The moment I downloaded Wonderful Everyday, I realized that I’ve made a terrible mistake, as alongside the game’s installation folder there was a file that redirected to a website called “Fap for Fun”. Despite trying to deny its very essence, Subarashiki Hibi always felt like an erotic game first, and a drama story second. The themes that it tries to tackle such as lack of proper treatment and respect to mental illnesses, cult mentality and its propagation, and ironically, porn addiction, are hidden beneath a total of disheartening 17 explicit h-scenes, that are most of the time directly tied to the story, instead of “bonus scenes” that you can turn on and off in the menu.
The story is filled with moments that start off tackling a properly interesting theme or topic and then proceed to take a complete 180, becoming just another harmless predictable scene that vomits cliché hentai tropes. The appeal of subahibi comes from the fact that there are some genuinely great and creative segments of storytelling that could only ever be experienced in a visual novel format, but those precious moments are deep within a sea of ecchi mediocrity. You might be asking yourself, “how worth is this dive?”, and to properly answer that, and also why such a specific eroge gathered a cult following as a fourth eye opening provocative narrative, we first have to talk about how VN’s tend to implement this type of adult content (If you are sensitive to topics such as these, please sit this one out).
Lewdness has always been associated with visual novels, no matter where you look at it. Whether we’re judging possibly the first one ever released, or some other “classics” such as sex, and it’s perfectly named sequel, sex 2, and many other games mostly for the pc-98, these titles found a lot of success predominantly aiming towards a lonely straight male demographic. The inclusion of either full on explicit h-scenes or elements from dating sims, sometimes even both, was to be fully expected in this media’s infancy. Stories during this period sometimes avoided this topic altogether, however, that was a gamble not everyone decided to take, as the mere inclusion of some sexual content would likely increase for sure the number of people who would want to give your novel a shot. After some years, a weird symbiotic relation started to develop, as a lot of independent novels from the early 00’s tried to hook the viewer with promises of showing NSFW material, but made them keep wanting to read until the very end, due to the proper story that it was telling.
Tsukihime, for example, would not only work, but also be massively improved without every single despicable fetishized rape scene or dialogue mention. It’s very telling that in the 2021 remake of the novel, the studio behind it decided to pretend that all h-scenes didn’t happen and adapted the script to it, essentially turning the story into a proper cohesive shonen that doesn’t perform mental gymnastics to justify rape whenever possible, solidifying it as the definitive way to experience the novel. In a less extreme case, we can also take a glance at Higurashi, who early on put a lot of emphasis in long fetishized sequences that replicated staples from ecchi stories, but gradually stopped being as frequent, as the narrative started to find its footing, besides some occasional nods in bad taste from Ryukishi07. What makes Higurashi’s case interesting, is the fact that it’s the opposite approach from Subarashiki Hibi: The ecchi scenes contradicted one of the game’s themes about child protection, while in Wonderful Everyday, you'd see even more scenes depending in how essential to the theme the chapter was.
Through the years, visual novels started to gradually become more and more respected as a media in no small part due to works such as the previous ones mentioned. By slowly being freed from its private horny jail, a wave of new stories started being developed for other demographics, like straight women or non horny men, eventually attracting the attention of people outside of Japan. The late 00’s were marked by some novels being developed, translated, and appreciated by foreigners, which even saw some works from previous years such as Saya no Uta, Umineko and Fate/Stay Night gathering a considerable late cult-like following as classics.
Despite all that however, Subahibi opted to tackle themes strictly tied to pornography, and it still became relatively famous around the newer circle of VN’s that westerners appreciated. Direct comparisons to the infamous 'Boku no Pico' anime can be made, as both weren't the first nor best ones to tackle niche erotic themes in a media mostly seen at the time outside of Japan as "something for kids". Both of them ended up gathering attention due to the timing and difficulty of access to other products of the same medium during their respectable releases.
Written primarily aimed towards a straight male demographic and with the premise of showing gratuitous NSFW material, it has a completely pointless first chapter that lasts around 4 hours and is solely made as a symbiotic hook. After reading the novel to its full extent and revisiting the beginning chapter, I hoped to find a new meaning to what exactly happened, but it just left me feeling very disappointed. A pattern that you'll see from the novel that plays an important role in the chapter, is that there are plenty of useless name drops to a lot of other "intellectual media", that has little to do with the story. The only use for such is that it tries to show some validation to the reader to what they are reading, as in pretending it's an actual respectable story that just so happens to have a generic and forgettable anime art style.
This is your warning for spoilers now, if you’re still thinking about giving this one a shot, please do keep in mind that it’s somewhat long and tackles frail topics without proper respect.
The second chapter thankfully denies the eroge counterpart and goes for a more eerie atmosphere, showing the ascension of the typical nerd loser, Mamiya Takuji, as an actual God among men. This was a very surprising yet welcome change, and in hindsight I appreciate this chapter more, as it could have been the start of something great, however, it also has some of the shallowness the early chapter had, but in a different way. I didn’t care for the opening chapter at all but I always understood why they were acting in such a one dimensional porn-like way, meaning that even if the scene was just an excuse to show a panty shot, it would still make some sense narrative-wise. In the second one however, Yuki, the protagonist once again, and everyone else involved, acted in a way that felt like their actions were randomized. It mostly makes sense in the hours to come after the “twist” but that doesn’t help the fact that it’s just another 4 hours of infodump done wrong as Yuki only opts to delve deep in the subject of the underground forum and not answer some other key areas. Essential plot points such as Mamiya’s family, or the twins suddenly acting aggressive towards him, or pretty much everything relating to Zakuro, who was the most important part of the opening chapter, are put under a pretentious rug called "Don't think about it too much".
