Rin's route is one of the strangest, in a completely different way to Shizune's. Shizune's route was unusual in the way it told its story. It broke from the general formula of
KS, by focusing on a conflict not-involving Hisao, and going for a more character-building approach to its main character. It chose to stay away from gut-punch moments in favour of a route that feels more realistic, if less powerful, than the others.
The strangeness in Rin's route instead lies in the character herself. Whilst the route itself follows the general structure of every other route, Rin is a character pretty much unlike anything I've seen before. She seems initially to be a cloudcuckoolander, but develops into a unique spin on the concept. Even as a straight-up cloudcuckoolander, she's excessively passive and interested in what seems to be an odd brand of philosophy to be called traditional. Rin's a character I always struggle describing, and I don't think anyone can really get just how she is without actually reading through the route.
It's also by far the longest route: I remember logging about 8 hours on my first read-through, though 2 of those were from the savepoint I loaded in Act 1. This is probably due to the time spent on developing Hisao in Act 2, which is far greater than any other route. In addition, Rin's route has the most decision points and way through the route. There's an actual branching path that doesn't affect the ending you get. I picked the choices I think Hisao would, and ended up going through the branch with the scene called
BADAAN!, so that's what I'll review.
As mentioned before, you reach Rin's route by not getting on any other route in
Life Expectancy, until the scene
Creative Pain, at which point you're presented with a binary choice. One option obviously leads to Rin's route, the other not-so-obviously leads to the death route. I criticized this in my Act 1 review, but it actually works really well if you end up going on the Rin route itself: Hisao himself admits he's only kind of hanging out with her because he's got nothing better to do. This apathy acts as a trait shared by Rin and Hisao, and, in practice, what kick-starts their relationship.
Still, even as soon as
Creative Pain, the major themes of the route are already hinted at. Rin mentions she doesn't really have an idea of what the mural she painted represents. It's just a thing she made. Hisao thinks to himself that this seems impossible: He doesn't understand what she's talking about. It's the first instance of Hisao being frustrated at not understanding Rin, which is foreshadowing for the major conflict at hand in the route.
At any rate, in
Creative Pain we meet Shinji Nomiya, the art teacher at Yamaku. Hisao says he's interested in the art club, greatly pleasing Nomiya. Hisao then watches Rin paint for the rest of the day, until the mural is done.
The next day is the festival itself, and this is, for sure, the version of the festival least like all of the others in the game. Hisao ends up wandering to Rin's mural, where he finds her standing around, as she is wont to do. The two just end up sitting by the mural through all of the day, occasionally talking, but not bothered to do anything. It's a great read: You feel the way that time seems to stretch, yet you don't mind it. I perfectly understood how this kind of afternoon feels, and loved the way it was portrayed. There is a bizarre bit around the start when Rin leaves, saying she needs to find Emi to ask her a favour. Upon Hisao's insistence that he can help, she tells him point-blank she needs help dealing with her period. I honestly don't know why it's there, beyond the fact that Hisao's internal reaction is hilarious.
Much like in Shizune's route, where every scene was "Shizune gets competitive about X", in Rin's route a lot of the scenes are "Hisao and Rin hang out and don't talk much in location Y". It works almost as well as it did in Shizune's route: It's by far the most relaxing route I've read thus far, and you end up in quite a zen-like state, where you even start to half-understand Rin's bizarre trains of thought. Aura, the author of this particular route, is also very skilled at making this similar situation feel comfortable or uncomfortable at will, which is part of what makes the later half of the route so effective.
This is precisely the kind of scene the festival ends up being: The two just hang out, and has just a fantastically relaxing feeling. Nothing really happens per say, the two are just there, being there. Eventually, the firework display starts, and Hisao realizes Rin is asleep. He gently shakes her awake, and the two watch the display in, once again, near silence.
I'm very conflicted about this scene. On the one hand, the festival is one of my favourite scenes in practically every route, because of the way it helps contrast the personality of the characters very directly: The same events happen, and the characters Hisao is with all react differently. To some extent, it's to that route's girl what Iwanako's letter is to Hisao. This is a scene that makes a point of ignoring the festival, and thus doesn't allow us that direct comparison. That annoys me: I understand the point is that this is very much how Rin reacts, and I think it's a clever way of making it, but I can't help but think having her actually
do something would put her personality across more clearly. I also can't deny it's a really relaxing scene, and the fireworks display is done quite well.
At any rate, the two watch the fireworks display, whilst having a bit of the weird type of conversation that is Rin's trademark, and separate to the rooms, ending
Life Expectancy.
I can't say much about Rin's Act 1, because there isn't much there. The bits of the route that are exclusive to her path are quite short, and what is there can be summarized by "Hisao and Rin have weird circular conversations". Now, time for the traditional awkward transition to discussing Rin's theme and scene. There we go. That felt good.
