makes it feel like it's important in the moment. Not only is this brilliantly representative of how real life feels on a day-to-day basis, but it also keeps the fluff from becoming annoying.
However, you still know deep inside that the fluff isn't important. This is what allows it to be so relaxing. As human beings, we don't like important things that will have a lasting impact. We want our current moment to be good, but we don't want to then have to pay for it somehow. Katawa Shoujo provides an environment exactly like that, and that feeling of enjoyment without a price is what makes the tougher scenes all that much more effective.
In reality, what the emotional scenes represent is a removal from the fluff. Part of the reason that they can be so impactful is because this wonderful, relaxed fun is being taken away from you. Suddenly, you're transported out of this pleasant dreamlike haze into a world where you have to deal with relationship issues. What you want back is exactly what Hisao wants back: The stages when the relationship works properly and allows you both to be in this pleasant state.
This is not to say fluff is the only thing that allows the routes to work. The characters are sympathetic enough that you simply don't want them getting hurt, and it's extremely upsetting when they do. The writing of the emotional scenes tends to be extremely strong, too, and they can often stand by themselves. Before playing the game by myself I stumbled upon the rooftop scene where Misha explains whats up with her in Shizune's route, and I found that very moving even without the context. However, the manipulation of enjoyment is a very effective addition to these scenes, and helps make fantastic sections better. Whilst the writing in the game is very strong, I believe the very clever way enjoyment is manipulated pushes it above the sum of its parts.
The above may not be very effective because of the short build-up, but it'll at least catch some people off-guard. It's all about the contrast. KS uses the same idea in a much more subtle and elegant fashion. It fills out large part of its routes with pointless filler. Because this is pointless, it feels nonthreatening, and the writers are skillful enough to each give it their own flavor of enjoyability. Emi's and Shizune's route give you amusing banter, Rin allows you to enjoy yourself listening to her delightfully weird dialogue, and Hanako and Lilly's routes fill you with inner peace.
Something that almost all of the fluff does brilliantly is have short sub-plots embedded within it. These don't often last more than a single scene, but they keep it feeling relevant. In Emi's route you go on a picnic that gets interrupted. Shizune's route sees you competing over a box you're delivering to Kenji, and Lilly's route has you having a nice dinner. There's no way this stuff is relevant to the overall plot, but it gives you an objective for that scene, which makes it feel like it's important in the moment. Not only is this brilliantly representative of how real life feels on a day-to-day basis, but it also keeps the fluff from becoming annoying.
However, you still know deep inside that the fluff isn't important. This is what allows it to be so relaxing. As human beings, we don't like important things that will have a lasting impact. We want our current moment to be good, but we don't want to then have to pay for it somehow. Katawa Shoujo provides an environment exactly like that, and that feeling of enjoyment without a price is what makes the tougher scenes all that much more effective.
In reality, what the emotional scenes represent is a removal from the fluff. Part of the reason that they can be so impactful is because this wonderful, relaxed fun is being taken away from you. Suddenly, you're transported out of this pleasant dreamlike haze into a world where you have to deal with relationship issues. What you want back is exactly what Hisao wants back: The stages when the relationship works properly and allows you both to be in this pleasant state.
This is not to say fluff is the only thing that allows the routes to work. The characters are sympathetic enough that you simply don't want them getting hurt, and it's extremely upsetting when they do. The writing of the emotional scenes tends to be extremely strong, too, and they can often stand by themselves. Before playing the game by myself I stumbled upon the rooftop scene where Misha explains whats up with her in Shizune's route, and I found that very moving even without the context. However, the manipulation of enjoyment is a very effective addition to these scenes, and helps make fantastic sections better. Whilst the writing in the game is very strong, I believe the very clever way enjoyment is manipulated pushes it above the sum of its parts.
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