I have long said that Hitori is the most well written character in Hatoful, and I'm right. But most well written ARC goes squarely to Sakuya. Sakuya is possibly the most dynamic character in the game. Sakuya on day one of the game, and Sakuya in the epilogue of BBL are entirely different people.
That's actually part of why I don't usually talk about him all that much. Sakuya has a complete character arc. That's not something that you can really say about the rest of the cast. They all definitely HAVE arcs, but one of the things that keeps me constantly coming back to the series is how none of them feel quite complete. Like they're all still hanging open, their arcs stopped just short of coming around to their proper conclusion. Characters in Hatoful Boyfriend are often just left bleeding. You watch them grow and get torn down by the world around them, and then they come to stop, still hanging and bleeding, neither patched up nor bled out. And it's this incompleteness that makes it stick in my brain. I keep searching for that last note needed to close out the movement, and it's just not there.
Hitori's story is a revenge tragedy, but we never reach the revenge, or the natural conclusion of the tragedy. Both he and Shuu are alive at the end of the story, with nowhere to go. They've backed themselves into a bloody corner, and the story has just left them there. There isn't a resolution. Their narratives can really only end in death, and they don't die at the end, so instead it's left open and incomplete.
Ryouta just gets slowly torn down throughout the narrative. Misfortune after misfortune pile onto him, and he slowly runs ragged. Hatoful Boyfriend is chronicling his descent. From the most normal, cheery member of the cast, to the most broken and miserable. But at the end of BBL, he's just left waiting. Waiting to die or for someone to come back with a cure. Left in a sort of eternal stasis. He's left open and bleeding, without a proper conclusion either way, hopeful or tragic. In Holiday Star he keeps being pushed to confront his abandonment issues, and he just keeps refusing to do so. He never really confronts them despite how many times he's faced with these issues, and again, we're left without a real satisfying resolution to his character arc. He goes most of the way through an arc, and then stops just short of completing it.
Shuu's story is this grand tale of hubris. He so clearly lines up his own downfall with every decision he makes. From how many enemies he makes, to how much he underestimates those enemies. Following Shuu is like slowly going up a rollercoaster headed towards the big drop. It's all build up for either his grand plan going off in this spectacular act of genius, or else his great failure, going out in a big blaze of glory, falling into all of the holes he left for himself, that he thought were too small and unimportant to worry about. And the way he ends is... Neither of those things. His terrible decisions do come back to haunt him, but the price he pays for it is ultimately so small compared to all that he's done. It's underwhelming, and leaves me feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for him to finally get his dues, and it just never comes. It's all build up, and then a sudden jarring stop just short of the grand crescendo promised.
Yuuya's arc is a lot like Ryouta's. It's a descent. It's his unraveling. Unlike Ryouta's thought, we do see him putting some of these pieces back together, or at least trying to. The game explores a lot of the consequences of his hero complex, and he fully faces the consequences of his act of revenge, and spends the rest of his arc looking for redemption from this guilt he carries. It's hard to call Yuuya's story a redemption arc. Redemption is the thing he's seeking, but I don't think he's ever really condemned by the narrative even before seeking this redemption. It's more like what Yuuya's arc is about is seeking forgiveness from himself, and seeking to repair his relationship with Sakuya, which is what complicates his arc for me. If it was a straightforward quest for redemption "I took vengeance once, and I am paying for my sins. I seek to redeem my soul" then you could see him taking that scalpel for Sakuya as a conclusion. But the fact that it's never really treated by the narrative as though Yuuya's act of vengeance was actually wrong instead makes it feel less like Yuuya is seeking forgiveness from the universe, but instead like he is seeking forgiveness from himself. In which case, his self sacrifice is a step backwards. It's more of Yuuya devaluing himself, more of him prioritizing others to an extreme. If we take the egg incident to be Yuuya's biggest sin, then BBL is just him repeating those same mistakes again and again. It's him choosing Sakuya over everything to a destructive degree. He chops up Hiyoko's body and covers up her death, to protect Sakuya. He throws away his own life, to protect Sakuya. It's just a loop of Yuuya doing something terrible in Sakuya's name. There's no redemption found in there, only a further spiral. And further reinforcing Yuuya's guilt, and self hatred, and this steady creeping towards the place Hitori is in. And he doesn't really deviate from this path. He continues onward, repeating his mistakes, and slipping towards the same cliff that Hitori plunged off of. Again, it's left unresolved. He keeps starting to learn, starting to heal, starting to confront his flaws, and then not quite overcoming them.
I'm.... Honestly not sure what Anghel's arc is? I know it's about coming to terms with his complicated identity, and being understood by the people around him, but it's hard to say how much progress he really makes on those fronts? Anghel is sort of just... Perfect as he is? He serves very effectively as a plot device, and he's loveable and compelling without having an especially dynamic arc. Anghel is somewhat static, but I don't think that's really a bad thing on him. I'm not sure if he just doesn't have a whole lot going on arc wise, or if I'm just not seeing it right now, but oh well. I'd love to hear someone else give their takes on him, see if I can't find a new perspective to come at him from. But as it is he's just my funky little guy that I love so so much, but in a sort of no thoughts head empty kind of way.
Nageki is the hardest to talk about for me, which is why I saved him for last. He has so much going on. Nageki's route is famously emotionally moving. I cried for it, I think most people did. And I'm not sure exactly how to approach it from a meta perspective. Nageki is almost a sort of... Messianic figure. Nageki died to save humanity, despite all the ways that it had wronged him. You could say Nageki's arc is one of taking back power for himself. He was weak, and unable to do anything for himself or for anyone else either. He felt like a burden, and so when he found an opportunity to do something for someone, to protect people, he threw himself into it regardless of the cost. Even though it cost him his life. He made this selfless sacrifice. But while that was something of an arc of him finding power for himself, I hesitate to call it a full arc. Nageki had always been that selfless. Nageki pre-Hatoful House massacre would likely have been just as ready and willing to give his life for others as he was in the end.
Was it him losing hope then? Nageki being beaten down by the treatment he recieved at the St Pigeonations clinic? In the end succumbing to the misfortune that had haunted him all his life and killing himself? That doesn't feel right either. Nageki dying is, strangely enough, never actually a change for him. Nageki was dead from the beginning of the game. But more than that, Nageki was always going to die. From even long before the game began, Nageki had this clear path to an early death laid out before him. Nageki was ALWAYS going to die. There is no other way for him to go, this was always how it was going to be. And it's how it went. He accepted his fate, embraced it, and leaned into it. He took ahold of his incoming death for himself. It's very difficult for me to identify what exactly is going on with Nageki because it feels like he has SO MUCH going on. Nageki sits nestled at the heart of all of it. Both games orbit around him. I know that Ryouta is the unofficial main character. And I know that you can trace everything that happened in the series directly back to Ryuuji. I know that Shuu is the driving force behind the plot and that he laid out all of the pieces and players for this whole game, that it was all his doing. But Nageki feels, to me at least, like the true heart of the issue. He's your first introduction to the fact that something is truly genuinely Not Right in this world. So much of the plot is all of the living characters chasing after Nageki. Trying to unravel his secrets. Following his trail. Trying to find him. Nageki stands ahead of the crowd, several paces up, and every other character is tripping over themselves running after him.
Nageki is the axis upon which the story rotates. Hitori's entire character revolves around him. Orbits him. Ryouta's downfall is so tightly intertwined with Nageki. At the end of the day, one of Ryouta's most important roles in the plot is simply as a vessel for Nageki. It's carrying a piece if him inside of him. Ryouta's place in the narrative is sometimes as a sort of second coming if Nageki in a way. Shuu's fate was sealed the moment he chose Nageki as his victim, and he has been paying the price for that decision ever since, in little increments. Almost every character has their moment where they serve as a parallel to Nageki. The King's entire thing is RIDDLED with parallels, they are established as sort of foils to eachother. Two ghosts, two sad little birds who died unfortunate early deaths, two people that Hitori feels so responsible for, the two shadows that haunt him. And so much of Holiday Star is about how they handled this differently. How The King used his fire to draw others in and trap them, to make himself feel better and to have company in his misery. And how Nageki, the scorpion, burned himself to ash to free them. It's the scene in the lighthouse, how he was prepared to burn to death all over again. Sakuya is also often cast in parallel to Nageki as part of Yuuya and Hitori's parallels. With these two sets of brothers you have two stories of selflessness and giving as a bad thing. They're about self destruction, and living your life exclusively in service if someone else, and how unfair that can be to the person you are trying to help. How in the end, for all of Hitori's selfless sacrifice none of Nageki's wishes came true, and how for all of Yuuya's selfless sacrifice he wound up hurting Sakuya more than anyone else. And both of them, in this single minded quest, choosing one person above the entire world, leave this trail of bloody mistakes behind them. This parallel casts Nageki as Sakuya's mirror.