It’s really interesting seeing how she reaches to some logical conclusions while reading, but it’s similar to a game of Clue, where you’ll discover what happened and feel good about it, but in the end you were so unattached to the characters that you just accept Colonel Mustard probably just wanted to use that knife in the Hall. Things aren’t better for Mamiya’s side, as the only real segment of him showing some faint semblance of distinctive personality was in one of the most embarrassing written scenes I have ever seen in any visual novel.
Takuji’s pitiful speech, his spotlight moment, is one that can only truly be impressive for those that, to put it nicely, like to mention quotes or name drop philosophers without knowing what they stood for, which should say something about the shallowness of most VN’s as the scene is hailed as a sort of “redpill”. His discourse is plagued with small problems, but one of the most fundamental ones is that death became suppressed dogma in modern society, which doesn’t make sense if you also argue that philosophy fundamentally changed it’s key areas with time, and that religion is a type of philosophy, which is true by definition but doesn't give room for your point. If you are confused, it's like arguing how old movies embraced nationalism as a fundamental part of their stories and then argue that there is a conspiracy nowadays to have movies not embracing this pillar, without realizing that it was something related to the time period instead of the media, while also agreeing that movies changed fundamentally with time which leads to the development of a direct counter culture.
When called out by Yuki, who makes a flimsy and flawed argument for someone that reads Kant, about how he sees human lives, Takuji argues that it’s not charlatanism because “the only thing that matters is that he is right in the end”. All that was missing from this scene was a Big Bang Theory laugh track to finish it off: the amazing manifest that ends with the argument “I’m the chad and you’re soyjack”. The point of the scene, as pointed out by a friend, is to display that Takuji is wrong, as he even hits a girl in the class and talks about how people attribute others as being crazy when they don’t understand, which internally forced the author into writing others as the dumbest human beings possible, even making the history teacher respond to Mamiya with “I don’t know” when asked what part of what he said was wrong. In retrospect I partially agree with my friend’s take, but I think the framing and the fact that he was shown to posses godlike powers makes me think that they wanted to sneak in some truths in his arguments to justify him being in the wrong by just making him unnecessarily aggressive and rude, like how Marvel wrote Black Panther’s villain, Killmonger, in the 2018 movie.
Third chapter is all about Takuji’s point of view, which makes the second chapter nearly useless and redundant, as his point of view is far more interesting and makes Yuki’s actions feel more humane as she doesn’t seem like your typical dumb yet top notch detective. This is THE CHAPTER for h-scenes, featuring a lot of gratuitous sexual violence that are handled very poorly, hitting nearly every slot in the kink bingo: rape, feminization, bdsm, more rape, futanari, public humiliation, more rape again, torture, dismemberment, and of course, even more rape. The unlikely underdog story from rape victim to serial rapist is just flat out disrespectful and ends up helping me prove my point that there isn’t a single piece of media that benefited from flat out showing rape scenes instead of making them simply implied. After enduring an entire sequence in which Takuji is abused in every way possible, and knowing what happened in the previous chapter, and how he treated Zakuro to this games most gratuitous sex scene ever, all that I could think was how he would do everything the same if he was in their places but much worse, to which latter parts of the VN proved me right. I hope everyone will agree with me on this one when I say this is the most ill-mannered way to write a story on the subject.
Chapter 4 is all about an abuse victim who starts seeing visions of God telling her to kill herself as revenge, to which the game shows that it was the right thing to do in later chapters. No further comments.
Jabberwocky onwards, is when the story finally compensates for you enduring the hot steamy garbage from before. It’s a chapter about Mamiya’s most hated bully, Yuuki Tomosane, the only actually good character in the story. Tomosane’s chapter is fascinating, it pulls the rug and explains the twist that he and Yuki were personalities developed by Takuji, they all lived in the same house, and the twins didn’t actually exist as individuals. The framing is also top notch, making you know what risks he’s taking even if you think you know how it’s going to end. Mind blowing after mind blowing scene shows a new perspective I didn’t thought was possible from the story, which made this chapter, excluding the massively homophobic comments, a blast to read. The sequel chapters, Which Dreamed It and Jabberwocky 2, are also really welcome additions to the story, although not as jaw dropping, that expand the narrative in meaningful ways that have the unfortunate consequence of making Mamiya’s torturous life feel “justified”.
2 / 3 of Subahibi is dedicated for making the reader as tortured as the girls in the story, which tries to make up for the last 1 / 3 which gives the feeling that you’ve conquered the narrative, taking a stance against what was stablished early on. That’s a really interesting concept, however, it was one that was done better in a novel that you might have heard about: The House in Fata Morgana. Written in a way that’s more mature, gracious, and made to scare easily impressionable VN fans, it deals with dark themes as well, but with a proper respect for the situation in which the characters find themselves in. The also really competent sequel, A Requiem for Innocence, talks about similar themes from Subahibi which are it’s main justification for shoving garbage eroge topes, having the characters live in a brothel and dealing with an oppressive threat that haunts their frail psychology. Their themes are obviously not comparable on a 1 to 1 basis, however even if it's lowest points, one shows the other that you don’t have to treat every female character as pawns that merely exist to fuck when a male character so desires.
