Hakuōki

Finding Love in Bakumatsu Japan

[pochama101]

Survey on Globalization of Otome Games

tldr: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bCmP5zR5SDkIc6x I would love community response to this survey for my Undergraduate thesis on the globalization of otome games in the United states and in general internationally. I would like this to reach as many people as possible! The survey is in english but I can also write it in Español or 日本語 should there be an interest in me doing so.

Para empezar, yo soy un estudiante en mi año ultima de la universidad Duke en Estados Unidos. Nací en Miami y mis padres so Cubanos. Este estudio esta enfocado en globalización de juegos de otome y su distribución y producción global (enfocado en particular en experiencias Estado Unidenses).  Pero, si hay interés you puedo traducir este questionario en español y abrirlo para continuar el estudio para latino americanos (hispano hablantes en particular porque no hablo Portugues). Déjame saber, y muchas gracias. (Perdoname si he fallado gramaticamente, mis padres y profesores me han dicho que uso anglicizaciones debido que nací aquí en Estados Unidos).

**Para dejarlos saber, se que hay muchos hispanohablantes en Estados Unidos que también pueden estar jugando juegos de otome pero, muchas de las localizaciones aquí no siempre nos dan la opción de elegir español. Lo qual es el fallo de las compañias que hacen las localizaciones** 

最初に、私はデューク大学生の四年生けれども論文を書きます。３年間日本語と日本の文学を勉強した後で日本の文化の全世界のインパクトとどうやって増えたかに興味が持ちなりました。この研究は乙女ゲームのグローバル化ですが日本人として、乙女ゲームについてのご意見も大切だと思うので興味があれば私はこのアンケートを日本語でも買えます。（しかし、実はスペイン語のアンケートと比べたら訳すのための時間がもっとかかると思います）。すみませんとありがとうございます。（文法が間違ってしまったらごめん）。

Two long introductions in Spanish and Japanese later... Hello! I’m sorry I haven’t been able to keep up with the characterization portion of this page as some people asked but I have been working on more otome related studies. I’m a senior in college and before starting this page for a class I was developing a working thesis on otome games by looking at their global popularity via gender and mechanics. At this point I’m almost done but, for the globalization section I could still really use some anonymous survey response data. I posted on r/otomegames already and if you answered my survey there already I want to thank you so so much and if you fill out this survey from seeing it on tumblr again, thank you so so much. Please feel free to continue to send it out! 

Bringing my love of otome games and Japanese culture into an academic field is something I’ve strived to do since coming to college and in my final months here, with the help of the community I’ll be able to put out a nice start I would like to think. If you have time, please please fill out this survey https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bCmP5zR5SDkIc6x and please continue to share it with friends who you know also have experience with otome games or communities I haven’t been able to reach (i haven’t been able to play some of the more recent otomate game localizations nor indie otome games because of time constraints but I hear they’re good). 

[pochama101]

Concluding thoughts on Hakuōki

The original goal of this project was to explore branching narrative structure and how it can fill in gaps in the narrative. However, as I continued to work on my posts I came to realize that this wasn’t the question I needed to be asking myself, rather, I wanted to ask how the characters in Hakuōki are able to satisfy the desires of the game’s target audience: shoujō (roughly speaking, young women). Hakuōki targets its audience through the diverse options of eligible samurai bachelors that all fill different character tropes that some may find more attractive than others. I had assumed that the narratives would interact with each other to create a clear image of Bakumatsu Japan, but this was not the case. The focus of the story world is not actually the story of the Shinsengumi and their contributions during the Meiji Restoration. Rather, the game focuses on the story of how the individual captains navigated the world and fell in love with Yukimura Chizuru. Hence, although the stories may provide new information about the Shinsengumi and their role in history, that is not the central narrative of Hakuōki. Additionally, the layers of fandom surrounding the game provide another space for the young women fans to express themselves through fan production. At the onset of this project I had hoped to talk more about how the gameplay itself contributed to the storytelling of Hakuōki, but instead it became a discussion of fan production as well as media mix. I feel like the reason the discussion of gameplay was not well achieved is due to the fact that I haven’t been able to get to my gameplay readings that discuss narrative structure. My other fear of writing in depth on gameplay was that I would just rehash my thesis and I’d end up writing a ten-thousand-word discussion on player agency and game space. If I wanted to do that I could have just copied and pasted pieces of my thesis and called it “an analysis of a story world,” when in fact it would have been a discussion of the transmediality of the otome game genre. Even so, I couldn’t escape the topic of transmediality due to the Japanese media mix. I tried to tailor my transmedial discussion such that it addressed the spaces where the storyworld of Hakuōki interacts with the lives of fans outside of the media proper. The alternative was talking about how the transmediality contributes to the globalization of media, and in my opinion that was too general. With respect to the discussions of narrative and character, I think I was able to avoid rehashing my thesis while working on the tumblr. Instead of looking at the gendering of the game I discussed the progression of the narrative and its ties to the characters, which ended up helping with my thesis. The ability to just throw my thoughts out there about the game and not have to cite at least 10 other scholars was very liberating. Finally, due to the fact that I needed to narrow down my thesis, there are a lot of aspects of the game that I don’t have the space to explore that I can here, such as the rise of rekishijō as a group subverting the masculinity of Japanese history. I hope to actually post on this topic later on, as a game like Hakuōki has influenced women into making history pilgrimages to areas where the Shinsengumi stayed or to the graves of prominent members such as Isami Kondō.

[pochama101]

Brief Overview of Gameplay

In some of my discussion I realized I was using terms specific to gameplay that, when explained without visuals weren’t exactly clear. Therefore, here is a small guide to what certain sections or mechanics are and what they contribute to gameplay/ how the player is able to navigate the story with them. Hopefully this will clarify some aspects discussed in other posts. Decision Making:

https://youtu.be/O0Gh986J1gk

As the player proceeds through the story, there will be moments in which they are able to make decisions that affect the level of romance between Chizuru and one of the Shinsengumi members. Ideally, the player should attempt to cater their answers to maximize romance with one character (unless they’re a masochist and want the bad endings or Kazama’s route). Either way, in order to get as close to the happy ever after as possible you want to make sure the answers you’re giving are greeted with that golden moon and butterfly logo. 

Gallery of Events:

https://youtu.be/1rpqR72TsIY

Certain answers will reward the player with detailed stills that range from cute, to climactic, to mundane but, they all serve to highlight a plot or character point of importance. Hence, they will usually be used to illicit emotional responses from the player especially as the narrative progresses down a particular character’s route and the stills become more and more focused on that character. Bad routes as well as other routes may still reward you with stills of another character which encourages players to complete other character routes or actually seek out bad endings.

Encyclopedia:

https://youtu.be/5G0GwYPnx_0

Due to the historical nature of the game as well as the expansive cast it becomes very difficult to remember events, locations and names. This is especially the case for players who aren’t extremely well versed in Japanese history. In terms of Japanese history, the Shinsengumi were a very small phase and their impact wasn’t too large relative to other parties involved in the Meiji Restoration. So, the game includes a nice encyclopedia that alphabetizes events, terms and characters for the player to look back at should they be referred to again. 

Record of Service:

https://youtu.be/QK0j00basqM

In my opinion, this feature is the most important part of the game right up there with “text skip” (the ability to fast forward text the player has already read) in terms of making the game not drag out endlessly and be unplayable. The record of service allows the player to load a part of the story (organized by date), pick the character the story will be centered on, and adjust the romance level between Chizuru and the character. This means that in order to get bad endings all the player needs to do is load a later chapter at low romance and proceed rather than restarting the game and risking accidentally landing on another character’s route. This feature accompanied with “text skip” is the best way to complete all possible routes in my opinion.

[pochama101]

Creating a Happy Ever After

The portrayal of romance in Hakuōki is totally heteronormative, with the only other female character of importance, Princess Sen, appearing late in the game and is not a romance option. Additionally, the narrative of Hakuōki is totally dependent on how well the player is able to romance the various men of the Shinsengumi which further illustrates the heteronormative narrative of the game. Regardless, fans have subverted this notion and have produced several doujinshi (fan comics) and fanfiction depicting relationships between the men of the Shinsengumi. In particular, Okita x Hijikata, Harada x Todō, and Okita x Saito are popular pairings among the BL (Boy’s Love) community of Hakuōki.

BL works tend to be characterized by their portrayal of romance and sex between bishōnen (roughly pretty boys) which may or may not have been deemed to have sexual tension between them. All the romance options in otōme games tend to be bishōnen and in the case of Hakuōki the men have a history together. Hijikata and Okita bicker with each other the entire game and are revealed to have a history of rivalry even before joining the Shinsengumi. Both of them try to act for Kondō’s sake, Hijikata as the vice commander and Okita as the “sword” of the Shinsengumi as such they prove to be a very reliable team. Additionally, their interactions in the later game are the emotional climaxes in their respective routes. In Hijikata’s route, Okita sacrifices himself for his sake, then in Okita’s route, after hearing about Kondō’s death, Okita tracks Hijikata down to kill him for letting Kondō die. However, that scene turns into a fist fight that leaves both men in shambles grieving.