Rin's theme is
Parity, and her scene is
Cloudland Swing (apologies for the dodgy video, was the best one I could find). Parity is one of the pieces I feel most conflicted about: I absolutely adore it musically, one of my favourites on a soundtrack full of stuff I love, easily a top 5 song. However, I really, really feel it's an awful pick for Rin's theme. It feels appropriate in the very first scene she's in, I won't deny that. However, it clashes awfully with her character at any other point. Parity is perfect for the energetic, quirky, artistic character. Rin's artistic, but she's anything but energetic, and "quirky" feels like a huge understatement for her level of weirdness. As a result, Parity is (wisely) not played much during the route itself (I can remember one instance right now). This has a twofold negative effect. Firstly, there's no piece of music that you really associate with Rin during her route, which lessens the impact of scenes where she's the centrepiece during which it would be beneficial to her theme. It's not a huge impact, but I know that the scenes in Hanako or Shizune's routes were their themes played had a special something because of the fact I knew this was
that persons theme.
Second, and this is honestly the more upsetting to me, is that Parity is very rarely played in the game. It's such a fantastic piece of music I wish I could get to hear it more in the place it was supposed to be played. I could also see it working very well in certain scenes.
Cloudland Swing is similar in that I really love it musically, but it differs in the respect that I think it's an absolutely amazing fit for Rin's scene. Both the track and the video just seem to embody the spirit of Rin, and, despite how much I love 2*400m Relay and Three Stars, it's this scene that's up there competing with Jitter for my favourite.
Awkward Listing of Side Characters, Commence!
-Shinji Nomiya
-Sae Saionji
-Emi Ibarazaki (Kinda)
Act 2 of Rin's route,
Disconnect, begins on the day after the festival. This is an act mostly dedicated to Hisao himself, which is quite unusual. In the first scene, Hisao goes to the roof for lunch with Emi and Rin, and there's some of the usual fluff. Eventually, he ends up showing up to his first art club meeting, where he's welcomed warmly by Nomiya. Unsurprisingly, the art club divides up to do art: The task for the day is to divide into groups of two and draw a portrait of your partner. Hisao ends up with Rin, and attempts to draw her, producing what he considers a rather sub-par result (Though the picture we're shown is far beyond anything this poor sod can draw). Rin's picture is, predictably, fantastic, though Hisao observes it's grim and feels oppressive. This opens up the subplot where he realizes how down he's been ever since arriving at Yamaku, and eventually goes on to try and improve himself.
It's actually a rather cunning way of opening it up: It comes across naturally, and also serves the purpose of developing Rin, showing how, despite her trouble communicating, she is actually aware of people's feelings. It's also effective: the piece of art presented as Rin's painting is, indeed, quite oppressive feeling, and it helps bring you out of Hisao's mind, to realize how he looks to people who aren't inside his brain.
There's a decent amount of fluff, interspersed with a scene where Rin tells Hisao he doesn't smile much, leading to another moment of self-exploration. This filler really does have a transcendent feeling: it kind of goes on and on, and doesn't make much sense at times, but you're there, and you feel quite good about the things that are happening in front of you. In that respect, I feel you almost share Rin's feelings more than Hisao's. It's also funny, thanks to the common presence of Rin and Emi. I already discussed how banter with Emi is often amusing in the review of her route, and Rin's just a naturally amusing character in her weird tangents.
Through this period of fluff, there's also several choices that are ultimately irrelevant. I mentioned earlier that, depending on your choices here, you can end up seeing one of two scenes, but that doesn't change the ending at all. The fact that you're given choices just feels like you're nudging Hisao in one direction or another, and, though he ends up the same, it contextualizes some of the choices he makes on his own, even if the choices are the same no matter what. It's pretty cool, and helps really sell his character at this point.
Still, eventually, after quite a bit of fluff, you end up at a pretty familiar scene,
Target Audience : Emi invites Hisao to her track meet, and he ends up going. There, he meets Meiko Ibarazaki, and banters with Rin for a little bit.
I have no idea whatsoever why this is here. Aside from a removed few lines near the end (involving the injury that puts Emi in a wheelchair in her route), the scene is pretty much exactly the same. This means it's very much centred around Emi, and Rin acts like a secondary character. It's not nearly as bad as the buying-presents-with-Lilly scene that I extensively complained about in Hanako's route, but it still feels really out of place. There's no point to it here, at all, especially considering Emi doesn't appear much in the route after this point. It manages to pass as OK fluff since you're talking to Rin, but it really is a scene built in such a way that Emi feels like the person Hisao's falling for, right down to his "She looks beautiful" comment, kept intact and unchanged. It's definitely odd, but it at least doesn't hurt the route as much as the present scene.
