Katawa Shoujo/Awesome

Meta

• The fact that a single piece of artwork from 4chan, years of work, and lots of internal drama became this.
  • Also, when you finish Act 1 and see your chosen girl's cinema.
• This game manages to out right emotionally cripple certain people who play even one route. Here are some examples.
  • Some 4chan reactions
  • More 4chan reactions
  • As you can see from those 4chan reactions, a number of people went to this game to have A Date with Rosie Palms, only to end up with the feels, and Rosie Palms is left without a date.
    • The Vidya Gaem awards for 2011 used music from this Visual Novel despite it being 2012 and all but stated that this would win some reward for 2012. Congratulations, 4Leaf Studios.
  • This has not gone on unnoticed. This visual novel has such good writing and has affected so many people emotionally to the point that they want to better themselves that Professor Don Martinez of Panola College is doing a study on it. Yes, Texas.
• Not so much to do with anything within the game, but it has been mentioned that this is the first Visual Novel to end up on the front page of GameFAQs, placing 1st on the most wanted Faqs on the site before someone submitted a complete Faq.
  • At its peak, it made the 3rd top rated PC game and 11th top rated game.
• Within two weeks, the Katawa Shoujo thread has become the second largest thread on the Visual Novel section of the forum.
• Within a day, the Kickstarter project for the official Katawa Shoujo Artbook for Anime Expo 2012 earned enough money to achieve it's goal. MULTIPLE TIMES OVER!!!
  • An update: in the first three days, the fundrasier achieved its goal... nearly 15 times. Yeah.
• What do you get when you take the starting scene from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and mix it up with Katawa Shoujo? KatawaVania, that's what!

In-Game

• By the end of Lilly's route, Hisao himself has managed to survive and recover from not one, but two major heart attacks. The man is nothing short of determined, to say the least.
  • Also, many dudes wouldn't resist the temptation of going further with a girl who is either drunk (Hanako) or high on too-strong medicines (Rin) and thus is openly throwing herself at them. Hisao is Wise Beyond His Years and, both times, he manages to keep his desires aside.
• In Hanako's route, Hanako manages to successfully open up. Even in her bad ending, as painful as it may be, she has the courage to tell Hisao that his coddling makes her unhappy.
  • One specific moment is the pool bar outing the two share where Hanako shows a more relaxed side to herself.
  • Also in Hanako's route, Mutou knows exactly what to do when Hanako has her panic attack.
• Also, in Emi's route, who comes to the rescue when Hisao and Emi almost break up. It's someone whom you wouldn't expect... Misha! Quite the surprise, and if you take her advice, she'll be the key to get Emi's Good Ending.
  • Shizune also deserves some credit, since she told Misha to intervene. If you make the other decision at Emi's house, Rin essentially forces Hisao and Emi to face the issue by leaving the rooftop.
• Hisao gets a great one during Act 2 of Emi's route, when he receives Iwanako's letter. In it she basically apologizes for distancing herself from Hisao while he was in the hospital... but Hisao just crumples the letter and throws it away, declaring that he doesn't care about that, since to him the hospital was a long time ago and he feels that his life is now in Yamaku with his new friends. Seeing him having grown so much and becoming so determined to not feel sorry for himself is a HUGE moment of Character Development. You can't help but cheer for the guy.
  • If you see Iwanako's letter as a corollary of a Break the Cutie process for her instead. It's nice to see Hisao look forward to the future, but not necessarily when he unintentionally ended up hurting a girl as painfully shy and fragile as she was during these days. Also, Hisao's act is meant to mirror Emi's tendency of running away from the more painful elements of her past by pretending they aren't there and always blazing full-speed ahead. Hisao later realizes this is not healthy behavior, which leads to the action below.
  • IMO, the REAL CMOA comes when he takes her letter out of the trash, reads it in full, and puts his bitterness behind him.
• The tour Hisao gives Misha of the school late in Shizune's route, recalling all the experiences he's had with her and Shizune, and urging her not to push Shizune away like he did with his old friends. It showcases his Character Development and is a crucial step in repairing Misha and Shizune's friendship