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Katawa Shoujo: empathy or exploitation?
Filed Under Video Games
After reading Leigh Alexander’s article in Kotaku on Katawa Shoujo, a dating sim where the player tries to woo physically disabled and disfigured high school girls, I was too curious not to give the game a play-through*. The fact that another female gamer described this as a “polished, surprisingly compassionate and complex love letter to disabled girls,” inspired me to try to determine which politics were at work within the game.
Katawa Shoujo, Japanese for “disability girls,” is a game developed by Four-Leaf Studios, a group of anonymous members of 4chan. By now you’re probably expecting the worst from this game, as I was. However, “the internet hate-machine” is capable of producing empathy from time to time, as in this case. Far from the insulting parody you might expect, this game treats disabled individuals as human.
In the game, you play as Hisao, a high school student coming to terms with his status as a disabled person, having just discovered he suffers from Arrthymia, and sent to a school for students with special needs. While Hisao’s condition is invisible to others, the potential love interests in the game have disabilities that are anything but. You can choose to befriend disabled girls ranging from blind Lilly to burn-victim Hanako (and thankfully, Part One doesn’t allow any type of interaction beyond simply befriending the girls).
Game play is engaging. The dialogue and description is not only well written but belies a great deal of research into how each girl copes with her disability, details including how legless Emi uses different prosthetics depending on whether she is running track or walking to school, or how armless Rin eats lunch (with her feet). In other words, instead of putting the emphasis on the disabilities themselves, the main focus is on how each girl deals with her unique challenges.
The dialogue presents two views on disability. In some ways, disability is understated. “If I don’t mention [her disability], it’s like not discussing the elephant in the room,” Hisao says to the librarian. She replies, “It’s only the elephant in the room if you make it that way.” On the other hand, most plot points depend on assisting the girls in things they can’t do, like carrying things for armless Rin or informing blind Lilly of what the sunset looks like. This isn’t any different from other games in the dating sims, where you do favors for women to win their affection, but they still reveal the girls to be defined by their disabilities.
I talked to my friend John B. about the game, since his brother was born with Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that confined him to a wheelchair until the end of his life. He agreed that the game was surprisingly respectful and compassionate towards disabled people. However, his view was that this genre might not be the appropriate vehicle for spreading goodwill towards the disabled. So far, Four-Leaf has only released Part One of the game, and Part Two is likely to include nudity or worse (the studio has not said, but it’s logical to assume this since most games of this genre do). No matter how well done I’ve found the game to be, the ultimate goal still seems to be fetishizing disability.
As Alexander suggested, Katawa Shoujo takes the empathy we feel for disabled human beings and attempts to eroticize it. However, even this can be seen as a success. In this game, disabled people are seen as consenting and capable romantic partners, instead of the half-humans they are sometimes portrayed to be. I was impressed, but I won’t be playing part two anytime soon– disabled or not, pretend dating isn’t for me.
*Part One of the game, that is. The second part has yet to be released.
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4 Responses to “Katawa Shoujo: empathy or exploitation?”
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I wanted to add as a footnote that I just found out about what Part Two of the game entails. According to Four-Leaf Studios, players can choose whether or not to view erotic scenes, even offering an option to disable them completely. (Thank you to LigerX84, a commentor on Kotaku.)
I approve of their very tasteful decision, and perhaps this means I will see how the second part of the game turns out.
I thought Alexander’s article was interesting (if not a little bit creepy). But since you’ve found out about the disabling option, I can’t help but wonder if they did that to expand the goal of the game, past fetishizing disabilities.
Granted, the erotic part is still there if you want it, and you can’t control who plays the game (and therefore whether it feeds fetishes or not), but now people who don’t want to fetishize/eroticize disabilities can play the game and hopefully gain a better understanding of what it’s like for people who live with disabilities and how they overcome certain challenges.
If this game goes just a little way towards diminishing wide-held prejudices and attitudes, I’d call it a success.
This is a very good analysis of this game. Like you I thought it was going to be unemphatically hardcore takes no gruff from anyone because it was from 4chan. I was also shocked as I played threw the game to find out that they treat the girls not as a commodity but instead as humans with actual realistic emotional responses.
On the subject of fetishizing disability. You’ve said this a few times, but my question is so what? Anything can be fetishized as people can find most anything sexy. Are you suggesting that disabilities should be segregated from everything else that can be fetisheized? I don’t know but I don’t think anyone with disabilities wants to be treated differently in anyway. Perhaps you could clarify why you think fetisizing or eroticizing disabilities is wrong, or if you don’t think it’s wrong how you feel about it?
Very good read and I’m interested in hearing more if / when you play part II!
Hi Lauren,
What a great post — I play a lot of these eroge games, for better or for worse, so it’s always fascinating for me to see the perspective of someone who hasn’t played a lot of dating sims and who doesn’t necessarily like the genre itself.
And it’s even more refreshing for me to see people who are willing to try! You write very well and your rational open-mindedness is evident.