The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels 1501368648, 9781501368646

Citation preview

THE HISTORY AND ALLURE OF INTERACTIVE VISUAL NOVELS

Approaches to Digital Game Studies Volume 9

Series Review Board Mia Consalvo, Concordia University in Montreal James Paul Gee, Arizona State University Helen Kennedy, University of Brighton Frans Mayra, University of Tampere Toby Miller, University of California, Riverside Torill Mortensen, IT University Copenhagen Lisa Nakamura, University of Illinois Gareth Schott, University of Waikato Mark J.P. Wolf, Concordia University

Series Editors Gerald Voorhees, University of Waterloo Josh Call, Grand View University

Previous Titles Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens, edited by Gerald Voorhees, Josh Call, and Katie Whitlock Guns, Grenades, and Grunts, edited by Gerald Voorhees, Josh Call, and Katie Whitlock Violent Video Games, by Gareth Schott Music Video Games, by Michael Austin The World of Scary Video Games, by Bernard Perron Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay, edited by Antero Garcia and Greg Niemeyer Adventure Games, edited by Aaron Reed, John Murray, and Anastasia Salter Indie Games in the Digital Age, edited by M.J. Clarke and Cynthia Wang

THE HISTORY AND ALLURE OF INTERACTIVE VISUAL NOVELS

Mark Kretzschmar and Sara Raffel

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2023 Copyright © Mark Kretzschmar and Sara Raffel, 2023 Cover design: Eleanor Rose Cover images: Anime character © PrettyVectors / Getty Images; Honeycomb effect © iStock All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kretzschmar, Mark, author. | Raffel, Sara, author. Title: The history and allure of interactive visual novels / Mark Kretzschmar and Sara Raffel. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. | Series: Approaches to digital game studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “An analysis of historical and current trends in game studies and visual novels, with a focus on narrative structure, ludic interactivity and subgenres”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022055750 (print) | LCCN 2022055751 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501368646 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501370472 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501368639 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501368622 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501368615 (ebook other) Subjects: LCSH: Visual novels–History. | Video games–Authorship. | Narration (Rhetoric) Classification: LCC GV1469.34.V57 K74 2023 (print) | LCC GV1469.34.V57 (ebook) | DDC 794.8/4–dc23/eng/20230126 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055750 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055751 ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-6864-6 ePDF: 978-1-5013-6862-2 eBook: 978-1-5013-6863-9 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www​.bloomsbury​.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

List of Figures Part I  History and Interactivity

vii 1

1 Introduction: The Ludic Genre Devoted to Stories Meets Postmodernism 3 2 Digital Books of the Rising Sun: Cultural and Technological Factors Leading to the Remediation of Manga and Anime 3

28

Assembling the Nest: Cultural Vehicles That Incubated Visual Novels 58

Part II  Subgenres and Tropes

87

4 The Aesthetics and Functions of Kawaii (Cute) Culture and Dating Simulators

89

5 Detective Stories, Labyrinthian Puzzles, and Supernatural Horror (Oh, My!): The Rising Popularity of Mystery Visual Novels and Japanese Adventure Games

121

Intimacy, Uncensored Pixels, and Groundhog Day Porn Loops: Erotic Visual Novels and Adult Content

153

6

Part III  Fan-Creators, Open-Source Software, and Genre-Melding?

189

7 Rise of the Fan/Gamer/Creator: How Open-Source Software Influences a New Generation of Visual Novel

191

8

Conclusion: The Future of Visual Novels: How Genre-Melders Keep the Dream Alive

204

Appendix A: The Visual Novel-Adventure Game Starter Kit 233 Ludography 241 Index 246

vi

FIGURES

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13

14 15

Sieve and split/join narrative structures as seen in Spike Chunsoft’s Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (999)  A screenshot from the visual novel Zarth (1984) A screenshot from The Hobbit (1982) Spending quality time with a (real) J-Pop idol in No-Ri-Ko (1988) In addition to its sexual content, at least one translation of Season of the Sakura also had liberal references to alcohol, even though the game is set in a Japanese high school A generic backdrop of the school in the Yu-No remake (2019) that displays various points of interactivity A screenshot from Key’s Clannad (2015) The gamer meets “Mr. Cena” in John Cena’s Sexy High School Adventure (2014) Despite its questionable translation in which voice actors often did not read the text on the screen, Lux-Pain provided an unusual degree of interactivity given the DS’ ingenuity The time chart in Shibuya Scramble, complete with literal forked paths as seen in Minorikawa’s story Peace can only be restored in Spirit Hunter: NG (Death Mark’s sequel) once the gamer understands each ghost’s vengeance JAST USA’s True Love (1999) incorporated role-playing and dating sim elements Just Monika? Miyuki Sone would like a word. You and Me and Her terrifies the gamer by making them the object of Miyuki’s desire The House in Fata Morgana (2012) runs on the Kirikiri engine Genderwrecked (2018), an example of Western animation aesthetics combined with the visual novel format

8 47 48 51

70 80 96 114

127 137 142 165

179 194 198

viii

PART I HISTORY AND INTERACTIVITY

2

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Ludic Genre Devoted to Stories Meets Postmodernism

Visual Novels: Where Emotional Storytelling, Mystery, and Pornography Meet Have you ever dated a pigeon? Or befriended pleasant monsters in a postapocalyptic world? Have you unraveled the mysteries surrounding room 215? Or recovered the memories of an amnesiac ghost with the help of an immortal maid? If you have done any of those things, you’ve played Hatoful Boyfriend (PigeoNation, 2014), Genderwrecked (ryan rose aceae, 2018), Hotel Dusk (Nintendo, 2007), or The House in Fata Morgana (Novectacle, 2012). Their plot points might seem outlandish and disparate, but each of these games has something in common: they all belong to the visual novel genre. Whether because visual novels vary widely in their procedural and story elements, or because they remained untranslated for Englishspeaking audiences until relatively recently, or even because they often contain explicit content that keeps them away from Western distribution channels, these games are at the fringes of what some would even define as a mainstream game genre. Thus, scholarly work on games often overlooks visual novels. However, as we will discuss in this and the following chapters, visual novels are story-driven games that employ interactive elements, allowing the player to influence the story and characters. These titles come in myriad subgenres, from dating simulators and gothic mysteries to detective games, and we will identify and discuss some of the visual and narrative tropes seen across these subgenres. Many gamers also understand that some of these games contain erotic content, and because erotic story elements can be the hallmark of some popular and renowned titles, gamers might encounter explicit content as an introduction to the genre, though

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

there are also a number of titles that offer non-explicit censored versions. Erotic titles are historically and culturally significant—though they can certainly contain shocking and problematic imagery—and we will later explore some of these games from a scholarly standpoint. Overall, we find visual novels significant as a game genre for several reasons that we will introduce here and continue to explore throughout the following chapters. First, visual novels contain varied procedural or ludic elements that combine to create a gameplay experience unique to the genre but are almost always meaningfully interactive and offer a branching narrative, though that interactivity is sometimes also taken away in meaningful ways. Second, visual novels emphasize narrative and storytelling in a way that can transport the gamer into the story, and they encourage the gamer to replay the story multiple times to find missed endings. Third, visual novels are cultural artifacts that utilize a mix of genres, “vertical intertextuality,” and memory to convey complex and often socially significant narratives.

Narrative and Ludic Elements of Visual Novels Unlike many other video game genres, such as first-person shooters or puzzle games, the term “visual novel” does little to signal the narrative and ludic, or procedural, elements found in these interactive stories. We use the term “visual novel” to describe games with myriad themes and procedural elements, and some share themes with other mysteries, detective games, dating sims, and adventure games (see Reed et al.) that we would not classify as visual novels. For example, while puzzles are prominently featured in both adventure games and blockbusters like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and Resident Evil, the latter titles feature dynamic game environments and intricate gameplay options. As such, these distinct “action-adventure” games will not be analyzed in this manuscript. Instead, visual novels can be classified under what Aaron Reed dubs “storygames” because they contain actual narrative elements on a “playable system” wherein “the understanding of both, and the relationship between them, is required for a satisfying traversal” (18). Ultimately, one could say that all visual novels are storygames by this definition, but not all storygames are visual novels. We will thus take this early opportunity to highlight some common features of visual novels. There are exceptions to the following criteria, but these narrative and design

4

Introduction

elements provide a starting point for the rich tapestry of games that will be discussed throughout this book. Stories Are Told Through Narration, Not Just Dialogue The power of stories is often expounded upon, but defining terms like “storytelling” and “narrative” for academic audiences can be complicated; there are myriad terms and definitions across various disciplines (Juul 2005, 156). Nevertheless, the first benchmark for visual novels may be the most important as the Visual Novel Database (VNDB for short) calls narration “essential” (in all caps) to the genre.1 While dialogue can be an integral feature of storytelling in many video games, visual novels maintain some semblance of written accounts to describe events on the screen. For example, if the gamer (through the protagonist) has a conversation with a character, narration will fill in the gaps to progress the story so that dialogue does not carry the sole burden of providing meaning or context. In other narrativeheavy video game genres, “Play consists of a number of actions that fulfill the function of narration in a nonverbal manner, meaning that the player’s actions have an essential impact on how the story is told as the game narrative requires the player’s action for discourse creation” (Thabet 42). Visual novels, however, will usually replace these nonverbal gamer interactions with direct verbal narrative commentary. These can include descriptions about the setting or weather, analysis of a character’s mood or reaction, and thorough accounts of previous events. Since many visual novels maintain the firstperson perspective, narration often means internal monologues. Visual Novels May Contain Some Form of FirstPerson Storytelling or First-Person Immersion In general, visual novels are likely to incorporate some form of the firstperson perspective. Under most metrics, the first-person perspective (particularly the first-person shooter) provides the gamer with the greatest sense of immersion because they are “situated at the same coordinates in the game space as the game character’s body and seeing and hearing the game world through the character’s eyes and ears” (Black

See “Adding/Editing a Visual Novel.” The Visual Novel Database, https://vndb.org/d2.

1

5

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

180). As Katherine Isbister notes, some gamers feel that the “first-person perspective helps them immerse themselves completely in their alternate identity” (14). These elements in visual novels involve the protagonist narrating internal monologues and characters positioned on the screen as if they are talking directly to the gamer. In fact, although they are less prominent, visual novels written in the second and third person still frame the screen so that the gamer remains a first-person participant. The firstperson narrative is so prominent in these games that its corresponding metadata tag was removed from VNDB. Curious internet sleuths will instead encounter a page that reads, “Almost every VN could be tagged with it. Tag the exceptions instead.”2 Of course, many of the games that incorporate this first-person perspective are shooters that earned the ire of cultural critics who believe they “constitute informal ‘training to kill,’” a claim that remains controversial to this day (Dyer-Witherford and de Peuter 116). By removing guns, we can jokingly counter this claim by suggesting that first-person visual novels “train the gamer to love,” especially in dating sims. Since this statement is absurd and there are some visual novels more horrifying than shooters (see Song of Saya in Chapter 6), this perspective actually trains us to listen. This means not only listening to the characters on the screen but perhaps even our own ruminations and desires as we insert ourselves into the stories and make choices if given the opportunity. Story Choices Often Lock Gamers into Specific Nodes If it is not controversial, the relationship between hypertext and video games is at least arguable as some scholars believe hypertext narratives are games while others prefer to keep both in different fields (Millard 126). However, this relationship is obvious with visual novels as well as some adventure games. Jesper Juul notes that “both hypertext and computer games carry limitations and rules for movement between nodes of text or states of the game system.” What these nodes look like in visual novels and their variants align with Mark Bernstein’s classical definitions of hypertext narrative structures. The three most common patterns a gamer will encounter are the “sieve,” the “split/join,” and the “navigational feint.”

See “Tag: First-Person Narrative.” The Visual Novel Database, https://vndb.org/g2128.

2

6

Introduction

The sieve (see Figure 1) is a node that resembles a narrative tree that breaks off and leads to other routes (24). The split/join pattern often shows unique scenes in a video game depending on a certain choice, but unlike the sieve, the narrative path will rejoin the central story (25). Finally, the feint suggests “navigational opportunities even where they may not be immediately pursued” (26). Feints are common in visual novels that either force the gamer to play multiple times to unlock the “true ending” or are designed into the game so that they must return to a specific node to trigger a different event, unlocking new dialogue options and scenes in the process.

Travel Is Limited to Streamline the Narrative In many video games, traveling through the gameworld is a central element of the experience (Manovich 245). While Lev Manovich analyzed Doom and Myst, the same is true for open-world games like Skyrim (Bethesda, 2011) and Fallout 3 (Bethesda, 2008) that allow gamers to explore the gameworld in a nonlinear style, so long as the game’s code or system do not prevent progress unless certain requirements are met (Ulas 86). Even platformers with interactive maps, such as Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo, 1988), require gamers to complete locations before they can advance (Rowland 199). In all of these cases, traveling invites gamers to test their gaming prowess if they want to continue the story or encounter new level designs. However, in visual novels and their variants, navigating space generally requires less interaction than other genres and exists to advance the story. Clicking on a text option or selecting a location on a map may influence the story if there are branching narratives, but navigation through this space means arriving at the next story node with little to no effort. This often means that such gameworlds take place in limited settings, and these games typically feature an extreme form of “fast travel” as a result. For example, Kemco’s thriller Raging Loop (2015) takes place in the small village of Yasumizu and only allows textual choices that may trigger new destinations. Toybox’s World End Syndrome (2018) allows gamers to select places on a map of the port town of Mihate and they are then whisked away to the specified location. Ultimately, despite some exceptions, including certain Japanese adventure game-visual novel hybrids discussed in Chapter 5, these games streamline traveling so that gamers do not have to invest significant time arriving at their destinations. 7

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Figure 1  Sieve and split/join narrative structures as seen in Spike Chunsoft’s Nine

Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (999). All efforts were made to identify the original source of each image.

Characters and Character-Building Are Primary Incentives to Play We have yet to find a visual novel that does not have a story, and much of this storytelling is owed to well-written character arcs or at least moments of strong character-building. Chapters 4–6 will cover these aspects and their relationships to visual novel subgenres in greater detail, but characters are the primary reason to play many of these games, whether dating sims, mystery, or even eroge. The plots may be emotionally gripping, but if characters do not motivate gamers to learn about their backstories or to interact with them on personal levels, there very rarely is any reason to finish them. Conversely, the visual novel itself may be rubbish, but the characters salvage an otherwise terrible story or interface design. There is a lot of exposition to unpack in these games, and gamers often seek characters with whom they establish bonds. Once this happens, it is normal in visual novel games for gamers to focus deeply on the story arcs that resonate with them while also glossing over or even ignoring, sometimes via a “skip” function, what they may consider filler depending on certain playthroughs.

8

Introduction

Character Sprites Move Across Prerendered Backgrounds One of the prevailing design features of most visual novels is that 2-D character sprites are positioned over and move across static backgrounds (Cavallaro Kindle ch. 1). These sprite designs are limited (Crawford and Chen 1). Since visual novel characters are not animated to move like in other video game genres, each character has several designs to denote various emotions. These emotions include happiness, shock, and sadness, and are often portrayed by exaggerated expressions and mannerisms that are common in anime and manga. As Chapter 2 will demonstrate, this trend arose in the 1990s due to titles like the dating sim Tokimeki Memorial (Konami, 1994). Prior to this shift, visual novels typically relied on computer graphics (CG) and were usually short due to memory concerns. There are notable exceptions. For example, the Japanese adventure gamevisual novel hybrid Hotel Dusk incorporates rotoscoping to animate some character movements, much like A-ha’s iconic “Take on Me” music video. Additionally, some contemporary indie developers have integrated the retro aesthetics of CGs to tell their stories. Nevertheless, 2-D character sprite models over generic backgrounds are standard features. As Chapter 8 will conclude, these elements have also been implemented into games that are not considered visual novels, yet they are still used for narrative sequences that occur outside gameplay. CGs or Cutscenes Operate as Reward Systems Competitive gamers probably will not find many esports sponsorship opportunities when they “platinum” a narrative-based video game— clicking on textboxes with great alacrity, finding the right waifu on the first playthrough, or even becoming emotionally available during a nakige visual novel (“a crying game”). Further, because storytelling is a personal experience, gamers more than likely are intrinsically motivated to play visual novels for their own reasons rather than external factors like rewards (Cruz et al. 517). Nevertheless, if visual novels incorporate such reward systems, they will usually come via intricate art pages called CGs or cutscenes depending on the complexity of the game. Whenever a gamer encounters a CG, it will replace whatever sprites or generic backgrounds exist on the screen with a beautiful piece of artwork. Once unlocked, CGs can be viewed on the title menu under such tabs as “Gallery” or “Scene,” and they are often considered the primary benchmark for “completing” a visual novel (Kei). As 9

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

will be revealed throughout, CGs can cover a litany of themes, from kisses on the cheek to grisly murder scenes to hardcore pornography. Visual Novels Maintain Distinct Interface Designs Finally, perhaps no quality signals “visual novelness” quite like each game’s interface because the designer “must decide what the game looks like on the screen, how information is passed along to the player, and how the player uses the controller or keyboard/mouse to input commands” (Bates 26). Visual novels are structured so that they are both familiar to fans as well as easily accessible for prospective gamers. In visual novel circles, two prevalent interfaces are “NVL” (“NoVeL”), which posts text so that it takes up the entire screen, and “ADV” (“ADVenture”), which posts a couple of lines of text at a time.3 Games will have some sort of textbox that is designed specifically to match the tone or aesthetics of the story. For example, a dating sim or romantic visual novel might have specific color schemes or visuals like flowery imagery. Additionally, buttons are fairly standard and include such features as “Quick Save,” “Quick Load,” “Skip,” “System,” “Auto,” “Back Log,” and “Exit.” Title screens are also similar as they feature tabs like “Start,” “Load,” and “Gallery,” which store in-game rewards like CGs. Lastly, if a game has a calendar feature, it will typically be displayed in one corner of the screen. While visual novels are designed to be functional, they occasionally present issues for gamers. One example is Spike Chunsoft’s 428: Shibuya Scramble (2008), a mystery game that will be discussed in Chapter 5. While innovative and praiseworthy, it lacks a “skip” button, which exasperates navigating through five different stories and walls of text (Jimenez). Yet games scholars and gamers should know that skipping in these games can be a curse as well as a boon. Skipping incentivizes new playthroughs by cycling through reused dialogue; in most cases, skipping automatically stops if the game encounters new conversations. However, a consequence is that collection-hunting for CGs and new scenes may hinder immersion. As a result, subsequent playthroughs may seem disjointed as the gamer is now more concerned about these new features than a full retelling of the story. In this light, skipping in a visual novel may become a form of metagaming in that the gamer starts to ignore the story in favor of mapping out different

See NVL-Mode Tutorial — Ren’Py Documentation. www.renpy.org/doc/html/nvl_mode.html.

3

10

Introduction

paths. However, given that some narrative choices in visual novels are cryptic, the gamer may disregard immersion anyway if familiar endings stymie their pursuit of the “true ending.” As these criteria reveal, visual novels deserve their own analysis as they developed and sowed their own unique qualities that would gradually be adopted by other genres. However varied they might be in other respects, visual novels at their most basic often contain gameplay elements such as meaningful interactivity in the form of social interaction, rich characters, and branching narratives.

Meaningful Interactivity From a colloquial standpoint, “interactivity” is often referred to as any action a user can take to influence a system. However, clicking a hyperlink to navigate a website, while representing an action on the part of the user and a response from the website, does not encompass the type of interactivity we look for and expect from the visual novel genre. The range of cultural conceptions about what interactivity means makes it a difficult term to define, leading some to shy away from using it at all. Manovich, for example, goes so far as to call interactivity a “myth,” saying it is “too broad to be useful,” and “all computers are interactive” (55). Interactivity, though, is an important aspect of gaming and a term that can be useful in examining just how the system responds to the gamer’s needs. Gamers expect feedback from the stories they become involved in that might be less obvious than merely clicking a hyperlink. In a visual novel, a story might progress to a different ending in a hypothetical Chapter 22 as a result of a seemingly insignificant decision made in Chapter 3 to visit a café instead of a train station. Therefore, when assessing the visual novel genre and its subgenres, we look for a definition of interactivity that can encompass some of these nuances. Following Ian Bogost, we refer to this type of interactivity as meaningful interactivity (45). Bogost suggests, “the computer does a lot of meaningful thinking, but not much meaningful listening or speaking” (44), and these modes of listening and speaking, while perhaps lacking across the plethora of technologies we encounter daily, are where visual novels can excel. Bogost goes on to explain, “Interesting choices do not necessarily entail all possible choices in a given situation; rather, choices are selectively included and excluded in a procedural representation to produce a desired expressive end” (45). As we will explore in further chapters, that very lack of choice has become 11

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

a hallmark of visual novels, one that the horror subgenre has employed particularly well via titles like Doki Doki Literature Club! (Dan Salvato, 2017) and the erotic game You and Me and Her (Nitroplus, 2013), in which each game’s villain takes the game’s controls away from the protagonist. However, meaningful interactivity does not need to be that drastic, and other narrower descriptions of interactivity are also useful in a discussion of visual novels. Chris Crawford, who writes about interactive storytelling, suggests that interactivity is “A cyclic process between two or more active agents in which each agent alternately listens, thinks, and speaks—a conversation of sorts” (28). According to Crawford, information must pass back and forth between the user and the system for that system to qualify as “interactive.” Furthermore, as with Bogost’s definition, the quality of that interactivity depends on the range of choices available and on how meaningful the interactions are. Does the selection the user makes influence the outcome of the process, or is the selection superficial? In a visual novel, the decision to explore a setting’s detail or speak to a particular character might mean saving a life or leading a beloved character to an untimely demise. For example, in Kara no Shōjo (Innocent Grey, 2008), a complex detective horror story (with dating sim elements), the gamer must investigate the scene in a series of murders. Failing to investigate all details thoroughly—and some details are nested within others as the gamer clicks around the area looking for clues—can lead the gamer to an early ending. The protagonist can miss a detail that causes the killer to find and kill him. Other notable explorations of interactivity can also influence the understanding of visual novels. Lisa Nakamura, who in Digitizing Race is concerned with how identity manifests online, writes, “Object and subject are not mutually exclusive roles: it is not possible to definitively decide who is being interacted and who is being interactive except in specific instances” (35). Nakamura’s version of interaction suggests a collaboration between the player and the system, and a loss of distinction between the roles of the gamer and the game. As mentioned earlier, the visual novel genre’s wide use of the first-person perspective emphasizes this collaborative definition of interactivity, and additionally transports the gamer more deeply into the story, which also blurs the lines between the gamer and the in-game protagonist. Events in the game are seen through the gamer’s eyes, and in many instances the player does not glimpse what the main character often looks like, or at all, leading to easier identification with the character’s body. In order to succeed at being meaningfully interactive, visual novels must have some noteworthy characteristics, but visual novels often do not have 12

Introduction

complex gameplay mechanics that define other genres. There are no super combos, stealth missions, accelerator buttons, or weapon options that will influence gameplay. Instead, the primary modicum of interactivity at the gamer’s disposal is their ability to click a mouse or controller to advance the story. A gamer may have the option to use the mouse roller to speed up text, but clicking and reading are the primary actions available to advance the story. This description is not reductive as these are essential features of the visual novel genre that fans have come to expect or request. As Jill Walker, who now writes as Jill Walker Rettberg, affirms, “it is not the complexity of the tasks or the exact nature of the objects manipulated that causes the perception of being part of the fictional world. It is the equivalence between actual action and fictional action” (63). So, the fact that the gamer is not performing complex actions or manipulating various objects does not take away from the fact that they can affect the story through a mouse click. However, visual novels are not without their own functional mechanics that almost must be perfect if the player is going to become immersed in the story. After all, while an open-world sandbox game can still function with the occasional glitch, a similar glitch in a dating sim could render the game unplayable, especially if the game crashes after a certain choice is selected on the screen. Functionally, one major difference between visual novels and other genres like the sandbox genre is traveling in the gameworld as mentioned earlier. While it might be appealing for the gamer to freely travel to locations on their own, visual novels will simulate travel for the gamer by granting the gamer the option to pick a place from a few options and whisking them away instantly. In visual novels, traveling to these locations might unlock interesting dialogue with another character in the game. Some locations may even serve as “flags” that could potentially lock the gamer into a specific path. However, traveling to locations could also be detrimental to the playthrough as the gamer might make a mistake and not encounter anyone, thus wasting precious game time and eventually missing information that would be essential to a “good” ending. Since visual novels are narrativedriven games in which every choice presumably counts toward an ending, these missed opportunities are usually consequences as the gamer will likely receive an unintended ending as a result of their decision. When we assess visual novels, we therefore look for meaningful interactivity between the player and the game that leads to consequences in the gameworld and story. These types of interactions might be seen in two ways. First, there are games, such as Doki Doki Literature Club! (DDLC 13