Main point is, what Wonderful Everyday does well, is done better in other visual novels, and what it does wrong, could only be done poorly here. Unless you really like the sensation of scavenging through hours of garbage to find gold that doesn't shine as bright as others given for free, maybe this one is not for you. If you still really want to know how this mess feels, I guess there’s no saving, since the premise is interesting nonetheless.
There is an undeniable value in early 10’s VN culture with Subahibi that made it stand out, however its vile and disrespectful approach to sensitive topics were a problem even when it launched, and it gets more outdated by the year as visual novels get more sophisticated, denying its origins as a media that started with a game in which you undress a minor for fun, and starting to develop more on the lines of being an interactive story. After multiple warnings by different people telling me to stop reading it, I endured through the end of Subarashiki Hibi hoping to find something that was clearly never meant to be there, as alongside the game’s installation folder there was a file that redirected to a website called “Fap for Fun”.
The story is filled with moments that start off tackling a properly interesting theme or topic and then proceed to take a complete 180, becoming just another harmless predictable scene that vomits cliché hentai tropes. The appeal of subahibi comes from the fact that there are some genuinely great and creative segments of storytelling that could only ever be experienced in a visual novel format, but those precious moments are deep within a sea of ecchi mediocrity. You might be asking yourself, “how worth is this dive?”, and to properly answer that, and also why such a specific eroge gathered a cult following as a fourth eye opening provocative narrative, we first have to talk about how VN’s tend to implement this type of adult content (If you are sensitive to topics such as these, please sit this one out).
Lewdness has always been associated with visual novels, no matter where you look at it. Whether we’re judging possibly the first one ever released, or some other “classics” such as sex, and it’s perfectly named sequel, sex 2, and many other games mostly for the pc-98, these titles found a lot of success predominantly aiming towards a lonely straight male demographic. The inclusion of either full on explicit h-scenes or elements from dating sims, sometimes even both, was to be fully expected in this media’s infancy. Stories during this period sometimes avoided this topic altogether, however, that was a gamble not everyone decided to take, as the mere inclusion of some sexual content would likely increase for sure the number of people who would want to give your novel a shot. After some years, a weird symbiotic relation started to develop, as a lot of independent novels from the early 00’s tried to hook the viewer with promises of showing NSFW material, but made them keep wanting to read until the very end, due to the proper story that it was telling.
Tsukihime, for example, would not only work, but also be massively improved without every single despicable fetishized rape scene or dialogue mention. It’s very telling that in the 2021 remake of the novel, the studio behind it decided to pretend that all h-scenes didn’t happen and adapted the script to it, essentially turning the story into a proper cohesive shonen that doesn’t perform mental gymnastics to justify rape whenever possible, solidifying it as the definitive way to experience the novel. In a less extreme case, we can also take a glance at Higurashi, who early on put a lot of emphasis in long fetishized sequences that replicated staples from ecchi stories, but gradually stopped being as frequent, as the narrative started to find its footing, besides some occasional nods in bad taste from Ryukishi07. What makes Higurashi’s case interesting, is the fact that it’s the opposite approach from Subarashiki Hibi: The ecchi scenes contradicted one of the game’s themes about child protection, while in Wonderful Everyday, you'd see even more scenes depending in how essential to the theme the chapter was.
Through the years, visual novels started to gradually become more and more respected as a media in no small part due to works such as the previous ones mentioned. By slowly being freed from its private horny jail, a wave of new stories started being developed for other demographics, like straight women or non horny men, eventually attracting the attention of people outside of Japan. The late 00’s were marked by some novels being developed, translated, and appreciated by foreigners, which even saw some works from previous years such as Saya no Uta, Umineko and Fate/Stay Night gathering a considerable late cult-like following as classics.
Despite all that however, Subahibi opted to tackle themes strictly tied to pornography, and it still became relatively famous around the newer circle of VN’s that westerners appreciated. Direct comparisons to the infamous 'Boku no Pico' anime can be made, as both weren't the first nor best ones to tackle niche erotic themes in a media mostly seen at the time outside of Japan as "something for kids". Both of them ended up gathering attention due to the timing and difficulty of access to other products of the same medium during their respectable releases.
Written primarily aimed towards a straight male demographic and with the premise of showing gratuitous NSFW material, it has a completely pointless first chapter that lasts around 4 hours and is solely made as a symbiotic hook. After reading the novel to its full extent and revisiting the beginning chapter, I hoped to find a new meaning to what exactly happened, but it just left me feeling very disappointed. A pattern that you'll see from the novel that plays an important role in the chapter, is that there are plenty of useless name drops to a lot of other "intellectual media", that has little to do with the story. The only use for such is that it tries to show some validation to the reader to what they are reading, as in pretending it's an actual respectable story that just so happens to have a generic and forgettable anime art style.
This is your warning for spoilers now, if you’re still thinking about giving this one a shot, please do keep in mind that it’s somewhat long and tackles frail topics without proper respect.