In a way, that's really Nageki's role. He's a mirror held up to each member of the cast. And in that reflection you see the worst of each of them. Nageki is sort of perfect, and the narrative stands each other character next to him to show you their flaws. What does Nageki do wrong, ever??? I can't think of a single thing. He doesn't make any real mistakes, so I don't know where to find an arc in that. There's nowhere to go, there's no change. Nageki really does thrive in his role as a ghost. He's sort of intangible, impossible to catch, impossible to hold on to. He's an impossible goal to be chased after, and ultimately, be left unreached. So much of the plot is just looking for Nageki. Looking for his secrets. Looking for his remains. Looking for anything he left behind. Looking for him. Looking for Nageki, and instead only finding your own reflection. I don't know how to discuss that, really. Which is why I usually don't. The story of Hatoful Boyfriend is this massive downward spiral, pulling everyone in, and down to their lowest point, and curled up right in the center of it all is Nageki, with every other story element orbiting around him, but never actually managing to reach him.
But after all that, looping all the way back around to my actual point. Sakuya.
Sakuya's arc actually finishes, and it finishes beautifully. In a story full of people getting worse, chasing unachievable ends, and being left eternally swirling around and around never quite reaching a proper conclusion just getting more and more damaged with each go around, Sakuya actually improves. He has this perfect, solid character arc.
Sakuya starts out as an egotistical bigot, living under false pretenses, with high ambitions of becoming a great leader. Through the story he faces every single flaw he has, confronts it, changes for the better, and grows as a person. And with each one he approaches his goal of being a great leader. Sakuya begins as a good leader, and ends as a fantastic one. He confronts his biases. He confronts his fears. He confronts his beliefs. He confronts himself, his identity. And he comes to terms with all of it, and rises from it stronger, and wiser, and more worldly. Sakuya walks out of the BBL epilogue a hero, and an incredible leader, having made good on all of his promises, and made significant good in the world. He's also quite possibly the least self destructive character we have, save for maybe Okosan, but I'm not going to even touch Okosan here. Sakuya learns from his mistakes and doesn't repeat them. And he achieves all of his goals. Sakuya is the only character not stuck in this downward spiral. And his character arc is just so perfect. It's such a nice clean arc. Sakuya starts out the first game as a genuinely kind of shitty guy. Every time I've introduced someone to the game I've said "It's totally okay not to like Sakuya. I like Sakuya, but when you first meet him it's hard to do, I get it. But just hold on, he gets better, I promise."
Sakuya has a Zuko tier redemption arc. The way that he learns to respect Ryouta more and more throughout BBL, the way that he starts to really think for himself and escape out from under his father's expectations in his route, the way that he was completely untouchable by The King's attempts at manipulation. Sakuya just fuckin THRIVES.
And this is sort of why I haven't really talked about him before today. That unfinished feeling to everyone else's story arcs eats at me. It sticks in my head. I can't stop talking about them because they're COMPELLING and they feel UNFINISHED and now I'm sort of obsessed with it. I'm caught in the loop with them, hunting for an ending that isn't there. The imperfections in these arcs are what keeps me speculating about still, 8 years down the line. I'm still trying to find that ending. But for Sakuya, and Nageki too actually, the only thing there is for me to talk about is why they work so well. And in Nageki's case, I'm not especially sure why, and so I don't have a lot to say on him. He's sort of a mystery to me. But for Sakuya, it is just so apparent to me why he's such an incredibly well written character. It feels sort of redundant to go through it. His arc is clean, and perfect. Just look at it! There's no holes for me to obsess over and write endless essays on. And there's no mystery to how effective it is. It's clean, and simple, and utterly perfect. I don't need to puzzle over how it works so well, because you can just take one look at it and it's all laid bare. He has the ideal redemption arc. The platonic ideal of exactly what his type of character should be. It's perfect. I don't feel like I can contribute much of anything to it by discussing it, further than just shining a light at what about it works so incredibly well.
Simply put, Sakuya has the most well written arc in Hatoful Boyfriend, and I would consider him the second most well written character in all.
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