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

for short) and You and Me and Her, in which the characters of the story eventually take agency over the game itself. We will explore that interplay later and in Chapter 5, as it often leads to some experimental meta elements, such as forcing the gamer to alter the game’s code in order to rid the game of the offending character. Second, and far more commonly, visual novels contain meaningful interactivity in the sense that the player can influence the story in complex ways via a system of multiple choices and endings, also known as branching narrative trees. Branching Narratives Extending our conversation on sieves, split/join, and feint narrative structures, visual novels prioritize the story as the game’s most important feature. The gamer cannot (usually) alter characters’ clothes, their gender, or their voice, and they must control what the design team gives them. Further, beyond pointing and clicking with a mouse, mechanical choices are few and far between in a typical visual novel. The gamer will not have to become proficient with controller inputs as they would in a firstperson shooter as “the only way to ‘lose’ when playing a visual novel is not to get a bad ending but to get the same ending twice, since doing so prevents players from making any progress toward game completion” (Taylor 195). However, though visual novels may disallow choice in terms of mechanical and aesthetic options, they more than make up for their limitations with the branching storylines that gamers can continue to unlock until the video game has run its course. In some games, additional layers of endings might even unlock after the gamer has unlocked the first set of endings. Branching narratives are thus essential for turning a linear story into a nonlinear experience, and these dialogue trees are currently among the primary examples of narrative agency in video games (Domsch 38). Openworld games like Fallout 3 make sure responses from NPCs are dependent on multiple variables, like tasks completed, factions formed, character traits, and so on (Domsch 39–40). Additionally, the Mass Effect trilogy (BioWare, 2007–12) attempts to incorporate branching narratives through how a gamer perceives their ethics (Domsch 40). Sebastian Domsch suggests, however, that branching narratives can be somewhat limiting and writes, “Dialogue trees imply consequences for what the character says, though this frequently is not really the case. Especially in the case of cyclical dialogue trees, they are often little more than a way to provide information to the player, some 14

Introduction

of which she might need for later decisions, and some not” (Domsch 40). In many cases, branching narratives in contemporary video games suggest considerable choice in the gameworld. Curiously, the larger the gameworld in a sprawling game, the less likely the game will make gamers contemplate their consequences. One need only look at a game like Skyrim in which the gamer can kill scores of innocent civilians but pay a bounty and quickly be on their way. The promise of a richly realized branching narrative is thus the genre’s driving force, but storytelling itself can be a fraught topic among games scholars; there is historical tension surrounding narrative in the discipline, though much of that tension has dissipated in recent years with the acknowledgment that narrative and procedure can successfully coexist, both in the games themselves and in overall scholarship. Speaking of that tension in strikingly similar terms to those that Manovich used to argue against the term “interactivity,” Juul argues, “The primary predicament with such a discussion is that the term narrative has such a wide range of contradictory meanings and associations for different people and in different theories that it is practically meaningless unless specified in great detail” (156), but that predicament exists whether we look at narrative as a fixed sequence of events, or as any kind of setting or fictional world (Juul 2005, 156–7). Visual novels lean on narrative and on the discovery of the game’s myriad endings, which speaks to Espen Aarseth’s claim of narrative intrigue in that “when we feel that there is nothing more to be discovered, we eventually lose interest” (114). Arguably, a key principle in maintaining interest in interactive environments is agency or “the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices. We expect to feel agency on the computer when we double-click on a file and see it open before us or when we enter numbers in a spreadsheet and see the totals readjust” (Murray 126). In video games, gamers possess agency when they input commands into a controller, change their avatar, or navigate within the digital world. However, when we think of narratives, we often do not “expect to experience agency within a narrative environment” (Murray 126), in part because traditional media provide closure at the end of stories. Yet video games, and visual novels more specifically, often provide choices in the story that can change outcomes considerably. Thus, narrative in visual novels reinforces Aarseth’s perception of intrigue in terms of engagement and progression. Narrative can lure the gamer in and invite them to establish residency in this digital world; in other words, it can encourage the narrative presence and transportation—the feelings of investment and immersion 15

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

that overcome a gamer when they are enthralled by the story—discussed later, that are an integral part of all visual novel genres and subgenres.

Perceptions of Control in Visual Novels Meaningful interactivity, as we have discussed previously, is an essential component in both the narrative and the gameplay of visual novels, but what happens when a player’s choices do not pan out in the way they imagine? Despite wanting the player to have infinite options, the game itself has limitations. As Christopher Bartel writes on Skyrim, “Obviously the reason for such limitations simply has to do with the technological limitations on how much can be programmed into the game. The degree of choice that the player is afforded in such games may be immense, but it has its limits” (287). Even with games that promise considerable freedom in the gameworld as is true for open-world role-playing games, all designers will have to consider their objectives in terms of available resources, manpower, and calendar days if a deadline is on the horizon. These roadblocks mean that, to some extent, the narrative must be prewritten. The gamer cannot take an action that the designer has not thought about and accounted for, and this limitation affects the amount of ludological control the gamer has over the narrative. As Mallon writes, “A major challenge in designing games with a prewritten narrative is therefore to make the player feel that they are truly interacting within, and have agency within, the narrative world. One way of doing so is to place demands on the player’s skills, implying that future events depend on the player’s skill and therefore fall under his or her control” (Mallon 1). The branching narrative structure of visual novels ensures that, at least within the possible storylines, future events do fall under the player’s control, but that control does not necessarily mean the gamer feels as though they have agency. For Crawford, choice and control are likewise intimately linked. He describes choice as one of the three factors, along with speed and depth, that determine the degree of interaction within a game (41). Consequently, the “richness” of a game’s choices influences the quality of interaction. Crawford writes of two factors that comprise the richness of choices, “the functional significance of each choice” (41) and “perceived completeness: the number of choices in relation to the number of possibilities the user can imagine” (41). A main point that he makes here is that a high number of choices within a narrative is not necessarily positive; an interaction with only two 16

Introduction

choices might be more powerful if it is reasonable within the narrative that the character might have the limited ability to choose (Crawford 41). Visual novels, which are constructed around this ability to choose, thus have the ability to impart a feeling of increased control within gamers. The key is that the gamer is making “dramatically significant” decisions, meaning that “the interactivity is not independent and separable from the storytelling: the two must be in harmony to be effective” (Crawford 55). In the visual novel and by extension the dating sim, decisions are not spatial or aesthetic. Choices affect the story world and narrative directly, though sometimes not immediately. A gamer’s perception of how much control they have over a story can therefore vary based on how complicated choices are within the game, and how directly these choices are seen by the gamer to impact the actual outcome. With that in mind, “As conveyors of narrative, video games constantly negotiate between the openness necessary for agency, and narrative demands for some form of closure” (Domsch 5). As visual novels for the most part give gamers only narrative control, and do not allow for control in a significant mechanical or aesthetic way, we place them as a genre on the overall spectrum of control as allowing minimal control for the gamer. A massive sandbox game like Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018) or Minecraft (Mojang, 2011) might have a high perception of control; the gamer can spend hundreds of hours pursuing various tasks, many of them not required to advance the story. Meanwhile, a puzzle game like Tetris (Nintendo, 1989) or a platformer like Celeste (Matt Makes Games, 2018) offer little or no narrative freedom. These games, while they can have excellent stories, have limited mechanical and nonexistent built-in narrative options. For the most part, the term “visual novel” is a Western creation for games that usually have Japanese aesthetics and copious amounts of text. This is often confusing and misleading because fans and Japanese creators note that there are usually distinctions between a true visual novel and Japanese adventure games (Szczepaniak 475). Though they represent a single genre of a larger umbrella of story-based games, visual novels themselves vary widely as far as how much control the player perceives as possible. It is difficult, therefore, to take into account the universe of games and genres and place visual novels on a wider spectrum of control. However, with these difficulties in mind, if we placed visual novels on a spectrum of perceived control, games like the bird dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend that offer myriad choices and endings would likely have a higher perception of control. Hatoful Boyfriend, for example, has over ten possible endings in which the 17

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

main character ends up dating, or not dating, different characters. Various choices within the game, including places the main character visits, classes they attend, and the characters they choose to spend time with, influence the ending and achievements they receive along the way. Other visual novels, like DDLC, employ certain conventions of the genre only to remove control from the player to make a wider point. Though DDLC at first appears to be a dating sim, the gamer ultimately has no control over who the main character romances at the end of the game. Because of its blatant moves to disrupt the gamer’s control, DDLC lies opposite Hatoful Boyfriend on the spectrum of control. Further, despite its use of dating sim conventions, we would classify it as a horror or suspense visual novel and not as a dating sim. It is important to note here that when a designer decides to wrest control away from their audience in this way, the audience finds ways to reassert itself. In the case of DDLC, and as we discuss in-depth in our previous work, “Just Modika,” that assertion comes in the form of player-driven mods which dramatically alter the story to allow the gamer to play DDLC as though it were a normal dating sim (Raffel and Kretzschmar). We place visual novels like If My Heart Had Wings (Pulltop, 2013) and Kara No Shōjo on less extreme ends of the spectrum. If My Heart Had Wings is a traditional romantic visual novel with five endings that each center around dating a specific girl. Each ending can be unlocked if the gamer loads save files before the key event. Conversely, we define the eroge detective visual novel Kara No Shōjo, and the other games in its series, as giving the gamer moderate control, specifically because it blends with the mystery/detective genre discussed in Chapter 5. Though, like Hatoful Boyfriend, the game has many distinct endings, and the choices the gamer makes throughout the story are so nuanced that it is nigh impossible without the use of a guide to determine during each playthrough how those choices actually affect the narrative. Because of this ambiguousness, the gamer is in the unique but unsettling position of feeling as though every click of the mouse in Kara No Shōjo has mysterious but drastic—sometimes life-threatening— consequences. Though there are a significant number of choices, the reality is that most of those choices lead to unavoidable bad endings, and it is difficult to view the true ending without a guide. Visual novels allow the illusion of agency because gamers believe their choices progress the story, and without the story the game is little more than a slideshow of pointing and clicking. Interestingly, though visual novels are not seen as mechanically robust due to their heavy reliance on simple pointing and clicking mechanics, as Crawford notes, “Branching trees suffer 18

Introduction

from geometric growth that always requires more work than designers anticipate” (117). It is no wonder that a game’s narrative structure needs to appeal to a litany of desires, including projection, escapism, identification, and especially entertainment, to ensure the gamer’s interest and immersion. Still, none of these qualities can be sustained forever in a narrative, and once the structure has run its course and the gamer has exhausted certain narrative options, they will have to move on to another visual novel so that these desires may be replicated once more. These branching narratives can help explain why gamers who discover visual novels find them so entertaining and, as we will explain later, so transportive; myriad and varied storylines allow the games to be replayed a multitude of times, sometimes with vastly different results. For some, part of the allure of such games is that “replayability” allows them to get lost in the story over and over again.

Haven of Variety and Second Chances: Replayability and Narrative Transportation Perceived control is not the be-all and end-all of what makes a “good” or even an enjoyable game, a fact evidenced by the long-standing popularity of visual novels and by scholars in various disciplines. To return to Crawford’s assertion, what visual novels lack in aesthetic and mechanical control, they tend to make up for in their immersive power because the choices granted to the player intricately affect the drama of the story. In short, visual novels promote meaningful interaction, and meaningful interaction is fun. One of the reasons why this type of interaction is fun may be found in the cognitive and emotional impact of stories. In “Understanding Media Enjoyment,” cognitive psychologists Green et al. relate emotional investment to narrative transportation, or the feeling of being lost in a book, so absorbed that we forget the outside world. Visual novels, thanks to their narrative richness, allow gamers to experiment with choices, and dating sims in particular allow gamers to see how those choices affect their relationships with other characters. As Green et al. write, “A media viewer doesn’t have to take the risk of changing jobs, spouses, or locales to experience another kind of life, but rather can vicariously experience such alternative life choices through the lives of the characters who inhabit the worlds to which he or she is transported” (318). Control itself might be overrated in light of a riveting story, rich characters, and the actual ability to influence the story and ending. These are the building blocks on which the visual novel and 19

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

adventure games as a whole are built. After all, gamers would not spend over fifty hours on a single playthrough of a boring game, only to restart it in hopes of finding new content and a second ending (and if they do, this decision may have stemmed from a bad recommendation from online visual novel communities as explored in Chapter 8). Of course, narrative transportation and investment are linked to specific audiences in that a gamer must be motivated to play a game in the first place. One of the reasons gamers might enjoy visual novels so much is for their nostalgia factor, an idea which is linked to their status as postmodern artifacts of a particular mixed media culture.

Visual Novels, Media Mixing, and Cultural Memory If some of the aforementioned games have not spoiled the surprise, most visual novels either contain or are clearly inspired by Japanese aesthetics to the point that “looking Japanese” could be seen as a vital hallmark discussed earlier. There is a rich academic history of the “otaku” subculture, a common term for fandoms of Japanese popular culture. Although the term is simultaneously controversial and heralded, “In our strange new current COVID era, the culture of the otaku has permeated us all the more, on both a global and a personal level” (Napier 6). We are eager to extend this framework to visual novels when applicable because, for many gamers, part of the appeal of visual novels is that they belong to a historically Japanese video game genre. This means that in many cases, gamers are drawn to them precisely because of their Japanese qualities. As Chapter 7 will demonstrate, Western creators often adopt these features when publishing their own works. There are exceptions as some Western visual novels maintain Western aesthetics and settings. Nevertheless, even a niche category like Western adult visual novels could be linked to Japan given the history of erotic games (Valens). Many subsequent chapters will speak directly to these Japanese characteristics, including fascination with storytelling tropes, an appreciation for anime aesthetics, and even a potential longing for real and imagined video game nostalgia. Eastern and Western video game genres maintain integral cultural differences, so visual novels traditionally belong to “geemu” academic scholarship, or simply the Japanese term for games. Video games “constitute a shared culture that transcends national borders” (Baba), but any conversation about these games benefits from multiple intersections 20

Introduction

of Japanese culture in that “its history, economy and its modern and contemporary development is not only preferable, but essential” (Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 1). Therefore, Japanese media formats can be analyzed as interconnected properties, and one framework for analyzing geemu, media mixing, corresponds with Henry Jenkins’ convergence phenomena. Scholar Mizuko Ito researched the culture surrounding the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise from 1998 to 2002 and noted that media mixing is “increasingly designed to sustain intertextual referencing across the different media incarnations” (94). Approaching similar conclusions, Jenkins acknowledged Ito in the Convergence Culture chapter titled “Searching for the Origami Unicorn” in which he laid the groundwork for transmedia storytelling, particularly how it was used in such titles like The Animatrix that brought Western and Eastern animation studios together to create a series of narratives as a canonical companion piece to the trilogy (113). Integrating some of the works of both scholars, Marc Steinberg presents a roadmap of media mixing in Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Steinberg builds on media mixing (and convergence) to theorize that such an interrelated and interdisciplinary framework emphasizing multiple franchise entry points based on various media formats was triggered by anime’s rise in the 1960s (viii). Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon would later situate some of Steinberg’s research in a special issue of the journal Kinephanos with the purpose of emphasizing the importance of geemu in academic video game studies (4). Building on the works of these scholars, we will utilize the interdisciplinary nature of media mixing and convergence to situate visual novels in this media nexus and what it means for the video game genre going forward. For instance, in this media mix, successful transportation and immersion of visual novels often rely on knowledge of interconnected franchises and properties. As Mia Consalvo writes, “A converged media culture has added more revenue flows, as Japanese game companies have placed greater emphasis on going global with their media mix—something that they have been doing for years with varied degrees of success—as another key way of managing the declining local market” (94). Interestingly, Consalvo writes mainly about larger AAA titles, but we will demonstrate in Chapters 2 and 3 that anime and manga have been important companions to the visual novel since their inception. Sometimes the visual novel is the primary cultural delivery vehicle while other times it is a corresponding anime or manga. In many cases, even when the visual novel is the source material, it often does not possess enough clout of its own and must rely on another cultural vehicle, predominately anime, to 21

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

generate interest outside of Japan. For example, we will explain in Chapter 3 that such evolutions in anime, both pre- and post-Cool Japan marketing, introduced seeds that allowed visual novels to propagate. Ultimately, media mixing makes titles more accessible and improves distribution across a number of intellectual properties, yet it still took decades before visual novels gained the recognition that they now have as a video game genre. For example, ELF’s Yu-No: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World (1996) was rereleased in 2019 to wider audiences, more than twenty years after its initial run. At times, our conversation will be academic in accordance with our research backgrounds. Other times, we will introduce subject matter that should, at the very least, garner some chuckles. After all, to date, visual novels remain one of the few (if only) video game genres in which potential consumers from other fanbases in the same media mix will ask their respective communities, “Wait, my favorite anime was a porn game?” Visual novels, although not the most ubiquitous example of Japanese culture, have contributed enough to video game conversations that they are worthy of their own book. It is also worth investigating in relation to media mixing that visual novels, arguably more than any genre, invite conversations of pastiche and of cultural memory. Susannah Radstone asserts, “memory constructs the past in the present” (111), and finds that narratives can construct memories for viewers, and in this case, gamers, who then feel as though they have traveled to the locale on screen. Radstone goes on to argue, Whether we focus on the ways in which memory might “travel” via the cinema, or the Internet, for instance, that travel remains only hypothetical, or an unrealized potential, until a particular individual goes to a specific website, or a particular audience watches a specific film. For even when (and if) memory travels, it is only ever instantiated locally, in a specific place and at a particular time. (117) Her words could easily include the visual novel as a mode of “travel” for memories. Perhaps even more effectively than both cinema and the internet, visual novels put the gamer at the center of a cultural story, allowing them to experience some slice of culture (usually Japanese) without needing to physically travel. Furthermore, Radstone’s memories are confined to a particular time, supporting the idea, discussed further in Chapter 8, that visual novels’ popularity with some gamers plays on a sense of nostalgia. As we will explain later in Chapter 2, the stories found in visual novels, while 22

Introduction

many are fantastic and outlandish, provide an insight into Japanese history and culture that, combined with manga and anime, lend the gamer a sense of cultural participation and “Cool Japan” cultural currency.

What to Expect from the Rest of This Book This book’s remaining seven chapters are divided into three main sections or concepts: an examination of the historical and cultural contexts that led to the inception of visual novels in Japan and their eventual (and sometimes fraught) translation into other languages and adoption by Western culture (Chapters 2–3); a deeper explanation of some of the main genres of visual novels, including dating sims, mysteries, detective stories, and erotica (Chapters 4–6); and a discussion of some of the future and ongoing issues affecting the creation and distribution of visual novels, including the rise of open-source software and fan-created games, and the inclusion of visual novel elements in other genres like role-playing and fighting games (Chapters 7–8). As a note on Japanese names and terms: because this text is written primarily for a Western audience, we will communicate Japanese terms in romaji (using the Latin alphabet) instead of hiragana and katakana (the Japanese phonetic lettering systems). For consistency, when citing Japanese authors, we will also write using their surname last. With this structure and format in mind, Chapter 2 explores the link between post–Second World War storytelling, literature, manga, and anime, in Japan. The remediation of classic Japanese science fiction, often including post-apocalyptic worlds and cyborgs combined with new technology that could create more vivid graphical elements in games. These developments coalesced in the release of what is widely considered the “first” visual novel, Enix’s and Chunsoft’s Portopia Serial Murder Case in 1983. With the history of the visual novel in Japan explained, Chapter 3 explains how the genre migrated internationally as more Western gamers became enticed by Japanese video games and were introduced to anime in the 1980s and 1990s. Following an unsuccessful attempt to market eroge visual novels in the West, the genre began to take hold in the early 2000s on the handhold console, the Nintendo DS, which published detective stories with visual novel elements. To accommodate growing interests that were not fulfilled by the typical video game distribution channels, sites like MangaGamer and Sekai Project grew to market and distribute visual novels to Western gamers, which led to the development of the current niche market. 23

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

With the history and distribution examined, the second section of this book, Chapters 4–6, focuses on an examination of key visual novel subgenres and their visual and narrative tropes. Chapter 4 focuses on the dating simulator, commonly known as the dating sim. It is worth noting here that dating sims are a game genre with examples that do not overlap with visual novels, and Chapter 4 thus focuses on the subgenre and the tropes it shares with other types of visual novels. We then discuss some of the examples of the genre, which include games that both uphold traditional gender roles and challenge them through LGBTQ+ themes and parody. Chapter 5 focuses on a second subgenre, the mystery or detective genre. We examine three trends in mystery video games: trial games, exploratory mysteries, and supernatural horror titles. Throughout the discussion, we argue that a common thread across these three types of mystery stories is that all ask the gamer to solve puzzles to further the interactive story. Chapter 6, our final deep dive into a specific subgenre, focuses on eroge, or erotic titles. Eroge visual novels usually contain pornographic content that may or may not be integral to the story, and we examine how these stories, through sites like MangaGamer, traveled westward as one of the more commonly played subgenres of visual novels. Please note that this chapter may contain some disturbing descriptions or images and discusses sexual content. In Chapter 7, we discuss how open-source visual novel software has made visual novels more prevalent internationally, with authors who are not from Japan taking up the mantle and creating their own spin on the genre using Japanese tropes but, at times, a very different cultural understanding. Ultimately, we argue that these “copies,” because of the way they borrow and remix from their Japanese predecessors, represent a unique side-genre. And, to conclude with Chapter 8, we focus on the future of visual novels. Coincidentally, the future of visual novels is intricately linked with its past, creating nostalgia for games that is both real and imagined. Looking toward future trends, we argue that, while visual novels may not break out of their status as a niche interest for gamers, other genres, such as role-playing games and fighting games, have incorporated visual novel elements in such a way as to make them “infiltrators” across the spectrum of the game industry. As designers and developers continue to experiment with genres, we expect to see this trend continue and grow. Now that you have the lay of the land, where would you like to go first?

24

Introduction

Works Cited Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext : Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Print. Baba, Akira. “Videogames—A Shared Culture Thriving in Japan and the United Kingdom.” Wochi Kochi Magazine, 2012, www​.wochikochi​.jp​/english​/foreign​ /2012​/06​/game​-uk​.php. Bartel, Christopher. “Free Will and Moral Responsibility in Video Games.” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 17, no. 4, 2016, pp. 285–93. Bates, Bob. Game Design. Second, Thomson Course Technology PTR, 2004. Bernstein, Mark. “Patterns of Hypertext.” Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia: Proceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia : Links, Objects, Time and Space–Structure in Hypermedia Systems, ACM, 1998, pp. 21–9. Black, Daniel. “Why Can I See My? Embodied Engagement in the ThirdPerson Game.” Games and Culture, vol. 12, no. 2, 2017, pp. 179–99, doi:10.1177/1555412015589175. Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press, 2007. Cavallaro, Dani. Anime and the Visual Novel: Narrative Structure, Design, and Play at the Crossroads of Animation and Computer Games. Kindle, McFarland, 2009. Consalvo, Mia. “Convergence and Globalization in the Japanese Videogame Industry.” Media Convergence in Japan, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason G. Karlin, Kinema Club, 2016, pp. 90–8. Crawford, Chris. On Interactive Storytelling. 2nd ed., New Riders, 2012. Crawford, Rebecca, and Yuanyuan Chen. “From Hypertext to Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Future of VR Visual Novels: The Potentials of New Technologies for Branching-Path Narrative Games.” 2017 23rd International Conference on Virtual System & Multimedia, IEEE, 2017, pp. 1–7, doi:10.1109/VSMM.2017.8346298. Cruz, Carlos, Michael D. Hanus, and Jesse Fox. “The Need to Achieve: Players’ Perceptions and Uses of Extrinsic-Game Reward Systems for Video Game Consoles.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 71, 2017, pp. 516–24. Domsch, Sebastian. Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games. De Gruyter, 2013. Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and Grieg de Peuter. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games (Electronic Mediations). Kindle, University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Isbister, Katherine. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. Kindle, MIT Press, 2016. Green, Melanie C., et al. “Understanding Media Enjoyment: The Role of Transportation Into Narrative Worlds.” Communication Theory, vol. 14, no. 4, 2004, pp. 311–27. Ito, Mizuko. “Technologies of the Childhood Imagination: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Media Mixes, and Everyday Cultural Production.” In Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, edited by Joe Karaganis, Social Science Research Council, 2007, pp. 88–110.