The second chapter thankfully denies the eroge counterpart and goes for a more eerie atmosphere, showing the ascension of the typical nerd loser, Mamiya Takuji, as an actual God among men. This was a very surprising yet welcome change, and in hindsight I appreciate this chapter more, as it could have been the start of something great, however, it also has some of the shallowness the early chapter had, but in a different way. I didn’t care for the opening chapter at all but I always understood why they were acting in such a one dimensional porn-like way, meaning that even if the scene was just an excuse to show a panty shot, it would still make some sense narrative-wise. In the second one however, Yuki, the protagonist once again, and everyone else involved, acted in a way that felt like their actions were randomized. It mostly makes sense in the hours to come after the “twist” but that doesn’t help the fact that it’s just another 4 hours of infodump done wrong as Yuki only opts to delve deep in the subject of the underground forum and not answer some other key areas. Essential plot points such as Mamiya’s family, or the twins suddenly acting aggressive towards him, or pretty much everything relating to Zakuro, who was the most important part of the opening chapter, are put under a pretentious rug called "Don't think about it too much".
It’s really interesting seeing how she reaches to some logical conclusions while reading, but it’s similar to a game of Clue, where you’ll discover what happened and feel good about it, but in the end you were so unattached to the characters that you just accept Colonel Mustard probably just wanted to use that knife in the Hall. Things aren’t better for Mamiya’s side, as the only real segment of him showing some faint semblance of distinctive personality was in one of the most embarrassing written scenes I have ever seen in any visual novel.
Takuji’s pitiful speech, his spotlight moment, is one that can only truly be impressive for those that, to put it nicely, like to mention quotes or name drop philosophers without knowing what they stood for, which should say something about the shallowness of most VN’s as the scene is hailed as a sort of “redpill”. His discourse is plagued with small problems, but one of the most fundamental ones is that death became suppressed dogma in modern society, which doesn’t make sense if you also argue that philosophy fundamentally changed it’s key areas with time, and that religion is a type of philosophy, which is true by definition but doesn't give room for your point. If you are confused, it's like arguing how old movies embraced nationalism as a fundamental part of their stories and then argue that there is a conspiracy nowadays to have movies not embracing this pillar, without realizing that it was something related to the time period instead of the media, while also agreeing that movies changed fundamentally with time which leads to the development of a direct counter culture.
When called out by Yuki, who makes a flimsy and flawed argument for someone that reads Kant, about how he sees human lives, Takuji argues that it’s not charlatanism because “the only thing that matters is that he is right in the end”. All that was missing from this scene was a Big Bang Theory laugh track to finish it off: the amazing manifest that ends with the argument “I’m the chad and you’re soyjack”. The point of the scene, as pointed out by a friend, is to display that Takuji is wrong, as he even hits a girl in the class and talks about how people attribute others as being crazy when they don’t understand, which internally forced the author into writing others as the dumbest human beings possible, even making the history teacher respond to Mamiya with “I don’t know” when asked what part of what he said was wrong. In retrospect I partially agree with my friend’s take, but I think the framing and the fact that he was shown to posses godlike powers makes me think that they wanted to sneak in some truths in his arguments to justify him being in the wrong by just making him unnecessarily aggressive and rude, like how Marvel wrote Black Panther’s villain, Killmonger, in the 2018 movie.
Third chapter is all about Takuji’s point of view, which makes the second chapter nearly useless and redundant, as his point of view is far more interesting and makes Yuki’s actions feel more humane as she doesn’t seem like your typical dumb yet top notch detective. This is THE CHAPTER for h-scenes, featuring a lot of gratuitous sexual violence that are handled very poorly, hitting nearly every slot in the kink bingo: rape, feminization, bdsm, more rape, futanari, public humiliation, more rape again, torture, dismemberment, and of course, even more rape. The unlikely underdog story from rape victim to serial rapist is just flat out disrespectful and ends up helping me prove my point that there isn’t a single piece of media that benefited from flat out showing rape scenes instead of making them simply implied. After enduring an entire sequence in which Takuji is abused in every way possible, and knowing what happened in the previous chapter, and how he treated Zakuro to this games most gratuitous sex scene ever, all that I could think was how he would do everything the same if he was in their places but much worse, to which latter parts of the VN proved me right. I hope everyone will agree with me on this one when I say this is the most ill-mannered way to write a story on the subject.
Chapter 4 is all about an abuse victim who starts seeing visions of God telling her to kill herself as revenge, to which the game shows that it was the right thing to do in later chapters. No further comments.
Jabberwocky onwards, is when the story finally compensates for you enduring the hot steamy garbage from before. It’s a chapter about Mamiya’s most hated bully, Yuuki Tomosane, the only actually good character in the story. Tomosane’s chapter is fascinating, it pulls the rug and explains the twist that he and Yuki were personalities developed by Takuji, they all lived in the same house, and the twins didn’t actually exist as individuals. The framing is also top notch, making you know what risks he’s taking even if you think you know how it’s going to end. Mind blowing after mind blowing scene shows a new perspective I didn’t thought was possible from the story, which made this chapter, excluding the massively homophobic comments, a blast to read. The sequel chapters, Which Dreamed It and Jabberwocky 2, are also really welcome additions to the story, although not as jaw dropping, that expand the narrative in meaningful ways that have the unfortunate consequence of making Mamiya’s torturous life feel “justified”.
