If Saya was actually way more intelligent and calculating than she lets herself look, at least to Fuminori, chances are she was using the incident with the neighbor to advance romantically with Fuminori, as she probably saw in books how the instinct to protect is close related with the one to love. Or is a plothole, the simple answer is often the correct one
Oooo that’d be interesting but then why not just fabricate a story? Or better yet time it right where fuminori would arrive to rescue her? To me I would take an opposite approach and actually suggest saya didn’t think it through and comepltely forgot she can defend herself from the sheer shock of the situation having been the only time where she’s deliberately exposed herself and has never been actually attacked or overpowered before
@@cronchulus5489 yea lol saya basically says this explicitly. i remember her saying that every other time shes attacked someone, they've been too scared by her appearance to put up resistance. so this is her first time in a situation like that.
Saya No Uta is how one person commented. “It’s the most beautiful yet disgusting piece of work I’ve ever seen. It’s a disgustingly beautiful masterpiece.” I can agree with that comment.
This game sounds very similar to the anime Blood+ The main character's name is Saya. She's not human but rather a type of vampire. She has a twin named Diva (who is more like the Saya of this game) her end goal is to be loved and have a family. Diva ends up graping someone. Steals their "DNA" and gives birth. That's all I can remember off the top of my head. The anime came out in the early 2000s.
@@kuro_emiya I think urobuchi ripped off the creator of Blood+. They have older works called Blood: the Last Vampire with an MC called Saya. I haven't watched it so I don't know what else was inspired by that work but it looks like Urobuchi definitely had his eye on copying the series for a while.
Saya no uta holds a very special place in my heart. You’re absolutely right about it being a product of morbid curiosity, but as someone who’s experienced trauma it almost feels like a safety blanket. It’s terrible awful and I couldn’t imagine having to deal with such a reality, but it’s one that tells a story that I can relate to. Alienation, inability to connect to others, struggling to explain why so many “normal” things are so foreign. that finding one singular thing in the universe that makes you happy can make existence worthwhile (or at least tolerable. Saya no uta is great horror, as disgusting as it, and while hard to recommend, i think the people who can stomach it can find something they enjoy
I think Saya no Uta is a story about something beautiful inside something horrible. Saya inside Fuminoris Nightmare. Flashes of Humanity in Fuminoris Madness. In some way its like Ikebana, whereas you choose your center piece and build around it to heighten its beauty. You have something beautiful and then build around it the horrors of humanity. Despite its fucked up scenes, I still think that SnU harbors a very beautiful story at its core and I'm glad I played it back in like 2006 or something.
Knowing the true ending, can you really say saya is a horrible person? Is the lion horrible for eating the zebra? Fumi is definitely a horrible person but Saya had her job to do, what she was meant to do. My big question is was Saya just manipulating Fuminori the whole time to get to her goals. To acquire DNA and spread a plague across the world. It explains things like why she didn't fight back against the neighbor. She was acquiring DNA and also she wasn't in any real danger. Fumi shows up, saves the day, and gets manipulated harder. Saya states that her body is stupidly resistant to damage and the fact she has super intelligence means she's probably always 15 steps ahead of everyone. She's an interdimensional being so why would she have empathy for humanity. Especially since she was going to spore cloud the world. Fumi's death is inevitable. If she truly cared she could have not sprouted or stopped whatever the hell she was doing. The only counter to this is the first ending. Also it has all those sex scenes because that seems to just be how VN are. New writer and first project? Sell it on the titties. Also the doctor is, and always will be, best girl. As soon as she whips out the sawn off I knee she was the one.
This is giving me the same sort of vibes as Selene: Apoptosis. That game got me into the grimmer style of visual novels and allowed me to start taking them more seriously as a horror medium. I'll definitely be taking a closer look at Song of Saya when I get a chance. I also really wanted to thank you for the work you put into these videos. I found your channel during one of the rare times when TH-cam starts recommending smaller creators to me, and I'm glad I did. I'm always really happy to see a new Haedal video.
The web serial Worm by Wildbow is technically a deconstruction of superhero fiction but it works very well as cosmic horror that deals with similar themes as Song of Saya. It's plenty grim, violent, and depressing on its own but I still highly recommend it if you're a fan of fiction like this.
I never really thought it as a direct deconstruction but more like the author wanted to make a world with superheroes that made coherent sense and it kind of went off the rails.
I have to give it to the author that this story does sort of "seciate" my morbid curiosity. Even though i doubt i'd feel comftrable playing trough vn's like this myself, i do think stories like this can have some intresting aspects to them and hearing them in a format like this makes them actually stomachable for me. Needless to say, you did a great job covering this!
Great videos. I enjoyed this a lot. I read to the blooms ending and that was enough for me. My biggest gripe with the story is that I didn't connect with the characters prior to everything going to hell. It drops us right into that world where Fuminori is already fubar. If we had known him before the accident, I think it would have hit a lot harder. But it is still an interesting story.
I think that's called "in medias res". I love how Song of Saya's story cuts right to the action. "Drama is life with all the boring bits cut out," after all.