There's a scene with Nomiya in the art room that is simultaneously amusing and actually decently interesting, and then one of my favourite scenes in the route:
Underwater and a Maple with a Name. Rin takes Hisao into the forest nearby, to look for "the worry tree", which she decides is a maple growing next to the path. The two talk irrelevantly, and, once again, we're left to listen to Hisao's thoughts after a while. This has one of my favourite irrelevant choices in the game: Hisao decides he wants to be more like... Emi or Rin. It makes absolutely no difference what you pick, which is a brilliant way of showing how like one another the two actually are, but it's also a big character call on Hisao. This is essentially the game going "What kind of person do you think Hisao is?". It's a fun choice, whether you know that it's meaningless or not. Still, this is the moment when Hisao decides that he want to change, to stop being the gloomy person he's been up to this point. It's a fairly effective moment, and Rin's own weird round-about brand of brutal honesty shines through quite well as well.
The next scene is
Iwanako's Regret. As the reader with half a brain would guess, this is the Iwanako letter chapter of the route. It's quite unique in that we get to read the whole letter uninterrupted, though Hisao's thoughts are quite similar to another route I can't quite place. Still, as such they feel quite irrelevant, and seem more the thoughts of a different Hisao. This is a surprisingly irrelevant Iwanako letter for a route that explores Hisao's character so much. Still, it doesn't feel like much is lost, and I can't really think of a very effective way of having this scene fold out.
There's a plot important scene where Hisao encourages Rin to take on an exhibition at a gallery that Nomiya has been pushing her towards. It's a fairly clever way of misguiding the player, since this feels like an irrelevant scene, despite being quite obviously important in retrospect: I fully expect the gallery subplot to just be dropped. It instead becomes the main focus of the route for much of Act 3 and 4. Still, there really isn't much to say about this, it's a scene very cleverly camouflaged as fluff.
The next few scenes are also present in the Emi route, albeit quite differently: It's the arc where the three go on a picnic, only to be interrupted by rain. Emi then runs in the rain, and catches a cold, which she proceeds to give to Rin. In this version, however, it's obviously Rin's character who develops from this plot device: Rin and Hisao have one of their weird pseudo-philosophical conversations on the roof since Emi's not present, and this feels like a point that would mark the end of Hisao's character arc. He finally understands his problems, comes to grips with them, and plans to move past them. It's a rather moving scene, if not in the same way most others are.
When Rin catches Emi's cold, Hisao goes to see her. He finds her quite high off cold medicine, which she has overdosed on. She's semi-naked, wearing only an unbuttoned shirt and her underpants, and acts unusually giggly around Hisao, though is still visibly Rin. The two talk, and Hisao tells her about his decision to get better. The scene ends with her kissing Hisao on the lips as he's leaving, before almost immediately falling asleep on the bed. I wouldn't call it a moving scene, and that's huge praise: It would be really tempting to try to make it into one. Instead, it's a confusing scene: You end up as confused as Hisao about Rin's feelings toward him, and what he feels toward her in return. It feels exactly how I would imagine you'd feel in this circumstance.
The next day, which happens to be the last scene in the act,
Dandelions sees Rin back in class, not remembering her actions from the last day. She once again invites Hisao to go into the forest, and they do, climbing to the top of the hill Yamaku is on. It turns out this is Rin's special place: A clearing on the very top full of dandelions. They're not in bloom yet, but it really is a pretty scene. There's an extremely effective moment: Rin's visibly uncomfortable, and, when asked by Hisao why, she gives a huge, fast, nervous speech. The way this is conveyed is by using one of those full-screen textboxes usually reserved for Hisao's longer monologues, occupied entirely by what Rin's saying. The fact that the whole thing is also a single sentence puts across her nervousness and worry. It's a clever way of using the few mechanics the game has in its favour, which is something that Rin's route excels at.
The gist of the speech is that she's worried about Hisao, she doesn't worries that he's down and not living life to its fullest, and feels guilty that she can't properly communicate with him to make it better. Hisao does his best to calm her down, and reiterates what he told her when she had the cold. This seems to help her, and she returns to her usual semi-stoic self for a brief while. However, she still expresses her frustration with not being able to understand people. She also worries about her lack of friends, which allows you to choose between claiming Emi is her friend and claiming Hisao is her friend. If you don't choose the latter you're a horrible human being, and have are depraved of one of the more quietly touching scenes. After a while, the two fall into their usual silence, and time passes. When Hisao gets up to leave, they have a brief chat, where he reiterates his desire to get better. Rin instead mentions that she feels she's going to change, which becomes very important later on. The two leave, relatively content. A minor note that made me happy is a moment early on in the scene where Hisao wonders what to do with hands in front of Rin. I don't know if this is true or not, but it's a bit of popular wisdom where I come from that this is a surefire indicator that you're attracted to someone.
It's an absolutely magnificent scene: It puts an end to Hisao's development and opens up Rin's. It's very well paced, and flows naturally, whilst still being touching in all the right moments. I'd call it the only moving scene in the game that's focused on Hisao's character, which is an impressive achievement in its own right. I also very much enjoyed the non-traditional use of the music piece Innocence here, used in a context very different to the norm. All in all, it's an unusual scene, but one that works fantastically, and that I'd suggest very few alterations to, if any at all.