25

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press, 2006. Jimenez, Kristi. “Let’s Talk About Visual Novel UIs.” VN Game Den, November 2021, https://www​.vngameden​.com​/lets​-talk​-about​-visual​-novel​-uis​/6080/. Juul, Jesper. “A Clash between Game and Narrative: A Thesis on Computer Games and Interactive Fiction.” Jesper Juul, April 17, 2001, https://www​.jesperjuul​.net​/ thesis​/3​-the​oret​ical​intr​oduction​.html. Juul, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. MIT Press, 2005. Kei. “Visual Novel | What Are CG’s?” Anime Amino, February 19, 2015, https:// aminoapps​.com​/c​/anime​/page​/blog​/visual​-novel​-what​-are​-cgs​/vqtn​_un8​ZMRE​ B2YJ​rjvK​pD1l​116lXg. Mallon, Bride. “Towards a Taxonomy of Perceived Agency in Narrative Game-Play.” ACM Computers in Entertainment, vol. 5, no. 4, 2008, pp. 1–15. Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. MIT Press, 2001. Millard, David E. “Games/Hypertext.” HT ’20: Proceedings of the 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, ACM, 2020, pp. 123–26, https://doi. org/https://doi​.org​/10​.1145​/3372923​.3404775. Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Kindle, Free Press, 2016. Nakamura, Lisa. Digitizing Race. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Napier, Susan. “Introduction: New Formulations of the Otaku.” Mechademia, vol. 14, no. 2, 2022, pp. 1–6. Picard, Martin, and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon. “Introduction: Geemu, Media Mix, and the State of Japanese Video Game Studies.” Edited by Martin Picard and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon. Kinephanos: Journal of Media Studies and Popular Culture, Geemu and Media Mix: Theoretical Approaches to Japanese Video Games, vol. 5, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–15. Radstone, Susannah. “What Place Is This? Transcultural Memory and the Locations of Memory Studies.” Parallax (Leeds, England), vol. 17, no. 4, 2011, pp. 109–23. Reed, Aaron. Changeful Tales: Design-Driven Approaches Toward More Expressive Storygames. 2017. University of California Santa Cruz, Ph.D. Dissertation. https://escholarship​.org​/uc​/item​/8838j82v. Reed, Aaron, et al. Adventure Games: Playing the Outsider. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Rowland, Thomas. “We Will Travel by Map: Maps as Narrative Spaces in Video Games and Medieval Texts.” Digital Gaming Re-Imagines the Middle Ages, edited by Daniel T. Kline, Routledge, pp. 189–201. Steinberg, Marc. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Szczepaniak, S. M. G. The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers: Gold Edition. Kindle, S.M.G. Szczepaniak, 2014. Taylor, Emily. “Dating Simulation Games: Leisure and Gaming of Japanese Youth Culture.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies, vol. 29, 2007, pp. 192–208. Thabet, Tamer. Video Game Narrative and Criticism: Playing the Story. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

26

Introduction Ulas, Ekber Servet. “Virtual Environment Design and Storytelling in Video Games.” Metaverse Creativity, vol. 4, no. 1, 2014, pp. 75–91, doi: 10.1386/mvcr.4.1.75_1. Valens, Ana. “Eroge, Visual Novels, and Hentai: Your Guide to Adult Visual Novels.” Daily Dot, May 20, 2021, https://www​.dailydot​.com​/irl​/visual​-novel​ -eroge​-hentai​-games/. Walker, Jill. Fiction and Interaction: How Clicking a Mouse Can Make You Part of a Fictional World. University of Bergen, 2003.

27

CHAPTER 2 DIGITAL BOOKS OF THE RISING SUN Cultural and Technological Factors Leading to the Remediation of Manga and Anime

Many people will encounter some form of Japanese entertainment or popular culture. Whether the samurai trope featured prominently in Akira Kurosawa movies, recognizing a popular character like Cloud Strife in Square’s Final Fantasy VII (1997), or the cliché-ridden sitcom episode in which Westerners travel to the Land of the Rising Sun, resisting exposure is unlikely. Visual novels are not the most ubiquitous form of Japanese culture, but they nonetheless occupy a unique and important sphere of intertextuality—the relationship between texts based on the interconnected nature of their meanings. Some visual novels inspired manga and anime, while some anime and manga inspired visual novels. Other visual novels were clearly inspired by, paid homage to, or even parodied what came before, contributing to Henry Jenkins’ phenomenon of “convergence” (2). As discussed in Chapter 1, convergence is one factor that makes the storytelling in visual novels enthralling and transportive. Gamers can discover and interact with aspects of the stories “across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” (Ibid., 97–8), which makes it easy to get lost in a good story. Likewise, creators of these endeavors usually continue their work, whether as full-time collaborators or part-time consultants, once the primary project is designed for another medium. Since visual novels share characteristics with other Japanese art forms like manga and anime, they can also be studied under the media theory remediation. In a way, convergence and remediation act as two sides of the same theoretical coin; convergence explains why audiences enjoy consuming stories across different media, while remediation, according to Bolter and Grusin, explains “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms” (273). For example, some video games—like the aforementioned Final Fantasy VII—feature cinematic elements (cutscenes) in moments of narrative, and some movie and television studios spend millions to turn popular video

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

games into movies and shows—like the Witcher series. To fully understand visual novels as a video game genre means to observe other trends in Japanese popular culture because their reputation has been shaped by the reciprocal nature of Japanese storytelling media, a cycle of convergence and remediation that fans now expect. Due to the similarities between Japanese aesthetics as well as the uniqueness of Japanese video games when compared to their Western counterparts, historically significant media trends helped paved the way for Eastern storytelling in entertainment. While this list is not exhaustive, nor can it be given the wealth of Japanese media research, the examples show how the interrelated relationship between literature, manga, anime, and video games establishes a foundation for the evolution of visual novels. Bolter and Grusin also note, “Media need each other in order to function as media at all” (55), meaning that media borrow from each other, pay tribute to, or even actively work to cancel a prior form out. This interplay of competition and nostalgia suggests economics and consumer demand motivate remediation. It becomes the commercial force that determines which companies will control the market, which games will be ported to other systems or remade entirely, and which video games will fall into obscurity. Visual novels are no exception as this book will provide examples of companies living on through key projects (perhaps “surviving” is a better word) and companies that have since gone bankrupt and only live on through devoted sites like the Visual Novel Database. Many of the first visual novels featured manga and anime aesthetics and, in some instances, were even officially licensed adventure games that starred beloved characters. Eventually, visual novels incorporated tropes that were already established in Japanese literary trends like mystery fiction, science fiction, manga, and even erotica. Visual novels are thus intertextual for two main reasons. First, they are remediated, often consisting of multiple products and connected properties that tell different stories, produce different meanings, and even create different entry points for various audiences. These audiences include people on one end of the spectrum who played a Japanese game casually and those on the other end who are obsessed with Japanese culture. Second, visual novels are intertextual because they infer the presence of convergence culture. They assume, via storytelling and visual cues, that an individual understands basic concepts about other media, such as literature, manga, and anime. For example, manga plays a role in this framework because “panels” in manga dictate “what storytelling elements need to be emphasized, then how the narrative moment can be organized for clarity” 29

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

(Talon and Thompson 21). As a video game genre almost entirely based on narratives or narrative choice, visual novels once utilized images like computer graphics (CG) because “some of the storytelling had to take place within the visuals, since text alone wouldn’t provide sufficient context for the plot” (Crimmins). In addition to a brief history of manga and anime, Japanese literary trends are also significant. Much of the difference between Eastern and Western games lies in character and game design. However, given that visual novels are a narrative-based genre from Japan, it is worth investigating how some trends may have ultimately contributed to the genre’s appeal. This chapter thus provides some of the necessary context for early visual novels that took on similar features to literature, manga, and anime before technology allowed video games to remediate the genre into what we recognize today. Following these story trends, we will then examine how early game platforms, the technological and ludological trends in Japanese computers, and certain game consoles made visual novels of the 1980s stand out through their early use of design elements that we continue to observe today: detailed art, cinematic cutscenes, voiceovers, music, and swappable image assets. These trends, however implicitly, will allow us to introduce a rough roadmap for subgenres and design tropes that visual novels continue to manifest to this day.

Japanese Media Trends and Visual Novel Storytelling: Beyond the Western Lens How Did Mystery and Detective Fiction Arrive in the East? Mystery fiction is the subject of Chapter 5 in which we explore the unique nature of detective-based visual novels and adventure games, but the literary history also demonstrates that the roots were in place long before the advent of digital technology. Although short-lived, Japanese tabloids of the 1870s provided a look into Meiji Japan (1868–1912) storytelling conventions following Commodore Perry’s gunboat diplomacy voyage to open Japanese trade between 1852 and 1854 that hastened the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate. These sensationalistic tabloids, called news nishikie, were woodblock prints that may or may not have possessed elements of factual reporting as some were based on real news stories. A common theme was the entertainment value of scandalous stories, including “illicit love, ghosts, freaks, revenge. Even when they had some 30

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

basis in fact, the reporting was only slightly better than in the [Japanese newspapers], and multiple competing accounts of the same event might swirl simultaneously” (Frost). In one 1874 example, a newspaper reported a grisly story in which a large dog was seen carrying a decomposed human head in its mouth, thus leading to a criminal arrest, much like a real-life Edgar Allan Poe story. Although the newspaper tried to be objective and matter of fact (if it were actually true) with such an outlandish story, the nishikie sequence of events introduced morality and concluded that the gods, chiefly the sun goddess Amaterasu, communicated with the dog to restore order in the terrified village (Wetherall and Schreiber). This fascination with the macabre and justice remains common in mystery visual novels. Since detective stories can be analyzed as games themselves in which readers play along and potentially solve the case before the narrator if given access to the correct clues, these narratives helped establish what would ultimately become popular tropes in future media like visual novels. Justice is a reward, but the concerns that societal institutions might not hold up or the investigator can make mistakes that null the entire legal process makes for thrilling possibilities. The detective genre likely germinated in 1841 once Edgar Allan Poe introduced Auguste Dupin to the masses in the short story “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” By integrating his specific brand of the macabre to blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy, Poe developed a following among individuals who loved puzzles, allegedly including Abraham Lincoln whose “campaign biography states that he read and reread Poe’s Dupin stories with relish every year to keep his mind sharp” (Rachman). Many Western writers followed suit, but the Eastern development was equally exciting as translations of “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and Anna Katharine Green’s XYZ: A Detective Story were translated in 1887 (Silver 17). Japanese audiences were enthralled by detective authors’ abilities to “straddle the divide between the real world and a fictional one” as evidenced by a burgeoning combination of criminal profiles and sensationalistic tabloids (Ibid., 23). Aside from natural curiosity toward the ghoulish and sensationalistic, detective stories coincided with significant changes in Japanese society leading up to and following the 1889 Meiji Constitution that completely overhauled Japan’s governing system. This period “gave rise to keen interest from the general public about the workings of the law. Assisted greatly by the blossoming of the newspaper medium in the early Meiji period, crime and trial reportage, operating in conjunction with less factual counterparts, frequently became the center of public attention” (Saito 35). Western translations and Japanese 31

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

original stories not only piqued public interest but also articulated anxieties about court reform: The detective novel, by presenting ambiguous evidence and enacting plausible but mistaken interpretations of that evidence along the way to the final solution, carried an obvious potential to highlight the fragility of the justice system. Although such narratives, at least in their most classic form, end on a note of poetic justice, that ending is generally attained at the cost of close calls with miscarriages of justice along the way. Since it is not only the agents of the law in the text but the reader as well who is by turns convinced of the guilt of the wrong people, the detective story was particularly suited as a genre for putting the authority of the justice system itself on trial. (Silver 57) Japanese interest in detective and mystery fiction remained high, but during the buildup to the Second World War, “the production of new works, both original and translated, waned. Some authors lent their talents to the war effort, while others stopped writing altogether” (Kawana 118). Interest returned via new detective stories after the war, as well as media like manga and anime. Decades later, as Chapter 5 demonstrates, there are examples of visual novels putting their characters on trial following elaborate crimes. These games throw the gamer into a world where they must play detective, gather evidence, and gradually unveil a complete picture about event sequences in the gameworld, often placing authority figures who should be on the side of justice in situations where they behave as antagonists in the process. Although mystery and detective visual novels have similarities with detective fiction, the literary genre may have also ushered in Japanese science fiction that eventually resonated with audiences across the globe. Armageddon, Mechas, Cyborgs, and Alien Space Princesses: Japanese Science Fiction Perhaps no form of Japanese entertainment is as recognizable (or as popular) as science fiction. In fact, some of the first visual novels that will be discussed in this chapter centered around science-fiction plots. Even though many gamers now conjure images of dating simulators when they think of the video game genre, these themes still make appearances in some contemporary visual novels (Crawford and Chen 3). For decades, fans have consumed tales of giant robots, equally giant mechas (robots with pilots), 32

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

space operas featuring giant ships, kaiju (giant monsters) battles, graphic horror, androids, and space royalty for good measure. Japanese science fiction can cover any category of fiction, but it has roots in detective stories as early pioneering authors like Yumeno Kyūsaku emphasized the horrors of the mysterious or the unknown: Detective Fiction must be the ultimate popular literature [taishuteki na yomimono] that makes one fully taste the flavors of pleasure, intensity, and the gruesomeness that exposes this humanity through the mode of absolute fear [zetsudai no kyofu]. It must make one shudder. (qtd. in Nakamura 367) Even before the Second World War, technology was viewed positively and negatively because it could reflect a march toward utopian ideals or the destruction of society depending on how machines are used and by whom (Nakamura 366). The same is, of course, true for all societies, but Japanese stories still wrestle with a personal connection to apocalyptic destruction. First, in addition to the fear or extreme skepticism toward the uncanny, a central theme of science fiction is “othering” in which those who seem different are judged by the culture’s or self ’s own norms. Once Japan modernized at the turn of the nineteenth century, science-fiction literature often focused on intergalactic threats. Some of these threats resembled Westernization toppling traditional Japanese norms: “Yet like a comet on a collision course with Earth, for Japanese people in the Meiji period, the Westernization of Japan seemed ineluctable” (Tanaka 39). Still, one could argue that there is beauty in the vastness of space in addition to its threats as evidenced by humanity’s interest in the stars and celestial occurrences. The same cannot be said for full-scale nuclear Armageddon, which has only been witnessed by Japan following the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered in 1945, but the nation did so after paying a horrific price. As man harnessed the violence of the stars, there was suddenly a lot more to worry about on Earth, let alone space. The Cold War did not help matters. It is interesting to note that when many Western productions address the threat of nuclear war, the subject is usually broached from the context of preventing it, usually with the help of a suave spy or officer who figures everything out at the precise moment. Notable exceptions in which war is not prevented include the American movie The Day After (1983), the English film Threads (1984), and the alien invasion epic Independence Day (1996). For apocalyptic Japanese media, treating war 33

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

or its aftermath as inevitable is a common practice as many programs take place in a setting that was already ravaged by devastation, and the focus is on society struggling with the remnants years later (Tanaka 47). In addition, most manga and anime that deal with themes like man versus technology, pacifism, and the complete devastation of the environment can be traced to the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the occupation of Allied Forces (Brenner 5–6). Despite this heavy subtext, Westerners who appreciate Japanese entertainment, whether literature, manga, animation, or video games, likely encountered Japanese science fiction in their lifetimes. Many find Japanese science-fiction stories enticing because they are “double coded” to appeal to both Japanese anxieties and global excitement for stories that do not operate under the watchful eye of an American lens pushing “techno-moralistic paranoia” (Bolton et al. viii). The notion of “double coding” is important in Japanese science fiction because fans could be interacting with two different storylines that, while not mutually exclusive, are nuanced. On one hand, Godzilla movies are fun and delightfully cheesy tales of giant monsters fighting each other while destroying a city in the process. On the other hand, some audiences might notice that “Godzilla’s vengeance is a kind of cathartic purging of Japanese guilt for starting the fighting in the Pacific with the United States, and his defeat at the end of the film may be seen as a banishment of Japan’s own warlike impulses and feudal past” (Siegel 255). Another example is Ultraman, a franchise about a giant galactic being who accidentally crashes into the jet of a pilot named Shin Hayata. Remorseful, Ultraman revives Hayata and merges with him. When giant monsters attack Japan, Ultraman can be summoned to save the day. Once again, some audiences will watch two giants locked in an epic battle like a professional wrestling match, while a more subtextual reading of guardian science fiction like Ultraman finds that he defends Japan and preserves society from foreign threats when called upon (Siegel 257). Cultural othering also played a significant role in two of Japan’s most crucial science-fiction elements: the cyborg and alien creatures. Cybernetic organisms appear in many video games, shows, and manga as they represent how societies view their current relationships with technology, whether positively or critically. Cyborgs speak to a promise or belief that “the future will be here when robots will work for us, when we can become cyborgs and extend our lives through technology, when we can ‘jack in’ and live in virtual reality” (La Bare 23). If living on the planet with technology was not interesting to a fanbase, some creators situated their programs in space. Several of these series featured 34

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

intergalactic races, providing a link to technological concerns of the cyborg in the form of the sympathetic alien being. Some were uniquely designed while others essentially looked human. For the most part, they were granted motives that made them distinctive, even if they were antagonists. If given the opportunity to connect with alien beings, othering allows fans to “escape not just the physiological constraints of human beings but also many of the cultural restraints of Japanese society” (Siegel 261). In many cases, these extraterrestrial beings are gendered to display and accentuate key features and attributes. Identification in many of these productions could be manipulated by physical attraction as some characters are purposely beautiful. In actuality, gender became integral to manga and anime given that postwar entertainment was often marketed to specific demographics. This was certainly the case for entertainment made exclusively for young girls post−Second World War. Stories for Girls: Here Comes Sho-jo Japanese militarism and nationalism grew in the 1920s and 1930s, leading up to the Second World War. Satirists and cartoonists were given the choice to “either work for the government, producing comics propaganda for both the home front and the enemy front, or be pressured out of a job, exiled, or even arrested” (Brenner 5). Manga in particular was singled out by the Japanese authorities and issued reform mandates that regulated publications marketed to children (Orbaugh 105). Once manga reappeared in postwar Japan, unshackled from its brief foray into propaganda, there was a surge in creativity. One of the (if not the) pioneers of postwar Japanese manga was Osamu Tezuka whose works include New Treasure Island, Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Princess Knight, and Buddha. Tezuka’s major influences were not Japanese comics, but Western cartoons, including Betty Boop, Popeye, and especially Disney movies. Due to these influences, Tezuka incorporated filmmaking practices, especially during action sequences (Brenner 6). For some, Tezuka’s stories provided the first insights into Eastern forms of storytelling as his “use of cute, Disney-esque characters in serious stories (often with deep meanings) can create a mental dissonance. To the uninitiated, it can be disturbing to see children’s characters act like their adult counterparts in Russian novels: to be introspective, to agonize, to commit acts of both good and evil, and to even die” (Schodt 241). However, given Japan’s 35

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

postwar struggles, these existential themes demonstrated that Eastern stories contained different (sometimes deeper) messages for Westerners willing to give them a chance. His work also impacted manga by taking it outside the domain that cartoons were for children and positioning comics so that they could also be geared toward adults and adult subject matter (Levi 5). Importantly, Tezuka was not the only manga creator, so any deep dives into the history of manga have already been pursued by other scholars. However, one very specific manga trend introduced tropes and subject matter for both early visual novels of the 1980s and contemporary projects alike: shōjo manga, or manga created specifically for girls. Originally modeled after Victorian English concepts of womanhood, the concept of shōjo was an ideological training tool of the Meiji government (Monden 261). Since postwar Japanese devastation was hard to escape, shōjo manga was developed in part to help young girls feel better about themselves: “In a society devastated by war, searching for happiness was the major theme of manga for girls” (Dollase 60). Tezuka penned one of the first contemporaneous shōjo works in 1953 titled Princess Knight, which was also one of the first examples of a gender-bending female protagonist in the genre (Takeuchi 82). Women eventually began to create manga in the late 1950s, “[ushering] in the true dawn of modern shōjo manga in Japan, when female artists who shared the same desires and dreams with girls created shōjo manga for them” (Toku 23). Shōjo share many common tropes and conventions, including crossdressing, beautiful characters regardless of gender or sex (e.g., beautiful boys are called “bishōnen”), romance, female characters with bulging, starry eyes, and flowery imagery (Brenner 9). The genre “ballet manga” was responsible for perpetuating many of these tropes, including “its costumes and romanticized settings of glamorous cities as well as floral motifs, as a mix of femininity, rigor, and elegance remade for Japanese audiences” (Monden 288). One of the most prominent examples of ballet manga was Macoto Takahashi’s Beyond the Storm (1958), a serialization that pioneered specific aesthetic models for future shōjo manga like panel framing, floral arrangements, and starry eyes (Fujimoto and Thorn 24). As one of the most recognizable features of later Japanese entertainment, these distinct feminine eyes “represented their maidenly innocence and spiritual purity,” important characteristics for any young girl growing up in post–Second World War Japan (Dollase 61). As shōjo grew in popularity, it diverged into multiple subgenres, several of which can be found in contemporary visual novels and dating 36

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

simulators. We will discuss some of these trends in more detail in Chapter 4, but the earliest subgenre was arguably mahō shōjo (magical girl), which includes Tezuka’s aforementioned Princess Knight, Fujio Akatsuka’s The Secrets of Akko-chan (1962), and Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Sally the Witch (1966). In these stories, a young woman (or little girl in some cases) inherits superpowers. At some point in the narrative, the protagonist sheds her everyday attire for a magical outfit to reveal she can now use her powers. The transformation is usually very intricate as the comic panels or camera angles focus on various parts of her body. Mahō shōjo (both manga and anime) has a complicated history due to the revealing and often scopophilic nature of many transformation scenes. On one hand, some scholars believe these magical girls are empowering. Akiko Sugawa notes that mahō shōjo of the 1980s “use magic to bridge the gap between their real selves and their ideal of young womanhood and start coming to grips with social norms of feminine beauty and sexuality.” On the other hand, scholars like Anne Allison argue that the Sailor Scouts of the successful Sailor Moon franchise “are overtly feminized in ways that could (and are) also read as sexual: skimpy costumes (short skirts, tight bodices, boots or heels) that show off flesh (standardly shaped as long legs, thin waist, rounded breasts)” (129). If these attractive young women are prominently displayed as eye candy in snazzy outfits, the risk is “seemingly empowered girl heroes in anime covertly teach girls to pursue fashion, romance, and consumption until marriage and, once married, to stay at home as a good wife and mother” (Saito 146). Magical girl media teeter on a seesaw of female empowerment and overt sexualization, so the best recourse is to observe the genre as if titles were arranged on a spectrum of intended objectification. The earliest manga and anime specifically avoided this trend, and scholars observe innocence maintained in films like Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). However, if the transformation sequences of “girl-power action heroines” in Sailor Moon were meant to appeal to female demographics (Sousa 202), one mahō shōjo that predates Sailor Moon—Go Nagai’s Cutie Honey (1973)—was originally placed in the same television programming timeslot as Sally the Witch but was moved to appeal to young boys (Salvatore). Cutie Honey featured nudity during the transformation scenes despite the series’ original intent to maintain typical shōjo conventions. Ever since this appeal to preteen boys, magical girl manga and anime have produced some risqué and even repulsive titles. These include the whimsical yet racy Devil Hunter Yohko (1990), which might be the elevator pitch if a sex-crazed Buffy the Vampire Slayer morphed into Sailor Moon, and Toshio Maeda’s 37

