The second half of his speech had described pretty concrete situations specific only to him, but I let him continue. Pausing briefly to drink his oolong tea, Yamazaki raised his voice even higher, intoning, “In short, real women are worthless. They are incredibly close to monsters. And so …”
“So?”
“So, as erotic game creators, we have to create perfectly convenient female characters, the kind that don’t exist in reality.”
Convenient female characters…
“I mean, characters who start liking the protagonist without any real reason, ones who get close to the protagonist out of pure good will, those kinds of characters,” Yamazaki explained. “Characters without any hidden motives whatsoever, who would absolutely never betray the protagonist. The kinds of characters who could never exist in the real world.”
“If you introduce characters so far removed from actual life, won’t the overall realism of the game be compromised?”
“It doesn’t matter. Players aren’t looking for realism in erotic games. Even if we stupidly tried to introduce realism, players would just get sick of it, eventually. If someone wanted to fall in love with a realistic character, they could go speak to a real woman and not have to play erotic games.”
“I see.”
“There are still techniques you should use to create characters,” he warned.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you just stick in a regular female character and announce ‘she is a perfectly ideal heroine!’ there’s no ring of truth to that claim. You have to use strategies in terms of situational and character-based set ups to reinforce the fact that your ‘ideal heroine’ is, indeed, ideal.
“For example, one technique is to make her a childhood friend. If you make the main character’s childhood friend into a heroine, you can develop a believable bond, because they’ve been close to each other from youth. From this fantasy, you get a convincing argument for her as a perfectly convenient, ideal heroine.
“The second technique is to make her a maid. If you make a maid your heroine, then, due to the nature of her job, a master-servant relationship develops. From this fantasy, you again get a convincing argument for her as a perfectly convenient, ideal heroine.
“Finally, the third technique is to make her a robot. You make a robot into the heroine. Because robots cannot oppose humans, the sense that she cannot have ulterior motives or that she cannot betray her owner, making a convincing argument for her as a perfectly convenient, ideal—“
“B-by robots, you mean…?” I interrupted.
“I mean a regular robot. You make a robot the heroine of your erotic game.” It was a fairly surreal conversation, but Yamazaki’s expression suggested that this was all completely natural.
“In short, the main goal when creating erotic game characters is to set up a reason why the heroine cannot defy the main character. You do this when you define the initial situation. She must obey any order from the main character, she must listen, and she must love the main character unconditionally. These techniques can help you fulfill these requirements as much as possible.”
I thought it was best not to think too deeply about this.
In utter desperation, I asked, “Well, what about a classmate who is both a childhood friend and a robot maid?”
“That’s a great set up!” Yamazaki answered, a sincere look on his face.
“Well, how about the additional scenario that she was the main character’s lover in her previous life?”
“Th-that’s amazing!”
“On top of that, she’s sickly and blind and can’t speak, either. The only person she can rely on is the main character. How about that?”
“That’s absolutely perfect, isn’t it?!”
“Also, she’s got Alzheimer’s.”
“Good choice!”
“Not to mention suffering from multiple personality disorder.”
“Perfect!”
“She’s actually an alien.”
“Great!”
This discussion continued for several hours; as a result, we finally decided on the set up for the heroine of the erotic game I was to write.
“She’s the protagonist’s childhood friend as well as a robot maid. She’s blind, deaf, and sickly; on top of that, she’s an alien with Alzheimer’s and multiple personality disorder. However, she’s actually a ghost with a connection to the main character from their past lives. And her true form is really a fox spirit.”
“Wow, amazing! It’s perfect! It’s moe moe!
“Hm …”
“What is it, Satou? You can start writing the scenario right away.”
“Uh … Uh …”
“Uh?”
“How the hell can I write something like this? I’ll do it my own way!” I kicked Yamazaki and went back to my own room.
It was already two o’clock in the morning.
What the hell has happened to us? I tried worrying about this, but in the end, we were just two no-good hikikomori types, after all. I decided to continue my escape from reality.
That’s right! Speaking of escapism, the best thing would be to create an erotic game.
That’s why I’d write the scenario right away!
Part Two
Several days passed quickly.
“A journey through love and youth made by soldiers taking a stand against a giant, evil organization …” This was the story that I scribbled, as it seemed apropos. In the beginning, it went surprisingly well. The words came fluidly. I was struck by my own literary talent.
Unfortunately, I had encountered a large problem already: The story I was writing was supposed to be an erotic game scenario—and as an erotic game scenario, it needed erotic scenes. In short, to write an erotic story, I had to fully describe lewd scenes. I had to write love scenes thoroughly. It was painful. It was tragic that I, at twenty-two years of age, had to write a wanna-be erotic story. It was too painful.
I had been locked up in my room for three days.
My work was becoming extremely difficult. My scenarios weren’t even moving along at a line an hour. The vocabulary … I have no vocabulary. My brain simply wasn’t equipped with the particular metaphors used in erotic fiction. I had no idea what to do. It took forever just to choose a single word.
More than anything, it was mortifying. What in the world was I thinking, writing such embarrassing sentences? There’s a limit even to escapism. I’d blush, sitting alone in my dark room. My heart would race, I’d break into a cold sweat, my fingers would stop on the keyboard as I typed…. I couldn’t take it any longer. I didn’t want to write erotic scenarios.
Man, I was sick of it. Really, truly sick of it.
I screwed up all my courage, though, and built sentences with the entire focus of my being because I feared that the second I stopped writing the erotic game, the real problems I desperately was trying to ignore would come back in full force. I would have to look straight at the painful truth, and that would be no good. It would, in fact, be bad.
That’s why I used the France Shoin[23] books I had bought as examples as I focused on writing the scenarios. Look for the right vocabulary! Find the metaphor! It was a tiring ordeal. I’d write and delete … Write and delete. My brain was about to unhinge.
“The man unzips his pants and drops his jeans to his knees.”
“Ah, ah, oh no!”
“Sister, sister, sister!”
“And her soft breasts …”
“… beating off…”
No good. Delete.
“Swollen.”
No. Delete.
“It rose high in a manly way.”
Wrong! Delete, delete!
“Piercing the sky.”
Are you kidding?! Delete, delete, delete!
“Soaking wet.”
Wrong!
“Salmon pink.”
I said, ‘wrong!’
“Shining wetly.”
No!
“Stuck wetly to t
he lower abdomen.”
Stop it!
“Slimy.”
No more!
“Heartbeat.”
I can’t take any more!
“The labia.”
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Shell pink.”
I said, ‘what’s wrong with me?’
“Milky white.”
What’s wrong with me…?
“Small breasts …”
“… fresh and young …”
“… sweating …”
“… harder …”
“N-no!”
“… sweet sigh …”
“… rubbing up against her …”
“… slightly pointed …”
Other words came to me: “grope” … “undulation” … “insertion” … “hips” … “from her lips” … “grinding” … “sweet” … “like a kitten” … “female body” … “tensed” …
What’s wrong with me…?
“Swollen” … “to the crotch” … “cute” … “urgent” … “hardened” … “light pink” … “want to see” … “okay, it’s fine” … “completely naked” … “nothing left covering her” … “an oval-shaped stain” … “mound” … “slit” …
No more.
“Right below the belly button” … “the private parts” … “make your chest pound” …
I’m done for.
“Swollen” … “breathing quietly” … “simple” … “the bush” … “overflowing honey” … “with her pointer finger” … “it’s almost like you wet yourself” … “impatiently” … “indecent” … “of the membrane” …
What about my life…?
“Swollen” … “piston” … “vulgar” … “crack” …
I can’t see my future.
“Swollen” … “sticky sound” … “wet” … “hot” … “mire” … “plunge in” … “foreskin” … “soft flesh” … “blushing just a little” … “licentious” …
It’s better if I just die.
“Swollen” … “swollen” … “piercing the sky” … “rising high.”
“Swollen” … “swollen” … “swollen” … “swollen” … “swollen!”
AHHHHHH!
I scratched my head.
Delete all, delete all, delete all…
Using a France Shoin book as a model was a mistake from the start. When fiction becomes the reference for fiction, it’s natural that the descriptions get stranger and stranger. I felt like I was going crazy.
I’m okay. Calm down.
Taking a deep breath to soothe myself, I decided to start over from the beginning, using my own real experiences for reference. If I did that, I should be able to draw realistic erotic scenes based on my own nonfiction experiences.
Real experiences, real experiences…
When it came to real-life experiences I could use in an erotic game; I had no choice but to think far back into the past. I needed to remember that distant time, five years earlier … that fun time from five years ago … my high school years.
I closed my eyes and thought back. Doing so, I soon realized that those memories would move in an emotionally difficult direction. I hurriedly opened my eyes and tried to stop thinking about it. However, the vector of my thoughts, once given a direction, could no longer be stopped.
***
My bright, optimistic high school years … my refreshing youth.
“High school” suggests slightly bitter romances, and society generally agrees with this conventional wisdom. I, too, had been in a romance; every day had been filled with excitement, like in a love simulation game. For example, I had liked that older girl in my literary club.
As might be expected from someone in the literary club, she was quite an avid reader. Because of that, she was a huge idiot. She once read The Complete Manual of Suicide in front of me.
I had thought, You should stop because that kind of behavior is unbecoming. You’re cute, so why can’t you just act normally?
The girl hadn’t shown any sign of noticing at all.
