When people talk about Japanese 18+ visual novels, they immediately associate them with sensational anime porns or splattered guts. But to me, it’s the stories that haunt me more.
Surprise surprise. The first 18+ visual novel I played is not any from the second-to-none Fate series. To be honest, I have never played the Fate series. I watched the anime though. The anime is good. It is an enjoyable watch even without the sexy scenes. The way how the anime is made suitable for all ages makes me question the necessity of sexual scenes in the original game somehow (I know, to attend to the male audience right?).
▼ The original Fate/stay night
With that being said, the 18+ visual novels that leave an impact in my life are those where 18+ elements are deemed necessary. These elements, be it nudity or gore, reflect the themes that are meant to educate players or to mock a certain phenomenon on a certain level. They are more than just something for leisure and pleasure.
Erotic games have existed for a long time, but it is only the 90s that erotic visual novel became truly popular. As for erotic horror visual novels, it began becoming a trend in the late 90s assumably after Leaf released Shizuku in 1996. Shizuku only has some slight gore, but still, such “modest” bloody scenes acted as a milestone in the erotic game market at that time.
▼ Shizuku’s gore scene hardly scares anyone
However, as I get to know more and more 18+ visual novels, I realize that Shizuku was probably not the main reason behind this shift in trend.
The one thing that is very common in erotic horror visual novels is the mention of cults. When I witnessed all those girls and boys having sex in a cult under the influence of drugs, “training” or whatever tough measures in Fraternite, Euphoria and many other games, I thought the idea of strange religion seemed to conveniently explain the absurd orgy and the deaths that came later. Yet, some history classes at school made me go “aha” – it is convenient because it is a big big scar that no one ever forgets.
In the 90s, Japanese lived in the constant fear of being killed or harmed – all because of a cult called Aum Shinrikyo. The leader Shoko Asahara claimed he had occult powers and once attracted about 15,000 members to join him. Not only did he imprison, physically abuse (he made a doctrine that enabled him to have sex with all pupils) and drug his followers to brainwash them, he also killed those who betrayed or threatened him. It was the cult’s multiple sarin gas attacks on busy trains that left the Japanese scarred for life. The 90s was possibly the darkest time in post war Japan.
▼ Shoko Asahara even made it to Time’s cover once (source: Time)
Perhaps it was this true horror that leads to the blooming of erotic horror visual novels. None of the producers have ever said (or dare to admit) “we are inspired by Aum Shinrikyo”, but still upon learning this fact I felt sorry to have enjoyed playing such games and found the story fun to read, for it must have impacted them so much that they even thought about crazy murderous cults when they needed to make a game.
And even today, many strange mysterious religions are still thriving and worrying Japanese.
▼ Tokyo Ghoul’s actress quit acting for a cult called Happy Science
Another thing that cannot be avoided in erotic horror games is to deal the subject of morality. Erotic games are only called “erotic” or in Japanese “hentai” because they are ethically questionable and deviate from the social norm. These deviations are necessary. They put us in a first-person scenario that we never get to experience. They make us realize something that we never get to realize.
People who have never played 18+ visual novels will understand this feeling much better if they have played the erotic horror title Saya no Uta. The protagonist Fuminori wakes up to a gross fleshy world filled with gross fleshy walking meats that are actually humans while everybody else stays the same. When he is going insane, thinking that he will never see the world differently again, he meets Saya, an innocent looking girl who is, in fact, a Cthulhu-like monster in others’ eyes. She is his relief – both mentally and physically. She is the only thing he can hold on to in this disgusting world.
▼ Saya and the world in Fuminori’s perspective
What’s described above is a point that players tend to miss like I did when they first play this game. As the story progressed, I began putting pieces together.
1) A girl goes to Fuminori’s place only to become food for Saya. Fuminori unknowingly eats the guts because they look like normal food in his eyes.
2) When Fuminori’s neighbor gets the same vision likes Fuminori does, he is so scared that he kills his wife and daughter because they look like flesh. Then he meets Saya, the only pretty thing in this world, he gets attached to her fast and rapes her before getting killed by an angry Fuminori.
3) Saya turned a girl into a monster that does not attack anyone. The girl’s friend shoots her and beats her to death despite knowing that she is someone he knows.
This is obvious. It’s all about appearance. All humans in this game get deceived by appearance.
What’s more ironic is, we cannot really blame Saya for what she does. She is a monster that acts on her instincts after all.
The explicit depictions of sex and gore in this game make humans, who are supposed to be intelligent, look desperate and hopeless. The word “explicit” is not quite right. “Realistic” should be the right word. The fact is, we human beings will most likely to resort to violence and sex if things like the above happen in real life.
Let me list a few more down-to-earth examples: Kara no Shoji, a game where stubbornness can either make a girl loses all her limbs or dies, and School Days, a game where a girlfriend chops off the head of a womanizer who sleeps with multiple girls, or in Night Shift Nurse where it explores the theme of Stockholm Syndrome and uh, consuming faeces in SM.
▼ School Days has an anime series as well
Extreme ideas, for example, hanging a girl on a gate by letting the spikes pierce through her eyes after she has sex, must be inspired by something that has once happened. It’s not like after Shizuku every developer could all suddenly think of an extraordinary way to kill off a character. We are talking about Japan here, where many true events of gross and mysterious grotesque killing exist (mostly after the 80s and especially in the 90s and early 00s). It’s only natural that game makers make references to what they know or what they find worrying.
▼ One of the strangest murders mentioned here
My point is, all these sex and gore scenes REALLY show the worst of us, the human beings, without any censorship. They present the true yet cruel facts about the degeneration of morality to us. They are not just for leisure and pleasure. In fact, I did not get any pleasure. I was gross out most of the time.
Or they are meant to reflect the situation in modern Japan and their values. If I have to go on about this stuff with facts and statistics, I will have to write another long essay that is actually a part of Japanese sociology study.
I am not here to defend these games and tell people about how they bless the world. I am here to say that ethically questionable games exist for a reason. They are a mirror. They are our reflection. They are the dirty-minded, barbaric side that is hidden deep inside our society.
They are, to be honest, worth playing.
The next time you play some 18+ visual novels, I hope you learn more than just sex and body parts.