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

explicit pornography La Blue Girl (1989), which should make any viewer uncomfortable by clumsily parodying the tentacle rape hentai subgenre. Scholars continue to research shōjo and its subgenres that have evolved to cater to various fanbases depending on its content. We revisit this subject in Chapter 4 as we explore the expectations of some shōjo subgenres, dating simulators and romantic visual novels, and again in Chapter 6 where we analyze erotic content in many Japanese games. For now, it is important to recognize that many of the visual novel’s artistic tropes originate from, or are remediated versions of, shōjo manga and anime. Two additional developments potentially brushed paths to lay the foundation for visual novels with mature content. Mature Audiences Only: Gekiga and Ero Guro Nansensu A fourth artistic trend appeared to grow out of both shōjo and shōnen (boys’ comics) styles in the 1950s. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say that gekiga (dramatic pictures) were a response to manga as they were designed with adults in mind as evidenced by darker themes and more realistic character models (e.g., bulging eyes typically found in manga are smaller). The primary goal of gekiga “is to depict a realism through imagery, whereas manga resembles a more romantic, and whimsical tone” (Dunham). Due to this sense of realism, gekiga often had gritty violence and erotic content. In fact, many gekiga were criticized “for the brutality and immorality of their stories, which contained ‘realistic’ depictions of drug-taking, murder, and other gritty realities of street life, or which focused on the most violent details of samurai warfare” (Orbaugh 108). The lines between manga and gekiga sometimes blur, but distinct art styles in such works as Takao Saito’s Golgo 13 (1968), Kazuo Koike’s Crying Freeman (1986), and Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal (1993) emphasize narratives that require parental advisories. Some gekiga creators introduce female protagonists as seen in Takashi Ishii’s Black Angel (1981), but such stories are often so dark that watching the protagonist suffer in order to get justice is a harrowing experience (Holt 131). Antiheroes are common in gekiga, and, despite their immoral ways, readers root for them anyway (Brenner 8). Gekiga stories were controversial, and they were also initially difficult to purchase as copies were shared via kashihon rental stores that predated post–Second World War libraries (Orbaugh 107). Despite controversy, gekiga was popular because many stories centered on samurai, Japanese gangsters (yakuza), and hitmen, archetypes that 38

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

remain popular in almost all global societies and provide the context for many contemporary video game genres (Brenner 33–4). Many of these stories now fall under seinen, or stories geared toward young men who grew out of shōnen. Josei media are the feminine equivalent that include “company and office work, single and married life, and family sagas including that particular nemesis of many housewives, an overbearing mother-in-law” (Brenner 36). However, many josei stories are mature and can push boundaries as well. For example, the rule of thumb is that if a story is “characterized by extensive descriptions of sex,” it is probably josei (Kitamura 752). If gekiga were not adult enough for some audiences, a final preceding fashion is noteworthy for its avant-garde experimentation. Although not specifically an artistic trend, ero guro nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense) “belongs to a larger zeitgeist known as literary modernism (modanizumu) and a vision of the cultural life (bunka seikatsu) imagined in Japan during the interwar years of the twentieth century” (Tyler 2). Visible in 1920s Japanese society, it was often ignored or reprimanded because of its decadent nature (Silverberg 5). As the three words that make up its namesake reveal, ero guro nansensu covers perverse territory where it can be merely interesting, or distasteful and horrifying depending on the artist or author. Topics range from exploration of sexual desires to grotesque violence (sometimes both) in a decade stuck between vast transformations during the Meiji Restoration and the conservative nationalism of the Shōwa era (Wang). Due to its controversial subject matter, historians still have difficulty evaluating its merits. On one hand, many consider its content pointless garbage made for “an audience that had been led astray by the temptations of capitalism and consumerism, and therefore required ever more extreme diversions to sate its appetite for pleasure” (Reichert 115). On the other hand, given the political and cultural climate of the time, ero guro nansensu was also viewed as a form of protest against nationalism because its “unapologetically ‘bizarre’ subject matter associated with erotic-grotesque cultural products is reconstituted as a transgressive gesture against state-endorsed notions of ‘constructive’ morality, identity, and sexuality” (Ibid., 115). Still, given its embrace of the bizarre and macabre, ero guro nansensu is a ghost that continues to inspire creators and audiences who willingly seek it. Fittingly, ero guro nansensu intersects with other generic trends already cited. For example, Edogawa Ranpo, one of Japan’s most influential mystery and detective writers, penned Kotō No Oni (Demon of the Lonely Isle). 39

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

The detective/science-fiction story involves murder, children assassins, homoeroticism, H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, human experiments, buried treasure, and an implied Lolita complex (Blankestijn). Ranpo knew his audience because he was “a leading spokesperson for erotic-grotesque-nonsense (ero-guro-nansensu). . . . Indeed, he was instrumental in popularizing this shockingly outre sensibility for a mass audience” (Reichert 114). Although Western productions like David Cronenberg movies or Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) show how gore can be integrated into horror, arguably the most visible aspect of ero guro nansensu in consumer culture is erotica as its heyday era demonstrated many in Japan became obsessed with publications and magazines that provided accounts of “perverse sexuality” from professional and pseudoacademic sexologists. Eventually, due to an increased need to censor such content as well as paper rationing for the war effort, most publications did not reappear until after the Second World War (Artemis). Ero guro nansensu inspired at least some forms of Japanese adult entertainment. Like the movement itself, these range anywhere from lighthearted (yet bizarre) love stories to disturbing projects that guarantee explicit, grotesque, and nonsensical content. Visual novels are not immune and, if anything, represent one of the most likely vehicles for such works—some of which are analyzed in Chapter 6. Although an incomplete history of the evolution of Japanese art forms and genres, this chapter thematically provides a brief overview of some trends that eventually became popular in visual novels. People drawn to mystery and science fiction gravitate to such titles. Those looking for sliceof-life or coming-of-age stories with female leads seek shōjo. Fans desiring magical girls consume mahō shōjo. Finally, gekiga, seinen, and josei were made for audiences who grew up but still wanted to consume media with more mature scenes and situations. Any of these genres could be combined to lay the groundwork for a visual novel as technology evolved to meet the demands of changing audiences seeking new forms of storytelling. Throughout this evolution, the needs of the audience and their desire for convergent media experiences drive remediation, from the otherworldly and apocalyptic elements of postwar stories to the need for explicit content in a maturing consumer base. Through this process of exploring cultural narratives and themes, visual novels developed in Japan while adventure games came from the West. However, the histories of Western and Eastern computers and video game systems also produced different trends for visual novels as a video game genre. 40

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

Adventure Games and Cultural Heritage: Technology Creates Visual Novels Technology and manufacturing were booming industries in 1980s Japan. As Japan gradually became an economic powerhouse, the West grew concerned. David Morley and Kevin Robins defined these anxieties as “technoOrientalism” to describe Japan as a country that “has become synonymous with the technologies of the future—with screens, networks, cybernetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, simulation” (168). This theoretical framework may also explain why Japanese science fiction discussed earlier is enticing to audiences since “Japan is the future, and it is a future that seems to be transcending and displacing Western modernity” (168). While technoOrientalism is rooted in Western fears, 1980s Japan also represents a “lost promise of techno-economic utopia” during which the nation refined technologies like computers, video games, and musical equipment (McLeod 133). Visual novels, dating simulators, and Japanese adventure games were also born in this technological landscape. The relationship between Western adventure games and Eastern visual novels is at best parallel; the two lines might never have intersected without integral interventions from other media. In fact, it took decades after the introduction of home video game consoles before visual novels became popular. Japanese video games invaded Western markets in the 1980s and 1990s like a “second Pearl Harbor; a foreign invasion; a yellow peril! New machines playing games featuring entrancing entities in bizarre stories were infiltrating American homes, hearts, and minds” (Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter 14). However, as Chapter 3 demonstrates, it would be a while before visual novels received any notable exposure outside of Japan. A good starting point for the origin of visual novels is video game copyright infringement, which has historically been and continues to be steeped in controversy. As arcade games like Atari’s Pong (1972) became popular in the 1970s, so did knock-off copies. These “jackals,” as Atari founder Nolan Bushnell dubbed them, forced trailblazing video game companies to experiment with new genres so that fans would not encounter the same paddleball or fixed shooter games ad nauseum (Kent 61). Still, court cases were rare. One early case in 1981, Atari, Inc. v. Amusement World, Inc., compared Atari’s Asteroids (1979) with Amusement World’s Meteors. Although acknowledging that Amusement World stole Atari’s idea, the court denied Atari’s injunction and decided, “Copyright protection is available only for expression of ideas, not for ideas

41

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

themselves.”1 At least early on, games with similar graphics, objectives, challenges, and designs did not constitute copyright infringement. Video game copyright battles were overlooked or denied because courts did not want to give companies a monopoly over genres to encourage innovation, even if some video games were obvious clones (McArthur). The status of video game copyrights would not be confirmed until 1992 when Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped rule in the appeal case Atari Games Corp. v. Oman that even rudimentary games were entitled to copyright protection.2 This controversial video game research gray period obfuscates some important historical moments, but this inaction in the 1980s may have inadvertently introduced Japanese visual novels. Ken and Roberta Williams are renowned in video game history for establishing Sierra Entertainment, a juggernaut of Western adventure games. Sierra Entertainment released Mystery House in 1980, an adventure game that literally changed the ways in which gamers look at computer games. The plot was relatively simple as gamers encountered other characters in a mansion to search for jewels. However, even though Mystery House maintained text parser commands of previous interactive adventure games, Roberta Williams’ hobby became the first computer game to feature graphics to bolster storytelling and problemsolving mechanics. These graphics also established horror video games as a genre as the characters encountered throughout are subsequently murdered. Mystery House became a hit in the West and the East but for different reasons. In fact, Sierra’s Mystery House was not released in Japan and Japanese audiences did not know about its existence, let alone many other Western adventure games. In 1982, an obscure video game company named Micro Cabin released a version of Mystery House that was so similar it kept the name. The setting was the same in that the player had to navigate a dilapidated house. The plot was different since the game was no longer a murder mystery but rather a quest to find a diamond. Like the American courts that looked the other way with video game copyright infringement, most sources stop short of plagiarism accusations and just note that Micro Cabin’s version was clearly inspired by Sierra, whose solution was to release an updated version of Mystery House for Japanese computers in 1983, notably the NEC PC-6001 and PC-8801. The defunct Japanese company Starcraft

See “Atari, Inc. V. Amusement World, Inc., 547 F. Supp. 222 (D. Md. 1981).” Justia Law, law. justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/547/222/1478917. 2 See “Atari Games Corp. v. Oman.” Casetext, 20 Nov. 1992, www.casetext.com/case/atarigames-corp-v-oman. 1

42

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

(not to be confused with Blizzard Entertainment’s real-time strategy game of the same name) was responsible for the port. This official rerelease did little to upstage the popularity of Micro Cabin’s Mystery House, which sold an estimated 50,000 units and paved the way for a mini yet brief adventure game boom in Japan (Sasaki). Like manga and anime, computer and video games are media, so the platforms that ran these programs deserve recognition, particularly as they made the remediation of manga and anime possible. Montfort and Bogost define a platform as “a particular standard or specification before any particular implementation of it” that materializes through “chips, boards, peripherals, controllers, and other components that make up the hardware of a physical computer system” (2). Every gamer has experience with platforms, whether produced and distributed by established companies like Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, or niche bit players like Philips or Panasonic. From a cultural standpoint, platform studies are integral to video games because it establishes “an awareness of and discussion of how computing platforms exist in a context of culture and society, being developed based on cultural concepts and then contributing to culture in a variety of ways—for instance, by affecting how people perceive computing” (Montfort and Bogost viii). Japanese computers were instrumental in introducing manga and anime aesthetics to the digital forefront, but while scholars tend to focus on the contributions and accounts of specific consoles in video game history, the easiest way to generalize Japanese computers is that these products took on similar functions despite different brand recognition. The primary gaming console in Japan was the Nintendo Family Computer (later NES) released in 1983. It was a premier gaming system for platformers and other burgeoning genres, yet it did not have many of the features that consumers now expect personal computers to possess. Computers like the Apple II were popular in the West, but these devices lacked a very important feature in Japan: Japanese language support. A crash course in the Japanese language shows the relationship between kanji, katakana, and hiragana. Kanji refers to Chinese characters that have meaning in Japanese, while katakana is used for foreign words and hiragana is used for Japanese words (Yamashita 144). Generally, when compared to hiragana and katakana, kanji may appear elaborate, and Japanese names are usually written in these characters. In terms of computing systems, kanji required “at least 16 dots×16 dots . . . which is four times as large as the alphanumeric character which can be displayed with 8 dots×8 dots. In the early stage of the development of personal computers, to display kanji with the speed comparable to that of alphanumeric characters, 43

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

it was necessary to have hardware support” (Ibid., 150). Several computer models were released in the 1980s to tackle this issue, including NEC’s PC-6000, PC-8800, and PC-9800 lines, as well as the Sharp X1 and various MSX models that could connect to a monitor or television set. Due to the complexities of the language, Japanese personal computers were designed to display Japanese characters as clearly as possible and were capable of higher resolution monitors than their Western counterparts. They were (initially) not adept at playing computer or video games that required advanced sprites, faster rendering, and smoother gameplay (a la the Famicom/NES), but one of the byproducts of their design was they could display beautiful still pictures that resembled manga and anime (Pepe). Japanese computers were thus equipped to render intricate artwork. One popular example that demonstrates the difference is the Apple II release of Mystery House and its official Japanese port. Starcraft’s Japanese port overhauled the official game’s images as Roberta Williams’ rudimentary drawings were replaced with surprisingly detailed graphics that enhanced the game’s core mystery and horror components (Kalata). For example, Williams’ murder scenes (complete with crossed-out eyes) were replaced with faceless silhouettes of creepy proportional adults. Yet even though Mystery House was well received, it was not a visual novel. It may be easy to trace the origins of Western adventure games, but it is more difficult to trace the first “visual novel” due to several obscure titles released in the early 1980s. Two are commonly cited that take this book into different directions. The first is PSK’s Lolita: Yakyuuken (1982 or 1983).3 Although it looks like a visual novel, it does not play like one since it is a simple game of strip “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” positioning itself as one of history’s first erotic games (Davison). The other title is Chunsoft’s adventure game Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (The Portopia Serial Murder Case) developed in 1983. Portopia was the prototype for mystery and horror games covered in Chapter 5. Due to the more substantive qualities and contributions of Portopia, fans, historians, and critics tend to call it the “first visual novel.” The mastermind behind Portopia was Yuji Horii of Dragon Quest fame who wanted to make a detective game with branching narratives to generate interest for the adventure game genre in Japan. While the computer port required parser

Although Yakyuuken is a game based on “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” stripping is usually involved. Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon and Martin Picard even point out that the defunct game company Hudson Soft produced their own version of the game in the early 1980s (30). 3

44

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

commands, these textual inputs were replaced in the Famicom version (1985) with clickable interfaces that became standard features in visual novels. Like gekiga before it, Portopia dealt with more mature themes, including murder, violence, police interrogations, and drug possession. These themes helped bridge the gap between manga and interactive media by ushering in even more mature games in Japan, but the subject matter was considered risqué by Western standards, and it was never released outside the country (Davison). Finding Japanese adventure games on the Famicom was a rare feat until the late 1980s considering that most only appeared on computers. The year 1983 is also marked as the year the Western video game industry collapsed due to a combination of market saturation, a recession, and poor games. The most established video game console during this era was the Atari 2600 and, while Atari created some hits, its misses, such as the colossal failure adaptation of E.T. (1982), did not project much confidence about the future of video games. Most rival companies also went bankrupt prior to the release of the NES in 1985 in North America and 1986 in Europe. Sega did not become a corporate player outside of Japan until 1986 following the release of the Master System. Additionally, even though the computer industry survived the crash relatively unscathed, it was impractical and difficult to even consider a Japanese computer since the West had its own corporations and models. Due to a plethora of language, cultural, graphical, and proprietary barriers, visual novels and their variants seemed destined to remain in Japan where they continued to evolve as a genre detached from the rest of the world. Despite this separation, a noteworthy event might have indirectly impacted the growth of visual novels: Japan’s bubble economy of the 1980s. The factors that led to Japan’s prosperity and collapse require deft analysis from economists, social critics, and international trade experts, but the context for video game studies is that Japan was prosperous due to such factors as land speculation, credit expansion, and bad loans. In retrospect, this economy was a recipe for disaster, but it was undoubtedly a party in real time. When economies are strong, consumers are happy. To maintain happiness, consumers buy what might otherwise be considered luxury items during down periods. Computers were expensive, so well-off consumers would spend ample money on hardware (Fenlon). For example, a PC-9801 at launch in 1982 cost 298,000 yen, approximately US$2,900 (Yamashita 157). We can therefore speculate that this economy also impacted the Japanese video game industry as a plethora of companies grew out of this commercial 45

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

prosperity, including Nihon Falcom, Game Arts, Konami, Micro Cabin, Enix, and Square (Picard). Further, by the end of the 1980s, NEC’s 9800 computer line finally had competition, such as Fujitsu’s FM Towns and Sharp’s X68000. The FM Towns is a notable piece of hardware because it had a built-in CD-ROM drive (Old Computers). The X68000 was technically the most powerful computer in Japan at the time, but it also had an initial launch price of 369,000 yen in 1987 (Kamata). When compared to the 9800 line, these new computers also show different video game directions. The FM Towns and X68000 could play arcade games, and the X68000’s library was primarily composed of shooters (Game Sack). Although computers like the 9800 could not compete with these innovations, most gamers could purchase consoles to play newer games. However, the 9800 was still adept at running visual novels, so it remained a popular platform for the genre until its decline in the late 1990s (Todome). Portopia was the first visual novel, but thanks in part to the unique abilities of the platforms on which they were played, many Japanese games adopted five unique trends in the 1980s: manga-esque splash pages known as computer graphics, original chiptune music, cinematic cutscenes, voice actors, and swappable visual assets such as character sprites. Each of these trends has influenced, to varying degrees, the genre’s current iteration. While early Japanese computers were not adept at playing traditional video games like arcade shooters or platformers, visual novels’ strength lay in superior graphics compared to Western adventure games, which lent themselves well to digital storytelling. The first trend shares similarities with manga as some visual novels adopted intricate images on the screen. A “splash page” is a panel in a comic book that either takes up the entire sheet of paper or at the very least is its primary focus. These pages show incredible detail on characters and surroundings. Scenarios that often call for splash pages include heightened tension, dramatic battles, a tragic event, or a scene requiring multiple characters at once. In a genre like visual novels, splash pages became known in Japan as computer graphics. Although Mystery House (Japan) and Portopia had graphics, the focus of a manga-esque experience was the next step as computers improved. One of the first games to introduce these stunning pieces of artwork was Enix’s Zarth (1984), a post-apocalyptic science-fiction story about humans venturing out in the world after awakening from cryogenic sleep. Zarth checked multiple science-fiction boxes discussed earlier, including a dying planet following nuclear war, rampant technology, and mechas. One of Zarth’s most iconic images features a dramatic rendering of a beautiful 46

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

Figure 2  A screenshot from the visual novel Zarth (1984), showing the advanced graphics available on early Japanese personal computers and game consoles. Notice the use of “dithering” to convey pixelated shading.

young woman (see Figure 2), and the image has been preserved for posterity on sites like Giant Bomb, Game Developer, and VNDB despite the game’s obscure reputation. In the 1980s, Western games lagged behind this emerging trend. To demonstrate this claim, an intriguing adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit by Australian publishers Melbourne House (later Krome Studios Melbourne) was released in 1982. The game featured graphics and earned acclaim at the time (Retro Gamer Team). The graphics are sophisticated, especially for 1982. However, when compared to a visual novel like Zarth, the contrasting styles of Western and Japanese graphical complexity governed by the capabilities of the hardware are noticeable (Figure 3). Eventually, titles like Zarth advanced aesthetic techniques in visual novels through pixel art. What made computers like the PC-9800 series unique before the end of their lifecycles was proprietary hardware, but this technology eventually was phased out once IBM design became compatible (Yamashita 168). Prior to this shift, visual novels simulated advanced pixel art techniques in a process known as “dithering,” or using two or more colors in a limited palette to create the illusions of shading and lighting (Davison). These distinct artistic choices, while no longer necessary due to modern computers’ capabilities to render more colors, became instrumental 47

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Figure 3  A screenshot from The Hobbit (1982). in portraying the character and event images that visual novels are credited with even to this day. As noted earlier, even technologies like musical equipment underwent substantial changes in 1980s Japan. Once Japanese visual novels began to adopt many robust aesthetic features, sound eventually followed. As a musical microgenre, chiptunes creations celebrate “in visuals, sounds, and language” the contributions of bygone gaming eras (Zeilinger 22). For many gamers, chiptunes music is embraced because of an “essential link to nostalgic feelings of childhood video gaming” (D’Errico). Others note that when done well, chiptunes music represents “electronic music in its most fundamental state; it is about simple ideas expressed well” (McAlpine 258). Although most people consider popular 8-bit technology like the NES or Game Boy when they think of chiptunes music (D’Errico), a second trend in visual novels may involve a computer game outsider: Yamaha. The story begins in 1974 when Stanford professor and musician Dr. John Chowning licensed his digital frequency modulation (FM) sound waves algorithm to the Japanese corporation. Yamaha spent nearly a decade finetuning frequency modulation before releasing the DX7 in 1983, a keyboard that defined a specific 80’s synthesizer sound (Kovarsky). With a launch price of US$1995, bands around the world purchased units in hopes of making the next hit song. Many musicians did not bother to learn about the complexities of the unit as they predominately utilized its presets. Some, like Whitney Houston, 48

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

used the cheesy slow dance 1980s electronic piano to craft songs like “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” Others made basslines or used keyboard presets to create 1980s power ballads. Perhaps due to the success of their keyboard, Yamaha entered the Japanese computer industry and released the MSX CX5M in 1984. The CX5M was built with keyboards like the DX7 in mind as Yamaha created sound patches that could be shared using YM2151 sound chips. The computer was not a commercial success, but its FM sound chips found new homes first in arcade cabinets and then in Japanese computers (Fatnick). These sound chips were integrated into computers that could make use of them, and visual novel developers gradually began to create music. Some familiar companies were among the earliest adopters. Square is now famous for Final Fantasy and other role-playing series, but the company was a PC upstart that developed The Death Trap (1984), a spy thriller set in an African country during a fictional civil war. Its sequel, Will: The Death Trap II (1985), is considered Square’s first commercially successful game (Mackey). The Death Trap II used tense sounds to create the impression of music and Square’s third visual novel, Alpha (1986), showcased the trend in action through arranged music. Alpha was a science-fiction yarn starring a scantily clad protagonist named Chris, and the game offered erotic content to those looking for it. Although more sophisticated than either Death Trap game, Alpha was a victim of a transitional phase in visual novel design as it looked dated even shortly after its release, but thanks to the advent of video and computer game music, both visual novels introduced famed composer Nobuo Uematsu. Visual novel music continued to improve as later models of NEC’s 9800 line of computers featured an upgraded Yamaha YM2608 chip that resembled the YM2612 chip used in the Sega Genesis. Composers like Yuzo Koshiro of Streets of Rage fame made use of these chips to create music for visual novels like Enix’s Misty Blue (1990), a bubble economy murder mystery that centers on aspects of the Japanese entertainment industry (Fenlon). Armed with manga and anime aesthetics, as well as new sound chips, some creators were ready for the next phase of interactive fiction and gave visual novels cinematic qualities. Hideo Kojima was inspired by Portopia and designed the cyberpunk cult classic Snatcher with Konami in 1988. The basic plot of Snatcher is essentially an anime version of Blade Runner, but it is also considered one of the best early examples of the evolving game genre (Tieryas). Another game was arguably even more ambitious with its presentation. Metal Slader Glory (1991) was HAL Laboratory’s last game before Nintendo saved the independent developer from bankruptcy. Both 49

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Snatcher and Metal Slader Glory had moving animation that at times could simulate cutscenes. Manga artist Yoshimiru Hoshi helmed the highly touted Nintendo Famicom project, but it was plagued by color palette, puzzle, and story issues. Metal Slader Glory took four years to complete on the Famicom, becoming one of the most complex games the console ever produced as a visual novel pushed the Nintendo to its limits (Bowl-of-Lentils). The game has a cult following as well as an unofficial Western fan translation, but it was so delayed that it was released in Japan even after the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A fourth trend is now an expectation for many visual novels, but it has a surprising origin story because voice acting requires a journey into the annals of video game console history. NEC ventured into the home console foray in 1987 with the TurboGrafX-16 (PC Engine in Japan). While not a commercial failure since consumers bought millions of units, the system could not compete with Nintendo and Sega. Nevertheless, the TurboGrafX-16 was one of the first video game systems to harness CD technology, releasing the peripheral PC Engine CD in 1988. With such great power comes great responsibility, so Hudson Soft showed off the raw power of CD entertainment with No-Ri-Ko (1988), a precursor to the dating sim in which the gamer takes 1980s teen idol Noriko Ogawa on dates of their choosing (based on preset locations). One of the first visual novels that featured voice acting was a Japanese idol simulator, but it seemingly was made to showcase the storage power of CD technology and even went beyond voice acting by including full CD-quality songs from her tour (Figure 4). Ultimately, No-Ri-Ko was a marketing campaign for the teen idol, similar to fans of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch who purchased the full-motion video Make My Video (1992) for the Sega CD in order to ensure the man who made “Good Vibrations” would eventually become one of Hollywood’s A-list actors. Intentionally or accidentally, No-Ri-Ko helped introduce a feature of the genre that many fans now use to gauge a visual novel’s overall production quality: voice acting. A more conventional example of CD technology incorporating visual novel voice acting was J. B. Harold Murder Club (Riverhillsoft 1986). Although ported to multiple systems, the murder mystery received a 1991 TurboGrafx-CD port once again developed by Hudson Soft that featured English voice acting for consumers lucky enough to own the console. Voice acting is a luxury, but the final trend eventually became one of the most iconic features of visual novel aesthetics. The last trend was arguably the most consequential for the genre, but it did not take shape until the 1990s. Individualized image panels were gorgeous, 50

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

Figure 4  Spending quality time with a (real) J-Pop idol in No-Ri-Ko (1988). but they were also time-consuming and pushed systems to their limits as was the case with Metal Slader Glory on the Famicom. There were also memory concerns if a visual novel had branching narrative paths because colorful images were intricate and placed a premium on a system’s memory. Attempting CG for multiple paths would at best result in multiple floppy disks on a computer. Konami’s Tokimeki Memorial (1994) approached this roadblock by creating sprite character models that moved between generic background images. This necessary decision produced “generic assets that could be swapped out depending on the situation. Backgrounds represent generic locations like ‘school library’ or ‘aquarium,’ rather than any specific parts of those locations. Likewise, the characters do not inhabit these spaces, but instead stand against a backdrop” (Crimmins). By this point, characters in visual novels are not integrated into specific scenes but navigate above the backgrounds. This allowed developers to make different expressions for their character models as they reacted to the gamer’s choices on the screen (Crimmins), a visual trope we discuss further in Chapter 4.

