Visual Novels

A couple of months ago I started playing visual novels, the free ones you can get from the internet, I gotta say that I'm addicted to them now. The first one I played was Katawa Shoujo and it was brilliant, I heard it was good beforehand but I was a bit sceptical because I knew it was an erotic game. I thought I'd give it a try and my was I surprised. The story was brilliant (There are 5 story arcs if I'm not mistaken) and perhaps most surprisingly of all the sex scenes actually meant something, they were productive to the narrative. This VN is about 5 different women whom you can form a relationship with, however this all takes place in a school specifically for disabled students. One girl has no arms, one girl has no legs, one girl is blind, one girl is deaf and one girl has half of her body scarred from burns.

The 5 main girls you can form relationships with from left to right: Lilly who is blind, Hanako who has severe burns covering her body, Rin who has no arms, Shizune who is deaf and Emi who has no legs

It's really interesting learning about how the characters cope with their disabilities and how it's quite easy to forget the characters even have them. In other words it makes you to not identify these girls by their disabilities but identify them for who they actually are in regards to their personalities. It's not for everyone and remember if you don't know already VN's basically have no gameplay, you can make choices in some but that's it.

A still from Katawa Shoujo: Lilly a blind girl, feeling Hisao's face.

 Here's a list of the VNs that I've enjoyed so far, they're all free (except for analogue) and you can download them from their respective websites.

Katawa Shoujo:
http://katawa-shoujo.com/

Digital: a love story:
http://scoutshonour.com/digital/

Analogue: a hate story:
http://ahatestory.com/

dont take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story:
http://scoutshonour.com/donttakeitpersonallybabeitjustaintyourstory/

I'm hoping that I'll make my own soon, once I learn how to draw.

Katawa Shoujo: Lilly and Hisao embrace each other

Let's begin

So here I am writing my first blog. I'm gonna talk mostly about anime I suppose, I'm not hugely knowledgeable about it but I have the passion. I'll also be writing about video games too, mainly, PS3 games as well as those which are available for mac. On top of that I want to write about other general Otaku stuff too and before anyone asks yes I know Otaku is considered an insult in Japan and that it's not good at all to be labelled as such there. However when I say Otaku I mean the western interpretation as someone who's just passionate about anime, manga and Japanese stuff in general. Also why ninjawhale? I honestly don't know I just threw two words together and that's what I got. I chose Waku because it sounds the same as Wakō which is a type of Japanese pirate I believe. Anyway that's all I've got to say for the moment so keep watching this space and I'll try and deliver a "not shit" blog :) ugh I hate smileys