Sakura no Uta part 2: Rin and some linguistic comments (edit: added Rina and yuri ending)
Entry posted by Clephas
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Yeah, I said I was going to wait until I'd played at least two more heroines before I posted again... but Rin's path has enough impact that I felt a distinct need to post on it ahead of time.
Misakura Rin is the protagonist's osananajimi... a childhood friend and one another's first love (this is said pretty much from the beginning, so it doesn't really count as a spoiler). For reasons the protagonist deliberately only hints at (typical Sca-ji) he has been avoiding any sort of contact with her for years... since she transferred out of the area. This is despite the fact that his memories with her are some of the ones he treasures the most from his childhood.
To be honest, though Makoto's path is really good, the engagement with the protagonist and heroine is completely different in Rin's path. Unlike in my past experience with Sca-ji, the progression as Rin's personal issues are revealed in detail is carried out in a manner that is neither irritating nor excessive, and even the building of their relationship feels more natural than you generally see in a VN. Understand, if you have read a lot of Japanese literature, it is really easy to figure out where Sca-ji is going with Rin even without getting on her path. He lays the hints on pretty thickly, and the reaction of a certain fushigi-ko character (not a heroine) to Rin is the final nail in the coffin. If you honestly haven't figured out why the protagonist is so intent on avoiding building a relationship with Rin early on, you are probably pretty dense... though the details are - of course - only revealed in her path.
In addition to the purely physical issues, there is a significant amount of psychological weirdness involved, and I have to make the suggestion that you keep in mind that Sca-ji can't seem to avoid inserting mysticism into any and all his stories on some level, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that read Ikikoi the way he tries to keep certain issues ambiguous throughout this path. I have to wonder if he himself has an ambiguous relationship with faith and fantasy, considering the way he writes about them.
I honestly cried during the climax scene of Rin's path, and I was surprised to find myself actually ranking the path pretty high up there as emotional VN paths go... right up there with the true path of Irosekai and a few others that had me in tears. A lot of it is that the protagonist has that bad habit a lot of my favorite protagonists in emotional games have... he has an odd disregard for his own safety, health, and future when he puts them in balance with someone he cares about or even someone who simply needs his help. While I love pragmatist protagonists and even ones who can be cruel, that is mostly for the same reason as I like this type of protagonist... people that exist at extremes of the range of human personality are inevitably fascinating... far moreso than some humdrum 'normal' schoolboy, lol.
Edit:
Linguistic issues
Now on linguistics... I don't think most people who read VNs really understand how a simple choice of words can alter how someone views a whole issue. Above, in parenthesis, I said 'typical' Sca-ji in relation to what I referred to as a bad habit in a previous post. Now, if I were a long-standing fan of Sca-ji, I probably would have said 'classic' Sca-ji. What is the difference? By using 'typical' there, I inserted a note of sarcasm/cynicism into an otherwise neutral statement. If I were to have said 'classic', that would have altered it to sound somewhat fanboyish... I wonder how many of those who read this blog even realize how much reviewers manipulate you through simple word choices like these? Not only that, ninety percent of a writer's skill is in figuring out how to insert emotion using subtle word choices like this.
The reason Masada - the writer of Dies Irae - attracts writers and reading-addicts like flies is because his prose really is a work of art, designed to gain a very specific reaction without entirely making you aware that he is doing it. The reason Sca-ji tends to irritate people like me is that he lacks subtlety from the perspective of people like me. Now understand, he is perfectly subtle from the perspective of your average reader. I doubt most people will pick up on more than ten percent of the hints he gives... but for people used to figuring out subtle hints as second nature, it feels like he is laying it on a bit thick, to the point of extreme repetition. Sometimes this works (Rin's path is an example of this) and at others it doesn't (my experience of Subahibi). This is an entirely subjective issue and not one that the mainstream will ever even recognize is there without some jaded jerk like me going out of his way to point it out. However, I felt a need to say just why my bias is always going to be against Sca-ji, because I can't stop it from coloring how I write about him.
Edit2:
Rina and the Yuri path
Rina's path is in some ways darker than Rin's. For all the depth of emotion involved in Rin's path, the entire thing was almost entirely between Rin and the protagonist, with only occasional intervention from third parties. However, throughout Rina's path, Yuumi plays an intimate role together with them. Indeed, a good portion of the path is devoted to a recounting of Rina's and her past from Yuumi's point of view, as well as the first meeting between Naoya and Rina. Yuumi as a child is pretty... messed up inside, at least partially because she is an honest to god born lesbian. In a moege, there would probably be a 3P path here... and while that kind of path is generally fun to read, it wouldn't have the depth this one did. After the recounting of the past, it splits into Rina's heroine route and a Yuri path between her and Yuumi. To be honest, I don't think I would have gotten as much from Rina's path if I hadn't chosen to do the yuri ending first, so I can honestly recommend it as something that adds some depth to Rina's ending, putting some things in perspective. Rina's path... is equally intimate to Rin's, but it lacks the kind of high-emotion cathartic drama that Rin's had (at least for me), at least in part because a great portion of the path was devoted to recounting the somewhat messed up formative time of Rina's and Yuumi's relationship. From a purely intellectual point of view, it was an excellent choice, but it had the effect of making the path deeper intellectually at the cost of emotional engagement, an occasional problem with that kind of flashback recounting.
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