Anime, Manga, and the Visual Novel: A Symbiotic Relationship Several popular companies followed these trends and used adventure games or visual novels to break into the industry. These companies include the aforementioned Micro Cabin that developed Mystery House and a slew 51

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

of other adventure games before crossing into other genres (the company ceased operations in 2008). Other small developers were not so lucky and halted operations after a handful of titles, some ending production after just one game. While some popular series got their start on computer systems, notably MSX models, developers who were actually predisposed to create video games left PC gaming behind to work on the Famicom. Enix weathered the storm and continued to make visual novel-adventure games until approximately 1991 before transitioning primarily to role-playing games. Curious observers need only look at their last visual novel titles, Misty Blue and Jesus II (1991), to see what the future had in store due to their anime-quality imagery and complex musical arrangements (Fenlon). Some companies used visual novels to break into the video game industry, while others used the genre to showcase the close relationship between Japanese entertainment and popular culture. One of the first examples of this was Enix’s 1986 Hokuto no Ken: Violence Gekiga Adventure. Buronson’s and Tetsuo Hara’s creation, commonly translated as Fist of the North Star, is an apocalyptic kung fu epic about Kenshiro’s ascension to become the wasteland’s savior by perfecting the deadly martial arts Hokuto Shinken. The story began as a shōnen manga series for boys, but Hara’s more realistic character designs suggest gekiga inspirations. The manga spawned several remediated versions, including two television series and an animated movie considered to be one of anime’s goriest. For its part, the visual novel was the first video game associated with the series, the most recent being Lost Paradise (2018) for the PlayStation 4. Another example of early transmedia storytelling was Micro Cabin’s Urusei Yatsura ~Koi no Survival Birthday~ (1986), based on Rumiko Takahashi harem anime prototype of the same name. The visual novel sticks to its harem roots by situating the story in a mansion during a birthday party—the winner of the maze gets a kiss. Despite the thin goal, the visual novel was surprisingly complex and required understanding of the anime series to ensure victory (Kivandopulus), which positions it as an early example of media convergence. Other notable manga and anime series generated interest in visual novels, including Monkey Punch’s Lupin III (1967), Ryūsuke Mita’s Dragon Half (1988), and Katsuhiko Nishijima’s Project A-ko (1986). Even Godzilla received an officially licensed Toho visual novel. The reciprocal also became true as visual novels grew in popularity. Many visual novels became anime, but that relationship will be broached later as both versions reached Western consumers in the 2000s. Still, anime and manga were niche media entering 1990. It is one thing to play a game like The Legend of Zelda (1986) on the NES that was created to 52

Digital Books of the Rising Sun

appeal to all sorts of gamers around the globe, but it is another for a gamer to play a Japanese visual novel made exclusively for Japanese systems in the Japanese language for Japanese consumers. A game that requires ample reading like niche adventure games as well as an understanding of Japanese culture is an undertaking, and Western gamers had limited resources by which to acquire and understand such a game—assuming they were even aware of the game’s existence. One example is Square’s only attempt at a dating sim called Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School (1987) in which the protagonist develops a crush on a new girl in school who happens to be 1980s Japanese pop idol Miho Nakayama (Kalata). Like Square’s other previously mentioned games, it did not receive any publicity outside of Japan. Square eventually gave up on visual novels and dating sims, but a few recognizable names in the Japanese video game industry worked on them, including Hironobu Sakaguchi, who created the Final Fantasy series, Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto, and the ubiquitous composer Nobuo Uematsu. Despite the pedigree of industry names, there is no indication that Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School could have succeeded commercially outside of Japan. When it comes to visual novels, there is almost an element of retroactive clairvoyance in that after an event already occurs, it makes complete sense. Surely such games could exist now, but the interrelated dynamics of culture, information, and communication did not exist prior to the internet. While various trends helped establish themes, tropes, and character archetypes that appeared in visual novels, if video games as media were not solely instrumental in promoting visual novels, what was? As the next chapter will demonstrate, visual novels required another cultural vehicle and slowly grew in popularity once anime reached Western audiences.

Works Cited Allison, Anne. Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination. University of California Press, 2006. Artemis. “A History of Hentai: The Super Abbreviated Version.” Otaku Lounge, December 15, 2018, https://otakulounge​.net​/2018​/12​/15​/a​-history​-of​-hentai​-the​ -super​-abbreviated​-version/. Blankestijn, Ad. “The “Ero-Guro” Mysteries of Edogawa Ranpo.” Japanese and European Culture, February 21, 2014, https://adblankestijn​.blogspot​.com​/2014​ /02​/the​-mysteries​-of​-edogawa​-ranpo​.html. 53

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT Press, 1999. Bolton, Christopher, et al., editors. Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams : Japanese Science Fiction From Origins to Anime. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Bowl-of-Lentils. “Metal Slader Glory.” Giant Bomb, December 23, 2019, https:// www​.giantbomb​.com​/metal​-slader​-glory​/3030​-28343/. Brenner, Robin E. Understanding Manga and Anime. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. Crawford, Rebecca, and Yuanyuan Chen. “From Hypertext to Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Future of VR Visual Novels: The Potentials of New Technologies for Branching-Path Narrative Games.” 2017 23rd International Conference on Virtual System & Multimedia, IEEE, 2017, pp. 1–7, https://doi​.org​/10​.1109​/ VSMM​.2017​.8346298. Crimmins, Brian. “A Brief History of Visual Novels.” Medium, January 7, 2016, https://medium​.com​/mammon​-machine​-zeal​/a​-brief​-history​-of​-visual​-novels​ -641a2e6b1acb#​.kkh6y7jy4. Davison, Pete. “The Three Ages of Visual Novels.” Moe Gamer, September 28, 2017, https://moegamer​.net​/2017​/09​/28​/the​-three​-ages​-of​-visual​-novels/. D’Errico, Mike. “How to Reformat the Planet: Technostalgia and the ‘Live’ Performance of Chipmusic.” Journal on the Art of Record Production, no. 6, 2012, http://www​.arpjournal​.com​/asarpwp​/how​-to​-reformat​-the​-planet​ -technostalgia​-and​-the-​%E2​%80​%9Clive​%E2​%80​%9D​-performance​-of​ -chipmusic/. Dollase, Hiromi Tsuchiya. ““Shōjo” Spirits in Horror Manga.” U.S. – Japan Women’s Journal, vol. 38, 2010, pp. 59–80. Dunham, Josh. “Gekiga: The Other Manga.” Wave Motion Cannon, October 17, 2019, https://wavemotioncannon​.com​/2019​/10​/17​/gekiga/. Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and Grieg de Peuter. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games (Electronic Mediations). Kindle, University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Fatnick. “An Unsung Giant of 80’s Gaming.” Mecha Fatnick, November 11, 2016, https://mechafatnick​.co​.uk​/2016​/11​/11​/an​-unsung​-giant​-of​-80s​-gaming/​ #player1​?catid​=0​&trackid​=0. Fenlon, Wes. “The Race to Save Japan’s Incredible ’80s PC Gaming History Before It’s Gone.” PC Gamer, October 29, 2019, https://www​.pcgamer​.com​/game​ -preservation​-society​-japanese​-pc​-games​-square​-enix​-game​-arts/. Frost, Natasha. “The Refined, Scandalous Art of Japan’s Traditional Woodblock Tabloids.” Atlas Obscura, May 17, 2018, https://www​.atlasobscura​.com​/articles​ /shinbun​-japan​-penny​-dreadfuls​?utm​_source​=facebook​.com​&utm​_medium​ =atlas​-page​&fbclid​=IwA​R38u​nngQ​KS7k​Z3t1​fFwO​gf5g​C81f​23th​3kkX​ASzx​ cx8W​DKOf​zdOp​AlnlQI. Fujimoto, Yukari, and Matt Thorn. “Takahashi Macoto: The Origin of Shōjo Manga Style.” Mechademia, vol. 7, 2012, pp. 24–55. Game Sack. “The Sharp X68000—Review—Game Sack.” YouTube, 2014, https:// www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=TQPt69UCyIA.

54

Digital Books of the Rising Sun Holt, Jon. “Ishii Takashi, Beyond 1979: Ero Gekiga Godfather, GARO Inheritor, or Shojo Manga Artist?” International Journal of Comic Art, vol. 21, no. 1, 2019, pp. 118–42. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press, 2006. Kalata, Kurt. “Mystery House.” Hardcore Gaming 101, February 1, 2010, http://www​ .hardcoregaming101​.net​/mystery​-house/. Kalata, Kurt. “Nakayama Miho No Tokimeki High School.” Hardcore Gaming 101, April 21, 2018, http://www​.hardcoregaming101​.net​/nakayama​-miho​-no​ -tokimeki​-high​-school/. Kamata, Makoto. “The Entire Lineup of the X68000 Series.” Retro PC, November 19, 2012, http://retropc​.net​/x68000​/data​/x68000​_series​/index​.htm. Kawana, Sari. “With Rhyme and Reason: Yokomizo Seishi’s Postwar Murder Mysteries.” Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 44, no. 1–2, 2007, pp. 118–43. Kent, Steven L. The Ultimate History of Video Games. Three Rivers Press, 2001. Kitamura, Yuika. “The Emergence of Girls’ Manga and Girls’ Culture.” The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 748–52. Kivandopulus. “VN of the Year 1987—Hiatari Ryoukou!” VNDB Review, April 12, 2017, https://vndbreview​.blogspot​.com​/2017​/04​/vn​-of​-year​-1987​.html. Kovarsky, Jerry. “Discovering Digital FM: John Chowning Remembers.” Yamaha Music USA, August 17, 2020, https://hub​.yamaha​.com​/discovering​-digital​-fm​ -john​-chowning​-remembers/. La Bare, Joshua. “The Future: ‘Wrapped . . . in That Mysterious Japanese Way’.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2000, pp. 22–48. Levi, Antonia. “The Sweet Smell of Japan: Anime, Manga, and Japan in North America.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, vol. 23, no. 1, 2013, pp. 3–18. Mackey, Bob. “The Strange Origins of Your Favorite Japanese Game Developers.” US Gamer, May 6, 2016, https://www​.usgamer​.net​/articles​/the​-unlikely​-origins​ -of​-your​-favorite​-japanese​-game​-developers. McAlpine, Kenneth B. Bits and Pieces: A History of Chiptunes. Oxford University Press, 2018. McArthur, Stephen C. “Clone Wars: The Five Most Important Cases Every Game Developer Should Know.” Game Developer February 27, 2013, https://www​ .gamedeveloper​.com​/business​/clone​-wars​-the​-five​-most​-important​-cases​-every​ -game​-developer​-should​-know. McLeod, Ken. “Vaporwave: Politics, Protest, and Identity.” Journal of Popular Music, vol. 30, no. 4, 2018, pp. 123–42, https://doi​.org​/10​.1525​/jpms​.2018​.300409. Monden, Masafumi. “Layers of the Ethereal: A Cultural of Beauty, Girlhood, and Ballet in Japanese Shojo Manga.” Fashion Theory, vol. 18, no. 3, 2014, pp. 251–96. Montfort, Nick, and Ian Bogost. Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press, 2009. Morley, David, and Kevin Robins. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes, and Cultural Boundaries. Routledge, 1995. 55

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels Nakamura, Miri. “Horror and Machines in Prewar Japan: The Mechanical Uncanny in Yumeno Kyûsaku’s ‘Dogura Magura’.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 29, no. 3, 2002, pp. 364–81. Old Computers. “Fujitsu FM Towns.” Old Computers, No Date, https://www​.old computers​.com​/museum​/computer.​asp​?st​=1​​&c​=968. Orbaugh, Sharalyn. “Creativity and Constraint in Amateur “Manga” Production.” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, vol. 25, 2003, pp. 104–24. Pelletier-Gagnon, Jérémie, and Martin Picard. “Beyond Rapelay: Self-Regulation in the Japanese Video Game Industry.” Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games, edited by Matthew Wysocki and Evan W. Lauteria, Bloomsbury, 2015, pp. 28–41. Pepe, Felipe. “1982-1987—The Birth of Japanese RPGs, Re-Told in 15 Games.” Game Developer, October 10, 2016, https://www​.gamasutra​.com​/blogs​/ FelipePepe​/20161010​/282896​/19821987_​_The​_Birth​_of​_Japanese​_RPGs​_retold​ _in​_15​_Games​.php. Picard, Martin. “The Foundation of Geemu: A Brief History of Early Japanese Video Games.” Game Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, 2013, http://www​.gamestudies​.org​ /1302​/articles​/picard. Rachman, Steven. “Detective Stories—Edgar Allan Poe and the Origins of Mystery Fiction.” The Strand Magazine, nd, https://strandmag​.com​/the​-magazine​/articles​ /edgar​-alan​-poe​-and​-the​-origins​-of​-mystery​-fiction/. Reichert, Jim. “Deviance and Social Darwinism in Edogawa Ranpo’s EroticGrotesque Thriller “Kotō No Oni.”” Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2001, pp. 113–41. Retro Gamer Team. “The Making of The Hobbit.” Retro Gamer, December 15, 2014, https://www​.retrogamer​.net​/retro​_games80​/the​-making​-of​-the​-hobbit/. Saito, Kumiko. “Magic, Shōjo, and Metamorphosis: Magical Girl and the Challenges of Changing Gender in Japanese Society.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 73, no. 1, 2014, pp. 143–64. Saito, Satoru. “The Novel’s Other: Detective Fiction and the Literary Project of Tsubouchi Shōyō.” The Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, 2010, pp. 33–63. Salvatore. “Lovely Warrior: FAQ.” Lovely Warrior, 2005, https://web​.archive​.org​/web​ /20091022224634​/http:/​/geocities​.com​/yogirinohanii​/faq​.html. Sasaki, Jun. “シンプルな画面に隠された謎に夢中になった「MYSTERY HOUSE」.” Akiba PC Hotline!, October 23, 2017, https://akiba​-pc​.watch​ .impress​.co​.jp​/docs​/column​/retrosoft​/1086142​.html. Schodt, Frederik L. “Designing a World.” Mechademia, vol. 8, 2013, pp. 228–42. Siegel, Mark. “Foreigner as Alien in Japanese Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 12, 1985, pp. 252–63. Silver, Mark H. Purloined Letters: Cultural Borrowing and Japanese Crime Literature, 1868–1937. University of Hawaii Press, 2008. Silverberg, Miriam. Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times. University of California Press, 2006. Sousa, Ana Matilde. “Just a Cute Vibe: Producing a ‘Weebwave’ in 2010s Songs and Music Videos.” Mechademia, vol. 14, no. 2, 2022, pp. 183–210. 56

Digital Books of the Rising Sun Sugawa, Akiko. “Children of Sailor Moon: The Evolution of Magical Girls in Japanese Anime.” Nippon.Com, February 26, 2015, https://www​.nippon​.com​/en​ /in​-depth​/a03904/. Takeuchi, Kayo. “The Genealogy of Japanese ‘Shōjo Manga’ (Girls’ Comics) Studies.” U.S.- Japan Women’s Journal, vol. 38, 2010, pp. 81–112. Talon, Durwin, and Guin Thompson. “Using Panels to Shape Visual Storytelling: Organizing in the Graphic Narrative.” International Journal of the Book, vol. 7, no. 4, 2010, pp. 21–36. Tanaka, Motoko. Apocalypse in Contemporary Japanese Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Tieryas, Peter. “Snatcher Is Cyberpunk Noir at Its Best.” Kotaku, June 16, 2017, https://kotaku​.com​/snatcher​-is​-cyberpunk​-noir​-at​-its​-best​-1795989020. Todome, Satoshi. “A History of Eroge.” Kyo-Kan, translated by kj1980, No Date, https://archive​.is​/HD0Z​#selection​-9​.0​-21​.1. Toku, Masami. “Shojo Manga! Girls’ Comics! A Mirror of Girls’ Dreams.” Mechademia, vol. 2, 2007, pp. 19–32. Tyler, William J. “Introduction: Making Sense of Nansensu.” Japan Forum, vol. 21, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–10. Wang, Evelyn. “The Erotic Japanese Art Movement Born Out of Decadence.” Dazed, August 31, 2016, https://www​.dazeddigital​.com​/artsandculture​/article​ /32596​/1​/ero​-guro. Wetherall, William, and Mark Schreiber. “News Nishikie: An Arranged Marriage That Didn’t Last.” News Nishikie: Japan in the 1870s, January 20, 2008, http:// www​.nishikie​.com​/articles​/Andon​_2006​_news​_nishikie​.html. Yamashita, Ryoza. “History of Personal Computers in Japan.” International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, vol. 35, no. 2, 2020, pp. 143–69. Zeilinger, Martin. “Chiptuning Intellectual Property: Digital Culture Between Creative Commons and Moral Economy.” Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, vol. 3, no. 1, 2012, pp. 19–34, https:// doi​.org​/10​.5429​/2079​-3871.

57

CHAPTER 3 ASSEMBLING THE NEST Cultural Vehicles That Incubated Visual Novels

Computers produced in the Japanese bubble economy evolved to meet the demands of the Japanese language as well as visual novels as a video game genre. As discussed in Chapter 2, their superior ability to display graphics allowed for faithful remediation of manga and anime. After decades of growth, Japan’s economy hit its zenith in the 1980s following a bubble based on real estate and stock market speculations. Japan’s bubble economy impacted all walks of life. Japanese companies purchased properties like Rockefeller Center in New York City and prestigious American golf courses. Japanese banks became some of the world’s richest and pumped out loans to basically anyone. Culturally, Japanese citizens traveled, partied, bought expensive computer technology highlighted in Chapter 2, and spent money in the name of a good time (Johnston). It was an era defined by dates at luxurious restaurants, ski resort excursions, and hailing cab drivers with excessive amounts of cash (Saito). Even anime flourished in Japan as studios had money to spend on various projects. Things were so absurd during the bubble economy that “the Imperial Palace [which] sits in Tokyo was theoretically worth more than all the real estate in Canada” (Foster). The good times came to a halt. Since Japan’s bubble economy was based primarily on speculation, the bubble burst in the early 1990s, crippling industries, living standards, and economic policies. The aftermath was so devastating that the 1990s in Japan are referred to as the “Lost Decade,” which replaced lively ambition with “weariness and fear of the future, and an almost stifling air of resignation” (Fackler). Japanese video games, especially visual novels, may have germinated during a period of growth and economic success, but at least one industry rose to prominence during the Lost Decade that promoted Japanese entertainment for Western audiences: Japanese anime. Although the previous chapter focused on

Assembling the Nest

how visual novels developed, thanks to certain storytelling tropes and especially computer technology in the 1980s, this chapter will focus on the 1990s and anime’s role in spreading interest in Japanese culture following the collapse of the bubble economy. To contextualize this framework, it is important to mention Kōichi Iwabuchi, whose work on popular culture that explicitly denotes cultural links to a specific country, or “cultural odor,” has been cited by media scholars since his book Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism (28). In the case of visual novels, perhaps no video game genre has been engaged in as lengthy a tug-of-war battle between appearing too Japanese and not being Japanese enough over decades as anime and video games expanded globally. While many visual novels began as remediated versions of beloved anime, the format also furthered the westward movement of Japanese culture, beginning with the “Cool Japan” marketing campaign. “Cool Japan” promoted Japanese video games in its agenda and became an explicit mantra of Japanese economic revival in the 2000s (deWinter 42), and we suggest that it, primarily through anime subcultures, experienced four cycles that indirectly influenced the fate of visual novels through cultural, technological, and economic trends. These cycles are, briefly: introduction of visual novels to the West, primarily through anime; the attempted but unsuccessful promotion of eroge visual novels in the West; eventual popularization of certain subgenres like the mystery visual novel; and the current landscape, in which older titles are being rereleased while new content is translated for an increasingly Western audience. As the concept of media mixing discussed in the introduction is integral to visual novels, Marc Steinberg notes in his anime scholarship that transmedia storytelling links “between media forms will not be assumed to exist; on the contrary, we will assume that connections must be constructed” (xiii–xiv). In a similar vein, we offer this condensed history of Japanese anime and video games to show that visual novels developed over decades of tentative introduction, thanks to a motley crew of anime enthusiasts, eccentric developers, porn publishers, amateur and professional translators, localization specialists, and, most recently, crowdfunding campaigns that introduce old games to new audiences. We conclude by reflecting on the continued close relationship between anime and visual novels and offer suggestions on how to approach a franchise or series that potentially has multiple entry points for curious consumers or scholars who want to invest in story-driven games but are unsure where to start. 59

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

What Is “Cool Japan?” Much of the creative and technological achievements discussed up to this point were achieved in large part because Japan miraculously recovered after the Second World War. Japan’s first real step toward economic prosperity was the country’s lack of regional conflicts that plagued other Asian countries in the 1950s and 1960s (Okazaki). For the benefit of its conscience and geopolitical reasons (i.e., wrestling with the tragic aftermath of nuclear devastation while also hoping to prevent Soviet expansion), the United States played a significant role in Japan following the war. Despite strong contemporary relations, America’s occupation resulted in Japanese contempt for the American handling of several domestic disturbances as well as the superpower’s near unilateral control of Japan’s economy. Both threats forced US officials to negotiate a new security treaty between the two countries in 1958 (Beckley, Horiuchi, and Miller 3–5). A comprehensive examination necessitates deeper research conducted by economists, security officials, military historians, and others, but one of the end results of this shifting alliance was Japan became the second-largest economy on the planet and, in doing so, began to shift away from the dominance of American popular culture (Matsui 83). One such industry was entertainment that allowed for some of the trends discussed in Chapter 2 because manga, anime, and video game industries “developed from the outset by entertainment corporations and import/export businesses that were already well established in the consumptive post-war Japan” (Picard). The 1980s and 1990s depict two conflicting models for Japan, which saw extreme highs and lows. Entertainment was eventually seen as a way to propagate Japanese culture. The term “Cool Japan” is linked to Professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr., who utilized the term “soft power” in the waning days of the Cold War to theorize brute force in countries could be replaced with convincing them to “want what [the dominant country] wants” (166). The term reappeared in 2002 in Douglas McGray’s 2002 Foreign Policy article “Japan’s Gross National Cool” to propose how Japan was using its popular culture post-Lost Decade as “a growing engine of national cool” (53). During the Lost Decade, Japan mislaid much of its swagger that led to the high times experienced in the bubble economy. Although the country was down financially and economically during that span, the popularity of video games, anime, and particularly franchises like Pokémon boosted spirits and made Japan’s new awakening possible (Matsui 83). It took an additional ten years before the Creative Industries Division of the Ministry of Economy, 60

Assembling the Nest

Trade, and Industry to officially adopt “Cool Japan” as an official marketing campaign in 2012 to meet the challenges of disseminating Japanese popular culture, although there were certain initiatives in place before 2012 that led to the implementation (Kazuaki). It is difficult to say if this move helped or hindered the appeal of visual novels overseas, but it is worth noting that Japanese video games in the West have had hardships of their own. If the “cool” kids were once perceived to be uncool, it was a steep climb for a narrative-based medium.