2 / 3 of Subahibi is dedicated for making the reader as tortured as the girls in the story, which tries to make up for the last 1 / 3 which gives the feeling that you’ve conquered the narrative, taking a stance against what was stablished early on. That’s a really interesting concept, however, it was one that was done better in a novel that you might have heard about: The House in Fata Morgana. Written in a way that’s more mature, gracious, and made to scare easily impressionable VN fans, it deals with dark themes as well, but with a proper respect for the situation in which the characters find themselves in. The also really competent sequel, A Requiem for Innocence, talks about similar themes from Subahibi which are it’s main justification for shoving garbage eroge topes, having the characters live in a brothel and dealing with an oppressive threat that haunts their frail psychology. Their themes are obviously not comparable on a 1 to 1 basis, however even if it's lowest points, one shows the other that you don’t have to treat every female character as pawns that merely exist to fuck when a male character so desires.
Main point is, what Wonderful Everyday does well, is done better in other visual novels, and what it does wrong, could only be done poorly here. Unless you really like the sensation of scavenging through hours of garbage to find gold that doesn't shine as bright as others given for free, maybe this one is not for you. If you still really want to know how this mess feels, I guess there’s no saving, since the premise is interesting nonetheless.
There is an undeniable value in early 10’s VN culture with Subahibi that made it stand out, however its vile and disrespectful approach to sensitive topics were a problem even when it launched, and it gets more outdated by the year as visual novels get more sophisticated, denying its origins as a media that started with a game in which you undress a minor for fun, and starting to develop more on the lines of being an interactive story. After multiple warnings by different people telling me to stop reading it, I endured through the end of Subarashiki Hibi hoping to find something that was clearly never meant to be there, as alongside the game’s installation folder there was a file that redirected to a website called “Fap for Fun”.
31 Comments
Kinda unrelated, but you basically hit the bullseye when talking about Tsukihime's eroge elements. I've been trying to write on that game for awhile on the things I actually do like about it but it's frustrating that it's marred to, as you mentioned, its attempt to appeal to the underground PC market scene and it's been putting me on edge when I do write about it because, as you said again, a lot of it is so massively unnecessary, yet it's something that I can't skim over when looking at its 2000's release.
But yeah otherwise great write up, you gave me a bigger push to checking out The House in Fata Morgana haha.
But yeah otherwise great write up, you gave me a bigger push to checking out The House in Fata Morgana haha.
Really glad to read both of your comments 😊.
morgana is just misery porn, you're all cringe
first hate comment less goooooooooooooo
I love terrorism
I don't usually pop into this website with serious thoughts, but I am absolutely delighted to see someone talk about the extensive problems with visual novels without being reductive. Excellent review.
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There's so much wrong with this review. For one, this: "His discourse is plagued with small problems...". So? Takuji is a character, and most people (the ones who actually payed attention anyways) will read him as a rather overconfident egotist, so I don't see why his argument's being flawed is somehow a flaw in the writing. Also this shit: "The themes that it tries to tackle such as lack of proper treatment and respect to mental illnesses, cult mentality and its propagation, and ironically, porn addiction" Porn addiction? What? Takuji might have something like that, sure, but to mention this as one of its main themes when in the visual novel it's contained within only a few lines in "It's My Own Invention", and overall comprises only a fraction of it, is bizarre. What about the topics Subahibi spends a sizeable amount of its theme on, especially towards the end? The discussions on happiness/existentialism? You barely even touch on them in this review despite how prominent they are in the visual novel. Maybe that's because you approached it all like this: "A pattern that you'll see from the novel that plays an important role in the chapter, is that there are plenty of useless name drops to a lot of other "intellectual media", that has little to do with the story". I'll put it bluntly here: if you actually think the philosophical scenes are just decoration, you didn't get it. You most likely approached them in bad faith and completely missed what makes the story so special to some of us. I have to wonder how you experience the iconic "Live Happily!" scene considering how it's a philosophical conclusion of sorts and a continuation of what is discussed before. I'd also like to mention this braindead line: "Both of them ended up gathering attention due to the timing and difficulty of access to other products of the same medium during their respectable releases". This is blatantly untrue, there were already plenty of visual novels available to western audiences when Subahibi got released in Englisn (Ever17, Clannad, Steins;Gate, Saya no Uta, etc.), not to mention all the fan translated titles. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk. Then there's one more line that irks me: "Chapter 4 is all about an abuse victim who starts seeing visions of God telling her to kill herself as revenge, to which the game shows that it was the right thing to do in later chapters". I don't get how you came to this conclusion. If you assume happiness, health, and companionship to be positive, the ending where Zakuro doesn't kill herself is one of the most positive endings in the game. Ayana even talks to Zakuro about how she made the right choice.
(sorry for all the deleted comments, I kept wanting to add and clarify things and Backloggd doesn't let you edit comments it seems)
Thank you for your feedback!
Well, I disagree.
Well, I disagree.
you can do paragraphs if you hit the enter key to line break
Lmao.
Also, maybe I should have elaborated earlier but like I read your text GeroGero300, but you have to be less rude if you want to hear my counterpoints, I'm not responding to that.
