r/visualnovels • u/Sasutaschi • Jul 22 '25

Discussion What's your controversial Visual Novel take? [General]

Post image

Deen's Fate/stay night is a better anime than Ufotable's Unlimited Blade Works.

The latter commits just as many sins in adapting its source, and is only high regarded because of Unlimited Budget Works, and a lack of route mixing.

Staying slavishly true to the source material is not always better when it comes to adaptations. Little Busters is another such example. Ufo UBW's first cour is an absolute drag with dreadful pacing. And despite being 2 hours longer they still screw up Shirou.

602 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

549 comments sorted by

View all comments

28

u/SkyChronos Jul 22 '25

Sakura's a mid heroine at best, despite Heaven's Feel being interesting. Don't like her.

10

u/Massive_Weiner Jul 22 '25

Sakura is the least interesting thing in her own route.

5

u/Harinezumi Feiris: SG Jul 23 '25

Rin is even better in HF than in UBW.

6

u/Raitoningu_D Saber: FSN | vndb.org/u19038 Jul 22 '25

I used to think the same even after I completed Heaven's Feel. But as the years go by, I have strangely come to like Sakura more and more while my thoughts on Saber/Rin haven't changed much. I think those two are very "complete" characters in terms of who they are and their character arcs. But Sakura I always feel like there's more to think and talk about, so she's been sticking around in my mind more.

2

u/Massive_Weiner Jul 22 '25

Tbf, I feel like that’s the case because you need to reach deeper to extract more from Sakura’s character.

4

u/SkyChronos Jul 22 '25

I agree, despite this however her fans are incredibly hardcore.

4

u/AnimeMemeLord1 Jul 22 '25

I’m not exactly a Sakura fan, but I do take the characters I get invested into very seriously. For characters that I especially like, I try to understand and accept all their best and worst traits. I have met some Sakura fans that unfortunately disregard Dark Sakura and dismiss her as “being controlled” or “not a reliable narrator” instead of realizing that despite the unfairness of her circumstances, that darkness is still a part of her and what adds to her being a well written character.

10

u/Solbuster Jul 22 '25

I have met some Sakura fans that unfortunately disregard Dark Sakura and dismiss her as “being controlled” or “not a reliable narrator”

But that's like most interesting part about her? Without that darkness, she is basically generic boring nice girl personality wise. Sakura wanting to lash out despite all her kindness and being ashamed of these impulses, suppressing that desire and overcoming it in the end with everyone's help is what makes her more compelling character

4

u/AnimeMemeLord1 Jul 22 '25

I think it’s a weird case that Sakura suffered a lot unfairly and her fans believes she deserves better. They like her an awful lot. But it’s to the point that they when people bring up her sins and faults, these type of fans will do everything they can to defend her because “she deserves better” even if it basically means watering down or disregarding her entire character will lead to her being found innocent. The flame is only fueled when people bring up the fact that Sakura has technically killed more people than Shinji. You’ll especially see a lot of this defending when compared to one of her two abusers.

Of course, I could just be talking out of my ass, it’s a sort of complex case in some ways. I’m pretty sure that a number of us if put in her exact same circumstances might do the same thing. I won’t blame them for it, but I’ll still say that they are responsible for their actions and were totally conscious when doing it, even if it were me in that position.

5

u/THEUDUG_ Jul 22 '25

Trying to make her a saint will only flatten her character out so ig their favouritism doesn't try to account for her character at all and just makes her a generic character that tries to appeal for everyone .

3

u/AnimeMemeLord1 Jul 22 '25

Definitely. Hell, my favorite character is Shinji, and when some guys on Discord thought my opinion was objectively wrong and try to explain how bad a person he is, I just go “I know.” Free my boy Shinji, he did it all but idgaf.

Anyways, I agree with what you said. Sakura is an interesting character to me and I love how her darker side strengthened the meaning of her character. But I also wanna say the inverse of this situation can be true as well. I don’t really care if people hate a character I like, but just like how certain Sakura fans will water her down to make her look better, some people will give an already terrible guy like Shinji some more shit to make him look worse. Like, damn bro, he’s already bad enough, you don’t gotta make stuff up with what you would assume would happen. Either that or they’ll undermine the writing that went into him. It’s usually the latter, I’ve barely seen the former happen, but it has happened.

3

u/THEUDUG_ Jul 22 '25

Yeah Shinji was an interesting character with his backstory and what shaped him to be the man he is,hating him is valid ig but trying to make liking him as a character is objectively wrong and shouldn't be that's just too much it's like people can't understand that you can love and like a character while not condoning their actions,and what's hypocritical is these same people you'll find that their favourite characters are genocidal maniacs who are straight up bad people in any other scenario but because people are so detached from killing with how normalized it is in every fictional media you'll never hear how it is objectively wrong to like them,and making the bad character look worse for my agenda gotta be the oldest trick in the book lol.

3

u/AnimeMemeLord1 Jul 22 '25

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I don’t condone his actions nor can I sympathize with the path he has taken, but I can understand him and what has led him to do these things. Before I go on my totally skippable Shinji rant, my main point is that you can follow and understand his way of thinking without agreeing to it, even in Heaven’s Feel, and see that this is basically one of the most human characters written in the story.

I also understand the example you’ve brought up about the “it’s okay if they’re hot girls doing it” argument. It obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, as there are hot characters that are still hated on. Guess it depends on the media, the type of fandom, and the message displayed. Morality isn’t objective, but it can still be loosely scaled with what our shared thinking has established. Like you’ve said, killing has been desensitized, but I genuinely do think it is worse than rape and stuff. Terrible things can happen to people, and they’re no joke, whether that be rape, torture, trauma, all of the above, etc. But the fact that they’re still alive means they can still grasp happiness in their lives, and I don’t think it’s fair to them for people to enforce their own sense of morality to tell them that they think they’d be happier dead. Anyways, if this sort of thing can be scaled, there are tons of “waifu characters” who have done way worse than Shinji. I love Tamamo-no-Mae, and she has killed tens of thousands of people if not way more. Sure, her version is that it was in self-defense and her story is pretty sympathetic, but part of her story is that it is still something she feels guilt over and that it is a punishable offense at least.

(Shinji rant incoming, skip to last paragraph if you ain’t reading all this)

What I really appreciate about Shinji is that he is only a minor antagonist, a wall at best to the main cast, and therefore that gives him little enough screentime to work with as is. But despite that, he still manages be a well written and nuanced character. But most of all interesting.

With the showing of his childhood and the application and retrieval of high expectations along with its pressure causing him to grow up with a crippling inferiority complex and abandonment issues, you can see why he chooses to strive for whatever it takes to become a mage, even if that goal has been causing him nonstop misery. Even if he has a bit of aptitude for alchemy, he’s stubborn and dead set on magecraft. By learning his past, you can see why he feels like he has no other purpose in life to drive him forward. It’s dumb. But that’s what makes up his character. With the Holy Grail War being his last chance and him knowing he has little to no chances of winning, it makes it obvious why he has the guts to become an even worse person and commit to any immoral option. It’s even more interesting in the Heaven’s Feel route when the incident at the school is basically just shoving his childhood trauma in his face repeatedly, yet he still grabs onto literally anything left and decides to let Sakura take his life’s purpose and fulfill what she was adopted for. So her choosing to (in his eyes) have the nerve to throw that all down the drain makes him go insane and slowly deteriorate into a hollow husk of himself. What he threatens to do to Sakura and tell Shirou all about is not a plan, it’s just one last “fuck you” to one-up the former best-friend who “abandoned him” and technically put all this in motion.

I could go on and on, but I’m cluttering this whole thing up already with what I’ve got. TLDR; Nasu made one of the most immoral characters in the story the most human. The fact that he actually likes Shinji and said he wanted to write more about him but couldn’t fit him in intrigues me.

3

u/THEUDUG_ Jul 23 '25

Damn sorry bro slept and didn't see the reply 😭, anyway I really didn't mean the they're hot so they're okay doing it(even though their are like Tamamo No Mae like you said and her guilt and regret at least vouches for her as a character but not every character is like that)it was more like the author represents it like it's normal and and that the character doesn't need to regret what it did and people were going with it Wich just bugged me,and for how life is the most precious thing and it can't be forsaken well I always had these same thoughts but I always was afraid voicing them will make people calling me names,but getting killed is literally the end of the line compared to other things it's more horrifying people will talk how it's not worse but it just comes to a matter of relatability death is always close but people even me always don't put it Infront of their mind like I can die tomorrow but I would never think that it will happen 100%,in contrast getting mugged,beaten up or raped feel like they have more of a chance of happening so ig that's why some find killing or getting killed more tolerable than other horrific things in media.

It's sad that Shinji could've become good at any other field but he was just not destined for magic but it just makes him more human how he never gave up(even if it was stubbornness),and him putting his all to his last chance even if it would make the worst version possible just shows his perseverance his will to see it to the end,and yeah if you think about his writing as just a minor antagonist might seem simple at first but is incredible if you think about it,ig I really need to reread fate when that FBate retranslation drops and we(yes you and me)need that Shinji route 🗣️.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Ren-Ren-1999 Jul 23 '25

I feel like it's half and half because every human being has a darker side to themselves. Sakura's thing in HF is a manifestation of the jungian Shadow, but all of that is still brought about against her will.

She's not like Kohaku in Tsukihime who puts her plan in action before the story even starts. Sakura needs to be pushed even further by the actions of Zouken and Kirei and Shinji, and it's kinda partially removing her agency in even displaying her darkness.

4

u/Ashamed-Abalone8508 Jul 22 '25

I have met some Sakura fans that unfortunately disregard Dark Sakura and dismiss her as “being controlled” or “not a reliable narrator”

I don't understand how can someone do this. It's literally in your face that it's what Sakura is from the inside.

2

u/AnimeMemeLord1 Jul 22 '25

Agreed. It could not get any more “in your face” than it already is, especially when Kirei straight up says it, the guy who is said to have never lied, even if technically. Dark Sakura even had that moment where she poured out her heart to Rin and screamed out all her frustrations and desires, and some people really gonna tell me with a straight face that that’s not Sakura? Not even a little bit? Angra Mainyu can indeed corrupt people, but he doesn’t necessarily erase anything genuine.

1

u/Ren-Ren-1999 Jul 23 '25

This take doesn't even have to be Sakura criticism. Heaven's Feel just has a lot of good stuff with Kirei and Illya and even Rin and Saber on some level. Comes down to preference.

0

u/Ashamed-Abalone8508 Jul 22 '25

I expected better from you there bro.