“Uncool Japan?” Nintendo and Sega Fill the Void, but . . . Importantly, while Cool Japan is a prominent marketing strategy, it does present some complications. First, Cool Japan interlocks corporate and government interests in manners that reveal “domestic media policies and governing laws are often in uneasy relationships with international economic strategies, multiple stakeholders and subversive cultural practices” (deWinter 50). One example of this is that consumption of Cool Japan products like anime, manga, and video games “does not always indicate a serious interest in Japan and its culture, because most fans of a Cool Japan in the world today do not study Japanese history, language, or culture” (Ergin and Shinohara 43). Second, for Cool Japan to function, it usually requires support from other nations, particularly the West: “Most important for the Japanese media’s articulation of Japanese animation and video games as representative of Japanese global cultural power is the fact that they are appreciated by the West” (Iwabuchi 459). While certainly true now, video game history suggests that such Japanese video games faced several hurdles. For example, the popularity of SNK arcade games across the globe forced the company to port several of their titles to the Neo Geo game console in 1990 since the assumption was gamers would like to play arcade games in their homes (Nicoll 203). Not only did the unit launch with a staggering $649.99 price tag, but reviewers and consumers noted that the Neo Geo’s tendency to recycle genres like 2-D Japanese fighting games made it a fairly derivative console (Nicoll 212). The transition from arcades to home consoles, despite some positive early reports and expectations, did not go as planned. Arguably, this pattern was in place since the 1980s. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the home console market in the West collapsed in 1983 following market saturation, weak games, and a recession. The Nintendo NES and eventually Sega Genesis/ 61

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Mega Drive revived the industry, thanks to such hits as Super Mario Bros. (1985), Contra (1987), Legend of Zelda (1986), Punch-Out (1987), Sonic the Hedgehog (1991), Streets of Rage (1991), and ports of Street Fighter II (1991). From 1983 until approximately 1994, both companies vied for supremacy with Nintendo winning both console wars. Nintendo and Sega certainly filled a void for gamers yearning to play, and they were not swayed by Western systems like the Philips CD-i, Panasonic 3DO, and Atari Jaguar. Even Sega of America’s own disaster, the 32X, failed to make a significant impact before fading into obscurity by the first Electronic Entertainment Expo in 1995. However, despite owning Japanese consoles, consumers were not jumping at the opportunity to buy Japanese games. In the West, technology and storytelling remained separate. At least that is what various studios thought post-1983. There was reluctance from Japanese companies to port certain games and from Western branches to market them, and the titles listed earlier survived in part because they were meant to look as un-Japanese as possible. These console-based Japanese video games have a history of not appearing too Japanese in hopes of not scaring away potential audiences, thereby making much of the subject matter seem Westernized. Antonia Levi notes in “The Sweet Smell of Japan” that such precautionary measures were in place even when Western companies imported Japanese anime for Western audiences “to disguise or at least reduce the Japanese ‘odor’” (6). The same practice was in place for video games since games that had Japanese aesthetics on their box art were remade to appear more Western, including Legend of Zelda and Street Fighter II, while other games, based on Dragon Ball (1986) and Ranma ½ (1992), were reskinned to remove any connection to both anime series (McFerran). Meanwhile, popular Western games, such as Doom (1993) and Mortal Kombat (1992), drew appeal because of their violence and gore. Technology marketing also played a role. For example, Sega (as well as some PC studios) promoted Western full-motion videos (FMV), but most failed. Even by the time the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64 hit shelves, most consumers were drawn to early 3-D polygons more than Japanese sprites (Coskrey). There were exceptions, but by the mid-to-late 1990s, the Japanese games that succeeded abroad—including Resident Evil (1996), Final Fantasy VII (1997), Metal Gear Solid (1998), and Silent Hill (1999)—did so because they masked many of their homeland’s qualities. A video game may have Japanese aesthetics, but if it maintains gameplay and story options that seem familiar to Western games, fans will likely give it a chance. 62

Assembling the Nest

As other Japanese games and genres, like RPGs, fighting games, and racing simulators, were published and marketed outside of Japan, visual novels were stuck in park for years. Western audiences could experience and enjoy Japanese entertainment based on individualized spectra of what they did and did not find relatable, but visual novels were so embedded in Japanese culture from the beginning that most companies did not market games like The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) to Western audiences. Video games became more sophisticated, and certain series resonated with audiences, but the visual novel remained an outlier and still is an outlier in some ways. Editing practices that removed content such as explicit sexual scenes still remain today when visual novels are sold in certain online stores. Therein lies a paradox associated with Cool Japan: video games were made to look less Japanese to appeal to consumers while anime was made to look more Japanese. Stuck in the middle is the visual novel genre that, since it was too Japanese, had to rely on anime as a cultural vehicle.

Cool Japan: Riding the Media Waves of Popular Culture Manga, anime, and video games belong to a network of related properties, contributing to a convergence culture that propels Japanese entertainment, which accelerated the Cool Japan campaign. Yet as scholars like NavarroRemesal and Loriguillo-López note, “Anime stands as the main ambassador of Japanese popular culture,” a statement that is difficult to refute given how much easier it has gained a global audience compared to the other two because of a timely head start (7). We believe it is important to note that Cool Japan is older than this brief history surmises and, given the visual novel’s continued niche existence, the genre slowly gained a following due to developments in manga and anime. We will juxtapose a history of anime with visual novels leading up to the current era, but why is anime popular in the first place? One of the primary reasons is that it combated burnout from rehashed Western programs (Otmazgin 63). For Western animation fans tired of persistent stories about princesses working hard to find true love, the rags-to-riches local boy making good in his community, and gag humor played out in short episodes, anime was an outlet for new storytelling (although it is irresponsible to suggest that no anime has these themes). Anime fans also note that compared to many Western animations that rely on situational plots, Japanese storylines with long-term arcs are quite common. Most intriguing of all, anime titles were, at least in previous decades, more 63

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

likely to have themes like “sadness, environmentalism, and technoterror,” which sometimes produced harsh or bittersweet endings that seemed more real compared to the Western ideal that everything will work out in the end (Levi 10). Some fans appreciate anime for its darker subtext compared to traditionally Western cartoons that tackle similar motifs, including series like Guyver that deconstructed the classic Western superhero transformation sequence by making it seem painful and even grotesque (Napier 233). Academically speaking, this relates to how Japanese science fiction became popular across the globe as it is a liminal space that “expresses the unique in-between-ness of human and machine—voice acting and drawn/rendered animation—chooses to use the platform to complicate questions of identity” (Landa 32). This is not to say that Western animation cannot accomplish similar feats, but for many who grew up watching (whether with parental supervision or not) subject matter that Disney, Warner Brothers, and other studios would not produce, the different themes at least gave the impression that anime used the power of animation to tell stories not solely made for children. With anime’s ability to infuse multiple emotions into any given narrative to draw out themes and characterizations, it is no wonder that fans around the world would be drawn to its qualities, and why visual novels piggybacked off its success, however accidentally it may have seemed. Wave 1: 1960s–1980s Whether or not American viewers initially enjoyed Japanese animation, anime was intriguing to American executives because it was cheaper to make compared to Disney cartoons. It was also easily distinguishable because animators “concentrated on the eyes, leading to the distinctive anime ‘look’ of many characters who expressed their feelings through their large liquid eyes” (Napier 232). Some of the first titles included Toei Animation’s “The Legend of the White Snake (Hakuja den, released in the US in 1961), Magic Boy (Shōnen sarutobi sasuke, released in the US in 1961) and Alkazam the Great (Saiyu-i, released in the US in 1961)” (Daliot-Bul 78). More popular titles followed, including the 1960s shows Astro Boy, Speed Racer, and Gigantor, but all of these shows were “Americanized,” as in edited, in order to prevent an overabundance of “Japaneseness” that was eventually sought after by anime connoisseurs of the 1980s (McKevitt 898). Japanese animation in America reached new levels of popularity in 1979, thanks to Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato), an intergalactic science-fiction anime about the struggles of some crafty earthlings as they fight off an advanced alien 64

Assembling the Nest

race known as the Gamilons. This popularity might have been accidental because the show was scheduled during early morning cartoons before teens eventually found it (Levi 6). Anime scholars usually trace the medium’s rise in America to one influential 1988 title: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. Akira grew out of the 1980s cyberpunk science-fiction subgenre which includes classics like Ridley Scott’s films Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981), and Paul Verhoeven’s hyper-violent satire RoboCop (1987). According to Gerald Miller, “Like other cyberpunk works, Akira’s tale unfolds in a dystopian, noirish future, and it investigates the relationships between humans and machines, yet ultimately the film depicts the potential for human development and evolution when confined by an oppressive police state” (147). Unlike previous anime series and movies introduced to Western audiences, Akira was noticeably darker, even showing a nuclear detonation in Tokyo twenty seconds into the movie. Nevertheless, the movie was a success, and Streamline Pictures was instrumental in delivering it to Western shores. In general, an anime seed that perhaps impacted past, future, and nostalgic visual novels in this wave of popular culture are the comparable underground communities who proudly created fan translations. Academics study the fan hobby “fansubbing,” or when fans translate and provide subtitles rather than an official production team. Although there are differences, all fan-generated translations belong to a large umbrella of participatory culture whose alleged authority over extant commercial intellectual property involves “writing over it, modding it, amending it, expanding it, adding greater diversity of perspective, and then recirculating it, feeding it back into the mainstream media” (Jenkins 268). Fansubbing represents part of the convergence culture discussed in Chapter 1, creating a fourth layer of intellectual property linked to the official and networked properties of anime, manga, and visual novels. Of course, when fan translations are concerned, this cultural practice is illegal and linked to what Ian Condry calls “dark energy” since “some of these forces operate through the darknet of peer-to-peer file sharing networks and because a strict focus on piracy and commodification tends to dismiss the productive capacity of this power (i.e., making it unseen)” (195). Visual novels are affiliated with fansubbing culture because select communities were so intrigued by Japanese aesthetics and stories in anime and video games that they attempted to translate them unofficially. In order to accomplish this, fans often have to resort to controversial methods to share such media in the first place. The history of fansubbing began during 65

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Japan’s bubble economy in the 1980s as anime subcultures grew in the United States. One such grassroots example was the establishment of underground literature like The Rose that eventually “gave way to two trends in anime fan communication: professional magazines and, more importantly, the Internet” (McKevitt 915). Although fansubbing is technically illegal, “These were often quite professional productions, and usually cheap, since most fansubbers made it a point of honor to not profit from these copyright violations and sold their products at cost” (Levi 46). Fansubbing was initially a reaction to certain moves taken by emerging American anime companies like Streamline Pictures (1988–2002), Central Park Media (1990–2009), and ADV Films (1992–2009). The Rose in particular criticized dubs that were considered affronts to the originals, such as Captain Harlock, Queen Millennia, and the pre-Disney production of Miyazaki’s Nausicaa (McKevitt 912). Coincidentally, some studios or distributors did not mind fansubbing as it served as a pilot study for American appeal with future titles (Levi 47). These fans might not have had Japanese computers that could play visual novels, but they were armed with VCRs, cassette tapes, and funds for hotel rooms so that they could screen obscure anime together at conventions (McKevitt 911). Although fansubbing was tolerated as a vehicle to pique anime interest outside of Japan, corporations began to sour on the practice once more productions were officially licensed and now resort to cease-and-desist letters to those infringing on intellectual property (Condry 205). Due to this contentious relationship that arose in our theoretical last wave of Japanese popular culture, fansubbing factions have formed in communities. Notably, streaming distribution companies like Crunchyroll, which initially featured fansubbed content, established contractual relationships with Japanese studios that rendered all such content illegal (Denison 462). Presently, fan translations of visual novels create another prism of this dilemma as fansubbing may have inspired unofficial translations or software patches of visual novels years later based on niche communities that did not have access to certain Japanese games. Data is scant, but fan-translated visual novels became more common in the early 2000s as evidenced by such unofficial translations as Type-Moon’s Tsukihime (2000) in 2006, Enix’s Jesus (1987) in 2007, and Key’s Kanon (1999) in 2009 (Okami). Most visual novels that have fan translations do not have official studio releases in different languages. Viewed positively, these translations “can often lengthen the popularity of the title and its creators, paving the way for re-releases and sequels” (Bernal-Merino 214). As many of these visual novels or their studios are 66

Assembling the Nest

now defunct, the time, effort, and resources some of these communities put into their hobby might create the only version that eager fans can still play. Fan translations also reveal just how far some gamers are willing to go for certain stories as they have to wait years for a translator or community to finish the patch or spend countless hours on their own translation. Once finished, the gamer must buy the game from a third-party vendor because it will assuredly be discontinued. Since prices are astronomical and there is no guarantee the game will work properly on current technology, desperate fans opt to download a pirated copy under the logic that it is their only recourse. Finally, after these steps as well as assuring the patch works, the final hurdle is if the quality of the work is any good. If it is, it will presumably be heralded by the small community. If the quality is poor, the process might be taken up again by a new translation team, assuming the copyright holder no longer cares. It is evident that fans hoping to translate a visual novel will have a tougher time compared to other video game genres due to the emphasis on story rather than mechanics. Given that many of these narratives already have fans from different media, the translation must meet the expectations of the core audience: diehard connoisseurs who believe they are otherwise missing something important from a franchise or aspect of Japanese entertainment culture. This is why fan translations often take years due to the meticulous level of detail required for every scene with readable text because each scene requires an understanding of more than one language, jargon, syntax, flowing language, and faithfulness to the source material. Some are well done while others lack polish. Legal issues abound, but, like the anime fansubbers before them, these users translate because they love the product and not because they expect to financially benefit. For visual novels, fans usually go beyond translating the game and develop some technical skills in order to reverse engineer or hack the visual novel and engine (this further calls into question its legality). If fans are desperate to play untranslated games (or desire to learn some elements of a foreign language in the process), they can download programs like Visual Novel Reader that serve as machine translation tools. While the gamer might get the general gist, a game that is evaluated by its story usually requires the careful attention and contextualization only human translation can provide. As a laborious and special interest hobby, visual novel translation seems to be fading and academic information remains scarce as of this manuscript. Nevertheless, communities persist to this day, including Fuwanovel, that seek to promote visual novels across the globe. In the next wave, officially 67

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

licensed visual novels in multiple languages would begin to trickle outside of Japan, but the 1990s illustrates how niche the video game genre truly was in the early stages. Wave 2: The Lost Decade, 1991–2000 After the economy collapsed, many Japanese studios shut down, and those that survived produced niche titles. Some of these became huge hits, such as Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Toei’s Dragon Ball Z (1989), Toei’s Sailor Moon (1992), and Gainax’s Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), which all developed followings with specific Western audiences. US companies began to release a bevy of productions that were distributed in Japan years earlier (an English dub might be released years after the Japanese release). For example, Kunihiko Yuyama’s fantasy cult classic Windaria (also called Once Upon a Time) was released in Japanese theaters in 1986 but received a VHS dub by Streamline Pictures in 1992. An unabridged rerelease was issued by ADV Films in 2004, two years after Streamline’s demise. Sailor Moon, which originally aired in Japan from 1992 to 1997, was not released in North America until 1995. It performed poorly in the United States, was cancelled, survived after fan petitions, and found new life on Cartoon Network’s Japanimation block Toonami in June 1998. Even then, Sailor Moon was considered unsuitable for young audiences and had to be heavily edited. This included removing scenes that showed transparent outlines of the female figure, underwear shots, and even LGBTQ+ subject matter as some characters were reassigned a gender or were rebranded as cousins to stave off same-sex relationships, as was the case with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune (Levi 7). Despite these lag times in releases (e.g., SyFy aired certain movies during its “Saturday Anime” block years after their Japanese counterparts), demand grew along with the entire anime industry. Companies saw the value in marketing elements of anime across as many media outlets as possible as is the case of Pokémon in 1997, which “integrated media ecology of anime, manga, trading-card games, toys, electronic gaming and character merchandise” (Daliot-Bul 83). Pokémon’s cooperative marketing strategy became a seminal example of transmedia storytelling as “[t]here is no one text where one can go to get the information about the various species; rather, the child assembles what they know about the Pokémon from various media with the result that each child knows something his or her friends do not and thus has a chance to share this expertise with others” (Jenkins 68

Assembling the Nest

132). In a way, this mode of storytelling continues the collaborative nature of anime (and manga) that has always been associated with its appeal. However, visual novels were not ready to join this transmedia landscape despite a close relationship with anime. The timing for introducing visual novels to outside audiences may have been good, but titles were rare. For many gamers, their first exposure to visual novels might have been Hideo Kojima’s cyberpunk Blade Runner-inspired yarn Snatcher. Released on the PC-8801 and MSX2 in 1988 and 1989 respectively, Snatcher was an unknown title in the West until Sega showed interest (the game was released for the PC Engine CD-ROM add-on, the Sony PlayStation, and the Sega Saturn in Japan). As the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis vied for cultural superiority in the early 1990s, Sega broke into the CD-ROM industry in 1991 (Japan) and 1992 (North America) with the launch of the Sega CD. The Sega CD was a peripheral device that relied on the Sega Genesis, meaning that consumers had to purchase both in what must have been a tense conversation between family members and significant others. One of the Sega CD’s primary marketing pitches was the capacity to handle its FMVs. Most were of poor quality and the gimmick died out. Although the Sega CD was considered a commercial failure, Sega ported a heavily censored version of Snatcher in early 1995 (North America) that edited out nudity and questionable subject matter. Not only did the game not sell, but Sega also scaled down efforts to market the Sega CD and discontinued it entirely in 1996 to focus on the Saturn. Aside from Snatcher, translated games were exceptionally rare. One of the other few English series released during this time frame was Koei’s Emit trilogy in 1994 that was designed to teach English to Japanese citizens with the help of narrative-based video games (VNDB). Most Western gamers in 1996 were evaluating the specifications and game libraries of the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64 before making a purchasing decision. Only diehard anime or visual novel fans actively sought visual novels. The genre was still too niche and Japanese companies displayed no real inclination to market their creations in the West, governing under a self-fulfilling prophecy that visual novels would not sell in the West because they purposely were not sold in the West. It is during this wave that the history of visual novels takes a peculiar turn as it marks the advent of the company JAST USA. Founded by Peter Payne, JAST USA was one of the first companies to publish and port Japanese visual novels and dating sims in the West. The company got its start in 1996 as a web shop called J-List that eventually partnered with the Japanese company JAST to distribute Japanese games (Galbraith); however, most of the games 69

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

were pornographic (eroge). JAST USA still publishes games despite outliving even the Japanese parent company with which it shared a name. JAST USA’s primary objective was to market such games and become an instrumental voice in getting people to play them (Sahdev). The company’s first game was Season of the Sakura released in 1996 that featured an impressive degree of replay value for a dating sim—the genre we discuss in Chapter 4—due to multiple dating routes and endings. Despite the game’s humorous tone, its explicit sexual content was occasionally problematic, as exemplified in one route in which the protagonist’s homeroom teacher volunteers to become their first sexual encounter (see Figure 5). Erotic games were generally the only visual novels Western consumers could buy during the 1990s and early 2000s. A Japanese publisher called Himeya Soft (founded in 1991) opened a California-based subsidiary in 1998. Himeya Soft USA had modest success, thanks to a partnership with Japan’s C’s Ware (yet another adult company) that developed games in the home country like Desire (1994), Eve: Burst Error (1995), and Divi-Dead (1998). For a publisher that specialized in shipping erotic games, Himeya Soft was surprisingly reflective toward not just the genre’s differences from American entertainment but also the current gaming landscape in the West:

Figure 5  In addition to its sexual content, at least one translation of Season of the Sakura also had liberal references to alcohol, even though the game is set in a Japanese high school. 70

Assembling the Nest

Currently in the United States, first person shooters like Quake, Unreal, and Duke Nukem reign as the most successful titles (with RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Diablo, and Ultima helping making a comeback for that genre), but most Japanese games, apart from arcade-like console games, our [sic] strongly story driven games. They are kind of like interactive novels using voice acting, beautiful artwork, and animation to drive you through a story. But you just don’t sit there and watch, like a movie, instead Japanese games are styled to present you with many choices throughout the game for you to decide on. These choices heavily impact how the story goes and in some cases, how the story ends. (Himeya Soft) Some consumers may have not heard about concepts like immersive storytelling and choice-based narratives at this point, but the introduction of erotic games may have missed the mark; such a move does not exactly put to rest the idea that the genre is composed of mostly adult games. Even though some of Himeya Soft’s games did receive censored versions when they were ported to different systems in Japan, most of them had sexual content and skimpy stories. Perhaps no visual novel reveals the struggles of the genre at this point than ELF’s Yu-No: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World (1996). A game that allegedly reinvigorated visual novels and shifted away from erotic content (while, of course, having such content in the first port), Yu-No was lauded upon its release for its length, characters, immersive story, and science-fiction themes. Among its most innovative features was not only the ability to see the branching narratives on screen but the ability to go back in time using these branches with “jewels” that allow the protagonist to revisit old narrative paths or access new ones. This feature, Auto Diverge Mapping System (ADMS), was well received and Yu-No is considered one of the genre’s best examples despite its lack of exposure outside Japan (Sorlie). The game has also received some academic attention due to its postmodern take on multiple realities (Hiroki 116). Unfortunately, an official version of the game was not released outside of Japan until 2019 under a different publisher, Spike Chunsoft. If what is regarded as one of the best stories to come out of Japan could not make it to Western shores upon release because of concerns it would not sell, there is little reason to think any visual novels during the Lost Decade were going to gain any traction. As one caveat for the game, there appears to be some nostalgia for Yu-No that shrouds aspects of its production history in mystery. Some factors include the original publisher, ELF, went out of business in 2015; the lead writer and director, 71

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Hiroyuki Kanno, passed away in 2011; and the remake’s production team changed the 1990s anime aesthetic style to resemble contemporary trends (Romano). Arguably, many visual novels pre-2000s suffer similar issues that may muddle both past research as well as reasons why, how, or when an old visual novel gets remade. Still, the decade was not completely lost for visual novels. Thanks to several anime titles, the era showed a gradual desire to associate with a niche entertainment market. That niche market happened to be anime and not so much visual novels, but by riding the coattails of anime’s success, the video game genre demonstrated that it had something to offer if consumers were willing to look past the sexual content. The next era, the namesake of “Cool Japan,” provided the best opportunity for visual novels to make a splash. Wave 3: The Big Wave of “Cool Japan,” 2000–8 Adorable mascots everywhere. Sailor Venus on t-shirts and backpacks. Pocky at the convenience store. Trading Pokémon during class?! By the turn of the twenty-first century, anime and Japanese popular culture were prominent. Cartoon Network and SyFy were suddenly no longer the only channels broadcasting anime shows and movies as other corporations realized the impact it had on Western culture. Toys became huge, video game companies took more chances with Japanese-inspired games, and manga gained a foothold in markets outside of Japan. Further, as streaming services had not yet been unveiled, purchasing expensive DVD sets was still a profitable enterprise. Rather than niche audiences, Cool Japan was now marketed to as many demographics as possible. Yet the speculation that cultural products like anime could sustain itself for a long period was infeasible. NavarroRemesal and Loriguillo-López note that the Cool Japan brand slowed around 2004 due to questionable business strategies that led to mistrust between corporations and investors, as well as Microsoft’s foray into a home console market once dominated by the Japanese companies Sony and Nintendo (4). Additional troubling signs began to emerge around 2006 as Western interest in various programs pushed animators to their limits, resulting in a hit to quality, burnout among staff, and the possibility for job outsourcing to meet demands (Kelts 79). Even though Eastern and Western companies were making money, another problem was the dwindling number of quality titles as distributors had already licensed the best products from the last few decades (Bricken). Further, US companies were hoping to find another Pokémon craze only to get burned by shoddy products and bad business 72