And so ends
Disconnect. It's a good act, though not my favourite. It does a great job of actually developing Hisao's character, but I can't help but feel that the simple act of doing that is a bit of a mistake: We're here for Rin, after all, and if Rin got this much more time I can only imagine she'd be an absolutely awe-inspiring character. Still, what it does do it does fantastically, and I can't deny that making Hisao less unlikeable makes the rest of the route that much easier to read. It also helps that the fluff here is very Rin-like: Whilst Rin doesn't get much development directly, you know her personality inside and out by now, and you've had enough fluff to be able to miss it when shit goes down in the next act.
Said act is named
Distance. Interestingly enough, its the only act with two pieces of artwork related to it, one of Hisao and one of Rin, separated by the title on the title screen. Does this have any actual meaning? Not that I can find. What is it meant to have any? Not that I can see. Is it still interesting enough for me to point out? You bet!
At any rate,
Distance begins with Nomiya, Rin and Hisao going to check out the gallery where Rin's paintings are supposed to be displayed. Here, we meet Sae Saionchi, the owner of the gallery and Nomiya's friend. Interestingly enough, this makes it Rin's route the route with the highest number of exclusive characters. Sae is a middle-aged woman who, at the moment, seems like an odd mixture of cynical and pleasant.
DISCLOSURE: About 2 months happened between me writing the stuff before this paragraph and after it. I just had way too much going on, and I forgot about this. Also, Rin's route is really fucking long. So I'm going to go at a faster pace than I normally do for two reasons. First, because I want to finish the route reviews (and finally read Lilly's again). Second, I don't really remember Rin's route that well any more. I'll give my impressions as well as I can, and, spoilers, I remember liking it more than any other route so far, so that's a compliment to the whole thing.
I won't deny it, I really do like Sae. She's not a very important character, and is just kind of around for a while, but she feels believable in that I know people who act very much like her, tragic backstory aside. This backstory we discover later from Nomiya: Sae's husband was an artist, who was also Nomiya's best friend. He's said to be brilliant, but ended up committing suicide, washed out and exhausted. This subplot I'm not too fond off: There's obviously supposed to be a parallel with Rin and Hisao, Hisao being in Sae's role, but I just don't think it works all that well. Even in the worst endings, Rin still does fairly well, if apart from Hisao, and the whole thing just reeks of cliche and excessive drama.
At any rate, Sae gives her verdict on Rin's work: She likes it, but Rin must produce considerably more of it for the exhibition, as well as improving on her slightly unpolished style. This sets off the main thing of this act: Rin's away painting at the gallery, and Hisao must come visit her. The one protest I have here is as follows: Sae says that Rin's paintings have something playful and "kitty-like" to them. However, what we see of Rin's paintings in-game is actually kind of grotesque and slightly demented-looking. I don't know whether it's a disconnect between art and writing or just me not knowing how to appreciate things like composition: Maybe Rin's paintings
are playful on a technical level.
On the last day before Rin gets her leave from school to go paint, Hisao comes across her sleeping at the art room. It's an oddly touching scene, despite the fact that nothing's really happening in it. Maybe it's just the looming thought of Rin's prolonged absence when you've just spent an entire act's worth of time pretty much entirely around her. If so, props to the writer: I can imagine that's exactly what Hisao is feeling. This scene also follows an odd trend in Rin's route: It seems to have and use features that aren't in any other route. Before it was the screen-long dialogue boxes. In this case, there's some very slight animation on Rin's hair in the CG of her sleeping. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it's a nice addition nonetheless.
This is where the division between
BADAAN! and the other possible route happens. In the case of
BADAAN!, the next few scenes act as a prolonged absence scene for Rin. She's off painting and Hisao's hanging out with Emi and Yuuko. Still, despite this, Rin is a constant topic of conversation: Nice set up for Hisao's protests against her later in the story. Eventually, in the scene
The Edge of the World Hisao ends up going to Rin's little studio in the atelier of Sae's gallery. For some inexplicable reason, he chooses this moment of all the moments to confess to Rin that he likes her romantically.
I've got mixed feelings about this scene. The scene itself is actually quite good: Hisao's confession comes across as appropriately awkward and heartfelt for a teen. Even better, Rin's dodging of the question is good in two ways: You can see why Hisao is hurt, because she appears to be being genuinely harsh, and at the same time it's so absolutely and undeniably Rinish that you know she's doing it with no malice whatsoever. Furthermore, it feels as though Rin is just as upset at her refusal as Hisao is, which Hisao of course completely misses.
However, it's very badly timed. It makes no logical sense for Hisao to bring this up now of all times: It seems like pretty much the very worst moment to try and start a relationship with Rin he could've chosen. It also kind of comes out of nowhere: All we've had up to this point is Hisao wondering whether he's actually got feelings then, in the space of the bus ride to the atelier he decides he does and that he's going to tell Rin. It's also oddly timed in that there's no mechanical reason for it to happen here: The story doesn't benefit at all from this fact. There's some bits a bit later on where Hisao wonders whether Rin meant it or was just hiding, but these would've been better served as Hisao wondering whether Rin reciprocates his feelings
before his confession.