“Why are you reading that book?” I asked her, feeling I had no choice.
Laughing self-consciously, she answered, “Don’t you think that suicide seems kind of cool?” At the time, she’d just had a terrible breakup with her boyfriend, and she seemed depressed over it.
“Hey, Satou. What do you think of people who commit suicide?” She’d asked me.
“I guess it’s all right, isn’t it? If people want to commit suicide, I guess they ought to be free to do so. It’s probably not right for others to judge.”
“Hm.” She didn’t seem impressed by my boring answer; as though deflated, she dropped her eyes once more to the book on her lap.
After school, on another day, just when I had gotten sick of playing cards with her, she said, “Hey.”
“What?”
“Satou, after all this time, if I died or something, would you be sad?” No matter how I’ve tried, I cannot remember how I answered that sudden question. All I remember clearly is that several days later, she came to school with white bandages wrapped around her slender wrists.
Come on, give me a break. I have no idea how serious you were about wanting to die, but you should at least be a little embarrassed by this melodrama.
“You’re not just a stupid middle school girl.”
She replied, “Because I’m a stupid high school girl.”
She was the kind of girl who openly said this sort of thing, even though she wanted to go to the highly competitive Waseda University. Proudly, she’d drop non sequiturs like, “By the way, our problem is that there are no villains anywhere.”
She continued her explanation. "Nobody is to blame. Not Mizuguchi from the basketball team, or me, or you, Satou—none of us is to blame. For some reason, all sorts of things seem to be heading in a bad direction. It’s strange.”
“The only strange thing is your mind.”
“Don’t say such a cold thing to a girl who just got out of the emergency room. By the way, Satou, did you notice that even though none of it’s our fault, a lot of casually painful things happen all around us? It’s because a huge organization is planning a terrible conspiracy against us.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“It’s true. A little bird told me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She was the kind of girl who liked to pretend she was crazy. Despite that—and because she was beautiful—I liked her.
A few days before graduation, she even let me do her once.
It moved me deeply to think that the payoff for having kept on her good side over two whole years was that one single act. It was randomly exciting, yet it was also sad. In the end, I was able to do it just that once.
I felt like I should have done it a few more times. But then, I also felt that it might have been better for me not to have done it even that one time. I wondered which would have been right.
Ahhh …
At a trendy cafe in Shibuya, I asked her, “Well, what do you think?” It was the first time I’d seen her in several years.
The previous Sunday, without any warning whatsoever, I had gotten a phone call. “Let’s get together,” she’d said.
I left the house without worrying about it.
We were to meet in front of the Moai Statue. It was a bit touristy, but as we were from another town, there wasn’t any real problem. As soon as we greeted each other, the girl said, “I called your family home, Satou, to try and get your current contact information, but your mom mistook me for a salesman and was suspicious of me.”
“Oh yeah, that happens a lot. Those solicitors pretend to be a classmate when they’re trying to collect a register of names….” It was kind of depressing that after not seeing each other for several years, this was our first discussion.
My memories hadn’t deceived me: She really was cute, after all. And so, I was a bit nervous. In addition, I suffered from the fear of eye contact and agoraphobia
—neuroses peculiar to hikikomori. Even after entering the cafe, I couldn’t stop sweating.
Seated against the window, the girl stirred her ice coffee with a straw. “Satou, what are you doing now?”
I answered truthfully, without hiding anything. I had a smile on my face.
She laughed. “I predicted that you might end up like this.”
“Oh, I’ve currently been shut in for four years,” I bragged. “I’m a professional hikikomori!”
“Even now, you have trouble going outside?”
I nodded.
“Well then, I have something that’ll be good for you.”
The girl withdrew what looked to be a pill box from her small bag and handed me some capsules. “This is Ritalin.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a drug that’s kind of related to stimulants. It really, really works. With this, you can be full of energy whenever you want!”
She was still a strange person, even after all this time. Evidently, she was seeing about three psychiatrists. Even so, her thoughtfulness pleased me, so I took one of the questionable pills gratefully.
After that, I became energetic. In fact, we exchanged an unnecessarily upbeat conversation.
“You were so normal during our high school years, Satou … Well, no, I guess not.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“I’m unemployed.”
“You graduated from college, right?”
“I did, but now I’m unemployed. I’ll become a housewife soon, though.”
“Hm, you’re getting married?” A young wife of twenty-four. Moe moe…
“You’re surprised?”
“In a way.”
“You’re sad?”
“Not at all.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think?”
We left the cafe. The girl skipped around me, laughing brightly.
Then, she said, “I’m really happy right now.”
She boasted that she was marrying a hard-working, national government employee who was rich and, at the same time, good looking. Basically, she was marrying the best person possible!
Welcome to the NHK! Page 8
