A Second Look at the Eroge Adaptation
My first post on BtNHRV was centered around the eroge adaptation. More than a year has passed since then; being older, wiser (hopefully), and having played more eroge than ever, I feel as if I should revisit the subject again, as the near-absolute failure of the sub-genre perplexes me.
Before we begin, I realize that the term “eroge” is about as broad as the term “anime.” For the purposes of this article, I’ll define “eroge” more closely to “galge” as opposed to “a game with porn,” that is, a romance-themed visual novel, not a sex simulator.
There are a few main issues that uniquely challenge the plot integrity of an eroge adaptation. If one considers the intent of an eroge, these issues become quite clear. For one, an eroge, at its most basic level, requires a fair degree of player interactivity. A player is presented with a colorful palette of characters, from which he is to chose one heroine. Players are punished, sometimes extremely harshly (e.g., School Days), for failure to adhere to golden rule #1 of eroge: chase one skirt at a time.
Here we find the first major roadblock to an eroge-based anime: there can only be one end. Whose skirt to chase? Usually, the animators go with the most vanilla choice: whoever the main heroine is, the protagonist will end up dating. While many people (people like me) absolutely despise the main heroine, we can only sit and begrudgingly watch and accept.
Yet, animators find it often necessary to taunt people like me by inserting episodes here and there that were derived from the scenarios of side characters. I question this practice, mainly because it’s often done in an extremely awful manner. Looking back at most of the eroge adaptations I’ve watched, I’ve come to the conclusion that the side characters serve almost no purpose. Little hints of relationships are dropped here and there, yet these relationships are doomed to never materialize. Thus, these side episodes turn out to be nothing more than a waste of time for the viewer and a waste of energy for animators. I’d much rather watch a series that’s focused, even if it involves a character I don’t particularly care for (e.g., Yuuhi from Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka, but I’ll get to her later) as opposed to running around trying to get a little bit of everything.
Perhaps because of this, or perhaps despite the attempt to cover everyone just a little bit, eroge heroines are often extremely dull. Frequently, they become cookie-cutter stereotypes of large, overarching tropes. Look at Romasaka. Yuuhi’s the tsundere, Minato, the younger sister; Tsukasa, the busty old friend… the list goes on and on. In reality, each character was significantly more interesting in the game… but why did they turn out to be such boring blobs of generic moe (dubious moe, at that) in the anime?
Animation studios pander to the tastes of otaku fanboys. The target audience for an eroge adaptation is markedly different from the target audience of a shounen anime or even a regular romance. Sometimes, I get the feeling that studios feel obligated to try and jam in character tropes and extrapolate them to infinity for the sake of moe fanboys. Take a tsundere, and magnify it 10,000 times; there you have a fitting heroine for an eroge adaptation. No thank you.
The fact of the matter is, everyone’s moe is different. That’s why we get to choose who to chase in an eroge, right? There’s no need, in my mind, to pander to all of us. Make one group of fans happy; I think having a clear heroine in a story is never a bad thing. After all, how can one write a coherent plot when one can’t decide who the leading characters are? In eroge, each character’s scenario branches off (usually around the 1/3rd point of the game) and we see very little of the supporting cast during the rest of the game. This allows time to fully develop the romance in a believable fashion.
Here we have the second flaw to almost all eroge adaptations. I simply don’t buy the romance at all. It feels contrived, obvious and forced. Pacing is clearly an issue; a romance that should take half or all of the series to fully develop ends up usually taking only 1/3rd or, god forbid, even less time to play out (I’m looking at you, Romasaka). The rest of the time was wasted on filler.
So in the end, it seems the failure of the genre rests mostly on time allocation and characterization. Rather inexcusible, seeing as how most of the games that get an anime adaptation have fairly good writing. When I played Romasaka, I totally fell in love with the characters and their quirkyness. Not when I watched the anime; the execution was simply too hurried and too flawed. Animation studios want a little bit of everything, but end up taking too much time dabbling here and there with ultimately useless details. Oh well.
If we look at the eroge adaptation genre’s major success, ef ~a tale of memories~, we can see clearly that ef did exactly what I believe an eroge adaptation should do: stay focused on one character, and not waste time on filler. We all knew 10 seconds into episode 1 that Miyako and Hiro were made for each other. No doubt. No hints here and there of a relationship with Mizuki or Kei, even though both characters show up as the supporting cast in Hiro’s story. We all knew Kei was destined to be dumped, and SHAFT kept the main characters in the spotlight the whole time, leaving no doubt in our minds that Kei was nothing more than a plot device. Same for Renji and Chihiro, but those two existed in even more of a vacuum. There was no one else other than them. Their romance got the full treatment it deserved, and it turned out being absolutely beautiful.
A last note: I do wish that eroge adaptations would keep the original voice cast. ef did so; it paid off. Not like eroge seiyuu don’t do normal anime work… plus, wouldn’t the original voice cast understand their characters better, anyways?
Comments are very appreciated; I would love to hear your opinions on this issue. As an eroge player and an anime viewer, I would love to see a marked improvement in quality in this particular sub-genre.
Extra Credit: Attempt to guess my favorite Romasaka character. >_>
For all you Nagomi, Mitsuki and Tsukasa fans out there, a translation’s coming… just kidding.
Favourite Akasaka character? Would you be offended if I guessed Nagomi? Hmm… well, from my review, you could probably guess my favourite was Karen, with second place going to Mitsuki. Karen might have been stupid, but at least she was funny. Out of the main love triangle, Yuuhi won by default because I thought Minato was dull as a doorknob. Guessing your favourite character, Tsukasa is plausible, but for some reason I can’t see you being a Tsukasa fan. So I’m gonna guess Mitsuki. That’s my final answer, so lock it in.
ef worked because it had multiple male leads, I think, which was pretty “new” for its time. The challenge with trying to adapt VNs is trying to turn all the multiple paths into a linear story. ef had the advantage of being a linear story to begin with.
I think KyoAni still do the visual novel conversion better than most with the Key adaptations, because they have such a strict modular style. Three or four episodes dedicated to one story path, three or four episodes dedicated to the next. Admittedly they have to cut a lot out, especially the romance related stuff if it’s a character the lead doesn’t have a romantic interest in in the anime, but KyoAni seem to put a lot of effort into thinking about how to weave the story arcs together without introducing a whole heap of loose ends or it feeling like they’re giving a side character the focus for the sake of pleasing (read: teasing) game fans. Then again, they did come dangerously close to doing just that with how they dealt with Kyou in Clannad.
“While many people (people like me) absolutely despise the main heroine, we can only sit and begrudgingly watch and accept.”
Exactly how I felt watching Clannad.
Well, the reason why I can stand – and often enjoy – a lot of eroge adaptations is because I never view them like other anime. Instead of seeing the show as a single, coherent plot, I try to view it as an animated version of the game. Many of them end up being worse than the games for the reasons you already outlines, but the problem of predictability or lack of realism don’t bother me because I don’t expect the stories to be realistic. For example, I actually liked how the Shuffle anime played out because instead of trying to make the story seem logical, they simply went and animated each of the arcs. I wouldn’t watch a show like that and expect deep romance; I’m only watching it because I can’t read Japanese and the game isn’t translated.
That said, I agree with your reasons for why ef worked out, and I think the same can be said for the Key anime. They drift here and there to cover the side characters, but none of it feels like filler (unlike most of the genre).