{"id":98,"date":"2025-10-19T03:28:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T03:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ashknr.ca\/myblog\/?p=98"},"modified":"2025-10-19T22:59:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T22:59:53","slug":"ashs-critical-series-3-visual-novels-in-the-modern-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashknr.ca\/myblog\/uncategorized\/ashs-critical-series-3-visual-novels-in-the-modern-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Ash\u2019s Critical Series 3: An Analysis of Visual Novels as a Medium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Visual novels are games that depict a series of narratives through illustrations of characters and text. It adopts an animanga art style, and the interactivity of these games can be at the viewers’ choice, meaning you get to choose what you want the character to do. However, there are visual novels (kinetic novels) that can be read like actual books, such as Umineko, Higurashi <\/em>and Muv-Luv Alternative<\/em>, and involve very little choice, if any at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Muv-Luv Alternative<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Visual novels were quite popular from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s in Japan but have fallen out of style in favour of other mediums like anime, manga, and other video games. It was always considered a niche in the West, but it’s gaining a bit of steam online\u2014at least discourse-wise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads us to the question, what do we think of visual novels, truly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Umineko<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The perception of visual novels by the layperson is general confusion, people considering them boring, and\/or viewing visual novels as mostly pornographic material for “weird” otakus, and while there are a lot of visual novels that do carry quite a bit of adult content (eroges), many fans of the medium argue that the narratives and storylines in anime and manga, even in a light novel, do not go as deep as those in a visual novel\u2014thus justifying the appeal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Saya no Uta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I agree with them, it is very elaborate; most visual novels can be anywhere from five to 10+ hours, with some of the classics reaching around 50-100 hours long. These visual novels are left with compact detail and integrity, meaning there is little to no filler for the intended target audience, ideally. Of course, this is something that is beneficial towards <\/em>visual novel fans; if it falls into the wrong hands, these people will <\/em>consider it boring and a waste of time. To clarify, not everyone is willing. However, none of us were raised as fans of visual novels. We simply gave it a chance because we were open enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Summer Pockets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fact, this all depends on a person’s tastes. There are probably tons of visual novels that feature nothing but formulaic character tropes with banal character development and solely focus on lewd depictions of female characters. This is where vndb.org<\/u><\/a> comes in handy; it filters a tag system for people who want to find a visual novel just right for them and avoid the poor writing. Visual novels on this site are ranked, and it’s usually skewed to stuff with better storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Visual Novel Database \/ vndb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, why do creators make visual novels? For one, creators may be inspired by another visual novel itself. After all, the most popular Western instance of a visual novel, Doki Doki Literature<\/em> Club, was influenced by Higurashi<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doki Doki Literature Club<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More importantly, I believe people create visual novels because visual novels are a great form of artistic expression. Sure, one might point out how it typically has a low-budget nature compared to other games and anime, but I argue that this allows for more risqu\u00e9 and daring choices by creators, ones that would be vetoed by a typical video game, manga, or anime company. This allows for more artistic freedom and lack of restriction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, this is a double-edged sword, evidenced by the infamous Euphoria, <\/em>and less known titles that I won’t mention here. However, it tends to work. A Western visual novel, Katawa Shoujo<\/em>, in its early development, was shared on 4chan, and it\u2019s centered around a young man and five other young women living with varying disabilities\u2014talk about daring, eh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Katawa Shoujo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Visual novels are a black sheep in the art of both visual media and literature; they exist in the intersection of both and yet are extremely niche in both departments. Why is this? In my field of view, we in fact overestimate how relevant (not culturally important or influential, mind you) visual novels actually are. People in otaku circles online, like TikTok, Twitter, Discord, and Instagram, tend to talk about titles like Saya no Uta, Chaos;Head, Class of ’09<\/em>, and YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story,<\/em> creating the illusion that visual novels are more relevant than they actually are. In all honesty, most of us, especially if we are young, are merely interacting with the surface here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder if I’m projecting when I say people that interact within this sphere are suffering from some sort of FOMO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Class of ’09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To answer my earlier rhetorical question, visual novels take a huge chunk of your time to read; users online may talk about them, but they aren\u2019t interacting with them. I promise I\u2019m not trying to make this a \u201cposeur\u201d or \u201ctourist\u201d rant post. This criticism includes me; I have not played a lot of what the visual novel community considers good to great (I promise, I will play The House in Fata Morgana<\/em> and Ever17 some day, heh), and yet I participate, anyway (with mindful consideration, of course). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The House in Fata Morgana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ever17<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I insist, I understand because initially I didn\u2019t want to play visual novels either, I had my preconceived biases as well. I would rather prefer a manga, an anime, or even an actual book as it combines all three, as well as music when I\u2019d rather just have one. Now, this begs the question. Why do we read visual novels? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shit like a book but worse, a game but worse, a manga but worse https:\/\/t.co\/ngVAUSMD9J<\/a><\/p>— Smiley (@Cyborgzx) March 4, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote>