saya no uta (🎮 6/10)
after a life-threatening accident, fuminori sakisaka undergoes an experimental brain operation that messes up his perception of the world. his world turns into gore and rot, the scent and feel of decaying meat plaguing him 24/7, his friends becoming disfigured monsters he doesn't even recognize the sound of. in this hellscape, only saya seems to be the only one that's normal. that keeps him normal. his only salvation. [6/10]
i will give the saya no uta props for raising some really interesting thoughts and making me wrack my brain a bit in conflict with whether or not i like its characters (and the VN in general). it's an interesting piece of work, and i can see why people would praise it. after all, i initially checked it out because it was written by the guy who made madoka, which is one of my absolute favorite things ever!!
both madoka and saya no uya (will just abbreviate to snu from this point on) were stories wherein i already had a vague clue as to what i was getting into. i knew i'd have to encounter some disturbing themes and characters suffering!! but unlike madoka, i didn't feel all that engaged in snu for some reason...? maybe because madoka was a good subversion of the optimistic magical girl genre, so it still feels fresh to me regardless... though i wouldn't doubt that there are surely other magical girl animes that do the same. and it had magic and epic fights and cool moments, as well as heartwrenching and emotionally charged moments that kept me entertained. madoka's kindness and drive to protect those around her made me want to root for her, despite the horrors.
now i know snu is a completely different story, set in a more realistic world but with more lovecraftian horrors underneath that layer of the real world. and that i KNOW both saya and fuminori aren't characters you're supposed to root for. the acclaim that this VN gets is not because of any character development (and besides there's barely any - the chracters are mostly shaped by the situation and circumstance; for example, we barely know anything about yoh or kouji other than what happens to them in the course of the story), but rather the story is so widely beloved BECAUSE of the way it makes us question morality.
"would we have done the same if we were in fuminori's shoes? if we had all our senses fucked up beyond repair, wouldn't we also cling to the only thing that gives us comfort and escape?"
it's the same question that makes me think about whether fuminori ever really loved saya for what she truly is, or if he only ever loved her because she's literally the only light in his world. even thinking over it, i don't really know the RIGHT answer (but i'm sure he doesn't)... and this conflict, i think, is one of the allures about the writing. on one hand and at the very surface, you could say that fuminori really did love saya because he was willing to descend into madness for her sake. he was willing to abandon his own reality to be with saya alone... and that without saya, he finds no point and joy in living (to the point whwre he kills himself in that one ending). on the surface, it would seem like he's madly in love.
and yet that saya isn't even the real her. she's a fleshy goopy tentacle monster, and never in the course of the game has fuminori ever seen her like so. he worships the innocent "childlike" image of saya (i hate the multiple descriptions of her being childlike by the way i need this man GONE), but i'm sure if he saw the horrific image of saya that looked like the horrific visions he had, he'd instinctively hate her. in the ending where his mind turns back, i feel like there's something to be said about him not actually saying the words "i love you" and instead just typing it - i feel like the sentiment is weaker, because he's underestimating what she probably looks like. maybe i'm reading too much into it. but if he loathed long-time friends because they're hideous, i feel like it won't be too far off to say the same thing for saya, if he ever comes around to seeing her true form.
fuminori worships saya as a form of escapism for hell. as an object that gives him some sort of pleasure or satisfaction... otherwise if he really loved her, he'd choose to fix his mind but still keep whatever his previous life was and not turn himself in, see saya as her true self and continue living like they had been... at least that's what i think.
saya on the other hand i feel a little more pity for, because she only acts like she does out of her nature as an entity of sorts. not exactly operating on human morals or principle, but out of instinct for the most part... i feel like fuminori enables the sick twisted part of her, seeing how fuminori can ruin and abandon his life and shut everyone out for love. how fuminori can be hateful and do horrible things because of his "love" for saya, i think saya imitates it in turn because it's all an act of love for her. how the old neighbor assaulted her because he "loved" how she looked, how saya committed the same act to yoh because she "loved" fuminori. saya probably thinks it's all okay, because it's love. in turn, she could also doom humanity and mutate them all because it's an act of love! and that at least fuminori gets to be surrounded with "normal" people now. i feel sorry for saya, honestly.
there is a huge theme of sacrificing humanity for the sake of one person, out of love. in turn, the mental ward ending has the theme of sacrificing their own happiness for the better of humanity.
i think the "best" ending there is would be the kouji one, because it eliminates the threat of saya... for having anyone be influenced by her kind (even though it was the surgery that messed fuminori up and not saya, but who knows when she'd break after knowing how to use her ability on humans). it's bleak, and kouji probably doesn't deserve that kind of anguish... but like the other endings, the theme of sacrifice plays a huge role. a sadder one, even if it means the long-term safety of the world.
anyway, all this makes for a really interesting thought rabbit hole. still, i don't find myself ,, comnecting too much. a little underwhelming for my taste, and fuminori really made me wanna beat the shit out of him. which i guess is the point. though if i wanted to read a story wherein the protagonist is a piece of shit with better narrative framing, i'd just pick up "tender is the flesh" again - i know it's an unfair comparison to make because tender is an actual book, BUT both protagonists have the apathetic "i hate this selfish disgusting world even if my actions are no better"kind of attitude. the way tender is framed is very good, because while reading it, it DOES trick you to think that marcos tejo (protag) is probably better than all the "disgusting" people he encounters. only to repeatedly punch you in the gut. again, maybe this is an unfair comparison to make... different works and mediums and all.
still, the latter is criticized for being "needless shock value" but it wasn't for me. if anything, snu DOES feel like shock value to ME - but i'm in conflict saying this, because maybe it's the gruesome shock value that really highlights the depravity of fuminori and saya... but also did we REALLY need to see yoh on fuminori after kouji was done calling him?? ?? ?? like we get the point that yoh is basically an object at this point, so i seriously don't know, because it could just as well be for a porny reason too for all i care. but i have a love (okay not LOVE what an awful word to use) hate relationship with the "shocking" scenes, because to me they're both understandably deprived disgusting and also too on the nose at the same time.
i don't know. throughout the VN though, i will say that it barely hides anything from you i think, which is why certain things just feel expected. again, which contributed to my lack of... whelm. it's interesting to think about, but the execution could probably be a lot better or something.
ryouko is so fucking awesome though i love her.