So, Katawa Shoujo

So a bunch of guys from 4chan made a visual novel-style dating game, based on a sketch found in the back of a Nausicaa doujinshi, about a guy who gets a heart condition and goes to a high school for disabled teenagers, where he falls in love with and eventually ends up in a relationship with one of five girls, each of whom has a different disability.

Let me give you a moment to finish throwing up before I go on.

There's a lot of stuff about Katawa Shoujo that seems like it should be absolutely horrific. Its origin. It's premise. Even its title, which literally translated into Japanese, means something like "Crippled Chicks," or "Gimp Girls." When I first heard about the concept years ago, I thought that there was no way this wouldn't wind up becoming the shit-stained toilet paper flushed down into the cesspool of the internets.

And then I started hearing things from people who had actually played it, saying things like, "I cried my heart out." "It made me think about where my life has gone." "It made me want to become a better person." What the hell?

So I downloaded it. After all, it was free.

And I gave it a shot.

And I wound up reading a sweet, romantic, and respectfully erotic love story between a boy whose heart could give out at any minute, and a girl who didn't let her loss of legs stop her from running. . . both down the track, and away from the people who want to get closer to her.

I kept playing.

I read a story about a friendship between two girls threatened by a new boyfriend, and the struggles of that boy to learn to communicate with his new girlfriend, who is a deaf-mute.

I read a story about an artist caught between trying to express herself and trying to conform to the desires of others. . . and forgotten, for long periods of time, that that artist has no arms.

I read a story about a blind girl who experiences the world in her own way, and her struggles to resolve the conflict between what she wants and what her family asks of her.

I read a story about a girl badly mutilated in a fire and turned into a withdrawn recluse, and the boy caught between loving her and turning her into his charity case.

I had a manly picnic on the roof with a borderline schizophrenic misogynist.

And I will admit to tearing up at points. . . like I did when I was watching Angel Beats, or reading Saikano, or experiencing the last few minutes of Terranigma.

Katawa Shoujo is not perfect. It's an amateur effort. The writing is inconsistent. The artwork even more so. The writers are clearly westerners writing about a culture they don't belong to. In some paths, the plotting and pacing are anything but professional. But what it has is heart, and respect for the subject matter. If you're willing to get past the admittedly alienating premise and the somewhat gratuitous sexual content, you might find a story there worth reading.

katawa-shoujo.com/

P.S. Shizune is my favorite.