There's a few more scenes where Hisao keeps coming to the atelier and wondering about Rin's feelings as mentioned above. These are pretty well done: The atmosphere is similar enough to Act 1 that it feels like you're still hanging out with Rin, yet Hisao's musings cast a shadow over it that makes them a lot more uncomfortable. These scenes also do a good job of conveying how much Rin is changing without explicitly mentioning it. She seems a lot more centred than ever before, and now expresses annoyance a lot more than before. Still, I enjoyed this fluff: The route's managed to manipulate you into liking Rin enough that by now you enjoy time around her whether Hisao's happy or not.
Eventually something different happens, something that requires a CG of its own. In the scene
Self Destruction, Rin complains to Hisao she's not feeling her work that much. She goes on one of her usual incoherent ramblings, saying stuff about how she's got to destroy herself to rebuild herself to be able to work better. Hisao waves it off, thinking it's just more of her usual randomness, and, to be fair to the man, it really does seem that way. I guess as a reader I'm used enough to Rin's musings that I've learned not to take anything she says seriously.
With the end of "destroying herself", Rin asks Sae for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Nervously but surprisingly easily, Sae gives them to her. Rin and Hisao go up to the atelier, to have some of their last quiet moments before the route starts throwing actual drama at us. Due to Rin's lack of arms, Hisao has to light cigarettes for her, and the two end up sharing them, laying down on the floor and looking up at the window above. It's a very different moment to what you're used to with Rin: It's much more akin to the quiet moments of other routes that feel like snapshots of beauty than anything else. In tone, it's more like a Hanako scene than anything else. It feels appropriate, too: By this point Rin's talk about self-destruction starts signalling that shit is about to go down, and you know this is the last calm before the storm.
Or not quite. There's one last thing: The following scene,
Reverse Escapism sees Hisao dragging Rin out onto the streets, and guiding her around aimlessly deep into the night. It's apparently something Hisao used to do at his home town before his accident. It's arguably more of a Hisao scene than a Rin scene, but it's still a very nice idea: I love the feel of the scene, and think it's a shame it's cut off as soon as it is.
At any rate, Rin asks Hisao not to come back any more, so she can concentrate on her self-destruction process and painting. This seems like it'd be the set-up for another absence scene, but far from it. We gloss over the period of time when Hisao and Rin don't see each other and meet Hisao as he decides to break his word and go back to the atelier. He runs into Sae and Nomiya, and discovers the story about Sae's husband I related above, then goes upstairs to Rin's atelier in a scene named
Delirium.
This is actually an incredibly powerful scene, and also an H-scene, definitely tied for what I consider to be the best H-scene with
Whispered Touch. Hisao comes across Rin sitting hunched down on the floor, thrusting herself against her leg. Soon, it dawns upon him: She's attempting to masturbate, which, having no arms, is difficult. She turns around to see him, and I have to give props here, the art is fantastic: Her face looks truly like that of a broken person. It's incredibly expressive for a style that I'd perhaps underestimated so far.
She initially appears angry, but eventually asks for Hisao's help finishing, which he does, with his hand. This is absolutely one of the most fantastically awkward scenes in the entire VN. There's nothing here that's meant to be arousing, it's purely a character moment. This isn't Hisao sexily fingering Rin, it's Hisao helping an absolutely broken Rin get a single moment of release that she's been unable to get by herself. It comes across as more an act of compassion than anything else, and is absolutely goddamn heartbreaking. The fact that Hisao's feelings for Rin are more than platonic also make this feel incredibly wrong, as though he were taking advantage of her, even though that's patently not the case. It conveys all the uncomfortableness of the situation perfectly.
The next day sees Hisao awakening in the atelier, and having a short conversation with Rin where he finally asks her where they stand. Rin, as always, is unable to provide a satisfactory answer rambling about something to do with the exposition. This is where Hisao's distress starts to turn into anger, though at the moment he expresses this to Rin as concern for her: He encourages her to abandon this thing that he himself brought her to do. You can really sense his frustration internally though, and it'll come to a boil later in the route. He refuses to have anything to do with Rin until after the exposition, saying he can't stand being around her until she gives him a concrete answer, to which Rin is seemingly impassive. This is how the act ends, on a bitter note: If the two were together, Hisao just broke up with Rin. If not, he's quitting talking to her until the exhibition. It's a bit out of the blue, but you can see Hisao's instant regret as soon as the words leave his mouth, so it's as out of the blue to the characters as it is to us.
I also want to note the choice here: It's one of my favourites in the game. The ending you get depends on it, and it rewards you having grasped the thematic subtleties of the route before they become explicit. You're presented with a few choices, and the ones that lead to the good ending are the ones that focus on Hisao wanting to understand rather than asking Rin to explain. By this point enough hints have been dropped that the route is focused on acceptance rather than complete understanding, and we've been presented with enough information to know that asking Rin to explain won't result in anything useful.
