The moments when the game slants to the more mature end reminds me of a time when I read Penthouse forum aloud with a group a friends. The oversexualization of high school students is nothing new to any American with a passing familiarity of television focused at an adolescent audience, but even still Katawa Shoujo seems to go out of its way, much as it probably had to, simply to avoid being labeled as cheap and tawdry.

With these events taking up a scant five minutes over a five-hour playtime they are definitely not the intended focus of the game, yet are still a crucial part of it.Ĭlothing choice in this scene is all /b's fault The aforementioned link to 4chan, coupled with the entire premise which ensures that at some point within each of the game’s five narrative arcs you will have sex with a “disabled young girl,” sells Katawa Shoujo far too short, but is also a completely valid notion or consideration that needs to be addresses when analyzing the game. Having to fight the expectations that where heaped upon it, Katawa Shoujo always faced an uphill battle throughout its development and release. Instead of being held back by such a strange genesis, Katawa Shoujo manages to expertly incorporate the schizophrenic message board without feeling beholden to it, an achievement nothing short of miraculous.

Almost crudely offensive even in name, the game owes its existence to the Internet denizens occupying the black hole of morality that is /b on 4chan – a claim few games if any could echo. Literally translating as “Disabled Young Girls,” Katawa Shoujo is a game that takes place at a school for disabled high school students. By this merit, Katawa Shoujo could be considered a success – just not in the way in which it was intended to be. Characters, setting, and scenarios have to be borderline perfect in order to have any hope of breaking out beyond the niche audience that most visual novels typically cater to. With such a limited focus, the probability for catastrophic failure is high. With such a simplified presentation in addition to existing in an age where expertly directed CG cut scenes are the norm instead of the exception, the success of a visual novel hinges solely by the virtue of the narrative.

Simply put, it is a power point presentation with a story. The experience, much like any product classified as a visual novel, is predominantly filled with a whole lot of dialogue, static images, and… not much else. When removed from the expectations that calling something a game implies, Katawa Shoujo flourishes and fails due in part to an ability to ignore popular conventions in service of that experience. Katawa Shoujo is not so much a game as it is an experience.

Katawa shoujo game theory