Wow…I am sure glad I decided to look on the Sayooshi tag on tumblr tag the other day (something I don’t normally do) cuz….wow! Apparently an English translation had been out for a month and I had no clue!
Sayonara wo Oshiete got on my radar in summer 2020, during a particularly harrowing quarantine. The trauma of that whole deal launched me headfirst into one my high school interests — lurid, socially unacceptable visual novels. I finally got around to Saya no Uta, but that wasn’t enough. I found out about the religiously acclaimed denpa trilogy, and of course I came out of this really REALLY wanting to play Sayooshi. I’ve found all the videos on YouTube, I’ve found the essays and spoilers out there in English, I’ve looked over all the art and merch bilingual fans have deigned to share with the rest of us over the years. Of course it wasn’t enough, how could it be? Thankfully, time did its thing and put stopgaps on my overflowing passion to play this game, evening out into checking what people were saying about this game on Twitter every few months.
But now it’s in English. So for that, I feel blessed! Genuine thanks to whoever translated and put this out into the world.
The response to the translation seems REALLY disproportional, as an outsider looking in. I looked through both Reddit threads, and while there were some constructive points made, the sheer vitriol is really…
In high school, to satisfy my twin need to read fucked up things and become cultured, I got really into literature. The Stranger, Notes From the Underground, The Story of the Eye, that sort of thing. Of course I looked into Japanese stuff too, how could I not? Snow Country, Thirst for Love, No Longer Human, that sort of thing. To find what I was looking for, I had to rely on what translations were available for these great works. Some translations were fresh and updated, while others were the older, drier ones from earlier in the century. Either way, it was through them I was able to absorb these works and let them permeate my being.
The way I see it, is that if someone with a year or two of Japanese under their belt is able to read Sayooshi, enjoy the work, and sing its praises… isn’t it that they’re able to do all that despite themselves? The nuance, the context, the artistry of word, a lot of those things are lost in the fuzzy in-between state that is their perception of the work and what it fully is. And yet, they love the work, they are impacted by it, they become one of the endless choir spreading the word. Yes, the way I see it is, someone had the generosity to write down their perception of Sayooshi, which has been in fantranslation limbo for the better part of a decade, and share it with the rest of us. I will not deny that I have “otaku slush brain” (fantastic phrase!), I am absolutely going to step into that mindset when approaching this type of art, but this translation and release feels like it wouldn’t have been out of place in 2011, 2010, and that works for me.
In regards to the game itself…
It’s scary! So goddamn scary! I made the mistake of starting in the middle of the night. I had to start writing this blog post in my head in order to sleep….lol.
Anyway, yeah…it’s terrifying. Craftwork elegantly utilizes what art assets they have to put you in a sort of rhythmic, trance like state, then pull the rug out from under you, little by little. Now I know the twist, I know what eventually happens, but I still have no idea what’s really going on! The game effectively puts you in the mind of the protagonist, and that sense of eroding reality is trippy as as fuck. Like…is he in a mental hospital? What is he actually doing out in the real world? What’s happening???
The grotesque delusional sex scenes are unsettling for sure, especially when coupled with a cheery return to the adventure UI with no reflection on what just happened. Even though I knew they were going to happen, and the CGs are posted everywhere, it still gets under your skin. But even then, these transgressive daydreams become part of the routine, part of the everyday.
And it’s really brilliant, because once that rhythm is disrupted, once that routine is interrupted, you see that was just the beginning, a sense of the infinite abyss of insanity left to dive into. What really got to me, what really made me had to stop for the day was when the main character attempts to rape his supervisor.
Now, the use & abuse of fictional fresh faced high schoolers is par the course of escapist culture worldwide– why that is and how I feel about it are neither here or there, this is simply the standard, what we expect. If you’re playing an eroge, on some level you expect to see fake people in school uniforms fuck!
The way this scene plays out is, the supervisor is berating the main character for…something. It doesn’t quite make sense why. But this emotional outburst from the stoic woman the MC has been consistently subservient to causes something in him to snap, and he attempts to rape her to get back at her. You don’t get a “fun” picture, even the MC acknowledges this isn’t done out of any erotic desire, just…this woman pissed him off, and now he needs to put her in his place. In the swirling mist of anime high schooler delusions, we get a very REAL depiction of sexual assault, and it makes the whole thing that much more so terrifying. Did he really do that? Does it matter? Through violating his supervisor, the social order has been disrupted, the routine & structure of the game totally upended. What is going to happen next? How can I even begin to imagine what happens next?
I won’t stop wondering until I get at least one route so….off to play I go.