I conceptualized a sort of satirical visual novel as a joke this morning, called She Dies At The End.

It would consist of a girl (and obligatory male protagonist fawning over her) surviving numerous dangerous, dramatic perils over the course of a day, the D.N.Angel Domestic Deathtrap so to speak, only to die to something random and trivial.  ‘Angst’ ensues.

After imagining such a thing, it’s somewhat ironic, then, that, when stuck at the airport, I decided to turn to this title out of the few visual novels backlogged on my DS.

For the main plot of Narcissu is essentially set up with all the bluntness of the title She Dies At The End; such ‘anticipation’, if I can call it that, has worked in the past for longer works like Shuffle or School Days, where I was spoiled of the ending is advance. But such a thing is unintentional in those cases, whereas here it is probably quite such.

In a sense it reminded me of an hour-long Aozora scene, except Misuzu marches over 900 kilometers to go die in some ocean.

Such a tactic, I wonder, if it’s really effective; yes, many of us may read a visual novel to cry or whatnot but such a goal is often secondary to others, such as becoming endeared to super-moe characters or, dare I say, reading a good story. A good story can make you cry but crying does not always make a good story.

And so I’ve probably set myself up to tear up Narcissu fairly hard, which is probably a bit far from the truth.

I will say for the most part I was nonplussed by the actual characters in the story. Rather, the undertones intrigued me, the search for meaning, a sort of existentialism in life. I know the feeling and I’m experiencing such a thing in the frame of this review, as I search for the point to Narcissu, so I can’t help but give it props there.

Likewise, I didn’t feel particularly moved by the ending to the story; it moved forward in a fairly linear fashion, and again, I must say that a strongly choreographed story does not equal a bad or uninteresting one. But for me, it must work much harder, since it does not have that shock value to work with.

Perhaps it’s a bit slice-of-life in nature, albeit more dramatic, in how the two in this story live a relatively low-key life, with little intrinsic value to anyone but themselves. Ye old paradox, whether you would rather be one to the world or the world to one; large value in small things, and whatnot.

It stirred me a bit, to see the two in this story strive to make what little mark they could, if not on the world then on each other, to creak open the door to a rusty heart. The existentialism behind it all is welcome by someone of my mindset, although it didn’t hammer me partiucular hard.

But, although I will probably forget the story after I write this blogpost, the fact is still that I’ve written a fairly substantial blogpost about Narcissu, one that’s had to be moved off MAL and onto the main blog because of that, and I think that speaks something for it.

As the writer’s note says about Narcissu, “no matter what it is that you felt, as long as you felt *something* … that is the *all* of this piece”. Since this work has made me feel something – feel a bit contemplative, feel a bit like writing, feel my creative and emotional gears churning in step – it can be considered a success.

So I shall call it as such.

-CCY