Assembling the Nest

dealings (Daliot-Bul 76). The market became saturated, and the industry collapsed on its own success. Maybe it is possible to be too “cool.” From a video game perspective, this was the wave where visual novels gained attention since “growth toward a fuller appreciation of Japan’s rich assortment of video games is slow” (Levi 52). Throughout the late 1990s, Western fans waited for monthly announcements on Japanese role-playing games, fighting games, and sometimes survival horror games as was the case with series like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Anime was a cultural vehicle that helped incubate visual novels, but the process was not instantaneous as explained in the previous sections. Aside from the occasional erotic game, Western ports of Japanese visual novels were nonexistent in the 1990s and early 2000s. Around the same time, Western adventure games also became rare for all but the most enthusiastic supporters, suggesting the market for gamers who wanted to read text was shrinking. However, both consoles and content promoted some interest in the genre during this time. The console of note is the handheld Nintendo DS that sold an estimated 150 million units worldwide (Holst). The DS demonstrated the increasing quality of visual novels. For one, its portability allowed for easy accessibility as a gamer could pop it open whenever it was convenient and interact with a console that was about the size of a small book. The dual screens were also unique as both displayed different information. The bottom touchscreen was the interface that could be manipulated, and the top screen displayed the game as it was being played. Due to the dual screens, touchscreen, and stylus, the DS was able to cater to a wide spectrum of gamers while also becoming creative with some genres. One of its specialties happened to be visual novel hybrids with interactive puzzles. The year 2005 marked a turning point of the genre with the Western localization of Capcom’s successful trial game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001). In the series, the gamer controls the titular character (although his name is Ryūichi Naruhodō in Japanese) and directs him to solve murders by investigating crime scenes, talking to witnesses and suspects, and dramatically revealing the real criminal in the courtroom as a defense attorney. As the game arose during a period of tremendous anime curiosity outside of Japan, the characters were designed in that style and occasionally display animations during dialogue and the trials. The game spawned multiple sequels and has been ported to various platforms. Interestingly, while anime became popular during this wave of Japanese popular culture, the Phoenix Wright series was still heavily localized as names, slang, cuisines, and cultural references were masked to appear more Western despite anime aesthetics (Consalvo 160). In a manner of speaking, 73

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

these hybrid visual novels during this era may have potentially blurred cultural boundaries because despite companies’ localization efforts, it was impossible to completely remove all “traces” of Japanese culture due to finite resources (Mandiberg 131). As a result, games like Phoenix Wright during this time reveal that rather than masking their Japanese nature, it “might be as much of a draw as the game’s skilful use of language” (Consalvo 160). This appeal to Japanese authenticity seen in many visual novels would become most apparent in the final wave we will address momentarily. Nevertheless, the series’ gameplay mechanics not observed in many visual novels were appealing and Phoenix Wright proved niche Japanese games could find success among Western audiences if they were deemed compelling enough. While Phoenix Wright’s mechanics, along with other examples of the mystery subgenre of visual novels, will be covered in Chapter 5, it was not the only visual novel-esque game available to global consumers over the DS’s lifetime. Others include Cing’s Trace Memory (2005) and Hotel Dusk (2007), Spike’s LifeSigns: Surgical Unit (2007), and Arc System Works’ Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles (2008). Although these were all the Western releases, as is true with the genre and other video game consoles, even more games were released in Japan without official or even unofficial translations. Despite the DS’s innovation and high praise, none of these games sold extremely well outside of Japan with the exception of the Ace Attorney series. Further, these games utilized visual novel aesthetics, but their degrees of interactivity and gameplay increased because of the touchscreen. Therefore, while the DS may have been the starting point for visual novels for many gamers, it would take a little longer before more visual novels were exposed outside of Japan. However, many of the anime series produced during this era were based on visual novels. It is because of these series and companies that many Japanese visual novels currently have Western fanbases and how they eventually were officially licensed. Wave 4: The Niche Itch: You Are Here As pivotal as anime was during Japan’s “Lost Decade,” its lifespan is the topic of debate among scholars. Some suggest anime peaked around $4.84 billion in 2003, thanks to a combination of movies, videos, DVDs, and merchandise, but Japanese studios began demanding too much money beyond the means of many Western businesses (Otmazgin 60). The ensuing global recession of 2008 also bankrupted most of them. While multiple anime companies and programs have been phased out or liquidated since 74

Assembling the Nest

its heyday, anime still remains popular as evidenced by hundreds of titles on streaming sites like Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Although fans like having access to such streaming services, they place the future of fansubbing in jeopardy with some companies suggesting after the recession that fansubbing promotes piracy (Lee 1141). Yet this era drummed up more interest in visual novels even as many conglomerates of the Western anime industry liquidated assets or shut down entirely due to poor sales because some anime series, including Key’s Clannad (2004), 07th’s Expansion’s Higurashi: When They Cry (2002), Type-Moon’s Fate/Stay Night (2004), and Navel’s Shuffle (2004), were visual novels first. Popular franchises like Steins; Gate (2009), The Fruit of Grisaia (2010), Hakuoki, and Nekopara (2014) came later, but they followed the same formula. While some companies went under, visual novels coincidentally began to sprout in the West, not so much because developers of the genre took an interest, but because Western publishing companies did. If the previous phase of Cool Japan was to hit as many markets as possible and milk Japanese entertainment for all it was worth, this new strategy took the opposite path by identifying the major audience for franchises and giving them multiple transmedia outlets to consume (Cooper). The logical solution would be to translate those previously hidden visual novels for new audiences. One of the first true success stories was Sekai Project, an unofficial fan translation group that began translating the visual novel dating simulator School Days in 2006 in a process similar to anime “fansubbing” of the 1980s and 1990s (Sekai Project 2010). The official Western localization of School Days (2006) was released in 2012 following several delays, and Sekai Project began to publish popular Japanese visual novels on platforms like Steam beginning in 2014. Such productions brought to light just how expensive localizing visual novels was as a laborious process due to Japanese intellectual property concerns, much like anime companies in the 2000s: “Japanese companies demand too much for their IP rights, not only for anime movies/series but also for all the related accessories and spinoffs. This increases the price dramatically and makes collaborations and marketing extremely expensive and hence, non-profitable” (Otmazgin 67). Japanese creators are also cautious because their reputations are on the line in Western markets (Sahdev). To overcome these hurdles, a small company like Sekai Project typically relies on Kickstarter campaigns from dedicated niche communities. Arguably their grandest accomplishment was receiving the rights to the Japanese company Key’s critically acclaimed visual novel Clannad that was successful as both an anime and manga series. The game 75

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

was not cheap as evidenced by the game’s fundraising goal of $140,000 before fans pledged a staggering $540,000 to ensure it would enter production. Despite this successful campaign, the game still sells for $44.99 on Steam before discounts. Although Sekai Project purchased or received the rights to several renowned games, it was not the only company wading into Western distribution of visual novels. Like JAST USA, MangaGamer’s roots lie in the eroge market, which is how the company breaks even or turns a profit (Sahdev). Despite seedy titles, MangaGamer’s business structure is a bit more established than Sekai Project as the former does not rely on crowdsourcing campaigns to generate funds for prospective Japanese titles. MangaGamer also works with developers who do not create eroge, such as the popular Higurashi: When They Cry, as they were the company that brought the series westward, and Novectacle’s gothic thriller The House in Fata Morgana (2012). A third example of Western publishing companies working with Eastern developers involves games that are typically ported to multiple computer and video game systems. Generally speaking, these are companies that work with multiple video game genres and the visual novels they license are capable of generating substantial interest due to brand recognition. PQube, a UK-based publisher that specializes in console-based ports, is one of the most visible as evidenced by such titles as Steins; Gate, Root Letter (2016), Chaos; Child (2014), Raging Loop (2015), and Muv-Luv Alternative (2006).1 An American publishing company known as Aksys was founded in California in 2006. Like PQube, Aksys does not solely work with visual novel developers, but their library is nonetheless impressive. Such games include the horror thriller Spirit Hunter: Death Mark (2017), Spike Chunsoft’s Sawesque Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), and the otome Code: Realize (2014) series.

Muv-Luv’s publication history deserves some clarification. While PQube published the series on video game consoles, the company was not involved in the series’ Steam Kickstarter campaign operated by IXTL. This distinction is admittedly confusing, but the Kickstarter is notable for breaking $1.2 million. 1

76

Assembling the Nest

“Do I Watch the Anime or Play the Visual Novel First?” To summarize these four different periods, anime first helped introduce many people to new forms of storytelling. It also ushered in a culture of fansubbing that, while obviously for a different medium, produced similarities to the translations that some members in visual novel communities continue to this day. The next phase tried to promote some visual novels, but they were mostly erotic and were therefore ignored. The third phase helped popularize anime as well as a gaming system that had games with visual novel aesthetics. Finally, the fourth phase represents the current landscape in which old titles are remade or the time delay between Eastern and global releases is significantly reduced. Given how long Japanese entertainment has been integrated into many cultures and the sheer number of options available, there is a strong possibility that anyone reading this manuscript found something within the last sixty years that piqued their interest. Maybe Studio Ghibli released a movie that just hit the right notes. Perhaps one of the Final Fantasy games opened up the world of Japanese RPGs. There is also the possibility of a negative reaction in which a family member or significant other walked in on a suspicious scene outside cultural norms and asked a few questions as a result. Whatever the case, the manners in which Japanese storytelling unfolds over different media platforms is one of its strengths. Such entertainment can transport us to an otherworldly world outside our hegemonic structure as their “willingness to embrace grief and tragedy is a refreshing change from the American insistence on the happy ending. At the same time, slightly paradoxically, the well-known ‘cuteness’ of the characters of many popular titles contributes a comforting sense of compensation in a world that seems increasingly frightening and complicated” (Napier 236). Many fans growing up in previous decades tuned into various shows that possess a certain “je ne sais quoi” that is hard to explain to both ardent fans and passive observers, demonstrating a unique ability to transmit Japanese culture. However, this transmission is in part based on how much Japanese creators were willing to create a Japanese experience and how far Western audiences were willing to venture into another culture’s entertainment platforms. From a video game business standpoint, Martin Picard suggests that “not all products are exported and several Japanese video game companies, as with other cultural industries, still prefer to export only products that are already well recognized and that conform to a non-Japanese view of Japanese culture, fearing to export products they judge distinctly ‘Japanese.’” This recognition is why anime was not only in a 77

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

unique position to broadcast Japanese culture but also the reason it became the primary vehicle for visual novels since many Japanese video games that found success in America had lower “Japaneseness.” The idea that cultural content plays a part in the success or failure of a visual novel is not unique to the genre. Speaking on interactive storytelling more broadly, Chris Crawford suggests mental models, such as social reasoning and language, allow us to “anticipate the likely behavior of others” and allow for “complex communication with others” (5). Each of these factors contributes to our understanding of the story’s context, not only within the written plot of events but within the wider culture. Most visual novels are perceived to be very Japanese and cater to an audience outside of other video game genres, so the mental models they work take some cultivation for members of cultures outside of Japan. Western audiences can experience and enjoy Japanese entertainment based on individualized spectra of what they did and did not enjoy in the past, but most visual novels were so embedded in Japanese culture that companies did not even bother marketing them to Western audiences. One need only look at Japan’s popular Tokimeki Memorial, “a game in which the player goes through three years of high school, joining clubs, competing in sports, and above all, attempting to date a bevy of cute boys or girls, depending on the version” (Levi 51). The game that helped launch dating simulators was never officially released in the West despite various iterations and sequels. As has been revealed previously, fan appeal for more authentic representations of Japanese animation has influenced many of the releases since the 1980s while it has been slow going for niche video game genres. However, some series, like Tokimeki Memorial, still have not benefited from this call for authenticity, and it is possible that they never will. Even if anime may have lost some of its marketing power over the years, it still offers a unique perspective on Japanese culture as well as reasons why Westerners are still drawn to its aesthetics and narrative qualities. One of the characteristics that often binds visual novels with anime is that the genre infuses terminology and tropes that have become loan words in their adopted languages. Such a transition took years to develop, thanks to anime and manga. This is a community in which members have adopted words like tsundere, doujishi, kawaii, ecchi, waifu, nakige, moe, and utsuge into their lexicons. It is also a fanbase that recognizes such motifs as bathhouses, young women in sailor school uniforms, harem-based stories, hentai, or sharing Japanese food with a crush. Fans of visual novels will recognize many of these terms and tropes while others just know about them in 78

Assembling the Nest

passing. The visual novel parking brake may have been removed to usher in this current era of interest in interactive fiction, but it remains an insular group nevertheless. Not only is cultural understanding required, but many studios will maintain typical storytelling patterns and conventions as well as art styles. Outsiders may or may not get the appeal, but as the current economic climate of visual novels is to cater to very specific fanbases, giving them what they want before any other audience will remain the priority. For a medium that frequently rides off the success of another, an important academic question lurks for prospective initiates: should they play the visual novel or watch the anime first? It is a complicated dilemma that does not have a correct answer, but such is the case for multiple entry points into a fanbase. Despite their similarities, both media serve different functions (and we can confirm that we have tried both strategies). Anime is generally faster, more accessible, and cheaper, factors that might play a role in a viewer deciding if they actually like the premise as well as the characters without investing too much time and effort. Anime tends to significantly condense visual novels so that the crux remains without most of the extra dialogue given that a typical anime episode is over twenty minutes and seasons cover a dozen or few dozen episodes. For some, this is preferred because playing through a visual novel and not engaging with characters is an exhausting, boring, and unproductive ordeal. Since visual novels can take as many as sixty or more hours to complete, one anime episode could theoretically cover several hours of narrative-based gameplay. This efficiency would suggest that the anime should be viewed first (or the manga should be read first if the case), but this approach could spoil the experience of the main story in the source material. However, this admission is also subjective and based on individual preferences as the anime will typically reveal one ending, a process that takes substantial effort when completing a visual novel due to multiple routes and the canonical “true ending.” Such an approach can either be viewed as spoiling the game or enticing fans to see all the routes that could not be included due to the differences between media, but discretion should be employed as there could be consequences between both experiences. Another consideration is that the visual novel will open up the entire gameworld, meaning that dialogue will be amplified, characters will divulge more information, and there is the possibility that previously held opinions will change based on certain characterizations. The visual novel will thus fill in holes from the anime, but if the game is played before the viewing, there is a risk that one or the other may be disappointing. A final issue is more of a caveat than 79

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

criteria, but since some visual novels were originally erotic games, their anime counterparts might retain such scenes. When this happens, as is the case with productions like Yu-No before a 2019 anime remake, most of the plot disappears and becomes nonsensical to prioritize the sexual content. This also means that some characters may be removed entirely, resulting in a faulty product as well as a poor initiation into the other medium. As the point of immersion necessitates successful utilization of characters, these apprehensions should be considered because the association between anime and visual novels is not always productive (Figure 6). Nevertheless, the debate about playing the visual novel or watching the anime first exposes a certain degree of irony. Anime, a traditionally fastpaced medium, is used to promote the corresponding visual novel, a slow medium. Manga is even faster because a comic book, even an omnibus, can be completed within hours, while visual novels cannot even be skipped until the gamer progresses through that portion of the game. Quick, slow, or simultaneously viewing both. Opinions will vary for every creative endeavor, but the relationship at the very least shows the captivating power of interconnected properties. For readers who have not, but are interested in making a foray into visual novels, we have compiled a list of good entry points to the medium in Appendix A.

Figure 6  A generic backdrop of the school in the Yu-No remake (2019) that displays

various points of interactivity. Although originally released in Japan in 1996, Yu-No would not receive an official international release in English until 2019, revealing how long gamers have to wait to play some visual novels. 80

Assembling the Nest

Conclusion: Nostalgia of Cool Japan? What Could Have Been or How It Was Supposed to Be? There is a certain level of sadness linked to the nostalgic implications of Japanese media culture and visual novels released before, during, and after the Cool Japan marketing strategy. Fans and corporations alike have wrestled with what is and what is not considered “too” Japanese for Western audiences. During some moments in media history, this allowed anime to stand out because “it presented an opportunity to participate in a global community that fostered local cultural difference. Anime looked unlike the children’s cartoons of US television, and it told stories that challenged viewers’ emotions and worldviews more than the feel-good films of George Lucas’s and Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood” (McKevitt 894). Although a medium like anime thrived on appealing to audiences seeking an authentic experience of a Japanese production, the video game industry has a history of toning down the cultural signposts of a game out of fear that it will not be played or, even worse, purchased. This becomes especially difficult for a video game genre like visual novels as the Japanese qualities are oftentimes completely affixed to the entire gaming experience. The current relationship between anime and visual novels might represent one of the best current examples of a media format dependent on another to survive. To put it colloquially, visual novels in this context are a peripheral like the Sega CD that needed the Sega Genesis to function in the 1990s. They can be engrossing and present new conversations about storytelling and even game design, but someone will not get very far unless they have a fondness for anime or manga, much like an enthusiastic gamer who owns a Sega CD, but not the Genesis. As will be expanded on in Chapter 8, many visual novels are quite old and there is a desire to return to a moment in our gaming past that seemed so distant. It is interesting to think about what could have been, but it is likely this is how the timeline had to proceed for such a niche video game genre. Whatever the case, visual novels provide us a window into a gaming culture of which many gamers originally were not a part. It is a regretful feeling that we could not experience some of these events in real time, but it is nice that we can feel joy that we get to be a part of it now. As Erik Champion notes, “Game-style interaction offers some insight into cultural beliefs and behaviors” (116). As we hopefully have done in these first chapters, visual novels, despite not being photorealistic, can provide Western gamers with a sense of cultural presence, as participation in the gameworld exposes them to cultural practices and beliefs that in 81

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

turn influence future designers in the genre. It took them a while, but they have joined the party of video game genre discourse and scholarship. We have provided the cultural context for their germination, but what exactly are qualities that visual novels possess? In our next section, we will answer this question by exploring their visual, narrative, and functional tropes in distinct subgenres.

Works Cited Beckley, Michael, et al. “America’s Role in the Making of Japan’s Economic Miracle.” Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 18, 2018, pp. 1–21. Bernal-Merino, Miguel Á. Translation and Localisation of Video Games. Routledge, 2014. Bricken, Rob. “What Killed the American Anime Industry?” Gizmodo, January 15, 2014, https://io9​.gizmodo​.com​/what​-killed​-the​-american​-anime​-industry​ -1501880696. Champion, Erik. Playing with the Past. Springer, 2010. Condry, Ian. “Dark Energy: What Fansubs Reveal about the Copyright Wars.” Mechademia: Fanthropoligies, edited by Frenchy Lunning, vol. 5, University of Minnesota Press, 2010, 193–208. Consalvo, Mia. “Persistence Meets Performance: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney.” Well Played 1.0: Video Games, Value, and Meaning, edited by Drew Davidson, ETC Press, 2009, pp. 157–69. Cooper, Lisa Marie. “The History of Anime.” Right Stuf Anime, 2020, https://www​ .rightstufanime​.com​/post​/global​-history​-of​-anime. Coskrey, Jason. “Defining the Heisei Era: When Japanese Games Went Global.” The Japan Times, September 29, 2018, https://features​.japantimes​.co​.jp​/heisei​ -moments​-part​-5​-innovation/. Crawford, Chris. On Interactive Storytelling. 2nd ed., New Riders, 2012. Daliot-Bul, Michal. “Reframing and Reconsidering the Cultural Innovations of the Anime on US Television.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2013, pp. 75–91. Denison, Rayna. “Anime Fandom and the Liminal Spaces between Fan Creativity and Piracy.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 14, no. 5, 2011, pp. 449–66. deWinter, Jennifer. “Cool Japan and Heated Politics: Japanese Film and Media within the Economic of Global Markets.” Reconceptualising Film Policies, edited by Nolwenn Mingant and Cecilia Tirtaine, Routledge, 2018, pp. 41–53. Ergin, Murat, and Chika Shinohara. “Neo-Ottomanism and Cool Japan in Comparative Perspective.” New Perspectives on Turkey, vol. 65, 2021, pp. 27–48, https://doi​.org​/10​.1017​/npt​.2021​.17. Fackler, Martin. “Japan Goes from Dynamic to Disheartened: Retrenchment Offers the West a Grim Vision of the Future.” New York Times, October 17, 2010. 82

Assembling the Nest Foster, Peter. “The Kamikaze Economy.” Canadian Business, vol. 66, no. 1, 1993, pp. 62–3. Galbraith, Patrick W. “Love Bytes.” Metropolis, August 27, 2009, https:// metropolisjapan​.com​/love​-bytes​/2/. Himeya Soft. “Himeya Soft Corporate Summary.” Way Back Machine, March 1998, https://web​.archive​.org​/web​/20001216040300​/http:/​/www​.himeya​.com​/ abouthimeya​/index​.html. Hiroki, Azuma. Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Holst, Arne. “Global Unit Sales of Nintendo DS as of September 2020, by Region.” Statista, December 16, 2020, https://www​.statista​.com​/statistics​/1101884​/unit​ -sales​-nintendo​-ds​-region/#:~​:text​=First​%20released​%20in​%202004​%20and​,52​ %20million​%20units​%20in​%20Europe. Iwabuchi, Kōichi. Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Duke University Press, 2002. Iwabuchi, Koichi. “‘Soft’ Nationalism and Narcissism: Japanese Popular Culture Goes Global.” Asian Studies Review, vol. 26, no. 4, 2002, pp. 447–69. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press, 2006. Johnston, Eric. “Lessons from When the Bubble Burst.” The Japan Times, January 6, 2009, https://www​.japantimes​.co​.jp​/news​/2009​/01​/06​/reference​/lessons​-from​ -when​-the​-bubble​-burst/. Kazuaki, Nagata. “Exporting Culture via ‘Cool Japan.’” The Japan Times, May 15, 2012, https://www​.japantimes​.co​.jp​/news​/2012​/05​/15​/reference​/exporting​ -culture​-via​-cool​-japan/. Kelts, Roland. Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. Landa, Amanda. “Mechanized Bodies of Adolescence: Weaponized Children, National Allegory and Japanese Anime.” Red Feather Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, 2012, pp. 16–33. Lee, Hye-Kyung. “Participatory Media Fandom: A Case Study of Anime Fansubbing.” Media, Culture, & Society, vol. 33, no. 8, 2011, pp. 1131–47. Levi, Antonia. “The Americanization of Anime and Manga: Negotiating Popular Culture.” Cinema Anime, edited by Steven T. Brown, Palgrave MacMillan, 2006, pp. 43–63. Levi, Antonia. “The Sweet Smell of Japan: Anime, Manga, and Japan in North America.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, vol. 23, no. 1, 2013, pp. 3–18. Mandiberg, Stephen. “Playing (with) the Trace: Localized Culture in Phoenix Wright.” Kinephanos: Journal of Media Studies and Popular Culture, edited by Martin Picard and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon, vol. 5, no. 1, 2015, pp. 111–41. Matsui, Takeshi. “Nation Branding Through Stigmatized Popular Culture: The ‘Cool Japan’ Craze Among Central Ministries in Japan.” Hitotsubashi Journal of Commerce and Management, vol. 48, no. 1, 2014, pp. 81–97. McFerran, Damien. “Best of 2020: No Anime Please, We’re Westerners—When Anime Was Taboo in Western Games.” Nintendo Life, December 19, 2020,

83

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels https://www​.nintendolife​.com​/news​/2020​/12​/best​_of​_2020​_no​_anime​_please​ _were​_westerners_-​_when​_anime​_was​_taboo​_in​_western​_games. McGray, Douglas. “Japan’s Gross National Cool.” Foreign Policy, no. 130, 2002, pp. 44–54. McKevitt, Andrew C. “‘You Are Not Alone!’: Anime and the Globalizing of America.” Diplomatic History, vol. 34, no. 5, 2010, pp. 893–921. Miller, Gerald. “‘To Shift to a Higher Structure’ Desire, Disembodiment, and Evolution in the Anime of Otomo, Ishii, and Anno.” Intertexts, vol. 12, no. 1, 2010, pp. 145–66. Napier, Susan. “Manga and Anime: Entertainment, Big Business, and Art in Japan.” Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society, edited by Victoria Bestor et al., Routledge, 2011, pp. 226–37. Navarro-Remesal, Victor, and Antonio Loriguillo-López. “What Makes Gêmu Different? A Look at the Distinctive Design Traits of Japanese Video Games and Their Place in the Japanese Media Mix.” Journal of Games Criticism, vol. 2, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–17, https://doi​.org​/http:/​/gamescriticism​.org​/articles​/navarro​ -remesalloriguillo​-lopez​-2​-1/. Nicoll, Benjamin. “Bridging the Gap: The Neo Geo, the Media Imaginary, and the Domestication of Arcade Games.” Games and Culture, vol. 12, no. 2, 2017, pp. 200–21. Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Soft Power.” Foreign Policy, no. 80, 1990, pp. 153–71. Okami. “Complete List of ALL English Translated VNs.” Fuwanovel, February 6, 2014, https://forums​.fuwanovel​.net​/topic​/11049​-complete​-list​-of​-all​-english​ -translated​-vns/. Okazaki, Tetsuji. “Lessons from the Japanese Miracle: Building the Foundations for a New Growth Paradigm.” Nippon.Com, February 9, 2015, https://www​.nippon​ .com​/en​/in​-depth​/a04003/. Otmazgin, Nissim. “Anime in the US: The Entrepreneurial Dimensions of Globalized Culture.” Pacific Affairs, vol. 87, no. 1, 2014, pp. 53–69. Picard, Martin. “The Foundation of Geemu: A Brief History of Early Japanese Video Games.” Game Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, 2013, http://www​.gamestudies​.org​ /1302​/articles​/picard. Romano, Sal. “YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of This World. MiniInterview with Producer Makoto Asada.” Gematsu, September 27, 2019, https:// www​.gematsu​.com​/2019​/09​/yu​-no​-a​-girl​-who​-chants​-love​-at​-the​-bound​-of​-this​ -world​-mini​-interview​-with​-producer​-makoto​-asada. Sahdev, Ishaan. “JAST USA’s Peter Payne on the Daily Dealings of His Company.” Siliconera, January 16, 2012, https://www​.siliconera​.com​/jast​-usas​-peter​-payne​ -on​-the​-daily​-dealings​-of​-his​-company/. Sahdev, Ishaan. “Sekai Project Interview: Bringing Visual Novels to the West.” Siliconera, September 12, 2014, https://www​.siliconera​.com​/sekai​-project​ -interview​-bringing​-visual​-novels​-west/. Sahdev, Ishann. “How Manga Gamer’s Visual Novels Ended Up on Steam.” Siliconera, October 8, 2014, https://www​.siliconera​.com​/how​-mangagamers​ -visual​-novels​-ended​-up​-on​-steam/.

