Yeah, Tojiko was my favorite character. It really sucks that you just can’t do anything about it.
It also really sucks that it’s (apparently) one of MG’s worst-performing titles. It’s a crying shame. Soul Link’s the same way. I really want to see more stuff like these games come out 
Well, it’s on the top 5 list and #1 position now, one can only hope it’ll stay there for a while
Anybody else found it weird that the protagonist makes a speech about how human life is the most precious thing, but in order to get the True End, you have to leave Toko’s rescue to the police and go searching for her “true self” instead? I know he made a promise and all that, but that seems kinda hypocritical and somewhat illogical nonetheless. Why would you wander off to another town (something you easily can do later) when your loved one’s life is in danger RIGHT EFFING NOW?
To me, the real True End is the one where Toko’s life is saved. Sure it doesn’t solve most questions, but hey, human life is the most important thing, right, protag?
Thinking reasonably even under stress was one of the protagonist’s cool points. And in that case it made perfect sense. Just one more guy looking is not going to make a difference when there were hundreds doing the same thing. Might as well do something that does matter that only he could do. Also, I actually thought that was one of the cruelest ends (I think the game treats it as a bad end too. No credits rolling after you get it). There are few things worse than death, but living like that is one of them, in my opinion.
I politely disagree.
There is no obvious need to figure out Toko’s real identity RIGHT NOW, unless I missed something. Sure it’s important, but if the writers had provided a reason to investigate swiftly, it would make more sense to me. Otherwise, it just seems that protag decides to forget all about the missing girl and take a little trip.
The protag doesn’t know about the surgery results at that point, as is apparent from the Ends where he does get to save her or at least discover her body. And even if he knew, it would be quite cynical for him to decide for Toko whether she wants to live like that or not. I know I’m going on a tangent here, but once again, there is no real reason to just abandon the search.
Ironically, the only outcomes in which Toko or her body are actually discovered are the ones in which the protag joins the search. Of course, he has no way to know that, so that’s more like a half-point
So in the end, I guess it all hinges onlack of real urgency in discovering Toko’s past. If the protag realistically thinks she can be saved, it would make sense for him to join the search. If he doesn’t think she’ll get out of this mess alive, leaving like that also leaves a somewhat bad taste.
That’s just my opinion. I may also have missed something.
Agreed on point 1, there’s nothing urgent about it. I still believe him searching for Toko would have realistically been pointless, though (what actually happened in the endings is a different story). I thought him investigating her past meant he either gave up on finding Toko alive and thus trying to fulfill her last wish or at least trying to occupy his mind instead of worrying himself sick.
On point 2, that was just my opinion on whether that was a good or bad ending. I didn’t mean to make it sound as if the protagonist thought that way.
Yeah, sorry about that second part, I misunderstood.
I think the fact that you never find Toko’s body or the guy in the true ending means they’re going to pull a “she’s still alive” thing in the sequel. Despite it not making a whole lot of sense.
At least, I hope so. There needs to be a less indifferently cruel continuation or remake or something. But more importantly there just need to be more games released.
I really do think that the no-voice thing hurt it, unfortunately. I think a lot of people probably boycotted it on principle. Hell, I considered it - both on principle, and because I actually listen to the voices, it’s good language practice and good acting really adds to the scenes in my book. But I decided that I wanted to play it badly enough to buy the crippled pun intended version anyway, and punishing MG for leaving it out would only mean less cool stuff.
Considering the one bit or artwork we’ve got for Kara no Shoujo 2 seems to feature Toko (could be someone else though) that does seem to be a good indication she’s still alive, though I have no idea how that’s possible considering in the first ending it takes some pretty advanced medical equipment to keep her alive (did they even have that in post war Japan?) and KnS2 is set in some isolated mountain village. Of course this obviously means I’m going to have to go after Shinji AGAIN. Or it could be Toko is dead and they’re going for a Silent Hill 2-ish approach
So I bought this game recently (Don’t know why it took so long - I guess I just didn’t really ‘click’ with the protagonist in the demo and thus put it off) and have been having a great time. I struggled my way through to an endgame variant with a LOT of note-taking (and a few complaints that the game doesn’t actually ‘play fair’) and then resorted to the walkthrough. Of which I have now completed everything EXCEPT the true ending, which will be tomorrow’s runthrough. As such I haven’t looked at the spoilers in this thread because I have that last bit still to go.