Also, maybe I should have elaborated earlier but like I read your text GeroGero300, but you have to be less rude if you want to hear my counterpoints, I'm not responding to that.
I'm not rewriting the whole thing so just imagine a less rude version.
1 "I don't see why his argument's being flawed is somehow a flaw in the writing."
That's my point. It's in the next paragraph and starts with "The point of the scene"
2 "Porn addiction? What? Takuji might have something like that, sure, but to mention this as one of its main themes"
The novel kicks off with a pointless overly fetishized chapter just to a few hours later talk about how Takuji does nothing besides watching porn all day, to the point that his only affectionate interaction with someone (zakuro sewer scene) turns into him fetishizing about her 2 times. I don't know what to tell you here, subahibi deals with a lot of stuff and this is a prominent one. I elaborate in the "Third chapter is all about Takuji’s point of view" paragraph.
3 "What about the topics Subahibi spends a sizeable amount of its theme on, especially towards the end?"
Not interested. I wanted to focus my review around the fact that it's an eroge, which is why I have the "Lewdness has always been associated with visual novels" paragraph.
4 "I'll put it bluntly here: if you actually think the philosophical scenes are just decoration, you didn't get it."
You don't need namedrops to challenge preconceived notions, I wrote this other review about it https://www.backloggd.com/u/maradona/review/291679/
5 "This is blatantly untrue, there were already plenty of visual novels available to western audiences when Subahibi got released in Englisn"
Yes, this is why I said "The late 00’s were marked by some novels being developed, translated, and appreciated by foreigners" and the following paragraph as well.
6 "The ending where Zakuro doesn't kill herself is one of the most positive endings in the game. Ayana even talks to Zakuro about how she made the right choice"
Never said the opposite, 'one of the most' is what bothers me. I don't want to believe that a writer, in good faith, would display suicidal intentions coming from a girl that gets bullied as being good and justifiable in the long run in any universe whatsoever.
That's my point. It's in the next paragraph and starts with "The point of the scene"
2 "Porn addiction? What? Takuji might have something like that, sure, but to mention this as one of its main themes"
The novel kicks off with a pointless overly fetishized chapter just to a few hours later talk about how Takuji does nothing besides watching porn all day, to the point that his only affectionate interaction with someone (zakuro sewer scene) turns into him fetishizing about her 2 times. I don't know what to tell you here, subahibi deals with a lot of stuff and this is a prominent one. I elaborate in the "Third chapter is all about Takuji’s point of view" paragraph.
3 "What about the topics Subahibi spends a sizeable amount of its theme on, especially towards the end?"
Not interested. I wanted to focus my review around the fact that it's an eroge, which is why I have the "Lewdness has always been associated with visual novels" paragraph.
4 "I'll put it bluntly here: if you actually think the philosophical scenes are just decoration, you didn't get it."
You don't need namedrops to challenge preconceived notions, I wrote this other review about it https://www.backloggd.com/u/maradona/review/291679/
5 "This is blatantly untrue, there were already plenty of visual novels available to western audiences when Subahibi got released in Englisn"
Yes, this is why I said "The late 00’s were marked by some novels being developed, translated, and appreciated by foreigners" and the following paragraph as well.
6 "The ending where Zakuro doesn't kill herself is one of the most positive endings in the game. Ayana even talks to Zakuro about how she made the right choice"
Never said the opposite, 'one of the most' is what bothers me. I don't want to believe that a writer, in good faith, would display suicidal intentions coming from a girl that gets bullied as being good and justifiable in the long run in any universe whatsoever.
1.
Saying that was your point is a bit strange when it's actually this: "In retrospect I partially agree with my friend’s take, but I think the framing and the fact that he was shown to posses godlike powers makes me think that they wanted to sneak in some truths in his arguments to justify him being in the wrong by just making him unnecessarily aggressive and rude, like how Marvel wrote Black Panther’s villain, Killmonger, in the 2018 movie". I don't see how him being aggressive is a flaw in the writing either, what about is unnecessary? Should Takuji just calmly make his claims? That seems boring and ineffective to me, if everyone talks like some professional lecturer I might as well read an essay.
2.
I'll admit it's a little more prominent a theme than I thought, but at the same time, it's almost completely absent in the Jabberwocky II which I see as the thematic conclusion of the work considering the effect sequence can have on one's perception of a work, which is admittedly a bias, and considering Jabberwocky I has its own H-scenes, the very structure of the work undermines this theme. You seem to see this as a flaw in the work, I, however, just think it's not really a prominent theme and mostly exists to flesh out Takuji's character instead of to be explored, and so to me, it doesn't matter if its undermined.
4.
Yes, there could have been other ways to present mostly the same thing, but you seem to assume here that those are inherently superior, I don't see why this would be the case, direct namedrops are simply a style, not a flaw, and discrediting those scenes just because they contain them is silly. Namedrops make the story accessible and transparent, they let you build up a list of further readings, and exploring those can help you appreciate the source more as well. I started reading Emily Dickinson because of Subahibi for instance, if instead the story was all subtle about it, I wouldn't've found this cool new thing. And to say they have nothing to do with the story doesn't hold up when Subahibi is about the themes explored in those works.
5.