84

Assembling the Nest Saito, Mari. “Bright Lights, Big Shoulder Pads: A Timid Japan Recalls Its Bubble Era.” New York Times, April 6, 2018, advan​​ce​.le​​xis​.c​​om​/ap​​i​/doc​​ument​​?coll​​ectio​​ n​=​new​​s​&id=​​urn: conte​ntIte​m:5S2​2-759​1-DXY​4-X2S​Y-000​00-00​&cont​ext=1​ 51683​1. Sekai Project. “Welcome to the Sekai Project Website.” Wayback Machine, 2007, https://web​.archive​.org​/web​/20070524094108​/http:/​/www​.sekaiproject​.net​/news​ /200703/. Sorlie, Audun. “Yu-No.” Hardcore Gaming 101, July 12, 2011, http://www​ .hardcoregaming101​.net​/yu​-no/. Steinberg, Marc. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. University of Minnesota Press, 2012. VNDB. “Emit Vol. 1: Toki No Maigo.” Visual Novel Database, https://vndb​.org​/ v6956. Accessed Oct 10, 2020.

85

86

PART II SUBGENRES AND TROPES

88

CHAPTER 4 THE AESTHETICS AND FUNCTIONS OF KAWAII (CUTE) CULTURE AND DATING SIMULATORS

Introduction: Dating Made Easy In a 2021 marathon six-hour YouTube review of Konami’s flagship dating simulator (sim) Tokimeki Memorial (1994), Tim Rogers of Action Button Reviews made a surprising connection to id Software’s 1993 hit Doom. The following is an abbreviated account of Rogers’ argument using sources that he also cited to provide additional context when necessary. Doom reinvented the first-person shooter genre. The game was also notable as shareware before it found a home on multiple systems. The gamer took on the role of a lone space marine serving his sentence on Mars and its moons for assaulting a commanding officer. Inter-dimensional transportation hubs start acting up, fellow marines become zombies, cybernetic demons appear, and the space marine must literally walk through Hell before returning to Earth. The trip is not easy, but fans were enthralled with the gameplay as well as all the weaponry required to defeat Satan’s spawn. In a now-infamous review that has become an internet joke, Edge Magazine had one suggestion for improving Doom: lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances . . .. Now, that would be interesting. (“Doom Review”) Apparently, what was missing from Doom’s intense gameplay was interpersonal communication. It is one thing to mindlessly kill wave after wave of evil demons. However, what if the gamer stopped to think about

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

their motives or, more importantly, their families? The striking feature of this review was not the majority of the content because Edge Magazine’s reviewer praised Doom’s graphics, gameplay, and technical programming. It was literally the very end of the review that those words were written, producing one of the most outlandish “What if . . . ” thought experiments in gaming lore. In fairness, at least one game, Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei (1992) for the Super Famicom in Japan, already utilized such a feature as the hero had to talk to enemies in order to fuse more powerful demons to be used in battle (Parsons). Yet the thought of Doom, one of history’s most controversial games, having such a feature seems nonsensical. While the West was preoccupied with hyper-violent machismo, Japanese developers were creating games in which the goal was to tackle something much more horrifying than cybernetic demons: social rejection. Enter the dating sim, a video game genre broached by The New York Times in 1996 as a category where gamers “can relive their high school days, but with more success than they had back then. Also, rejection is easier to take from a machine” (Pollack). Traversing through Hell or decapitating a digital human being as was the appeal of Mortal Kombat (1992) is one thing, but summoning the strength to ask a crush out on a date cannot be solved with power-ups and fireballs. One false move in a video game and the gamer can start over, but a mistake in a high school could result in years of sadness, loneliness, or regret. The logical thing to do would be to create an environment where interpersonal communication could be practiced outside the watchful eye of such challenging social settings. If lucky, maybe senpai will even notice the gamer. A senpai is an upperclassman in Japanese society whom an individual greatly respects. Unfortunately, senpai will not notice just anyone as they are intelligent, beautiful, funny, social, and an overall amazing person. Senpai is out of everyone’s league, which makes them a popular archetype in our first major visual novel subgenre: the dating sim. To be noticed by senpai means to fall in love and to fall in love means that a gamer will have to play a dating sim multiple times so that the “true ending” may be revealed. The senpai trope is very common in a dating sim, or “a video or computer game that focuses on dating or romance and may contain erotic content” (Taylor 194). In other words, dating in hopes of finding digital true love is the entire point of the subgenre. However, in order to find true love, a gamer must simulate the difficult real task of talking to people and evaluating their responses since a bad reply can have dire consequences. As it turns out, like digital violence, words can also hurt. As an aside, while we 90

Aesthetics/Functions of Kawaii Culture

mention some games in this chapter that contain erotic content, we do not directly address this subject matter until Chapter 6, which focuses on eroge (erotic) visual novels as a subgenre. In this chapter, we first map out the aesthetic features of a dating sim. To avoid confusion, we do not refer to aesthetic choices in these games, but rather how these unique art designs contribute to understanding the subgenre. We then explore the basic functional tropes of any dating simulator that fans have come to expect, including features like voice acting in big-budget productions. Specifically, we explore how branching narratives force gamers to be wary of their narrative choices because they can influence the game’s outcome, but at the same time encourage multiple playthroughs to ensure the game has replayability. We pivot away from a dating sim’s aesthetics and functions to identify the overall objective as well as what gamers’ own perceptions of control can tell scholars about the subgenre. Finally, we conclude this chapter by defining a brief spectrum of dating sim subgenres. These can range from entirely heteronormative games that reinforce traditional gender norms to inclusive games that are transgressive enough that they contribute unique new perspectives. With games designed around queer relationships for all genders, dating sim subgenres promise something for every gaming palate. Arguably, dating sims are among the most gendered subgenres in interactive media, and they are made for various target markets. In many cases, the terminology alone can signal what content is in a dating sim and who it is designed for. Bishōjo translates to “beautiful girl games,” and these games generally star a male protagonist who courts young women (Tompowsky 4). Conversely, bishōnen means “beautiful boy,” and these games are generally marketed toward young women who will date attractive men. Yaoi (“boys’ love”) and yuri (“girls’ love”) dating sims are marketed toward multiple audiences while bara yaoi titles are predominately marketed toward gamers who wish to see hypermasculine gay men. Importantly, the themes in each can blend together. Some dating sims even incorporate cultural folklore from outside of Japan with traditional dating sim aesthetics, while others tackle issues related to mental health and self-harm. Waiting on the fringes of this spectrum are parody dating simulators that prioritize humor over gender representation or specific target audiences. In these games, senpai might be a horse, a piece of sushi, a snooty cat, John Cena, or even a devilishly attractive Colonel Sanders. Ultimately, this chapter shows how the diversity and breadth of narratives in dating sims make them one of the most intriguing, fun, and underplayed subgenres. 91

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Choices, Choices: Defining the Dating Sim Dating sims and romantic visual novels belong to a reasonably lucrative gaming market worth an estimated $130 million as of 2014, a number that most likely continues to climb (Marsh and Ogura). As pointed out in previous chapters, the advent of dating sims is perhaps attributed to other forms of media, primarily manga and anime. We identified shōjo as one such historical trend in Chapter 2, but it is likely that two subgenres (one tenuously connected to shōjo while the other more explicitly so) helped pave the way for dating sims. Dating sims owe a debt of gratitude to the well known yet sparsely researched harem subgenre. A conventional harem story unfolds exactly as it sounds: an unassuming individual (usually male) suddenly becomes the object of desire for many beautiful love interests. As such, the central theme of any harem story is “the tension between sexual attraction and a deeper affection based on romantic love” (von Feigenblatt 637). Harem stories are colloquially called “magical girlfriend” stories, and the characters are typically “sexualized figures who engage in a wide continuum of erotic play with their decidedly unmagical human boyfriends. However, in contrast to the totally sexualized female characters in pornography, these ‘girls’ still project a strongly innocent quality, closer to the still immature shōjo than to an adult woman” (Napier 140). Displays of affection play a role in harem entertainment and can range from cute schoolyard crushes to inappropriate touching and fanservice (subject matter inserted to specifically appeal to fans) depending on the target audience. Like many genres, harem manga and anime did not grow overnight. Scholars and fans believe that Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura (1978) was a lynchpin. Told over manga, an anime series, and multiple movies, Urusei Yatsura stages the escapades of an alien princess named Lum who falls in love with a dolt named Ataru after a galactic game of tag in which the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Most young men might be content to have a space princess as a lover, but Ataru spends most of his time chasing after other girls or running away from Lum. Takahashi is also renowned for her works Ranma ½ and Inuyasha, but despite the success of Urusei Yatsura, harem anime did not become its own subgenre until approximately 1992 when Tenchi Muyo was released on video. In this anime, another unassuming boy named Tenchi Masaki suddenly finds himself in a comedic cosmic struggle that involves space princesses, pirates, mad scientists, and even galactic special agents for good measure. Driving the romantic tension is the fact that these strange 92

Aesthetics/Functions of Kawaii Culture

women live in his house. Since Tenchi Muyo, harem titles have catered to all audiences. Importantly for visual novels, specifically dating simulators, these harem programs helped establish several character tropes, including lolicons (younger girls that are actually socially and culturally troubling), rivals, narcissists, wealthy nobles, bashful or clumsy characters, and many more. Even though harem protagonists have typically strong personalities, their mediocre or flawed skill sets make them versatile blank canvases for transportation in a visual novel because gamers can easily place themselves in a story as the hero when the character is rarely if ever seen. As dating sims are already incredibly gendered, it is worth noting that a “reverse harem” is called an otome game, which means “maiden game.” As the name suggests, the protagonist is a young woman who courts multiple suitors. One shōjo subgenre that became a staging ground for many dating sims was the gakuen-mono, or “school,” romantic subgenre. This popular category developed in the late 1970s, thanks to “otomechikku manga (maidenly comics)” that “established a major theme of girls’ manga— love and self-affirmation brought about by a man (boy)” (Kitamura 750). These stories feature “sentimental, intimate and romantic narratives set in Japanese schools,” which became alluring for Westerners curious about Japanese school life (Fraser and Monden 551). Fixtures of these stories include cultivating relationships with peers (including upperclassmen like senpai), perceived effeminate Japanese sweets (Ting 54), and joining requisite school clubs. These stories tend to be very “girly,” a reaction from Japanese consumers who shifted away from more thought-provoking, theoretical, and dramatic shōjo from the 1970s and 1980s for lighter entertainment (Fraser and Monden 551). They also “helped to develop the concept of kawaii (cute), one of the major characteristics of Japanese girls’ culture” (Kitamura 750). These developments lead many scholars to ignore gakuen-mono titles in academic contexts because they “have been perceived as less subversive than the ones which visually, and hence explicitly, blur the distinction between masculine and feminine” (Monden). Further, many gakuen-mono stories with “typically girlish heroines may well endorse a dominant romantic ideology informed by a patriarchal system, and can represent a restricted, passive version of femininity” (Fraser and Monden 545). Despite these critiques, gakuen-mono titles, arguably more than the other subgenres, paved the way for dating sims due to Konami’s immensely popular Tokimeki Memorial series established in 1994. In many respects, Tokimeki Memorial is the flagship dating sim as it boasted significant 93

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

replay value, stat checks, multiple branching narratives, mini games, and a calendar system that spans three years. Ultimately, the primary goal is to court Shiori Fujisaki (although there are multiple characters) in hopes that she will say, “I love you,” on graduation day. Practicing awareness of one’s emotions and talking about feelings turn out to be just as gratifying as taking down a final boss. Or the gamer can do the exact opposite and work to make their character as slimy as possible to reach some sort of personal nefarious goal. From an aesthetic standpoint, dating sims tend toward a simple but distinct visual style. The gamer often has no control over the look and feel of the settings and characters in this genre. In some instances, the game might ask the gamer to name the main character, but personalities and aesthetics are, more often than not, fixed. Dating sims, even those created outside of Japan, often adopt anime- or manga-style character art over a static set of background art. They often use this style because, as discussed previously, many visual novels derive from anime or manga series (or vice versa). However, even without this remediation as a factor, the aesthetic tropes of dating sims are easily recognizable. Widely accessible engines for creating dating sims, like Ren’Py, may be partially to thank for the fact that the aesthetics have remained consistent across the genre, but the aesthetics were also established early in the visual novel’s lifespan; some go back as far as 1983’s The Portopia Serial Murder Case (Enix 1983) and, of course, Tokimeki Memorial. It is important to note here that as dating sims have caught on in the mainstream, many games—RPGs like Persona 5 (Atlus, 2016), for example, that have complicated systems for building relationships with characters—began incorporating dating sim functionalities without using the standard visuals of the dating sim. In other genres, character models move and react on the screen and static background images are replaced with robust backgrounds that the protagonist can revisit in real time. These games borrow and remix features and aesthetics from several different genres, and we discuss them more in Chapter 8. Here, we discuss the primary visual, audible, and mechanical tropes of visual novels, as well as the narrative tropes of dating sims. It is in the visual tropes that visual novel dating simulators differ from the wider conception of dating simulators. Visual novel dating sims employ the aesthetics of kawaii, or “cute,” culture, which Larissa Hjorth argues “humanizes technological spaces such as virtuality—rendering the experience familiar, human and emotional” (2).

94

Aesthetics/Functions of Kawaii Culture

Backgrounds Narrative locations for dating sims are generally static and focus on everyday places that characters might visit. Because dating sims often focus on school life, these can include classrooms, outdoor lawns with the school building in the background, libraries, and perhaps character bedrooms. Depending on the story, the game might also include popular hangouts like cafes, a rooftop, or a club room. Some backgrounds may even try to simulate movement as the player character “walks” home around the neighborhood with another character from the story. When the setting changes throughout the story, the background often appears empty, without any characters superimposed on top of it, to cue the reader about the change. Somewhere in the background, usually in the corner, the date, time of day, and day of the week also appear if the dating sim utilizes a calendar system to emphasize the passing of time. This information can be important throughout gameplay in determining what kind of action the gamer can take or which settings they may be able to visit at a given moment. For example, if a gamer is given an option to visit one of several locations at midnight and they choose to go to a café, that setting would likely be closed.

Character Portraits Like settings, character portraits also focus on school life, with many characters appearing in cute uniforms (Figure 7). The typical anime schoolgirl, with knee socks, a pleated skirt, and a blazer is particularly common, especially in bishōjo titles discussed in depth later in this chapter. If the protagonist encounters a character during the weekend or a holiday, they will not be in a school uniform and will instead dress in ways that distinguish them from other characters in the game. Clothing and hairstyles are also often fixed and might contain minor details that reflect a character’s personality, such as an ill-fitting blazer to signify sloppiness. Despite often having only one or two outfits, each character might have several character portraits with different facial expressions to indicate that character’s mood. The most common array includes a neutral, happy, and sad portrait, and these images can be useful in helping the gamer determine whether they have selected an option that pleases or upsets a particular character, especially if the portraits change as the character speaks. Other characters, especially those who provide comic relief, will have exaggerated 95

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

expressions to denote extreme joy, anger, or sadness in response to an event the gamer translates as silly. These characters provide most of the personality on-screen as the gamer is usually asked to identify with a generic protagonist (Taylor 194). In the visual novel, the main character is often (though not always) unseen, and the portrait that appears on the screen is the character that the main character is speaking to. Sometimes a small thumbnail image of the main character may appear in the text box to indicate that they are talking. One might wonder why dating sims, many of which are well known for their art, lean on cute depictions of characters rather than creating more photorealistic interpretations. Hjorth sees this as a function of culture, writing, “The kawaii, like much of Japanese media, plays on the significance of the personal within Japanese tradition” (3). Dating sims make use of the gamer’s affection for certain characters to advance the story. This affection, combined with the use of child-like images, may indicate that “kawaii culture can be a site to explore nostalgia (for an ‘imagined’ childhood), emotion and localization” (Hjorth 4). Though the gamer is often much older than the characters on screen, the kawaii aesthetics combined with the generic personality of the protagonist

Figure 7  A screenshot from Key’s Clannad (2015), showing the primary elements of a visual novel’s aesthetics. 96

Aesthetics/Functions of Kawaii Culture

easily allow the player to step into the role of a Japanese high school student, whether due to interest in the setting or fascination with a life that has long since passed.

Text Boxes To keep characters at the forefront, text boxes containing dialogue are almost always in the bottom quarter of the screen. When a character speaks, their name appears in the text box along with the dialogue, and their character portrait appears superimposed over the background on the screen. When the main character speaks, the dialogue appears in the text box, and it can also be used to deliver the main character’s inner monologue to the gamer. Here, the gamer also finds the function buttons for controlling the gameplay, and we discuss these further later.​ Sound The voiceover and musical score are two areas in which dating sims and romantic visual novels can vary widely in quality and content. Games with a higher production budget may be able to hire professional voice actors that read the dialogue. Even in games that make it out of Japan, the dialogue is often voiced in Japanese while the text itself is in English. More often, the game might include sound effects, such as brief vocal exclamations to indicate emotions, in place of a full voiceover. A game with a minimal budget might skip any sort of voice acting. Similarly, a game with a high budget might commission an original score. In games where music is present, sound is often an important cue as to the tone and mood of the game, with different settings and characters having their own themes. While musical scores are fairly common in dating sims as well as visual novels (as evidenced by the Yamaha sound chips mentioned in Chapter 2), they do tend to repeat throughout any given game. In many cases, these songs are character-specific and will only play when a certain character (whether a love interest or sidekick) appears on the screen. Karen Collins qualifies these scores in film terms as “interactive nondiegetic” sounds. These are sounds that the player can hear but that are not present in the narrative, or “sound events occurring in reaction to gameplay, which can react to the player directly, but which are also outside of the diegesis” (Collins 126). 97

The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels

Conversely, “interactive diegetic sounds occur in the character’s space, and the player’s character can directly interact with them” (Collins 126). In the case of dating sims, interactive diegetic sounds include the character voiceovers and exclamations, and though they might not indicate mechanical peril in the same way that sounds in a fighting game might, they contribute to the emotion of the game, and Collins posits they are important as they can “help identify goals and focus the player’s perception on certain objects” (130). Thus, voice acting is not only a major indicator of the dating sim’s budget and professional value but also influences gameplay. Voice acting is additionally an important quality for many visual novels as voice actors can help bring characters to life as well as break up the tedium of reading for long stretches, but this can be an expensive endeavor as some actors get paid hundreds of dollars by the hour (Allen). A long and fully voiced dating simulator is generally the gold standard of the genre and even a requirement depending on the studio. As a result, it is not uncommon to see Kickstarter campaigns from independent titles requesting donations with the promise of spending expenses on voice acting. While budget and professional value do not necessarily guarantee success, voice acting in a dating sim is rarely absent in renowned Japanese titles that generally dominate their indie counterparts in sales.

Animation and Computer Graphics (CG) Though backgrounds and character portraits remain fairly static throughout the game, the dating sim might include more elaborate art called computer graphics or animated cutscenes at pivotal points in the narrative. For example, if the main character breaks a certain threshold of familiarity with a character, the gamer might be rewarded with a splash page drawing or short animation sequence of a scene, which could be rather intimate depending on the genre, between the two characters. These cutscenes often contain more detail, and the main character is usually portrayed, even if they are not depicted within the stock backgrounds throughout the rest of the narrative. Gamers often play dating sims with the intention of playing through several times or at least enough times to view all of the special cutscenes for their favorite characters. As a reward to gamers, many dating sims will house these scenes in a designated “Gallery” that the gamer may access on the main menu. 98

Aesthetics/Functions of Kawaii Culture

Functional Tropes On the other hand, when a narrative is controlled like in a dating sim, the gamer might be more wary of their narrative choices. On occasion, these branching dialogue options will have no impact on the conclusion and merely provide the gamer with a scene (usually humorous or lighthearted) that they did not see in a previous playthrough. However, in more extreme cases, a narrative bubble can lock the gamer into a certain path, rendering other paths inaccessible. Writing about the dating sim Love Plus (Konami, 2009), Katherine Isbister notes, “Once your sweetheart confesses she likes you, the game moves into a second phase, where you must retain her affection. You can read about local events, news, and hot spots for dates through an in-game Internet connection, or find clubs and restaurants on a map” (ch. 1). Since the objective of a dating sim is to maintain the affections of a character and fall in love with them by the game’s end, any consequences that detract from this possibility could result in a bad ending at best or a game over at worst. Although Isbister concludes that these “characters cannot truly reciprocate, but can only hold a mirror up to us and to our longings” (ch. 1), as these characters dictate how gamers will interact with games in this subgenre, these games train gamers to be mindful of how our actions can impact the story as well as grant a sense of completion upon unlocking the good endings. This trial-and-error approach is meant to encourage gamers to play the dating sim again. Replayability is an important concept in game design, and many visual novels promote this incentive through multiple endings. In fact, the promise of multiple endings is usually the only way such a game can convince a gamer to return for another playthrough. Some gamers are content with playing a dating sim once, but others feel the experience is incomplete until they unlock the “true ending” that is considered canon according to the design team and fandom. In most instances, the true ending cannot be unlocked during the first playthrough and requires a careful understanding of which choices lead to which outcomes. This tactic is common in dating sims that take a relatively short time (