Distance is a pretty good act. It's actually got surprising amounts of fluff in it in retrospect, despite feeling very action-packed as it's being read.
Distance also contains some of the best moments in the route, and it's nice to finally be more focused on Rin after spending
Disconnect worrying about Hisao. Rin's arc here feels... not real, but very Rinish. Rin herself is a bit of an unrealistic person, but given Rin exists, her arc seems like it's perfectly spot-on.
And so begins act 4,
Dream. It starts with the scene
Illusions for People, in which Hisao talks to Nomiya about his worries about Rin. This is the first time Nomiya is portrayed negatively in the route. He doesn't really let Hisao voice his worries. Upon hearing that Hisao has been visiting Rin, which has caused him to become worried about her health, he rudely and almost aggressively cuts in, scolding Hisao for possibly distracting Rin from her work. He also acts disparagingly when Hisao does get to tell him his worries, aggressively refusing the possibility that this might in any way be hurting her, and practically just shutting Hisao down.
The next scene,
Demused takes place a few days after, shortly before Rin's exhibition. Hisao's just finished up with exams, and finds Rin waiting for him outside his dorm room, saying she's finished preparations for the exhibition, at least on the painting end. He's initially slightly annoyed, still containing his issues from the end of
Distance. The two end up falling back into their usual pre-painting routine of questions and answers that don't really make sense, yet Hisao finds himself unusually angered by this. They eventually just sit around in silence, but, upon Hisao's attempt to break it, Rin approaches him and goes for a kiss, which he prevents. This leads to one of Rin's few comprehensible displays of emotion in the story, begging him "Please. I need you."
Hisao clutches on to this, finally understanding her for a brief moment, but asking her to clarify... which leads her to respond with her typical strange kind of deflection, followed by one of her usual non-sequitur questions, this time involving patterns in the dust. This deflection leads Hisao to deduce, understandably enough, seeing as it's "I don't think I was thinking of anything", that she doesn't need him for anything.
And then shit hits the fan like a torpedo. Hisao begins yelling at Rin, accusing her of toying with him, having him at arm's reach to play around and toss away at her leisure, and how he's tired of all this. Rin weakly tries to defend herself, and Hisao asks her why she's doing what she's doing then, to which she brings up the ever present painting. This causes Hisao to keep loosing his shit, talking about how he doesn't want to be Rin's muse, and how he has aspirations of his own and can't keep going on like this. Rin answers by going on about how she's got to keep painting, which, unsurprisingly, doesn't exactly calm Hisao down. Hisao ends his rant by complaining about how Rin never explains, to the weak defense that she doesn't know how. He starts internally regretting yelling at her, and begins to apologize, but she interrupts by trying to ask him to leave the room, to which he points out it's his and she leaves by herself.
It's a powerful, powerful scene in that I can't really blame either of the characters. I feel like Hisao is completely justified in his anger: Rin is being insanely selfish at this point and coming here after he already kind of broke up with her is just pouring salt in the wound. She also acts absolutely terribly: Instead of listening to Hisao's complaints and apologizing she keeps trying to justify herself, and her justifications just end up making her selfishness even more evident. When Hisao feels bad, which he absolutely has the right not to do, she blows away his apology aggressively instead of accepting it when she should be apologizing herself.
On my first read-through I genuinely thought that, despite how loveable she is and that she even at the time was one of my favourite characters, Rin was a genuinely bad person. This is actually further supported by the neutral ending, but I don't really hold that view any more. The one thing that's become evident at this point is that Rin can't communicate. She wants to explain her actions to Hisao, but instead just says things that come across as selfish.
Still, she is
being genuinely selfish, which was my reason for thinking she wasn't a good person. I've come to understand this is premature judgement: She's a teenager. She's too young to understand how selfish she's being, and there's genuine signs of regret both now and later on. Rin understands other people about as well as she understands herself, and she hasn't realized how much Hisao was hurt until this point.
It really is an absolutely brilliant scene: Hisao's rage is absolutely justified and a culmination of all the pain Rin's caused. Rin actually comes across more like a normal human than ever before, and her weak, half-hearted defences betray that this is hurting her immensely. There's an insane amount of things going on under the surface of each character, and all of them feel like what would happen with real people under these circumstances.
Another brilliant bit is Hisao's regret immediately after Rin leaves. It's immensely relatable as someone who had anger management issues when I was younger: That moment of "shit, I was just an absolute asshole" right after you're done with a shouting match.
It's also important to note this is the only shouting match Hisao gets in outside a couple bad endings, which adds some really unique flavour to this that no other route really has.
