This review contains spoilers
Subahibi is a complex game, on the surface a long and superficial philosophical exposé punctuated by scenes of unprecedented violence and cruelty, but in reality, a story of unequaled depth.
"Diskontinuierliches Dasein". The contemporary meaning of the word Dasein was developed by the philosopher Martin Heidegger. It is how he was referring to the human being, a being aware of his own metaphysical specifities.
1. Heideggerian interpretation of chapter 1-3
Both DTRH2 and It's my Own Invention propose, in their slow spiraling descent into chaos, a methodology similar to the one of Martin Heidegger in Sein und Zeit.
Before going on with the dialogue between these two works, one must keep in mind the ontological distinction between Being (das Sein) and beings (das Seiende). Basically, the beings (the Seienden) are everything that is, that exists: a table, a computer, a man, the sky... Whereas the Being describes the very fact of being a being (a Seiende), of existing: the fact that the sky is the sky, that man is man, the fact that there is something rather than nothing.
Starting from this distinction (greatly inspired by Schopenhauer's in "The World as Will and Representation"), Heidegger founds a new method to analyze and understand reality. He distinguishes four ways of approaching and studying our world:
(1) A classical approach, which he calls ontic. This one only deals with beings. To understand the sky, one must analyze the composition of the air, of the sun's rays. To understand a man, one must look at his socio-economic dispositions, his professional background, etc. This is generally the dimension of pure science and most social sciences. Art prefers to go deeper.
(2) The second method is already aware of the difference between what is (the beings) and the fact of existing for the beings (the being, the Sein): it is the fundamental ontology. We are aware that our world is not based on anything tangible, that by going too far up the chain of causality, we arrive at nothingness, the complete mystery (what Schopenhauer calls the world of the will, what Nietzsche calls the will to power, what Freud calls the unconscious drives, etc.).
In Higurashi for example, Ryukishi develops a fundamental ontological examination: the narrative does not ask who is the killer, but rather what creates the killer? Answer: the abyss in us, the monster in us. Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment too. They look for the causes inside this world of the will, which is free of any rationality. But we know for a fact that we can't understand it. So we contemplate its mystery and let it devour us.
(3) The ontotheology. Even if Heidegger was the first to synthetically formulate this paradigm, he was not the first in history to realize that universal contingency (the fact that all our reality is fundamentally based on nothing, it could be, but it could also not be). Ontotheology consists in going beyond this problem by positing the existence of God. This is what the Cartesians (Descartes and his friends) did.
It is rarer to find this vision of metaphysics in art, but it is not inexistent for all that. Here is an excellent article examining the links between Subahibi (and the other works of Sca-Di) and ontotheology: https://beneaththetangles.com/2018/04/25/sca-di-and-the-question-of-god/
One can also extend the divine conception by simply considering the establishment of a first cause as omniscient and omnipotent. This is the case of Takuji's mother in It's my Own Invention: her power (even "imaginary") is the cause of Takuji's whole world, his whole being (Seiende) revolves around her influence. She knows everything, hears everything, and can do everything.
(4) But Subahibi goes further, much further. What if, when confronted with the abyss, we decided neither to turn back (ontic), nor to simply admire its depth (fundamental ontology), nor to stretch a rope to overcome it (ontotheology), but to analyze it methodically? Sca-Di proposes an ontology (simply “ontology”) by trying to draw up, in the manner of Heidegger, the analysis of what makes beings beings (what makes them exist). What makes the "real world" real?
In DTRH2 and IMOI, Yuki and Takuji both see their reality collapsing little by little, and are forced to examine it, not by conventional methods (counting days, questioning their entourage) but by a deeper approach in its metaphysics: they wonder about their human finitude, about their relation to time, to their Wonderful Everyday.
That's the method, and what about the answer? What did Yuki mean by "Live happily"? To find happiness in the calm of everyday life despite all its problems - and not to look for any metaphysical meaning in an afterlife - since death does not exist (since it belongs to the realm of being/Sein, which is beyond us)?
This is the real challenge to overcome and probably even the limit to a Heideggerian reading of Subahibi. For Heidegger, the acceptance of death constitutes the foundation of happiness because it alone allows one to live each moment with acuity and lucidity. But he does not glorify death for all that; rather the fact of confronting it by assuming one’s being.
Another attempt to respond to the "Live happily!" that came to me before I reached the first ending was our relation to our temporality. Heidegger tried (but he admitted himself he did not succeed) to answer the mystery of being by an analysis of the links between temporality and the human being. I was thinking of the title "Wonderful Everyday", of existential authenticity, of the anguish of everyday life... And of chatter (das Gerede), a notion that bridges well with Subahibi's second reading, based on a philosophy of language and communication (Wittgenstein here we are, at last).
