Comedy VNs – Genre Deep Dive
Entry posted by Pallas_Raven in Analysis
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This is a condensed version of the full article which can be found on my Main Blog Here.
I Laugh, You Laugh, We All Laugh
Making people laugh is a particular talent and more than any other it is dramatically effected by the medium it is presented through. Stand up comedy and visual novel humour might share a similar desire to entertain but they could not be further apart in terms of how they reach that goal. The unique set of tools available to visual novels has led to a striking set of games which would not be possible in any other medium. This stems from several factors, from their relative length to the importance of thematic resonance to many visual novels, all working together to tickle the player’s funny bone. For this article the definition of a comedy visual novel will be narrowed down to games which rely on humour as a core pillar of their content and without it they would not be able to support themselves, such with Lamination. This excludes most slice of life visual novels that use humour regularly as a flavour rather than the main dish, but not those like Maji Koi where jokes are a strong enough part of their identity as to feel lacking in the absence of humour. Such an interesting spread should reveal much about the nature of the comedy visual novel, so let’s roll on the ground laughing and see what we can find.
Subjectivity Of Humour
Everyone has their own tastes and nowhere is this more obvious than with humour since what one person laughs at another might find boring. As such focusing your entire identity around humour runs the risk of alienating potential players when they bounce off your brand of jokes. Of course a developer could simply accept this eventuality and lean into the people it will attract by going all out to please them as Lamination does, but many other comedy visual novel instead opt to lean on other parts of visual novel design to spread their net as wide as possible. These often take the form of a secondary genre to act as a backdrop and spice the jokes up as they can rely on or subvert established ideas to create a variety to their humour without compromising its core brand. Sankaku Ren'ai: Love Triangle Trouble! and Rance represent the two extremes of this philosophy with the first leaning into school slice of life and the other high fantasy. However, despite their differing host genres these games both utilise them to smooth over possible flaws in their respective comedy. For Sankau Ren’ai this involves leaning into the romcom nature of slice of life and cracking it up to match its banter centric humour while also providing a through line of drama for every player to latch onto so they can push past jokes that do not land for them. Similarly, Rance takes its fantasy setting and uses it to give the events of the story meaningful weight even as the game often mocks the inherent absurdity of the genre’s tropes. Since both are done with an unwavering commitment they act as counter balances to allow for a well rounded experience to keep the player interested in the jokes.
A strange offshoot of this problem of player retention is the spin-off comedy game which takes an established game series and inserts it into a silly setting. In doing this a developer can guarantee an audience from that previous title rather than risking an unknown new game as the host for their comedy visual novel. Having established interest is not the only benefit since these people will come into this game with a set of expectations meaning this type of visual novel often leans heavily into subvertion as a source of humour. This can be seen in games such as Corpse Party: Sweet Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday Bash and Idol Magical Girl Chiru Chiru Michiru which take the identity of their IP and put an absurd spin on it to get the player laughing. Whether this be a magical girl version of a fan favourite character or a harmless birthday party in what was previously a death trap riddled school, there is a sense of being in on the joke held between developer and player in which both accept the non cannon nature of the work and agree to have a good time reminiscing about how far the series has come by showcasing its strong characters.
The Thematic Resonance Of A Good Joke
Laughter is a powerful means of getting a people to bond with characters and consider ideas in a new light. In the playful atmosphere we are taken in and lower our guard in the face of what seem to be harmless fun and it is in this state we become susceptible to engaging on a more instinctual level with what is presented to us. Just as the jester delivers news the king does not want to hear, so too do comedy visual novels utilise the same techniques to put the audience in a trance. Making jokes and laughing alongside our friends and family is a natural part of everyday human interactions and emulating this is what lends comedy much of its strength as a means of creating empathy. Two visual novels which have a large reliance on this aspect are Lamination and Marco & The Galaxy Dragon and these share the common trait of doing so through the absurdity of their events. Lamination takes a relatively grounded setting and has its character do things that seem insane but are delivered in a straight faced way by the cast, so it feels as if this is the most natural outcome in the world and in accepting their silly actions the game snares the player’s heart. The setting of Marco & The Galaxy Dragon is decidedly more overtly not related to our real world and rather than take the banal and ramping it up to insanity, it instead starts at that high point and keeps going up in ways the player is likely not expecting. Through a journey of hilarious surprises, it forges the bonds between the player and its characters and ideas since they are presented as an extension of the comedy. Of course you do not need to be out of the box in order to achieve the same resonance as Starry Flowers demonstrates with the intimate and cute humour that aims to warm your heart and through this make the joke carry emotional weight the game would otherwise lack.
Comic Fatigue
A joke can only remain funny for so long before it wears out its welcome and becomes tiresome and predictable. This is doubly true when a brand of humour is played out over a long time as there are a limited number of variations that can be formed to keep things fresh and stagnation often follows. Such is the fate every comedy visual novel is trying to avoid and broadly speaking there are two solutions found in these games, keep the length down to not run into this problem in the first place or rely on bringing in a narrative thread and attaching it to the established resonance between player and characters. In a concise structure the humour can focus on hitting as hard as possible at all the times since the player will have completed the game before they can become burned out on it. This is the most common approach to comedy visual novels and can be seen in titles like OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos which embrace their short duration as part of their identity to create satisfying morsels to be enjoyed for their intense flavour then cast aside and forgotten. Having such a direct angle to their humour does intensify the issue of a player bouncing off the experience due to it not matching their tastes but the lower cost of production ensure this does not lose enough revenue to effect the end product.
Conclusion
When talking about comedy visual novels there is the temptation to dismiss them as simple in nature, just pushing out one joke after another with no sense of greater purpose, but as has been shown this is far from the reality. The risk brought about by the subjectivity of humour makes many such games adopt a secondary genre to act as background to prevent their jokes from becoming too one note. In doing this they can leverage their biggest strength in the form of a thematic resonance with the player through the cathartic and empathetic natures of comedy to sell the characters and ideas present throughout. They also have to consider their length since the longer a brand of humour goes on the more the player will suffer from comic fatigue. Some aim for a short and direct experience while others choose to lean on other narrative elements to prevent the player from losing interest. Overall the comedy visual novel is a strange beast which captures the strengths of the medium and introduces its own unique challenges to form a humorous journey that hits deeply and makes you smile.
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