Yes, I read your whole review and remember that part. It doesn't change how inaccurate your comparison between Subahibi and Bocu no Pico is, if it is disproven by another part of your review, that doesn't change how flawed it is, it just means you pointed out your own flaw in your own review but still kept it in.
6.
So none of the endings that are an eventual effect of Zakuro's suicide are allowed to be positive? Should the story bend over backwards so her suicide makes everyone suffer no matter what? That's neither realistic nor interesting. It's not like any of the other conventionally positive endings are a result of Zakuro's intentions either, they're just the result of an unforeseen string of events.
Saying that was your point is a bit strange when it's actually this: "In retrospect I partially agree with my friend’s take, but I think the framing and the fact that he was shown to posses godlike powers makes me think that they wanted to sneak in some truths in his arguments to justify him being in the wrong by just making him unnecessarily aggressive and rude, like how Marvel wrote Black Panther’s villain, Killmonger, in the 2018 movie". I don't see how him being aggressive is a flaw in the writing either, what about is unnecessary? Should Takuji just calmly make his claims? That seems boring and ineffective to me, if everyone talks like some professional lecturer I might as well read an essay.
2.
I'll admit it's a little more prominent a theme than I thought, but at the same time, it's almost completely absent in the Jabberwocky II which I see as the thematic conclusion of the work considering the effect sequence can have on one's perception of a work, which is admittedly a bias, and considering Jabberwocky I has its own H-scenes, the very structure of the work undermines this theme. You seem to see this as a flaw in the work, I, however, just think it's not really a prominent theme and mostly exists to flesh out Takuji's character instead of to be explored, and so to me, it doesn't matter if its undermined.
4.
Yes, there could have been other ways to present mostly the same thing, but you seem to assume here that those are inherently superior, I don't see why this would be the case, direct namedrops are simply a style, not a flaw, and discrediting those scenes just because they contain them is silly. Namedrops make the story accessible and transparent, they let you build up a list of further readings, and exploring those can help you appreciate the source more as well. I started reading Emily Dickinson because of Subahibi for instance, if instead the story was all subtle about it, I wouldn't've found this cool new thing. And to say they have nothing to do with the story doesn't hold up when Subahibi is about the themes explored in those works.
5.
Yes, I read your whole review and remember that part. It doesn't change how inaccurate your comparison between Subahibi and Bocu no Pico is, if it is disproven by another part of your review, that doesn't change how flawed it is, it just means you pointed out your own flaw in your own review but still kept it in.
6.
So none of the endings that are an eventual effect of Zakuro's suicide are allowed to be positive? Should the story bend over backwards so her suicide makes everyone suffer no matter what? That's neither realistic nor interesting. It's not like any of the other conventionally positive endings are a result of Zakuro's intentions either, they're just the result of an unforeseen string of events.
1 The scene does not want us to support him. But they dont do it with Yuki, our voice of reason, presenting logical arguments. That is why he was written as an asshole as a audience reminder of sorts to why he's wrong. Its an alienating framing used in media that sometimes gets the 'villains who are right' treatment. I mostly did this segment because interaction from subahibi fans that I had outside of Backloggd seems to respect his speech.
2 Well, we're on the same page again because I have said good things to say about Jabberwocky. I think it just boils here to how much I hated the h content more than you did.
4 You're right here, I do think namedropping is almost always meaningless. Narratives that use it well like 'Policarpio Quaresma' or 'Kumiko Treasure Hunter' are a direct response to the philosophical themes of the work they mention entirely, and I respect those a lot more than what this vn did with Kant. For subahibi's case I'd say either have the book as a subtle detail to say what a character is into, or dont mention it at all.
5 I don't know what to tell you here, but every work I mentioned gained major fanbases during that period, it is the time vn communities flourished. It was the time where the demand for more japanese media as a whole being translated increased, most piracy websites active today can be traced back here, and theres also the necessity for a creation of sites like vndb itself. it all takes you back to late 00's.
6 Usually I'd say no, but in a work where abuse is shown in almost every chapter, that dedicated almost 1 hour to a scene like the zakuro sewer one, that made the whole 'god' character just for her, and that had the audacity of having and ending where yuuki just doesnt care about the school incident when speaking to the reporter...
Yes, I think it is in incredibly bad taste to have any ending whatsoever that its shown as positive.
2 Well, we're on the same page again because I have said good things to say about Jabberwocky. I think it just boils here to how much I hated the h content more than you did.
4 You're right here, I do think namedropping is almost always meaningless. Narratives that use it well like 'Policarpio Quaresma' or 'Kumiko Treasure Hunter' are a direct response to the philosophical themes of the work they mention entirely, and I respect those a lot more than what this vn did with Kant. For subahibi's case I'd say either have the book as a subtle detail to say what a character is into, or dont mention it at all.
5 I don't know what to tell you here, but every work I mentioned gained major fanbases during that period, it is the time vn communities flourished. It was the time where the demand for more japanese media as a whole being translated increased, most piracy websites active today can be traced back here, and theres also the necessity for a creation of sites like vndb itself. it all takes you back to late 00's.
6 Usually I'd say no, but in a work where abuse is shown in almost every chapter, that dedicated almost 1 hour to a scene like the zakuro sewer one, that made the whole 'god' character just for her, and that had the audacity of having and ending where yuuki just doesnt care about the school incident when speaking to the reporter...