@@Vecchio_Rhosod85 I'm glad you had a better experience of the story than I did. I don't find slice of life scenes boring if the characters are compelling. I've come to appreciate them more as I've read a few longer VNs. Maybe you haven't read any with good character writing? I think we just look for different things in a story. What did you enjoy most about Saya no Uta? Was there anything you didn't like?
@@Christopherjazzcat "What did you enjoy most about Saya no Uta?" It's actually three or four stories in one: We have the story of a man whose mental trauma (and probably also his medical treatment afterward, by design) has mentally isolated him from the world although he still keeps going through the motions even though it's just all Hell to him, trapped in a vicious cycle where even the attempts of his friends to reach out to him and support him shove him further into his internal isolation that he's got to keep a happy, functional, mask over - which his friends recognize and try to reach out further to, which drives him further into his shell, and etc. You see the pattern here. This is ...actually a pretty accurate description of how it feels to be trapped in any one of a number of mental disorders: there's just a point at which although the thing you need most in the world is positive human contact (and probably the right meds), that is the thing you want the least, because your self-care and diet has collapsed to the point you're afraid of ridicule about the obvious visual fact that you're neglecting very basic hygiene, food is no longer appetizing to you and you have to force yourself to eat it merely to survive (and depending on what exactly's going on, the very thought of eating may nauseate you and you might have to be very careful about what and when you eat so you don't just puke it up), and yet you still have to put on at least a reasonably "I'm ok, I promise" mask to even people who are legitimately trying to help, even though all you want to do is lock yourself in a room and wait for the end. You usually see the world differently than everyone around you, from relatively mild things to full-blown delusional schizophrenia. I've been some places in there. I still go back there periodically. And while other VNs (Tsukihime, for instance, Chaos;Head, and even Fate/Stay Night) do deal with some forms of mental illness and cognitive distortions, Saya No Uta is, unfortunately, even more relatable if you've ever been 'in the hole'. If you don't relate to it, I'm very happy for you and I hope you never have to. We also have the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" story, in perhaps its darkest possible deconstruction: the one person the main character even recognizes as human in his life, the mysterious girl who comes out of nowhere and provides the spark to keep him going ...she's an eldritch abomination who eats people and even feeds them to him and WORSE. Much, much worse (these videos bowdlerized or flat-out don't mention certain chunks of the story for exceptionally good reasons). But she's all he's got, and he's fully willing to doom humanity for her. Saya is also, in her own way, a tragic character - sent on a specific mission, locked up as an experimental subject by a mad doctor, and rendered unable to complete her mission without completing additional requirements, someone who's only seen as even human by the main character. Even the mad doctor only refers to her as "the creature" in his notes. And then we have the final story: a fully Lovecraftian (in the best sense) tale of an ordinary bloke having to confront things that would drive a lesser man to raving madness, who arrives at the point of having to kill two of his friends because of what monsters they've become (in different ways), despite not wanting to acknowledge that, assisted by a very questionable doctor who knows far more than she should about what's going on and self-admittedly sleeps with a shotgun because of the horrors she's seen in the past (and is also Best Girl, fight me) - and ends up sleeping with a gun himself, because he knows that one day, he might just need to take the easy way out. But, at least by the end of the story, he hasn't pulled that trigger, which, considering all he's been through, speaks well to his psychological resilience. On their own, each of these could be a compelling story, but all three of these stories are combined into one cohesive narrative in Saya No Uta, which marks a stunning step forward in the literary prowess and career of the author: Gen Urobuchi, who later became known for stunners like Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero, but started off writing absolute TRASH like Cyber Slayer Kikokugai (seriously, don't even bother looking it up. It's that bad). "Was there anything you didn't like?" Yeah, the fact I actually popped a boner during one of the wildly disturbing sex scenes. That didn't make me feel good about myself.
@@Christopherjazzcat I guess Song of Saya scratched my cosmic horror itch. You know how hard it is to find, let alone write, decent cosmic horror? It ain't easy. Also, what hasn't already been said about the VN's OST? I'm still new to visual novels. I played some Phoenix Wright, Higurashi, Zero Escape, Danganronpa, and Dead End Aegis. Steins Gate is on my to-do list.
I dont think saya couldnt win against the neighbour because she was to weak, but because she actually wanted to loose (maybe instinctivly), because she wanted his seeds
really enjoyed these two vids you've made on this game, really lookin forward to anything else you might upload in the future (also cried laughing when u accidentally described yoh as a 'silly creature')
LMAO, you confused Yog-Sothoth with Azathoth, the first is the eldritch god that rules all time and space being everywhere at everytime and knowing all that there is to know, Azathoth is the Nuclear Chaos that dreams all reality in a twisted parody of what Buddha is suppose to do.
37:18 his condition gotta been engineered by Saya and Ogi, because hat it been just a random chain of accidents, how would Saya known to show up at the guy's while he was in hospital?
Man this video was lowkey scary, im scared to even sleep now in case i wake up seeing the world as fuminori does. I heard about this vn a few years ago and if id played it back then i would have been fucked up
I am glad you spent the time and effort on this , but on a scale of 1 to 10 as far as dark , this is a 2 . You might want to stay away from the really dark stuff.
i don't have much of a stomach for disturbing content, and i actually had to stop playing after the scene where the neighbor raped saya. but even so, saya no uta is definitley far from the darkest visual novel... visual novels can get pretty fucked up and saya no uta is on the tamer side from what i've heard.