The production of doujinshi is not limited to BL works, they also explore alternative endings between Chizuru and the Shinsengumi men since most of them drink “The Water of Life”, which turns them into vampire like creatures that will eventually go mad with bloodlust. Thus, there is no happy ever after with many of the Shinsengumi but, there is instant gratification for getting a good ending. The only case in which that does not hold is Okita’s route as, his good ending is bitter sweet because his tuberculosis cuts his life extremely short regardless of the fact that he was able regain his humanity. It should then come as no surprise that there is a lot of doujinshi exploring a relationship between Chizuru and the Shinsengumi men in a world where Okita does not die from TB and the other Shinsengumi members do get more of a happily ever after. Additionally, many of these doujinshi and fanfiction tend to portray sexual relationships between the characters because Otōme games tend to focus on romance and leave sex to a genre of games called Eroge (short for erotic games).

Example of a BL doujinshi: "Happiness is the Smell of Sin" Rokujyou Yue

[pochama101]

It’s All About the Boys

Although Hakuōki has a rich story based in history, the main attraction of the genre is the romance options that are presented to the player. In order to reach the largest audience, the types of characters available need to be broad and the easiest way to assure that fans will like at least one option is by filling character archetypes that have been successful and well defined. The game utilizes actual historical figures as their protagonists, yet the character traits they have been given do fall into identifiable character tropes. I would like to argue however, that the characters in Hakuoōki are not confined to one trope rather, are a mishmash of several tropes that have managed to give rise to interesting and memorable characters. Through this post I would like to examine the predominant character traits of the most popular characters of Hakuōki Okita Sōji, Hijikata Toshizō, and Saitō Hajime took the top three spots in an Otomate poll ranking the best Otōme game characters.

Okita Sōji:

He has the most painful route with the best possible ending being a bitter sweet tear jerker. Throughout the game, he’s lauded as the “Sword of the Shinsengumi” as such he’s constantly cracking really dark jokes and casually making death threats which, are only in jest when aimed at Chizuru. Otherwise, he tends to speak frankly with Chizuru and shows her a more caring side of himself as he frets over Kondō (his foster father) and is shown playing with cats and children. His humor and constant threats leave him looking very two faced and leaving Chizuru as well as the player to figure out who the real Okita is. Additionally, a large portion of Okita’s route is spent with the character knowing that he’s dying of Tuberculosis but keeping it a secret from other members of the Shinsengumi. From the end of chapter 2 onward, Chizuru and the player know that Okita is destined to die and it is quite frankly very painful to play through because all you (the player) and Chizuru want to do is find a way for him to survive. It’s difficult to place Okita in a fixed character archetype but, if I had to pick two, they would be snarky jerk and sick.

Saitō Hajime:

At the start, he is the most distant and cold member of the Shinsengumi to Chizuru however, he is the first to find out that she is a woman making him the most observant of the group. As Chizuru gets more involved in the affairs of the Shinsengumi and learns more about Saitō she and the player are exposed to a warm side that no other person has seen. In fact, other characters begin to notice how Saitō’s actions seem more and more out of character as the story progresses. At one point Nagakura mentions how it was very strange/ childish for Saitō to have a snow bunny in his room. This occurs soon after the scene in which Chizuru is out in the snow with Saitō and she shows him how to make snow bunnies (a childhood past time of hers). In moments like those, Saitō is also uncharacteristically talkative for a man referred to as “Hijikata’s shadow”. As such, he is characterized as a man of few words unless it’s about topics he’s interested in, such as swords (he’s definitely a sword Otaku), or with people he’s especially fond of, like Chizuru. Thus, Saitō’s character seems characteristic of a cold character that is only warm to their lover.

Hijikata Toshizō:

He’s the Vice Captain of the Shinsengumi, second in command to Kondō as such he’s constantly barking orders at Chizuru and other members. He’s mean and very cold in serious situations however, he has a heart of gold as he vies for Chizuru’s life and is shown to be more concerned with the lives of his men than the success of the mission on several occasions. The latter is even more apparent as Okita begins to become more sick and Hijikata tries to assure he can rest. He’s portrayed as constantly working and takes everything very seriously as he scolds Todō, Harada and Nagakura for playing around. Historically, the Shinsengumi are almost entirely wiped out, in Hakuōki Hijikata blames himself for their failure, taking all of the burden on himself but, he’s able to get some relief through Chizuru who tells him otherwise. Throughout the narrative, Chizuru watches Hijikata transform from the 鬼副長 (oni fukuchō Demon Commander) to a paternal love filled figure who takes on the burdens of others.

[pochama101]

Transmedia Storytelling in Japanese Media Mix

Media Mix, in the context of Japan, refers to the phenomena through which a story world is adapted into various forms (usually anime, manga, game or trading card games) in order to reach a broader audience. The thought behind it being that the barrier of entrance into a story world can be lowered and expanded upon with casual fans being able to enter the fandom by watching the anime on TV. In the case of Hakuōki, the series originated as a otome game that was then adapted into several anime adaptations, manga, trading card game and a stage play/musical. The latter of which is absolutely amazing because I am an absolute sucker for cheesy Japanese musicals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH5EdfD1seE (scene portraying Heisuke’s departure from the Shinsengumi and Okita’s declaration that they’re now enemies).

