After the episode we had last time, it’s only fitting that this episode is more down to earth. Don’t want to burn out the staff animating action scenes like that every week. So this week we have our protagonist and antagonist sitting at a table to have a little chat. In that regard it’s nice to get to know Reinhard and his general demeanour of arrogance. But unlike Gilgamesh, he doesn’t belittle his opponents. Frankly Reinhard wants Ren to put up a fight, to push him to use his full power so that he can feel alive. For Reinhard is suffering from the same thing that Shirou is suffering from, a constant sense of deja vu.(Or foreknowledge if you prefer. People get huffy about them not being the same but the general rundown is people feeling like they have been through something before and thus it feels trivial and routine.) It’s amusing to see Reinhard have the complete upper hand and yet just give back Marie after Ren declares he will kill him. From this talk we learn a few things. That Reinhard is looking to remodel the world into something fulfilling to concur and he requires eight swastika’s to be released around the city. A city which was apparently constructed for the sole purpose of being sacrificed to Reinhard. And that Mercurius is the being who gave Reinhard the power and drive to do all of this.
Now to address the line likely to have raised a few eyebrows which is where Rea asks Ren to either rape her or kill her. So first off you cannot ask someone to rape you, because asking them to do it is giving consent and it’s not rape if you consent to it. If he was assaulting you against your will, then it’s rape. Basically you are asking him to sleep with you, not rape you. Secondly, this out of nowhere request actually has some logic behind it, flimsy though it may be. Basically in order for Reinhard’s plans to succeed, Rea needs to be alive and a virgin. Though the second aspect, unknown to Rea, isn’t really needed. Now i will need to go on a tangent here to explain this scene better but let me begin by stating that it is a common misconception among the anime community to consider Visual Novels, eroge and Dating sims to be different words for the same thing. This is not the case as Dating Sims are more stat focused games about dating girls. Eroge stands for erotic game and pretty much stands for any game featuring erotic content. Visual novels can sometimes fall into this category though the level of erotic content varies between games. For example, DangonRonpa qualifies as a visual Novel but it isn’t a eroge. Whereas Huniepop qualifies as a dating sim and a eroge but not a visual novel. It can get murky due to the terms vagueness but the terms are not mutually exclusive. Now where Dies Irae comes into this is that the game is technically an Eroge but primarily a Visual Novel. But the only reason it can be considered a Eroge is because sex scenes were crowbarred into the story because of a strange obligation in the VN industry.
This is something somewhat influenced by Fate/Stay Night which originally wasn’t going to have erotic content but Type Moon thought that the game wouldn’t sell unless it had erotic content. It was a huge success and thus from that point forward all visual novels crowbarred sex scenes into their narratives. You can always tell when these scenes come in because they are jarring and sudden. Often bringing with it a serious downgrade in writing quality. So with this we finally get to Rea’s abrupt “Bang me or kill me” request. Here’s the thing, this part featured a sex scene, or at least I assume as I played the all ages version of Dies Irae.(Some of you may call blasphemy on that but hey, I ain’t waiting months for a adult patch to come out. Besides I don’t even care about sex scenes and truly didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything) As such the script demands sex, so sex must happen. Logic or proper timing be damned. And it is these things that makes it awkward to recommend visual novels to others. Well line aside i felt the whole heart to heart here was falling a bit flat, with Rea and Ren relating their similar feeling that they somehow both knew that this event would happen, and lament the loss of their ordinary life. It’s just…I don’t really care about these two. I have said it before but I find the protagonist side of this story to be quite underwhelming. As a last note, Marie is back and after getting stabbed in the chest she had upgraded her emotional range from innocent puppy to moeblob waifu. Sigh…such a pity that a lackluster character should have such an appealing design.
“And it is these things that makes it awkward to recommend visual novels to others.”
My sentiments exactly.
A real shame as VNs can provide for (if not the) most immersive experiences, marrying the strengths of both books and video games. Yet they close themselves up from wider audience by stigmatizing themselves with erotic content. Even worse, the offenders give rise to generalizations about the entire medium as well as keep proliferating this stupidity.
“Pity that a lackluster character should have such an appealing design.”
Design sells. It it, after all, on the cover (and blog screenshots).
The worst part? Nobody can avoid this cheap trick, because in order to find out if the characterization matches the design, one has to consume the work, at which point it is already too late – the strategy worked.
Trust me – I’ve watched a single episode of this anime only because of the design of Marie’s character (only to be stabbed with an incredibly cold and soulless knife).
I’m getting better at not falling for it, but it will happen again…
All Ages versions are becoming more common. Though for most Visual novel fans they utterly despise the idea of All ages versions. I can somewhat understand the idea of being annoyed about having content removed from a game as you feel like you aren’t getting the full experience. But I can count on one hand how many Visual novels sex scenes I have read that actually added to a story. There are actually quite a number of VNs which actually benefit from having them removed. But you can argue that with people till you are blue in the face and they still shout “CENSORSHIP”. I suppose having the option is enough to calm people down, but it’s never what I read VNs for.
Yep, I would be lying if I said that 2Bs design wasn’t part of the reason I checked out Nier Automata. And much like Marie here, she turned out to have a lacking personality as well.
Yeah, I dare to question the purpose of sex even in games such as Saya no Uta or Muv Luv Alternative.
That rings a bell. I too do not want unnecessary sexual content in VNs, but I would rather play through it to the detriment of my experience than skip or remove that part. Something about ‘purity’ of experience and artistic ‘intentions’. I know it makes no sense, but still… I’ll settle for OCD if you want to call it such.
Funny you mention Nier, once I saw the designs I wanted to play it so badly. I still haven’t, but I simply must… The invisible hand is pulling me again. I know there are other reason to play this game, but it wont change the fact that my strongest impulse to play is the least bit interesting.
PS: It really surprised me to see sex in Ef Tale of the Two, particularly with Chihiro. And to hear the F word coming out of Yuuko’s innocent mouth (not once) – it would be naive to attribute that to mistranslation, wouldn’t it?
Compared to the anime, it felt like the novel pushed for more realistic relationships and less idealization (Yuuko was much less sacred in the VN), but I felt like it was out of place regardless.