Saya No Uta isn't the most disturbing visual novel out there my guy. There's many that are A LOT WORSE. I would not recommend looking them up though. At least not without the number of some damn good therapists on hand.
"Euphoria" and "Maggot Baits" come to mind, but they're pretty much fucked up eroge with a bit of story sprinkled throughout. Euphoria having the better story of the two.
I only just learned, and am bewildered that this series has an IDW comic adaption. But I've heard that the Western take makes major changes, and ain't all that good.
Im glad you didn't say the over spread misinformation: "Reality is dream of Azathoth." But you're still incorrect. Yog doesn't dream reality, He is the reality. Everything is him, and he is everything. This is why he has the title "All in One" And i think its important because it makws Yog more horrifying, as his form is always described as light, and as humans, we dont see things how they're, we see what light tells us something is, a light that is part of Yog.
Minor nitpick, you confused Yog-sothoth and Azathtoth as the later is the dreming creator of our reality and the former is all that is (including azathoth and all the big boys) embodied, that's why it's the key and the door as it's everything. Literary Who made a much better explanation in his powerscaling the Lovecraft pantheon video.
37:17 bro got his Lovecraftian creatures mixed up yog does not destroy the universe from simply waking up that’s the blind idiot God azathoth Iago on the other hand basically could destroy all reality and is always awake at all times considering it is reality it is the universe it is everything but it does not simply destroy everything through waking up that would be the other guy to must stay asleep unless he wakes up from the dream
this game is, interesting.. its story is actually good, only thing that dropped me off especially from playing the game is the sex scenes, very bizarre visual novel, i like it
Ok I get that Saya is a gross creature. My question is did she make him see the world and other people like he did or did the car accident? I didn't like either ending.
first, great work. u should totally try voice acting xd. the main thing i wanna comment on tho are the R8pe scenes. I understand morbid curiousity, gore, horror, eldritch, etc. and using r8pe as a part of the horror to soooome extent (maybe?). however the portrayal and plot contrivances that led to it in this game are not what i believe is proper for including this stuff. this seems like r8pe porn in a fucked up world, not a fucked up thing happening in a fucked up world (like porn, rather than a story event). the whole story is messed up, yeah. but the way they portray the r8pe scenes are so deeply concerning. even for 2003 jp this seems way out of proportion and awful. idk just really shocking and awful. not in a good way like the rest of the story, but like the fact that someone wrote and directed them like that. especially the neighbor one. ugh awful. regardless, again, great videos - really love your takes and breakdown on this !!
First of all, can you please get into a little more specifics on why you think this way? Constantly repeating "X is not proper", "X is deeply concerning", "X is shocking and awful" as if it's an axiom without giving any further explanation or reasoning is *not* a good way to get your point across, I'm sorry. Supplement your personal opinion with facts and concrete examples if you want for other people (that do not have the exact same perspective and values as you do) to understand your position better. Otherwise, as it stands right now, everything you said is 100% subjective and translates into "I didn't like the game", not "the game and the people who made it are bad". Second of all, you say "even for 2003 jp this seems way out of proportion and awful" - what evidence are you basing this claim on? As someone who has consumed a lot of japanese media over the years, of both SFW and NSFW varieties, I can confidently say that in terms of explicit themes and their implementation Saya no Uta is actually pretty mid compared to *a lot* of other stuff that exists out there, stuff that was made both before and after this game came out. So if this was meant to be taken as a "current year" argument, as in "Japan in 2003 was backwards and stupid and allowed some truly unacceptable media to be made - media that would never have been created in modern 2024 Japan with our current morals and sensibilities", then, hate to break it to you, but I think doing even just a tiny bit of research would do you a lot of good - you are in for a *rude* awakening. Lastly, Saya no Uta is an eroge, and as such describing certain things in it as "jerk off material" in a *derogatory* way doesn't work as well as you think it does. Sure, it is not the *main* objective of these scenes, since Song of Saya is a horror game first and foremost, but nothing really says that you *shouldn't* find them arousing. Not to mention the fact that r8pe to this day remains a very popular subject for erotic narratives all over the world, and not all of those games, movies, videos, images or comics/manga handle the subject matter with the same exact approach as the "acceptable" western media does.
@@charlottewiltshire6076 I mean yeah it is subjective? it is my opinion? I was also agreeing with points made in the video (about the placement and plot contrivances to make a sex scene out of a weird set up). I don't think I need to explain why rape is bad. I also *believe* (because it's my opinion, this isn't a peer-reviewed, scientific article or argumentative paper for school it's a TH-cam comment to support a creator I like) that rape portrayals without plot or theming purpose *are* just there as fanservice. and rape fanservice is supporting rape culture and making seem more okay to the players which is a bad thing to suggest. as long you think rape is bad at least, I think this would most certainly come across as unnecessary. there is some difference between fantasy and reality but still making sex scenes out of an unjustified (plot wise) rape scenes is just giving people a rape scene to jerk off to. I don't think it's a big leap in logic to think that's bad. I don't need to explain my thinking super in depth about why rape is bad in porn and sex games. it seems out of proportion from what I know of like old hentai and porn stuff (I havent played much eroge, new or old). also, I was going off of what was said in the video - which made it seem like this was out of place compared to the horror element. and of course there's lots of stuff out there around rape (all eras, not just old), but I still want to comment on it cuz its shitty. also for "first and foremost a horror game" why, then, are you also calling it an eroge? again, I haven't played this game, but from the video it seemed like the sex stuff would be very out of place in general (at least explicitly) and the fact that it's all rape sucks. also, super hostile comment towards me for seemingly no reason here. idk what I did to piss you off, but I'm sorry. I was not trying to cause offense with my original comment. I also wasn't necessarily trying to get *any* point across, I just, again, was trying to support a creator I liked and be like "yeah out of place rape scene bad". have a good one, god knows I won't.