Otome games as a medium have branching narrative structures that allow for the player to experience the story in various ways using the love interests as the means through which the narrative progresses. So, when the player pursues one love interest they will be placed on their route, making the player’s experience dependent on their ability to build a relationship with a Shinsengumi member. In the original title there are 8 characters the player can romance and each of their stories takes about 10 hours to complete. Due to games’ innate ability to stop, save, load and restart branching narratives are not difficult to portray relative to anime or manga. Anime has a fixed narrative and is restricted to run time (in the modern age between 13-25 22 minute episodes). The pacing would also seem very strange if after portraying one narrative, to stop and reset the narrative back to the beginning. In addition, showing the concurrent story lines does not work as some events take place in different locations depending on the events the historical figures took part in. For instance, Saito, Hijikata and Harada go to help the Aizu domain in a conflict whereas Heisuke, Okita and Sanan stay behind at the base due to their injuries. Instead, the anime focuses on the “canon” route which is Hijikata’s as it is the longest because he remains in the Shinsengumi until its end.

Manga can be serialized into separate series but will also have a problem adapting the various endings that each route has. Each character’s story also branches between a good, bad, and no romance ending which would prove difficult to portray in print. Interestingly enough, the stage play pays homage to this structure by showing the bad ending sequence and treating it as Okita having a nightmare (https://youtu.be/fzrD2XXg3CM?t=5095 to about 1:28) which I thought was really innovative. Unlike in anime and manga in which the story becomes immortalized in the medium, even as a dream, the musical as a moving piece I believe is able to convey the lack of permanence of the bad ending. In my opinion it’s a very successful homage to the structure of the game. I would argue though that stage plays like these are targeted for more invested fans of the franchise who are already willing to invest money into the franchise.

Game, anime, and musical versions of the medical check up scene (in order).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQuHItU74Xk

[pochama101]

An Introduction to Otome games and Hakuōki

Otome games or “Maiden games” have been increasing in popularity in recent years with American game developers making their own such as Hustle Cat and a few Japanese ones have been localized such as Hakuōki. I have always had a vested interest in Japanese culture and grew up watching shows such as Rurōni Kenshin (Localized Name Samurai X) and other historical fiction series. Most of these however, were considered for boys or shōnen so, to see a historical romance fiction with the target audience being women caught my eye.

Before becoming acquainted with the series my knowledge of Bakumatsu Period Japan was extremely limited. Essentially, I had heard of the Shinsengumi as a unit but, it wasn’t until I played and then watched Hakuōki that I had all of the unit captains’ names drilled into my head as well as central conflicts they participated in. However, Hakuōki is categorized as historical fiction so, the narrative is not entirely historically accurate. In fact, the central antagonists as well as the protagonist are demons from well established clans that have been coexisting with humans. The aspect of this story world that I would like to explore in particular is its unique branching narrative structure and how gameplay along with the narrative breathes life into the characters in such a way that the player is able to form an attachment to these characters. Another interesting aspect to note is that the developers indicate heavily that the “true” route of the story is Hijikata Toshizō’s route, the game allows you to seek relationships with the other Shinsengumi captains such as Okita Sōji and Saitō Hajime. I would like to further explore how this branching narrative structure comes together to create this story world by having a system through which one narrative route is able to fill in gaps that another route leaves.

[pochama101]

Hakuōki: Origin Story

The player enters the world of Hakuōki via Yukimura Chizuru, a young woman who goes to Kyoto November of 1864 in search of her father who runs into the Shinsengumi after seeing them kill a pair of demon like creatures. This period of time is known as the Bakumatsu Era in Japanese history and it is the period right before the Meiji Restoration. As such, the game deals with the battles the Shinsengumi participated in; the fall of the Shogunate and the subsequent end of the Shinsengumi as the Meiji Restoration happened. The magic of this history based otome game is how little it demands the player to know in order to play the game.

The Player's Window into the World: Yukimura Chizuru

The mechanics can be broken down into clicking to advance the dialogue and selecting dialogue choices. Additionally, any historical event is detailed in the glossary the game builds as you proceed through the story. This glossary is accessible throughout the play through such that the player can use it to reference past events or events some characters experienced that others did not. The narrative itself is decently dense with historic events and figures which makes the glossary increasingly helpful for the player to recall certain events and dialogues that may have had a larger impact on one character than another.

The storyworld of Hakuōki originated as a game however, various animated series as well as manga have also been produced. Translated versions of the manga are difficult to come across therefore, I wish to focus on how Hakuōki’s narrative translates across medium by focusing on the path from game to anime adaptation.

Example of Anime Adaptation: