No romance plot

[Deep Blue]

Narcissu is one of the very very few (if not the only vn I've read) that doesnt have any kind of romance AT ALL, the relationship between Setsumi and the protagonist is far from being a romantic one or has any kind of love. If you think that 2 humans interacting with each other is romance then that's a misconception from your part. The only narcissu that I've played that has some degree of romance (very very little) is the 3rd one at least the kataoka episode, one of them does revolve around romance (the Goo's chapter I think it was cant remember)

[harry_kinomoto]

15 minutes ago, Rooke said:

It doesn't. And if it did it would be so very, very wrong. Bishoujo games is described similar to that on Wiki, but that's a different class of games entirely.

Ah, my bad, thank you for pointing that out.  It was in the Kanon entry that I saw that, though I nevertheless feel most VNs regrettably unable to break out of that stereotyped mold.

I'm relieved the Wikipedia doesn't reinforce that by saying it for VNs though! 

 

20 minutes ago, Rooke said:

All stories are supposed to inspire feelings for their characters, after all at their heart stories are about people. If you don't inspire feelings for your characters in any medium, you're often regarded as having failed.

I think VNs have advantages, and disadvantages in this regard, like most mediums do.

Yes, you are absolutely right. But I do think that VNs (or at least the ones I'm thinking of) make a direct appeal to the character in ways that other media just don't. Put it this way: I get the impression that in ancient England, most guys would not have leapt up screaming JULIET MAI WAIFU!!! after seeing Shakespeare's famous play. I think such practices are unique to our time, and I daresay an indication of the way in which our form of Japanese popular culture aims to appeal to its fans. 

I would have said the practice is unique to Japanese culture too, but that may be debatable. There are of course similar fan communities with Western series like Twilight and Harry Potter. But that in itself poses the interesting question of whether or not this is a symbol of the fluid nature of these cultural practices (e.g. if these fangirls are simply anime fans dabbling in a different series), or something else entirely.