I’ve been involved with visual novels and eroge for a long time, all the way back from 1995. It was an exciting time when the world was buzzing with energy and future potential thanks to the Internet, and online interest in anime, hentai and JAV culture had never been higher. I decided what I wanted to do something with those crazy PC dating-sim games (also called “gal games” back then), which people liked so much they were willing to play them in Japanese, wildly clicking around until a pair of boobs appeared on-screen. If fans could play these games properly, licensed from the Japanese game companies and translated into English, they could enjoy them even more, and this idea would eventually become JAST USA. What I didn’t know was that translating and editing visual novels for so many years would change how I perceived my world forever.
First came the hyper-awareness of “choice-points.” In VNs, they’re the decisions you make that cause the story to branch off in a new direction, and whenever I’d encounter one of these choices in my own life — what school to send my kids to, what car to buy, what investments to make, where to go on vacation — I’d become super aware that my life would take a new route based on what choice I made. If I make good choices, I’ll experience certain “event scenes” such as visiting my son’s school culture festival, taking a trip to the beach, visiting a Shinto shrine on the first day of the New Year with my family and so on, and I find myself being conscious when one of these life events occurs.
Then there are “event flags,” which in the context of visual novels are variables that get set if you do a certain thing by a certain time. Choose to eat lunch with girl A at least six times, and her “romance flag” will be set, allowing you to confess to her. Say the wrong thing to girl B, and you’ll lose the ability to progress with her for the rest of the game. I notice these event flags in my own life, sometimes. Especially if I screw something up with Mrs J-List, receiving a “death flag event” and am in the dog house until she stops being mad.
One anime that deconstructs visual novel and eroge culture is My Sister, My Writer. In one scene, an illustrator with the rather creative name of Ahegao W Peace seeks to cause a “sun oil event” by having the main character put sunscreen on all the female characters, to create a sexy situation she can observe to improve her skills as an artist. Naturally, things get out of hand, leading to a “shower scene with younger sister event” instead.
