/jp/ - Otaku Culture

ITT we post random screenshots from Japanese VNs.

I finished Subarashiki. Subahibi. What a ride. >>16873394 wanted to hear my thoughts post-completion, and I'm happy to write them out. I’ll probably write a lot. Although I'm sure I won't be too eloquent. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings about the work and I hope writing them out will help me resolve some of that conflict.

First, as a preface, a comment about my previous posts, for those who might remember me ranting. I hated Looking-Glass Insects because I couldn't stand the bullying.
It made me sick. But as I read further on I asked myself "did Sca-ji actually intend for his readers to feel like I am feeling right now?" and came to the conclusion that he did not. After all, no writer would want to drive his readers to drop his work. I do still think the way LGI's content was depicted was gratuitous and not well-handled. But judging from how others reacted to the same content, my viscerally negative reaction was largely a result of my own personal biases against bullying, resulting in over-empathizing with the characters. So I am taking that into consideration when thinking about the VN as a whole.

I know already this post is going to be long and rambly so I suppose I'll start out by talking briefly about technical details before giving my impressions on the routes.

The game system itself is fine, no complaints. I would have liked access to the music room before total completion but no big deal. One other very minor complaint is about the choice system in DTRH2. When Yuki was investigating around the school and you were picking locations to go to, when you picked a location and finished reading the scene at said location, it would just plop you back right at the original choice, as if nothing had happened, with the text in the next choice not reflecting you having already seen the events of the first. This is particularly noticeable at the part where Yuki gets attacked by Kimika with a knife and then in the next scene isn’t phased by it at all, and doesn’t mention it until that scene is over. Now, maybe you could say this has some thematic significance with it feeling discontinuous or something, but I think that would be reaching a bit.

The art is good. The tachie are solid, and the CGs in particular are great and add a lot to important scenes. Very, very seldom, if ever, was I thinking “man I really could have used a CG here.” The only complaint I have here is the ero art. I did not find it erotic. Could have done without it really. Indeed many of the sex scenes have plot significance but I really do think there could be a non-18+ release of Subahibi if there were some clever editing done. Sca-ji probably wouldn’t allow it but it could be done. Himawari made it work.

The VA work is fantastic. Yuki’s voice actor in particular does great work. Again, no complaints… except, the side male characters really could have used voices. Call it eroge tradition or whatever but I thought this was one of the few “objective” flaws. The end scene of DTRH1 would have been a 10/10 for me if not for this. When the teddy bear conductor spoke and there was not dialogue I was like “Wait, why doesn’t he have a voice? Oh right, he’s a male teddy bear.” It slightly disturbed my enjoyment of the scene. That scene stands out in my mind but surely numerous other scenes would have benefitted from this as well. In order of importance I would have wanted voices for Master and Kimura, then Shiroyama and the Fuckers, and then danshi seito A, B, etc. Personally I would want a voice for “fake” Tomosane too but there may be an argument to his lack of voice having some thematic significance. But again I think that is probably reaching a bit.

And finally, the music. The composer szak is the real star of the show here. Subahibi has a magnificent soundtrack. I think every track, without exception, is just superb. Without question one of the best OSTs of any work I have ever heard. There were maybe one or two times where I felt that maybe a different track could have been used to better effect in a given scene, but that’s a matter of scene direction rather than actual song composition. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about anything in the OST. If I were to try to find a flaw - and this would truly be nitpicking - it would be that while reading the VN, the songs don’t actually loop but just repeat. But I don’t even consider this a flaw because being freed from composing looping songs only let szak do the wonders he did. I haven’t had a long time to ruminate on the OST, but just off the top of my head my top three songs would be:

夏の大三角 (Zakuro theme): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIoSypI7ONQ
窓と光 (contemplation theme?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n30229CPKi0
And it goes without saying, the iconic 夜の向日葵: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWd_7Ud-Lc