Side note: Sartre's thought is also referenced quite a few times in IMOI: the existential anguish due to the awareness of the universal contingency (Sartre's nausea is heavily present in the infamous scenes of psycho trip delirium), the speech of the demiurge that is Ayana to the Wakatsuki twins in IMOI introduces well the ideas of "Existentialism is a humanism"... And Sartre is in the worthy philosophical heritage of Heidegger.
Subahibi posits the necessity to rethink man from his finitude. Traditionally, philosophy has always defined man in relation to his rationality (characters of Higurashi try to unveil the mystery through reasoning) and has forgotten that he is fundamentally a being conscious of his finitude (characters of Subahibi instead cannot rely on their reasoning because they have realized that it is not based on anything tangible in their world).
Indeed, contrary to the Gods who are full of being (full of Sein, full of themselves), the man is a finite being, therefore in lack of being. This is why he is not inscribed in necessity but open to all possibilities. It is his incompleteness (and thus his fundamental indeterminacy) that opens him to all possibilities. Originally indeterminate, it can become anything.
2. Logical-mathematical interpretation of Subahibi's meaning (Wittgenstein, Gödel)
Jabberwocky was absolutely amazing to discover. "it's worth hanging on through the first few chapters", yes I understand what they meant. The multiple personality twist hit me like an epiphany.
It is well known that the whole game is based on the philosophy developed in Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus. This is the reading that has been the most discussed because it is the one the author had in mind when he wrote Subahibi. I am far from being an expert in analytic philosophy and I don't think I have anything relevant to add that hasn't already been said. The notions of inner world / outer world and the Sense of the world have all been perfectly explained by anons who are much more knowledgeable than I am about these things.
I’ll just draw a parallel with a massive result in mathematical logic: Gödel's incompleteness theorems. These are like the symbolic generalization that the meaning of a world cannot be held inside the world itself. Like in the theory of interlocking realities (Ayana -> Yuki -> Tomosane), Tomosane's world sense rests in a more general world, Yuki’s, and so on.
Before building an arithmetic (or an algebra but we usually start by defining basic operations between natural numbers), one presupposes axioms, and before even formulating these axioms, one presupposes a way in which things work. Beyond maths, this is very similar to the language theses of Wittgenstein. And Subahibi makes no mistake in this presentation.
Another very interesting analysis linking these elements to a triumph of fiction over life: https://constructedheroisms.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/practicum-for-aesthetes-2-using-metafiction-cyrano-de-bergerac-in-subarashiki-hibi/#more-795
Traditionally, we have understood the work of art in terms of aesthetics. However, Heidegger apprehended it from the Being and thus approached the essence of the work of art. The work of art is not a tool because it does not fulfill its essence by its handiness. The work of art reveals the Being. Now there is actual food for thought and that article truly delves into it.
3. Sexual violence and final emotional impact
The bad reputation of the game lies in its scenes of violence (sexual for the most part) of unheard-of violence. They are really shocking, numerous and sometimes they follow each other for long periods and you feel dizzy in front of so many exactions.
That's why chapter 4 "Looking-glass Insects" warms the heart after the previous insanities but falls once again in extreme explicitness...
A very interesting vision of the problem in the article on God that I quoted above:
“I suppose porn, by definition, exists to give sexual gratification. In that case, SubaHibi does not really have porn because the sex scenes are, by and large, sexual violence with many disturbing and disgusting details. While there are other plot reasons for their inclusion, they also exist to fully immerse the reader in what suffering may look like in its rawest form. It is one thing to say a character has been violated; it is another to show you the gritty details of it from the victim’s perspective.”
The story in general seemed bland and insipid to me, despite the peak that was Jabberwocky II (which brought me to tears I admit). I had a hard time getting into the story and feeling sympathy for the characters for most of the story. I think there are two reasons for this:
(1) The overall poor quality of the text itself when it doesn't solely rely on obscure quotes (which by the way just ruined their own effects). The translation was a mess. This will be the last VN I'll read in English, I don't want to spoil my enjoyment and ruin the texts anymore.
(2) The ultra-shocking scenes just ruined the pacing.
I can perfectly see why some regard Subahibi as a kamige masterpiece that changed their life and so, but it didn’t leave a good impression on me. Despite this, I spent around 50 hours glued to my screen and passionately reading. So a worthwhile experience but not something I’ll reflect on more than this. I ordered the Tractatus so I shouldn’t be so confident about this lol.
