But I also have a physical disability and I’m working with the other side of the program as it gets on its feet, so I’m at least somewhat qualified to speak on the subject. In fairness, I work on the Neurodiversity side of the program, so my experiences are (while comparable) ultimately pretty different. I’m Falconier111, and while I do a bunch of things, in my day job I work in strengthening and expanding the diversity program of a major corporation, specifically the People With Disabilities workstream. Katawa Shoujo may be the single best piece of disability representation to reach any kind of mass-market.Īnd I say that as someone who does that professionally. And that’s what activists have been pushing for for many, many years. And the way it represents disability? It portrays it as a part of someone – not their defining characteristic, not a little quirk in the background, but something that is at once always present and only one part of their life. The cast is rich and vibrant, full with characters with their own desires, beliefs, and insecurities and who have real chemistry with each other as over-the-top as they can be, every single character has hidden depths.

The main character isn’t just a blank slate or audience surrogate, but a person with agency, opinions, and deep flaws that shape the narrative, flaws the other characters don’t hesitate to call out. The writing is intelligent, sensitive, sharp, and often incisive. It got to the point where mainstream gaming media started reviewing it because the buzz around it was so positive. Makes your junk just shrivel up and pull back into your abdominal cavity, doesn’t it? It sounds like a complete nightmare. In January 4, 2012, a group of 4Channers released a visual novel where the main character romances his pick of five disabled girls, complete with sex scenes. In 2009, they released the first act of a projected five as a demo before retreating back to their basements to pull the rest of the game together. It caught fire, sparking immense interest and discussion before a group of writers, programmers, and artists formed Four Leaf Studios to produce the visual novel. Taken from the last page of a porn manga and translated into English, it laid out a hypothetical dating sim about girls with physical disabilities, complete with a title containing a rather nasty (if somewhat outdated) slur. Sometime in January 2007, somebody posted this image on 4Chan’s /a/ board:

Katawa shoujo flowchart