That’s kind of what it landed on. But I think with that we can start talking about the characters now. Uh, it’s probably, you know, one of the most important things about the game, because if we didn’t have characters we couldn’t kill them.
(*laughing*)
Um, who should we start with? Who do you think?
(H1&A:Sayori!!!!)
Okay, we’re starting to say about sayori, clearly the favorite, best girl by the way
(H1: Yeah.Yeah! A:Wooo!)
(*applausing*)
I… I mentioned earlier, but um, sayori had a little bit of inspiration uh, from yui from K-on. I think that, um, one of the things that I admired about, about K-on was that the jokes did not feel like, um, I think especially in the second season, the jokes did not feel like the punch lines for the viewer. It felt like the characters were being silly because that’s just how they like to be. They’re like having fun, you know? And you get to enjoy them having fun and being silly and laugh when they do something silly. Um… and I think sayori is very much that as well, she’s silly because she likes being silly, and like the in-game anime universe doesn’t always like laugh at her jokes, sometimes they play along, sometimes they ‘re like, what’s wrong with you. Uh, but I think you can tell that she’s like being silly and she kind of…like she’s smarter than the game kind of gives her credit for, it’s like she has a sort of airheaded trope or whatever. But you know that she’s not, like a dumb person or whatever.
Of course the other very important characteristic is that you learn that serious depression and, uh, I think that a lot of people who, you know, email me about their experiences of the game and they talk about sayori, a lot of people talk about how much her representation of depression, like resonated with them based on what they go through what a friend goes through and…I kind of realized that sayori not only drew from, um, my own experiences with, uh, people close to me and in some cases myself as far as depression goes, but, uh, this is not a trait that just, a character should not be the depression character. You know what I mean, and I think that’s oftentimes, what we see in media it’s like you take, uh, depression or some other, um, neurodivergent trait and that is like the character's definition, that's like their personality, it's like the whatever, the character, the depression character, the adhd character, the whatever else. Um, and I think, uh, just looking back after, you know, this game being out for so many years now, I think the most important part of the way that that reveal kind of happens is that it doesn't change who she is, she’s the same person, you just understand her a little bit better. And I think that’s so important and that makes the character feel, uh, very human. She is her own identity and, uh, you learn she has depression and that is just part of a whole. Another big part of it was that she's such a happy character and she's so much fun, how could she have depression? That's not supposed to be what it is. It turns out that those things aren't necessarily directly correlated, depression isn't just like you’re sad all the time, you know, um, there're so much more and it manifests itself differently in so many different people. Um, in the case of sayori, it’s about self worth. She wants to put all of her energy into other people, because that's, uh, that is……… the most that she can do to give her life meaning, I think. And, when sayori commits suicide there is something incredibly cruel that the game does, and this…I think, I think I had in mind not only realistically what can happen in the situation where, uh, you know, someone close to you might commit self-harm, but also, more abstractly it was a statement on the visual novel medium. And that is, the game wants you to feel like you could have done something differently. I think the fact is, you did as much as you could, and you were a great friend of sayori, and you don't deserve to personally shoulder all the burden of what happened. So I think, yeah, I like to call it cruel what the game did there, um, but I think there’s also truth to it, It's a parallel to, I think what people can experience, not only in real life. But again, it is, uh, I guess you could say criticizing or satirizing the visual novel medium for just, you make a few choices throughout the game, it's like there's some pivotal choices and you save a person's life, or you, like, like, like, get your happy ending or whatever just by, like making a few simple choices, and it's just so, uh, it's, it's fantasy, you know, and I, I really wanted to make a statement on that. It was around the time where, you know, after sayori reveals that she has depression, that's when she starts to feel human. But then the game very cruelly, cruelly, reminds you that it’s a game, and these are stupid video game characters, and they're meaningless. And then, and then it doesn't give you a second chance, it forces you into act two, where Monika repeatedly reminds you that this is a stupid video game with stupid characters, no meaning things. Meanwhile, you're probably still crying about sayori and you're trying to,(chuckles) grab some, some redemption from the other characters, while things just get worse and worse for them and Monika’s like, like laughing at their, you know, like their mental illness or whatever, it may be…It's horrible, but I think that it helps you learn more about your relationship with these characters, and fictional characters in video games. Um…That's something that was always really important to me, like, umm…… I don’t know, we had The Sims when I was younger, and my brother would like remove the ladder from the swimming pool and,…
(*laughing*)
And I felt I always felt so incredibly sad, you know what I mean? it's like I felt sad when I actually like, like, hit my, hit my animal crossing towns mate with like my net while trying to get angry at me, like, it just made me feel so sad for some reason. And um, and I started to notice to this and realize that different people treat these relationships differently. Um, and so this was deliberately really an exploration of that and helping you explore the way that you feel about these characters, starting off making fun of these one dimensional tropes then realizing that you feel attached to them and then the game punishes you for feeling attached to them essentially, that's something that I think just drew from my own experience with video games and these characters.
(*silence*)
Um, okay, let's, let's lighten the mood a little bit and(laugh) and move on to natsuki.