The Scene is the next scene, in which Hisao goes to Rin's exhibition, shortly after the aforementioned shouting match. There's a little chatter with Emi, who claims she can't miss this but doesn't understand Rin's art. The exhibition is crowded, and seems to be doing well until Rin collapses in front of the people high-up in the art world brought in by Nomiya. The point of the whole exhibition was to get Rin into their good books, and as such Nomiya expects her to mingle and try to make contacts. Hisao takes the collapsed Rin outside of the gallery to get her a bit of fresh air. When she recovers, they have a brief conversation, in which both seem more apologetic. However, Rin seems to have accepted that she can't make Hisao understand and acts more distant than before.
This is the choice that ultimately decides your ending, and it's a three tiered-system: Good, Neutral and Bad. It's very much like the choice I mentioned at the end of act 3: It rewards you for following the themes of the plot. Asking Rin to explain will result in the Bad ending. Asking Rin for information without asking her to explain will result in a Neutral ending. Trying to understand where acceptance of Rin will lead you leads you to the Good ending. It's a bit obtuse here, but the thematic element is still there.
At any rate, for the time being, no matter what you choose, Rin ends up walking away from the gallery. Soon enough out come Nomiya and Emi, who are both furious when they discover this, albeit for completely different reason. Hisao goes back to school, and the scene ends.
After a while, Rin's still not appeared in front of Nomiya, who hunts down Hisao and asks him about her whereabouts. He's becoming less endearing by the second: His speech to Hisao is not at all worried about Rin as a person, but more about Rin as an artist. He's very clearly willing to let Rin's life be ruined as long as she fulfils her potential. There's a very clear lack of actually caring about Rin. This makes him a lot less sympathetic, but I still don't get the impression he's a bad person. He has put a lot of work in for Rin's sake, and genuinely believes in her as an artist. One gets the impression that Nomiya believes that art, in this situation, is the greater good. Still, his descent into out bad books is complete: He's gone from being the funny art teacher who looks after Rin into being an unreasonable, obsessive slave-driver to the object of Hisao's affections.
On a side-note: Nomiya doesn't appear in other routes, but is occasionally mentioned, often around Mutou. This is the only time we really see them interact, as Nomiya comes to take Hisao from his class. Off-screen, Mutou always mentions Nomiya disparagingly, and never seems pleased at anything to do with him. This comes to a head here, where the normally calm Mutou actually displays a surprising amount of (albeit passive-aggressive) vitriol towards Nomiya. I can't help but wonder what the hell is up with these two, since it seems to go a lot deeper than being colleagues who dislike each other. I'll never know, but it's details like these that make Yamaku feel alive.
Hisao finds Rin hiding in an empty room, and convinces her, after some conversation, to go talk to Nomiya. During this time, Rin seems a lot more genuinely apologetic and the two get along a lot better, though there's still some tension left over. I don't know if this scene changes depending on what ending-route you're on, but it's one of few scenes that feel like they're being stretched to fit several endings: It seems to kind of go in all directions without committing, and just feels a bit awkward.
When Rin finally does go see Nomiya, her apology isn't received very well. Nomiya ends up yelling at Rin, though it becomes clear that Rin's sorted out her feelings on the exhibition: She expresses them surprisingly clearly to Nomiya. We see the whole thing from off-screen, meaning no sprites, which is a unusual thing for the VN. It's a really sad scene, simply because it feels like the old Nomiya never would have done this, and it's unpleasant to see the asshat hiding behind the pleasant old man. Still, much like Hisao previously, Nomiya's anger is entirely justified. To twist the knife, his words at the end of his rant are a lot more calm, and essentially consist of disowning himself of Rin, claiming she's not, after all, an artist. Rin comes across a lot more favourably this time than during Hisao's fit. She actually defends herself in a way that doesn't come across as selfishly, and, when she seems distraught at the end, I felt extremely bad for her. Nomiya's words also seemed to carry a lot more precisely applied venom than Hisao's did.
The next chapter,
Raison d'etre, is yet another one I actually really like. It takes place immediately after Nomiya's rant, and has Rin trying to push Hisao away, still not understanding his previous anger and worrying that he'll explode again. She says that she thought Nomiya and Hisao were her friends, and in that phrase is contained all the emotional punch that both the yelling scenes were building up, It becomes obvious that Rin, stoic Rin, Rin who doesn't really express emotion, is deeply, deeply hurt by both these events, and I find it hard not to be moved.
Hisao's apology for his anger fit also seems sincere, and he finally explains all the problems he's been going through emotionally up to this point. He also beats himself up about wanting to use friendship to advance to something else, thinking that it's a dishonest way to act, which seems to me to not be how relationships work, but whatever, it's buried under the mountain of sensical and emotional things happening around it.
Rin also finally breaks. She ends up crying out about how she doesn't understand what's going on, and how frustrating it is. It's the old trick where a character acts in a way they haven't acted before: This is the first time Rin openly shows a large amount of emotion, and the only time that she goes louder than "talking" in her dialogue. When Rin actually begins crying... oh, dear... the feels. And as she continues crying... pleasemakethefeelsstop.