"Diskontinuierliches Dasein". The contemporary meaning of the word Dasein was developed by the philosopher Martin Heidegger. It is how he was referring to the human being, a being aware of his own metaphysical specifities.
1. Heideggerian interpretation of chapter 1-3
Both DTRH2 and It's my Own Invention propose, in their slow spiraling descent into chaos, a methodology similar to the one of Martin Heidegger in Sein und Zeit.
Before going on with the dialogue between these two works, one must keep in mind the ontological distinction between Being (das Sein) and beings (das Seiende). Basically, the beings (the Seienden) are everything that is, that exists: a table, a computer, a man, the sky... Whereas the Being describes the very fact of being a being (a Seiende), of existing: the fact that the sky is the sky, that man is man, the fact that there is something rather than nothing.
Starting from this distinction (greatly inspired by Schopenhauer's in "The World as Will and Representation"), Heidegger founds a new method to analyze and understand reality. He distinguishes four ways of approaching and studying our world:
(1) A classical approach, which he calls ontic. This one only deals with beings. To understand the sky, one must analyze the composition of the air, of the sun's rays. To understand a man, one must look at his socio-economic dispositions, his professional background, etc. This is generally the dimension of pure science and most social sciences. Art prefers to go deeper.
(2) The second method is already aware of the difference between what is (the beings) and the fact of existing for the beings (the being, the Sein): it is the fundamental ontology. We are aware that our world is not based on anything tangible, that by going too far up the chain of causality, we arrive at nothingness, the complete mystery (what Schopenhauer calls the world of the will, what Nietzsche calls the will to power, what Freud calls the unconscious drives, etc.).
In Higurashi for example, Ryukishi develops a fundamental ontological examination: the narrative does not ask who is the killer, but rather what creates the killer? Answer: the abyss in us, the monster in us. Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment too. They look for the causes inside this world of the will, which is free of any rationality. But we know for a fact that we can't understand it. So we contemplate its mystery and let it devour us.
(3) The ontotheology. Even if Heidegger was the first to synthetically formulate this paradigm, he was not the first in history to realize that universal contingency (the fact that all our reality is fundamentally based on nothing, it could be, but it could also not be). Ontotheology consists in going beyond this problem by positing the existence of God. This is what the Cartesians (Descartes and his friends) did.
It is rarer to find this vision of metaphysics in art, but it is not inexistent for all that. Here is an excellent article examining the links between Subahibi (and the other works of Sca-Di) and ontotheology: https://beneaththetangles.com/2018/04/25/sca-di-and-the-question-of-god/
One can also extend the divine conception by simply considering the establishment of a first cause as omniscient and omnipotent. This is the case of Takuji's mother in It's my Own Invention: her power (even "imaginary") is the cause of Takuji's whole world, his whole being (Seiende) revolves around her influence. She knows everything, hears everything, and can do everything.
(4) But Subahibi goes further, much further. What if, when confronted with the abyss, we decided neither to turn back (ontic), nor to simply admire its depth (fundamental ontology), nor to stretch a rope to overcome it (ontotheology), but to analyze it methodically? Sca-Di proposes an ontology (simply “ontology”) by trying to draw up, in the manner of Heidegger, the analysis of what makes beings beings (what makes them exist). What makes the "real world" real?
In DTRH2 and IMOI, Yuki and Takuji both see their reality collapsing little by little, and are forced to examine it, not by conventional methods (counting days, questioning their entourage) but by a deeper approach in its metaphysics: they wonder about their human finitude, about their relation to time, to their Wonderful Everyday.
That's the method, and what about the answer? What did Yuki mean by "Live happily"? To find happiness in the calm of everyday life despite all its problems - and not to look for any metaphysical meaning in an afterlife - since death does not exist (since it belongs to the realm of being/Sein, which is beyond us)?
This is the real challenge to overcome and probably even the limit to a Heideggerian reading of Subahibi. For Heidegger, the acceptance of death constitutes the foundation of happiness because it alone allows one to live each moment with acuity and lucidity. But he does not glorify death for all that; rather the fact of confronting it by assuming one’s being.
Another attempt to respond to the "Live happily!" that came to me before I reached the first ending was our relation to our temporality. Heidegger tried (but he admitted himself he did not succeed) to answer the mystery of being by an analysis of the links between temporality and the human being. I was thinking of the title "Wonderful Everyday", of existential authenticity, of the anguish of everyday life... And of chatter (das Gerede), a notion that bridges well with Subahibi's second reading, based on a philosophy of language and communication (Wittgenstein here we are, at last).