"if you take away your senses"? Well no one's taking away senses though, they're reversed... And no, i don't think its at all 'understandable', because he KNOWS what the reality is, he as memory, and he still, at least in theory should have his old morality. He's also able to tolerate the altered disgusting reality around him, so, i'd say a moral person would still be able to adapt, so hoe he acts is not at all understandable or 'human', its animalistic at best, because a MASSIVE part of civilization was ALWAYS to DENY sense data and try dig deeper and understand the actual driving forces of reality over just thinking its a random set of events, or some made up deity just makes the trees grow and sun rise. Well, unless you're a 'normie' who acts purely on impulse, instincts and sense data, and has at best a moral compass instilled by pop culture. As i said, its kind of the weakest part of this whole story, the moral aspect... A common thing with Japanese stories tbh, given that like some other cultures, their views have not yet been westernized in philosophy and reason to a significant extent. Really shit take on the 'why' to be honest as i said, this is kind of an incomplete thought experiment in what it'd be like to have your perception significantly altered or even reversed, also ask if such beings can still have a degree of beauty and humanity to them, maybe question if a world infested by them could still be a a good place to live if people are altered into them, if maybe its a natural step in evolution. Which is exactly why i don't think this is an 'awful' project, as you keep calling it, but a very fascinating one, if flawed. In thousands of years, when we have a much different morality (hopefully a more developed one than today, as well as higher average individual developmental state), full control over genetics, to the point we're able to alter ourselves as we please, then a person from today seeing us from the future would be as terrified as seeing these monsters, but they wouldn't be all that awful in practice.
I pirated the fuck out of the game cause I wanted to see if I liked it and I did, but now I have to wonder if I should pay for it after finishing it. idk really. idk if I feel comfortable paying for a pedo game. and it doesn't go for cheaper than 7.50 on gog and thats a bit more expensive than I want it to be. if it was less than 5 then I'd be willing to pay that. but idk. it was a good game for a degenerate like me. as for the ending I liked the fucked world ending cause I wanted to see saya and fuminori happy
If Saya was actually way more intelligent and calculating than she lets herself look, at least to Fuminori, chances are she was using the incident with the neighbor to advance romantically with Fuminori, as she probably saw in books how the instinct to protect is close related with the one to love.
Or is a plothole, the simple answer is often the correct one
Oooo that’d be interesting but then why not just fabricate a story? Or better yet time it right where fuminori would arrive to rescue her? To me I would take an opposite approach and actually suggest saya didn’t think it through and comepltely forgot she can defend herself from the sheer shock of the situation having been the only time where she’s deliberately exposed herself and has never been actually attacked or overpowered before
@@cronchulus5489 yea lol saya basically says this explicitly. i remember her saying that every other time shes attacked someone, they've been too scared by her appearance to put up resistance. so this is her first time in a situation like that.
Or this is just some japanese weirdo's s*xual fantasies.
I was thinking about how it was a perception colors reality thing. The neighbor saw her as a week little girl, so he could overpower her.
@@owchh This, also summed with the effect that it is explicitly said that the neighbor was essentially in "berserker mode".
that intro gives that Max0r energy
Max0r and Nexpo decided to do a fusion dance and created this chanel
Saya No Uta is how one person commented. “It’s the most beautiful yet disgusting piece of work I’ve ever seen. It’s a disgustingly beautiful masterpiece.” I can agree with that comment.
You somehow balancing the fucked up stuff while still making it goofy and not too dark was perfect bro. Love ur vids🔥👍👍
This game sounds very similar to the anime Blood+
The main character's name is Saya.
She's not human but rather a type of vampire.
She has a twin named Diva (who is more like the Saya of this game) her end goal is to be loved and have a family.
Diva ends up graping someone. Steals their "DNA" and gives birth.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head. The anime came out in the early 2000s.
Oh also Diva looks a lot like the Saya of this game. Long black hair, pale skin, blue eyes and usually wearing a white dress.
@@VirgoVyrus🤯 That's too many similarities to be a coincidence.
@@Vecchio_Rhosod85 I know. I for sure think it's a RIP off.
i mean if blood+ was a rip off of saya then it's fair game, considering urobuchi has ripped off from other people for years.
@@kuro_emiya I think urobuchi ripped off the creator of Blood+. They have older works called Blood: the Last Vampire with an MC called Saya. I haven't watched it so I don't know what else was inspired by that work but it looks like Urobuchi definitely had his eye on copying the series for a while.
