KATAWA SHOUJO: 4chan's Disabled-Girls Dating Game (And Why I Love It)

My initial reaction to Katawa Shoujo was the same as nearly everyone else's: that it would be an absolute train wreck.

Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel/dating simulator with an all-disabled cast, set in a fictional private school for disabled students. This premise alone is enough to earn a few cocked eyebrows. Each of its five main love interests has a different disability—presumably, I assumed, to satisfy the entire spectrum of disability-related fetishes. And, indeed, Katawa Shoujo is considered an eroge, or "erotic game" (though mature content can be toggled on and off). Slap on a cringeworthy title—"katawa shoujo" translates roughly as "crippled girls," and carries the same derogatory weight as a racial slur—and you'll stir the internet into a frenzy.

But the finished product was surprisingly... tasteful.

The Game's Perspective

After its release just over a year ago, critics converged upon Katawa Shoujo with their virtual teeth bared, prepared to brand it perverse, discriminatory, or exploitative. However, much to the internet's shock, these same critics all published favorable reviews. Several editors for the game-review website Kotaku praised its sincerity and respect for its subject matter. J-Dub, a popular game reviewer on Blip, said:

You shouldn't try to be a white knight riding in to rescue the poor little girl. If you do, you'll be sorely disappointed. These aren't fragile creatures that need to be 'saved' from their disabilities. Their problems don't stem from their disabilities. They stem from their everyday lives... The disabilities almost fade into the background while you play it.

After playing the game myself, I couldn't agree more. Katawa Shoujo delicately handles some pretty complex disability-related social issues. In one scene, narrator Hisao struggles to communicate appropriately with student council president Shizune, who is deaf, through her translator Misha. Does he address his reply to Shizune, even though she can't hear him? Or to Misha, with whom he's actually speaking? Misdirected speech and eye contact are obstacles to effective communication that the Deaf community faces daily, acknowledged by this tactful nod from Katawa Shoujo's writers.

Love interest Emi Ibarazaki, whose legs were amputated below the knee after a car crash.

In the scene above, Hisao congratulates track star Emi on a finished race. Afterward, he notes:

I don't mention how much more impressive her performance is, given her lack of legs. I figure she knows that already. Besides, it seems like it would take away from her efforts, somehow.

Here, Hisao recognizes what the disability-pride community has been advocating for decades: that the so-called act of "overcoming a disability" should never eclipse a person's accomplishments. Emi's performance on the track stands apart from her disability, impressive in its own right. She is first and foremost a runner—not a disabled runner—and demands recognition as such. This is a hot topic for disabled bloggers. In an article titled "Disabled People Are Not Your Inspiration," S. E. Smith writes, "When you say that we're inspiring... you're othering us. You’re saying we need to be singled out as remarkable because of our disabilities, and it pushes us further to the margins." Thus we get the "supercrip"—a disabled person objectified for the sake of inspiring the able-bodied.

Emi is not a supercrip. Neither is Shizune. Nor Lilly, who's blind, or Hanako, who's disfigured, or Rin, shown painting below.

Love interest Rin Tezuka, whose arms were amputated at birth due to a genetic defect.

Though they all defy most players' expectations, none of them do this in a particularly inspiring or self-conscious manner. Over the course of the game, their disabilities—striking at first—become integrated into their characters: distinctive of each, yet no more exceptional than Rin's hair color or Emi's preference for strawberries. This, in my mind, is the ideal way to represent disability in fiction: by neither overplaying it nor underplaying it, but by walking a thin line between the two that is sensitive to the characters' own views of disability.

Not by staring, not by averting your eyes, but by seeing and accepting.

This is something Katawa Shoujo does well. I've read several reviews claiming that the setting—Yamaku, a private high school for students that need extra medical attention—is segregative. That fictional characters with disabilities should be integrated, not isolated. I'd argue the opposite: it was refreshing to see disability addressed so straightforwardly in a work of fiction. Disabled characters normally take a backseat to those that are able-bodied. Here, they're in the spotlight. Disability in Katawa Shoujo is so central to the characters' lives, and so universal, that it essentially disappears—dissolves into normalcy. As the narrator says:

[At Yamaku, you] stop feeling unique, which in most cases would be a bad thing, but in this case it sure as hell isn't. That's part of Yamaku's appeal, I guess. Learn that you're not unique—hell, learn there's a lot of others who would kill to be saddled with your problem instead of whatever they're dealing with.

According to Aura, the game's lead writer, Katawa Shoujo's central theme is that "a disability does not define a person." This sentiment is expressed in one of the game's most frequently quoted passages. On his first day at Yamaku, Hisao voices some concerns about the other students' disabilities to the school librarian:

Hisao:  "But how should I deal with these people? Forcing myself to act overly casually only makes me feel phony. Like I was supposed to be ignoring the elephant in the room."

Yuuko fidgets, looking like she wants to say something to that, but resists it.

Yuuko:  "I think it's an elephant only if you feel that way." 

No wonder critics had a hard time brandishing their red pens at this game. In addition to its tactful writing, it also hosts an array of memorable—though somewhat archetypal—characters, which appeal to multiple personality types. Not to mention the quality of its artwork, animation, and original soundtrack.

Video compilation of Katawa Shoujo's cutscenes, which showcase the game's original soundtrack and animation.

Of course, Katawa Shoujo becomes all the more impressive when you consider that it was created entirely by 4chan users.

Background

Doujin artist RAITA's original concept art
for Katawa Shoujo, posted on 4chan's
/a/ board.

In 2000, manga artist RAITA released a hentai doujin, or self-published erotic manga, that included a page of concept art for five characters who attend a fictional school for the disabled. The anonymous users on 4chan's /a/ board were so enthralled with RAITA's idea that several volunteers stepped forward to create the hypothetical visual novel themselves. Collaborating from several corners of the globe, these volunteers formed an unfunded production group they dubbed "Four Leaf Studios." These volunteers are acknowledged by their 4chan usernames in the opening credits—names like "TheHivemind," "Ambi07," and "Doomfest," which drift over a crisp, professional-grade animation of heart monitors and medical drips. The contrast is a surreal reminder of the game's unconventional roots.

This isn't the first time 4channers have banded together to accomplish some huge collaborative feat. According to the Washington Post, "the site's users have managed to pull off some of the highest-profile collective actions in the history of the Internet," which include hacking into Sarah Palin's private email account, electing Kim Jong-un as Time magazine's Person of the Year, and crashing the Motion Picture of America's website in protest of anti-piracy laws.

The power of these virtual collectives is staggering. When pursuing productive goals, they can wield incredible creative force, delving fearlessly into unexplored subject matter and backed by a fanbase to be reckoned with: die-hard, digitally literate, and notorious for having an insanely vocal online presence. I doubt that any conventional gaming label would've touched Katawa Shoujo with a ten-foot pole. If /a/ hadn't jumped on it, the game very likely wouldn't exist.

So what about the sex scenes? This is 4chan, after all.

For those unacquainted with the massive online imageboard, 4chan isn't known for its respectful discourse.  Its forums are considered by many to be the backwoods of the internet, a hub for pornographic anime (or "hentai") with communities formed around shared sexual obsessions. Katawa Shoujo's production followed an explosion of disability fetishism on /a/, sparked by the saga of anonymous poster "Nurse-kun" and his recovering hospital patient "Amputee-chan," or "Ampu-tan."

In spite of its birthplace, though, the game wasn't designed with /a/'s disability fanatics in mind.

"Everything from the ground-up was designed to make a genuine and honest story, rather than fuel for fetishes," Aura says. "Each writer and artist did [the sex scenes] slightly differently, but overall the idea was to make sex a natural part of the game, just like it’s a natural part of people’s lives anyway.” Presented tastefully, these scenes have the potential to normalize disability even further. "Disabled sex" is a twofold taboo. What statement might a dating simulator like Katawa Shoujo make if it excluded its characters' sex lives entirely? The general assumption of the able-bodied is that disabled people can't have sex, or simply aren't interested in it. Or worse, that disability neuters all sexual appeal. By allowing these characters to pursue fulfilling sexual relationships without fetishizing their disabilities, Katawa Shoujo helps to eliminate the asexual stigma placed on the disabled community as a whole.

Overall, Katawa Shoujo is daring, insightful, and overwhelmingly sensitive, a tremendous feat of virtual collaboration. And best of all, it's free:  you can download it here and play it yourself.

In an era where disability is finally shedding its taboo, this spectacular game is one more step in the right direction.
Meg

Credit to Kotaku and Patrick Lum for Aura's quotes.