Side note: Sartre's thought is also referenced quite a few times in IMOI: the existential anguish due to the awareness of the universal contingency (Sartre's nausea is heavily present in the infamous scenes of psycho trip delirium), the speech of the demiurge that is Ayana to the Wakatsuki twins in IMOI introduces well the ideas of "Existentialism is a humanism"... And Sartre is in the worthy philosophical heritage of Heidegger.
Subahibi posits the necessity to rethink man from his finitude. Traditionally, philosophy has always defined man in relation to his rationality (characters of Higurashi try to unveil the mystery through reasoning) and has forgotten that he is fundamentally a being conscious of his finitude (characters of Subahibi instead cannot rely on their reasoning because they have realized that it is not based on anything tangible in their world).
Indeed, contrary to the Gods who are full of being (full of Sein, full of themselves), the man is a finite being, therefore in lack of being. This is why he is not inscribed in necessity but open to all possibilities. It is his incompleteness (and thus his fundamental indeterminacy) that opens him to all possibilities. Originally indeterminate, it can become anything.
2. Logical-mathematical interpretation of Subahibi's meaning (Wittgenstein, Gödel)
Jabberwocky was absolutely amazing to discover. "it's worth hanging on through the first few chapters", yes I understand what they meant. The multiple personality twist hit me like an epiphany.
It is well known that the whole game is based on the philosophy developed in Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus. This is the reading that has been the most discussed because it is the one the author had in mind when he wrote Subahibi. I am far from being an expert in analytic philosophy and I don't think I have anything relevant to add that hasn't already been said. The notions of inner world / outer world and the Sense of the world have all been perfectly explained by anons who are much more knowledgeable than I am about these things.
I’ll just draw a parallel with a massive result in mathematical logic: Gödel's incompleteness theorems. These are like the symbolic generalization that the meaning of a world cannot be held inside the world itself. Like in the theory of interlocking realities (Ayana -> Yuki -> Tomosane), Tomosane's world sense rests in a more general world, Yuki’s, and so on.
Before building an arithmetic (or an algebra but we usually start by defining basic operations between natural numbers), one presupposes axioms, and before even formulating these axioms, one presupposes a way in which things work. Beyond maths, this is very similar to the language theses of Wittgenstein. And Subahibi makes no mistake in this presentation.
Another very interesting analysis linking these elements to a triumph of fiction over life: https://constructedheroisms.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/practicum-for-aesthetes-2-using-metafiction-cyrano-de-bergerac-in-subarashiki-hibi/#more-795
Traditionally, we have understood the work of art in terms of aesthetics. However, Heidegger apprehended it from the Being and thus approached the essence of the work of art. The work of art is not a tool because it does not fulfill its essence by its handiness. The work of art reveals the Being. Now there is actual food for thought and that article truly delves into it.
3. Sexual violence and final emotional impact
The bad reputation of the game lies in its scenes of violence (sexual for the most part) of unheard-of violence. They are really shocking, numerous and sometimes they follow each other for long periods and you feel dizzy in front of so many exactions.
That's why chapter 4 "Looking-glass Insects" warms the heart after the previous insanities but falls once again in extreme explicitness...
A very interesting vision of the problem in the article on God that I quoted above:
“I suppose porn, by definition, exists to give sexual gratification. In that case, SubaHibi does not really have porn because the sex scenes are, by and large, sexual violence with many disturbing and disgusting details. While there are other plot reasons for their inclusion, they also exist to fully immerse the reader in what suffering may look like in its rawest form. It is one thing to say a character has been violated; it is another to show you the gritty details of it from the victim’s perspective.”
The story in general seemed bland and insipid to me, despite the peak that was Jabberwocky II (which brought me to tears I admit). I had a hard time getting into the story and feeling sympathy for the characters for most of the story. I think there are two reasons for this:
(1) The overall poor quality of the text itself when it doesn't solely rely on obscure quotes (which by the way just ruined their own effects). The translation was a mess. This will be the last VN I'll read in English, I don't want to spoil my enjoyment and ruin the texts anymore.
(2) The ultra-shocking scenes just ruined the pacing.
I can perfectly see why some regard Subahibi as a kamige masterpiece that changed their life and so, but it didn’t leave a good impression on me. Despite this, I spent around 50 hours glued to my screen and passionately reading. So a worthwhile experience but not something I’ll reflect on more than this. I ordered the Tractatus so I shouldn’t be so confident about this lol.