Saya no uta holds a very special place in my heart. You’re absolutely right about it being a product of morbid curiosity, but as someone who’s experienced trauma it almost feels like a safety blanket.
It’s terrible awful and I couldn’t imagine having to deal with such a reality, but it’s one that tells a story that I can relate to. Alienation, inability to connect to others, struggling to explain why so many “normal” things are so foreign. that finding one singular thing in the universe that makes you happy can make existence worthwhile (or at least tolerable.
Saya no uta is great horror, as disgusting as it, and while hard to recommend, i think the people who can stomach it can find something they enjoy
I'm sorry about everything you've experienced and went through, proud of you for pushing forwards 🫶
I think Saya no Uta is a story about something beautiful inside something horrible. Saya inside Fuminoris Nightmare. Flashes of Humanity in Fuminoris Madness. In some way its like Ikebana, whereas you choose your center piece and build around it to heighten its beauty. You have something beautiful and then build around it the horrors of humanity. Despite its fucked up scenes, I still think that SnU harbors a very beautiful story at its core and I'm glad I played it back in like 2006 or something.
Damn unc
Its also a very interesting thought experiment on perception.
This video was soo good, as someone who doesn't often stray from my normal group of youtubers I actually found this entertaining enough to watch fully
Knowing the true ending, can you really say saya is a horrible person? Is the lion horrible for eating the zebra? Fumi is definitely a horrible person but Saya had her job to do, what she was meant to do.
My big question is was Saya just manipulating Fuminori the whole time to get to her goals. To acquire DNA and spread a plague across the world. It explains things like why she didn't fight back against the neighbor. She was acquiring DNA and also she wasn't in any real danger. Fumi shows up, saves the day, and gets manipulated harder. Saya states that her body is stupidly resistant to damage and the fact she has super intelligence means she's probably always 15 steps ahead of everyone. She's an interdimensional being so why would she have empathy for humanity. Especially since she was going to spore cloud the world. Fumi's death is inevitable. If she truly cared she could have not sprouted or stopped whatever the hell she was doing.
The only counter to this is the first ending.
Also it has all those sex scenes because that seems to just be how VN are. New writer and first project? Sell it on the titties.
Also the doctor is, and always will be, best girl. As soon as she whips out the sawn off I knee she was the one.
Dr. Tanbo is so amazing, I've only watched your video and she's my favourite character already.
Wow. This doesnt happen often but this story literally made me sick to my stomach
Love that you're also using Arknights OST
This is giving me the same sort of vibes as Selene: Apoptosis. That game got me into the grimmer style of visual novels and allowed me to start taking them more seriously as a horror medium. I'll definitely be taking a closer look at Song of Saya when I get a chance.
I also really wanted to thank you for the work you put into these videos. I found your channel during one of the rare times when TH-cam starts recommending smaller creators to me, and I'm glad I did. I'm always really happy to see a new Haedal video.
Broo I loved Selene: Apoptosis, i still cry when i remember poor hope :c
Holy fuck Selene Apoptosis... I need to see this guy talk about it
The web serial Worm by Wildbow is technically a deconstruction of superhero fiction but it works very well as cosmic horror that deals with similar themes as Song of Saya. It's plenty grim, violent, and depressing on its own but I still highly recommend it if you're a fan of fiction like this.
I never really thought it as a direct deconstruction but more like the author wanted to make a world with superheroes that made coherent sense and it kind of went off the rails.
Thank you for covering this 🙏 proud to say I’ll never play this game myself now
The call Fuminori ending essentially ends in an outbreak of The Flesh That Hates.
Yo, you are right, but oh so wrong for saying that lol.
I have to give it to the author that this story does sort of "seciate" my morbid curiosity. Even though i doubt i'd feel comftrable playing trough vn's like this myself, i do think stories like this can have some intresting aspects to them and hearing them in a format like this makes them actually stomachable for me.
Needless to say, you did a great job covering this!
Ok. I was already interested in buying this game before.....but the fact there's a silver key mentioned.........now I'm even more interested.
After the whole thing with the Phone call to yo from the dead girl and her being jumped I was like "yooooo does this game have a harem ending"
Great videos. I enjoyed this a lot. I read to the blooms ending and that was enough for me.
My biggest gripe with the story is that I didn't connect with the characters prior to everything going to hell. It drops us right into that world where Fuminori is already fubar. If we had known him before the accident, I think it would have hit a lot harder. But it is still an interesting story.
I think that's called "in medias res". I love how Song of Saya's story cuts right to the action. "Drama is life with all the boring bits cut out," after all.
@@Christopherjazzcat P.S.: besides, if I wanted a horror story that's 50% filler, I'd read a Stephen King novel.
@@Vecchio_Rhosod85 I'm glad you had a better experience of the story than I did.
I don't find slice of life scenes boring if the characters are compelling. I've come to appreciate them more as I've read a few longer VNs. Maybe you haven't read any with good character writing?
I think we just look for different things in a story. What did you enjoy most about Saya no Uta? Was there anything you didn't like?
@@Christopherjazzcat "What did you enjoy most about Saya no Uta?"