There is one thing that is still bothering me, though, and I’m not sure it’s going to be addressed in the true ending path, which is why I’m asking now instead of waiting 24 hours. Why in the WORLD did Mio start stuffing body parts into eggs? So far the only explanation I’ve seen, in the big Reiji Explains Stuff scenes at the Hoya house, is him accusing Mio of being too obsessed with the son she carried. That’s not an explanation! EVEN IF she were doing the insane protective mother thing for Shin and therefore felt compelled to help him hide his murders, stuffing meat into eggs and distributing them to the world is not a reasonable thing to do!!
Is this going to make sense after I do the true ending or am I still going to be going “But WHY?”
I also had some complaints with the game not quite managing to be perfectly fair. I did the same thing you did - I had to consult a walkthrough once for a piece of evidence that I missed, then after that I got really close but not quite there. They tried really hard, it’s obvious, but … not quite there. (One I actually consider a bug; when you’re doing one of the room investigations, if you do it in the wrong order you simply fail to find a key piece of evidence, and there’s no logical reason why that would be so.)
It’s been a year already, and I don’t know exactly which path you’re on, but while the True Path does actually explain quite a bit of stuff and tie a lot of things together that wouldn’t seem like you’d be able to, I’m not sure that the specific question you have is one of those things.
So what’d you think?
So it turns out the only thing I hadn’t seen yet in the game was the ‘happy’ bits of Toko’s painting and the baby at the end. No answers to any of my questions at all. Alas!
I liked the game a lot; my problems with it came largely from not understanding the rules it was playing by. I kept trying to approach it solely as a mystery rather than a character-based romance game and expecting behaviors to be consistent unless disrupted by protagonist action. Therefore many things completely confused me and sent me off in the wrong direction when I would try to stop something from happening, when in fact that thing would only stop happening when the game felt like it, not because I specifically prevented it.
Of course, most of the time if you go at it like a character-based romance game you will face HORRIBLE DOOM.
So as a true mystery it doesn’t really play fair and as an h-game it seems to kind of hate you; too much of the sex and nudity is about making you feel DESPAIR 
As an overall story I did enjoy it, it’s definitely the best Japanese game I’ve picked up recently.
Yeah, the way that the outcome of events change based on your choices … when your choice could not possibly have affected that event … that is one of the issues I had with the game.
It also doesn’t quite get right the role of the police: they don’t need beyond-a-reasonable-doubt proof to start investigating someone, that’s only to convict somebody. (Well, that’s the US standard; I dunno what the equivalent is in Japan.) I can almost buy Reiji getting involved in the investigation - no, cops don’t work like that, but it works well enough and the cops were pretty desperate. But you would NOT need the proof that the game makes you get in order to put the police onto the first perp. All you need is to identify that a) this character concealed a relationship to one of the victims, and b) that relationship is a really good motive. Hell, one of the cops even tells you “all we need is a good suspect”. They’ll start investigating, follow the person around, and they’d very quickly find the bodies. Case closed. But no, that’s not good enough.
The part where I was yelling at the screen was during the bad end where Nene kills you. Well, drugs you and you die, not quite the same thing, but still.
A person shows up out of nowhere and wants to talk to you alone. Keeps refusing to tell you what it’s about. Leads you off to a bad part of town. STILL won’t tell you what they want to talk to you about. Wants you to walk ahead of them and even shoves you to ensure you go where they’re telling you to. And you GO ALONG WITH THIS? When did you suddenly become an idiot protagonist?
My first time through, I could tell we were dead way ahead of time by the way she kept dodging questions. The game spoils who her partner is by the location title, too. So my next several runs were all about trying to either befriend Nene or find enough evidence against her to go after her rather than Shin. But even if you choose her as the ‘most suspicious person’ and the protagonist agrees she’s really suspicious but there’s no proof, he STILL gets into her car. I was very ARGH.
The plan from the get go, apparently, was to release KnS then its sequel. Unfortunately, KnS wasn’t terribly successful. Maybe we’ll see KnS 2 anyway. I sure hope so.
I thought the plan was to release KNS and then its prequel/side story Cartagra. However KNS didn’t do well in sales and so Cartagra was put on indefinite hold until sales improve.
Now that you mention it, that might have been it. I’m not actually sure anymore, it’s been awhile.
Looks like they’re going the full voice route since Reiji now has a VA.
Finished this yesterday and felt the true ending botched it all.
Also, most of the “”""""“heroines”"""" are very undeveloped and many things are unexplored.
Other Touko is made to be important but they just glaze over her after some foreshadowing.
It’s frustrating to see a good idea handled by someone whose idea of an ending is this piece of shit.
My reaction to the ending was nothing but rage. I love utsuge but this just felt forced when your characters suddenly focus on other retarded shit.
On the bright side Touko is a great heroine, the art is amazing, and the music is wonderful.
tl;dr Good ideas, terrible protag, and bad execution.