What I'm saying is it's also an extremely powerful moment. Rin's breakdown is heartbreaking, and the way Hisao comforts her feels so genuine and heartwarming... it's near perfectly executed.
The next scene is the obligatory non-uncomfortable H-scene,
Without Breathing, Without a Sound. During summer vacation, Rin comes to Hisao's room. It's raining outside, and her clothes have become soaked. They somehow decide to dry Rin's clothes as well, which involves taking them off, and then dry Rin herself with a towel. The ensuing shenanigans get Hisao's clothes wet. You can see where this goes. This is the oral one (by Hisao on Rin, not viceversa).
It's actually fairly up there as far as these scenes go. I think it might be the best drawn in the entire VN, and it progresses fairly naturally. All the while, both characters still feel like they're the same characters as always, and there's a few interludes, both in Hisao's internal monologue and in conversation between the two that explore the rather complicated nature of their relationship, yet also feel natural. Are they friends with benefits? Something more? Something less? These questions go unanswered, because neither of them quite knows.
Finally, the last scene of the route:
Proof of Existence. These last scenes tend to be awesome, and
Proof of Existence is no exception. After the events of the previous scene, Hisao and Rin go to that same dandelion-covered hill from before, but now, the dandelions have bloomed, and the scene is full of dandelion seeds flying on the wind. It's actually an extremely pretty effect, and it's a good-looking area to have the send-off to the route. The two have a hard conversation about their relationship, but it finally feels like each one knows what the other is saying. The result is that neither is quite sure where they're at. That is, until Rin straight out confesses her love for Hisao. It's a touching moment, and, very cleverly, the scene moves rapidly on, not lingering on this too much so that the impact doesn't have time to wear off.
There's a fantastic moment where Rin can't find the words to express herself, yet Hisao understands why. The issues plaguing the relationship all stemmed from these moments not being this way. Rin cries, for no reason, and, again, it works perfectly. You understand why, but you can't put it in words.
The conversation they have isn't very sensical, yet both know what's going on, and, almost magically, so does the reader.
The rest of the series is a succession of this type of moments, all moving in their own way, until what is possibly the signature moment of the route: Rin opens her tiny arms, and stands there, hugging the world, and looking more overtly happy and serene than we've ever seen her.
The dialogue that ends the route (descriptions removed) is as follows:
"Hisao?"
"What is it?"
"What's the word for when it feels inside your heart that everything in the world is all right?"
Which, once again, is just about perfect. These
Katawa Shoujo writers know what words to end a story on.
Dream is possibly the best act in Rin's route. It flows fast, and is essentially a collection of very emotionally deep scenes. It feels like the slightly slow pace of the previous acts was just there to allow this one to be built up this well.
Rin's route really surprised me this time around. I remembered it being tied for my 2nd favourite with Hanako's route for a long time, but my second read-through eventually gave Hanako's route the slight edge. However, this time, I felt Rin's route was absolutely stellar, and has pushed Hanako's route down at least one position.
Rin herself, as I said, is a really interesting character. She feels wacky without being annoying, and without loosing much of her depth. Even if some of the other girls feel more realistic, Rin does feel like a real person for most of the route. Ironically enough for her obtuse nature, there's a lot more visibly relatable stuff going on under her surface than most of the other girls The relationship with Hisao evolves believably, apart from that one jump made when he first confesses. Her personality is bang-on.
The emphasis on Hisao in Act 2, I feel, makes the route what it is. I don't know whether it's for the better or worse, but having Hisao be an actual character makes a massive impact. Since I don't like the guy much I'd prefer spending this time on Rin, but she actually gets more than enough development as is.
The route moves at a bit of a slower pace than I'd perhaps like. I feel it lingers on plot points longer than necessary, and the Sae sub-plot doesn't really go anywhere, despite the fact that Sae is a likeable character.
Speaking of side-characters, Emi is actually criminally misused. I mentioned early how she takes complete control of certain scenes she shouldn't take control of, and, later in the route, she disappears completely when she could be a useful resource for the plot. Her cameo at the exhibition is frankly pointless.
Nomiya, on the other hand, makes a great addition to the cast. He carries out his supporting role perfectly, getting just enough character to be believable, and his more asshole-ish behaviour toward the end of the route makes for a nice semi-twist. It's genuinely sad seeing the funny old man from the beginning of the route be such an absolute ass, yet you can't help but feel like he's still not a bad person.
One thing the route does very well, at least before the shit hits the fan is the zen-like feel of it. Maybe criticizing it for being slow and then praising this seems contradictory, but the slower pace allows you to calm down and relax. It really does feel like how I'd imagine time spent with Rin does.
The best scene is really hard to decide. It'd have to be either
Demused,
Delirium, or
Raison d'etre, for completely different reasons. I'd probably end up giving
Raison d'etre the slight edge, but
Demused and
Delirium are absolutely phenomenal as well. Also special props to the ending, which is, as per usual, fantastic.
Finally, on the next and last route review we delve into many tea parties and move onwards with gusto.