It's actually three or four stories in one:
We have the story of a man whose mental trauma (and probably also his medical treatment afterward, by design) has mentally isolated him from the world although he still keeps going through the motions even though it's just all Hell to him, trapped in a vicious cycle where even the attempts of his friends to reach out to him and support him shove him further into his internal isolation that he's got to keep a happy, functional, mask over - which his friends recognize and try to reach out further to, which drives him further into his shell, and etc. You see the pattern here. This is ...actually a pretty accurate description of how it feels to be trapped in any one of a number of mental disorders: there's just a point at which although the thing you need most in the world is positive human contact (and probably the right meds), that is the thing you want the least, because your self-care and diet has collapsed to the point you're afraid of ridicule about the obvious visual fact that you're neglecting very basic hygiene, food is no longer appetizing to you and you have to force yourself to eat it merely to survive (and depending on what exactly's going on, the very thought of eating may nauseate you and you might have to be very careful about what and when you eat so you don't just puke it up), and yet you still have to put on at least a reasonably "I'm ok, I promise" mask to even people who are legitimately trying to help, even though all you want to do is lock yourself in a room and wait for the end. You usually see the world differently than everyone around you, from relatively mild things to full-blown delusional schizophrenia.
I've been some places in there. I still go back there periodically. And while other VNs (Tsukihime, for instance, Chaos;Head, and even Fate/Stay Night) do deal with some forms of mental illness and cognitive distortions, Saya No Uta is, unfortunately, even more relatable if you've ever been 'in the hole'. If you don't relate to it, I'm very happy for you and I hope you never have to.
We also have the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" story, in perhaps its darkest possible deconstruction: the one person the main character even recognizes as human in his life, the mysterious girl who comes out of nowhere and provides the spark to keep him going ...she's an eldritch abomination who eats people and even feeds them to him and WORSE. Much, much worse (these videos bowdlerized or flat-out don't mention certain chunks of the story for exceptionally good reasons). But she's all he's got, and he's fully willing to doom humanity for her. Saya is also, in her own way, a tragic character - sent on a specific mission, locked up as an experimental subject by a mad doctor, and rendered unable to complete her mission without completing additional requirements, someone who's only seen as even human by the main character. Even the mad doctor only refers to her as "the creature" in his notes.
And then we have the final story: a fully Lovecraftian (in the best sense) tale of an ordinary bloke having to confront things that would drive a lesser man to raving madness, who arrives at the point of having to kill two of his friends because of what monsters they've become (in different ways), despite not wanting to acknowledge that, assisted by a very questionable doctor who knows far more than she should about what's going on and self-admittedly sleeps with a shotgun because of the horrors she's seen in the past (and is also Best Girl, fight me) - and ends up sleeping with a gun himself, because he knows that one day, he might just need to take the easy way out. But, at least by the end of the story, he hasn't pulled that trigger, which, considering all he's been through, speaks well to his psychological resilience.
On their own, each of these could be a compelling story, but all three of these stories are combined into one cohesive narrative in Saya No Uta, which marks a stunning step forward in the literary prowess and career of the author: Gen Urobuchi, who later became known for stunners like Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero, but started off writing absolute TRASH like Cyber Slayer Kikokugai (seriously, don't even bother looking it up. It's that bad).
"Was there anything you didn't like?"
Yeah, the fact I actually popped a boner during one of the wildly disturbing sex scenes. That didn't make me feel good about myself.
@@Christopherjazzcat I guess Song of Saya scratched my cosmic horror itch. You know how hard it is to find, let alone write, decent cosmic horror? It ain't easy. Also, what hasn't already been said about the VN's OST?
I'm still new to visual novels. I played some Phoenix Wright, Higurashi, Zero Escape, Danganronpa, and Dead End Aegis. Steins Gate is on my to-do list.
I dont think saya couldnt win against the neighbour because she was to weak, but because she actually wanted to loose (maybe instinctivly), because she wanted his seeds
Great work, I appresiate you for showing this game to me (no matter how scary it is).
I await more videos of yours, if you are willing to make them
really enjoyed these two vids you've made on this game, really lookin forward to anything else you might upload in the future
(also cried laughing when u accidentally described yoh as a 'silly creature')
LMAO, you confused Yog-Sothoth with Azathoth, the first is the eldritch god that rules all time and space being everywhere at everytime and knowing all that there is to know, Azathoth is the Nuclear Chaos that dreams all reality in a twisted parody of what Buddha is suppose to do.
No. Yog Satoth is stronger than Azetoth. Azetoth is the strongest on the scale, but Yog is the scale. Azetoth wouldn't even exist without Yog.
Why the no bro he didnt even say anything wrong
32:17 turn into the frozen whaaaatttt
37:18 his condition gotta been engineered by Saya and Ogi, because hat it been just a random chain of accidents, how would Saya known to show up at the guy's while he was in hospital?
Did you. Know there is 2010 comic
And also the same guy who made visual novel fate zero
He's also the screenwriter for Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass.
That was weird. Unironically, thanks for making this.
For those interested, the game is going for 6 dollars in GOG right now, and it is the uncensored version
That was a fantastic listen. Thanks for making these two vids 🙏😁
Thank you for this wonderful exploration. :)
I really love this visual novel. It was one of my first VN's I ever experienced, too!