Yes, I think it is in incredibly bad taste to have any ending whatsoever that its shown as positive.
i don't have much of a take on the rest of the points you've made because subahibi is a very divisive work and you kind of have to make peace with that but im not sure how you extract zakuro's suicide being the "correct choice" considering it's the first domino to fall, her suicide affects mamiya immensely and leads to the 7/20 incident as well as his descent to insanity and the harm everyone else comes to pass by
the ending where zakuro doesn't kill herself is also the most uplifting (this is undeniable, the jabberwocky 2 endings and Inventions Kimika are not nearly as positive for all parties involved), so there's no way to really interpret her suicide as the "correct choice", unless you mean it in the sense that the plot doesn't exist without it which is... an odd take?
the ending where zakuro doesn't kill herself is also the most uplifting (this is undeniable, the jabberwocky 2 endings and Inventions Kimika are not nearly as positive for all parties involved), so there's no way to really interpret her suicide as the "correct choice", unless you mean it in the sense that the plot doesn't exist without it which is... an odd take?
even if the god character is in a bit of poor taste, which is a different can of worms i also disagree with in a different way and not one i think i can articulate precisely, the shit zakuro goes through and the eventual ending of it is a negative; in a way it still leads to mamiya's route to self improvement after his own experience at a young age, but calling it the "correct choice" is a little disingenuous when subarashiki hibi's entire motto is to live happily despite the shit the world throws at you, and zakuro represents a failure to abide by that concept due to multiple variables, but she herself is another thing that mamiya has to deal with and cope with. even if zakuro didn't kill herself, the road to self recovery was always there for mamiya and thus kimika Insects still ends up being the best outcome
(and yes even if we don't see mamiya improve mentally in kimika insects it's still something that can happen, but insects doesn't concern itself with mamiya, after all we're not in his PoV, this is entirely zakuro and thus she's the crux of that chapter)
Thank you for your thoughts, but I'll be just repeating myself here, my problem is that there is a somewhat happy ending where zakuro is still just used a plot device with her suicide being the only important thing she did in her entire life, and for the sake of another character that had nothing to do whatsoever with her until they met, to which she was treated like absolute garbage. It is the correct choice in a sense that like you said "the first domino to fall" was what caused a chain reaction to which might not end with her being saved as there are multiple endings. It just reads to me as a character that solely existed for the writer to torture first and care about later.
I dedicated a single small one sentence paragraph about that because personally I just dont want to talk about the God character at all to which I see as by far the worst part of the VN.
Appreciate your thoughts, but the way I see it, again, having a suicide not be handled correctly even in a single ending about a game who's theme is about "live happily despite the shit the world throws at you", like you said it yourself, a massive flaw in both writing and morality.
Appreciate your thoughts, but the way I see it, again, having a suicide not be handled correctly even in a single ending about a game who's theme is about "live happily despite the shit the world throws at you", like you said it yourself, a massive flaw in both writing and morality.
i think i can see that if we're focusing on purely the text but even then i think it's important to see what led her to that as well as seeing Insects Kimika since Zakuro and Mamiya's situations are not that different, it's just Mamiya had Yuki to drag him out of the hole he was digging while Zakuro was alone and had those feelings festering without anyone surrounding her; only with Kimika to drag her out of that hole could she be saved. if zakuro was a plot device to bring mamiya to rock bottom then yuki's a plot devide to drag him out. at least that's how i see it if i follow up on your logic mind you
agreed on mamiya and zakuro's relationship being a little weird as well, it does make sense if you consider the way zakuro interacted with yuki and yuuki and thus how that preconcieved bias lead to her "respecting" mamiya and thus him feeling a genuine connection for once, but you kinda have to consider the bigger picture which doesn't mesh well for fresh, currently reading thoughts
agreed on mamiya and zakuro's relationship being a little weird as well, it does make sense if you consider the way zakuro interacted with yuki and yuuki and thus how that preconcieved bias lead to her "respecting" mamiya and thus him feeling a genuine connection for once, but you kinda have to consider the bigger picture which doesn't mesh well for fresh, currently reading thoughts
The way I see it, both endings are valid and justifiable even if one depends entirely on the other to be conclusive. Perhaps if both were attached in the same chapter as a direct continuation instead of seen as more "what if" scenarios, I wouldnt feel that disappointed about it.
Sorry, but you'll have to ignore that paragraph as a poorly explained angry rant more than anything, because well that's pretty much what it is looking back at it.
Sorry, but you'll have to ignore that paragraph as a poorly explained angry rant more than anything, because well that's pretty much what it is looking back at it.
nah i completely understand your point. kimika endings are anomalies even in subahibi so i can understand your distaste for it. like i said you kinda have to make peace that subahibi is divisive so reading and arguing about it is probably my favorite part about the work lol, interesting read 👍
your review was very funny and i enjoyed it a lot all i have to say though is you probably shouldnt be downloading eroge from an eroge site if youre that averse to it . best regards my friend
maybe I'm just old-fashioned but I don't understand literal hentai games. Like how are you supposed to play them? Do you put the controller down to whack off? Do you do it while playing the game? I'd love to know about this.
@HylianBran "Do you put the controller down to whack off?" Yes
"Do you do it while playing the game?" Yes
"Do you do it while playing the game?" Yes
rubenmg
2 years ago