Awesome video! :)
Let's gooooo new video. Love your content. Keep it up, friend
Man this video was lowkey scary, im scared to even sleep now in case i wake up seeing the world as fuminori does. I heard about this vn a few years ago and if id played it back then i would have been fucked up
I am glad you spent the time and effort on this , but on a scale of 1 to 10 as far as dark , this is a 2 .
You might want to stay away from the really dark stuff.
Arknights music starting at 10:15 is more of a jump scare than flesh monsters.
I am legit hesitant to eat bro ☠️
forcing myself to finish this meatpie i started eating before the first video
if you actually think Saya no Uta is the most distrubing VN ever written... oh boy....
The start made me think it was a max0r vid
i don't have much of a stomach for disturbing content, and i actually had to stop playing after the scene where the neighbor raped saya. but even so, saya no uta is definitley far from the darkest visual novel... visual novels can get pretty fucked up and saya no uta is on the tamer side from what i've heard.
Saya No Uta isn't the most disturbing visual novel out there my guy. There's many that are A LOT WORSE. I would not recommend looking them up though. At least not without the number of some damn good therapists on hand.
Recommendations please? I'm already insane so it's cool
Does higurashi count as one of the most disturbing stories?
You can’t just say that and not drop some recommendations
@@KanariRingoEuphoria by Clockup if you really want something disturbing
"Euphoria" and "Maggot Baits" come to mind, but they're pretty much fucked up eroge with a bit of story sprinkled throughout. Euphoria having the better story of the two.
This was really good. Thank you 🧡
11:40 doggo
heya, just found ur channel bc of the game, love ur editing and humor! subbed
amazing video! keep it up man
Great video that got better when my sleeper agent brain activated hearing AK ost
I only just learned, and am bewildered that this series has an IDW comic adaption. But I've heard that the Western take makes major changes, and ain't all that good.
Yog Satoth doesn't look like a fleshy mobster. It looks like... light... balls of light.... and it is extremely terrifying.
Also, Yog >>> Azetoth
Sooo... Saya just turn the whole world into living planet like dead space 3 ?
good work
Im glad you didn't say the over spread misinformation: "Reality is dream of Azathoth." But you're still incorrect. Yog doesn't dream reality, He is the reality. Everything is him, and he is everything. This is why he has the title "All in One"
And i think its important because it makws Yog more horrifying, as his form is always described as light, and as humans, we dont see things how they're, we see what light tells us something is, a light that is part of Yog.
and he l9oks like balls of light.... which is... comforting for such a terrigying entity....
After watching this i think i need a smoke break
idk what i expected but this really did ruin my day lol
What a ride
Minor nitpick, you confused Yog-sothoth and Azathtoth as the later is the dreming creator of our reality and the former is all that is (including azathoth and all the big boys) embodied, that's why it's the key and the door as it's everything. Literary Who made a much better explanation in his powerscaling the Lovecraft pantheon video.
37:17 bro got his Lovecraftian creatures mixed up yog does not destroy the universe from simply waking up that’s the blind idiot God azathoth Iago on the other hand basically could destroy all reality and is always awake at all times considering it is reality it is the universe it is everything but it does not simply destroy everything through waking up that would be the other guy to must stay asleep unless he wakes up from the dream
Yog is stronger than Azetoth. The dream thing is people mixing up Azetoth with another character from another book completely unrelated to Lovecraft.
32:18 RED WHAT?!
this game is, interesting.. its story is actually good, only thing that dropped me off especially from playing the game is the sex scenes, very bizarre visual novel, i like it
Saya best character
11:40 was great lol
This didn’t go into the sub box D;
just how the hell do people come up with these
Yoh being a silly little gobber got her killed :)
Tanbo best character
Bruh I fucked up and look up the summary of this game.
Nice video btw
i somehow feel that you mixed up yog sothoth's description with azathoth's but not sure
So the second ending was basically Caelid 😅😂?
What are you playing on screen?
Ok I get that Saya is a gross creature. My question is did she make him see the world and other people like he did or did the car accident? I didn't like either ending.
first, great work. u should totally try voice acting xd.
the main thing i wanna comment on tho are the R8pe scenes. I understand morbid curiousity, gore, horror, eldritch, etc. and using r8pe as a part of the horror to soooome extent (maybe?). however the portrayal and plot contrivances that led to it in this game are not what i believe is proper for including this stuff. this seems like r8pe porn in a fucked up world, not a fucked up thing happening in a fucked up world (like porn, rather than a story event). the whole story is messed up, yeah. but the way they portray the r8pe scenes are so deeply concerning. even for 2003 jp this seems way out of proportion and awful. idk just really shocking and awful. not in a good way like the rest of the story, but like the fact that someone wrote and directed them like that. especially the neighbor one. ugh awful.
regardless, again, great videos - really love your takes and breakdown on this !!
First of all, can you please get into a little more specifics on why you think this way? Constantly repeating "X is not proper", "X is deeply concerning", "X is shocking and awful" as if it's an axiom without giving any further explanation or reasoning is *not* a good way to get your point across, I'm sorry. Supplement your personal opinion with facts and concrete examples if you want for other people (that do not have the exact same perspective and values as you do) to understand your position better. Otherwise, as it stands right now, everything you said is 100% subjective and translates into "I didn't like the game", not "the game and the people who made it are bad".
Second of all, you say "even for 2003 jp this seems way out of proportion and awful" - what evidence are you basing this claim on? As someone who has consumed a lot of japanese media over the years, of both SFW and NSFW varieties, I can confidently say that in terms of explicit themes and their implementation Saya no Uta is actually pretty mid compared to *a lot* of other stuff that exists out there, stuff that was made both before and after this game came out. So if this was meant to be taken as a "current year" argument, as in "Japan in 2003 was backwards and stupid and allowed some truly unacceptable media to be made - media that would never have been created in modern 2024 Japan with our current morals and sensibilities", then, hate to break it to you, but I think doing even just a tiny bit of research would do you a lot of good - you are in for a *rude* awakening.
Lastly, Saya no Uta is an eroge, and as such describing certain things in it as "jerk off material" in a *derogatory* way doesn't work as well as you think it does. Sure, it is not the *main* objective of these scenes, since Song of Saya is a horror game first and foremost, but nothing really says that you *shouldn't* find them arousing. Not to mention the fact that r8pe to this day remains a very popular subject for erotic narratives all over the world, and not all of those games, movies, videos, images or comics/manga handle the subject matter with the same exact approach as the "acceptable" western media does.
@@charlottewiltshire6076 I mean yeah it is subjective? it is my opinion? I was also agreeing with points made in the video (about the placement and plot contrivances to make a sex scene out of a weird set up). I don't think I need to explain why rape is bad. I also *believe* (because it's my opinion, this isn't a peer-reviewed, scientific article or argumentative paper for school it's a TH-cam comment to support a creator I like) that rape portrayals without plot or theming purpose *are* just there as fanservice. and rape fanservice is supporting rape culture and making seem more okay to the players which is a bad thing to suggest. as long you think rape is bad at least, I think this would most certainly come across as unnecessary. there is some difference between fantasy and reality but still making sex scenes out of an unjustified (plot wise) rape scenes is just giving people a rape scene to jerk off to. I don't think it's a big leap in logic to think that's bad. I don't need to explain my thinking super in depth about why rape is bad in porn and sex games. it seems out of proportion from what I know of like old hentai and porn stuff (I havent played much eroge, new or old). also, I was going off of what was said in the video - which made it seem like this was out of place compared to the horror element. and of course there's lots of stuff out there around rape (all eras, not just old), but I still want to comment on it cuz its shitty. also for "first and foremost a horror game" why, then, are you also calling it an eroge? again, I haven't played this game, but from the video it seemed like the sex stuff would be very out of place in general (at least explicitly) and the fact that it's all rape sucks.
also, super hostile comment towards me for seemingly no reason here. idk what I did to piss you off, but I'm sorry. I was not trying to cause offense with my original comment. I also wasn't necessarily trying to get *any* point across, I just, again, was trying to support a creator I liked and be like "yeah out of place rape scene bad".
have a good one, god knows I won't.
Damn man all bro said wasn't they didn't like the rape stuff lol @@charlottewiltshire6076
"if you take away your senses"? Well no one's taking away senses though, they're reversed... And no, i don't think its at all 'understandable', because he KNOWS what the reality is, he as memory, and he still, at least in theory should have his old morality. He's also able to tolerate the altered disgusting reality around him, so, i'd say a moral person would still be able to adapt, so hoe he acts is not at all understandable or 'human', its animalistic at best, because a MASSIVE part of civilization was ALWAYS to DENY sense data and try dig deeper and understand the actual driving forces of reality over just thinking its a random set of events, or some made up deity just makes the trees grow and sun rise.
Well, unless you're a 'normie' who acts purely on impulse, instincts and sense data, and has at best a moral compass instilled by pop culture. As i said, its kind of the weakest part of this whole story, the moral aspect... A common thing with Japanese stories tbh, given that like some other cultures, their views have not yet been westernized in philosophy and reason to a significant extent. Really shit take on the 'why' to be honest as i said, this is kind of an incomplete thought experiment in what it'd be like to have your perception significantly altered or even reversed, also ask if such beings can still have a degree of beauty and humanity to them, maybe question if a world infested by them could still be a a good place to live if people are altered into them, if maybe its a natural step in evolution.
Which is exactly why i don't think this is an 'awful' project, as you keep calling it, but a very fascinating one, if flawed. In thousands of years, when we have a much different morality (hopefully a more developed one than today, as well as higher average individual developmental state), full control over genetics, to the point we're able to alter ourselves as we please, then a person from today seeing us from the future would be as terrified as seeing these monsters, but they wouldn't be all that awful in practice.
🫡
we dont see your emote
I pirated the fuck out of the game cause I wanted to see if I liked it and I did, but now I have to wonder if I should pay for it after finishing it. idk really. idk if I feel comfortable paying for a pedo game. and it doesn't go for cheaper than 7.50 on gog and thats a bit more expensive than I want it to be. if it was less than 5 then I'd be willing to pay that. but idk. it was a good game for a degenerate like me. as for the ending I liked the fucked world ending cause I wanted to see saya and fuminori happy